[3.5 ToB] Swapping Schools

[DragoonWraith]

SS also gets an ungodly amount of maneuvers known and readied, making them by far the most versatile offensively and defensively of the bunch.

Yes, they get many more maneuvers known and readied than the rest. But they also have by far the worst recovery method of the three (by far - I really cannot emphasize this enough), and I'm unconvinced that it really offers that much versatility, really. Most of the time both the Warblade and Crusader will be plenty fine on versatility. Really, the trick the Swordsage can pull that they can't is the things Shadow Hand gives him.

They also get Wis to AC + armor giving them the highest potential armor class of the 3,

AC's not really that important, though.

and they can use Wis to damage and otherwise just be more SAD than the others.

How so? The Wis thing adds an ability for them to be decent, it doesn't remove one. The Warblade gets some bonuses for a decent Int, but it's by no means mandatory, and the Crusader doesn't even have that to worry about - both could be just fine with dumping everything but Str and Con. The Swordsage can't.

Oh, and more skill points, a very decent capstone and access to simply larger number of schools, no matter which.

Skill points are true, though the Crusader and Warblade are at least decent with those, for martial classes. Larger number of schools is not really that much of a bonus, with the way the prerequisites work out. And the capstone is solid, but not even half as good as the Warblade's.

No, there are plenty of reasons to play an SS even if others have access to Shadow Hand. Hell, Shadow Hand isn't THAT impressive; best SS school is probably Diamond Mind anyways. And Tiger Claw and Setting Sun are quite strong too. Point being, I don't see losing exclusivity of Shadow Hand really hurting SSs much at all. On the contrary, gaining White Raven is a huge boon for them. Who really misses some bloody Stone Dragon?

No one will miss Stone Dragon; I believe several people (myself included) have mentioned that. Diamond Mind might be the most powerful offensively, but the utility options in Shadow Hand just aren't available in other disciplines.

But if you really consider that an issue, make SH the exclusive SS school over DW. Given DW is eminently agreed upon to be comparatively rather weak, seems straight-forward enough.

This, I absolutely agree with.