[3.5] Help for a Beginner's Warblade

[Maeglin_Dubh]

So, I'm starting in a game on this forum soon, playing as a 5th level Sharakim Warblade (pertinent information here: +2 Str, +2 Int, -2Dex, -2 Cha, dropped Natural Armor to lose the LA, and still has all the other little bits, including Light Sensitivity. I've got three high numbers and three average numbers for stats [9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18] and what I think is standard starting gold for 5th level)

I don't really know much about ToB, so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to do this...

I want him to have a fairly focused fighting style, focusing on quick, clean kills. As Sharakim go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from Orcs and maintain an air of civility, something like Diamond Mind or Iron Heart would probably be best (I think?) and Bloodclaw Master would be right out.

I'm basically wondering which stances and maneuvers I should be looking out for, as well as if there's any particular PrCs' I should be trying to qualify for.

I plan on making him fairly adaptive, and using the Warblade's ability to change favored weapons to allow him to adopt the most popular local or cultural weapon of whatever area he finds himself in, to assist in blending in with the locals as much as possible (having grey skin, tusks, and horns makes that hard enough... wielding a Guisarme while everyone else goes about with light shields and scimitars certainly wouldn't help).

[Abd al-Azrad]

One of the things I've found about ToB is that the characters tend to be almost assembly-line good. In other words, no matter how you build them, even a brief skimming of the available maneuvers will lead to a decent warrior. You honestly don't really need to optimize the heck out of them to have fun and contribute meaningfully to a battle.

That said, you've chosen two extremely powerful and straightforward disciplines as a matter of flavour. So, without further ado, I'll basically just confirm a lot of what I suspect you already have figured out about Warblades.

1) Make sure you grab an effective defensive maneuver. I'm not one of the people who defends using all three Diamond Mind specials where you can use your Concentration check in place of a save, but do pick up the Will-boosting one. Warblade pimps out your Ref already if you have moderate Dex and Int scores, and it looks with your stats that you'll have 14 for both.

2) Always make sure you're using your highest-level maneuver readied as a strike. In this way, at 5th level I'm betting your combat strategy will involve using your awesome Strike one round, then executing a standard attack the next to recover your favourite move. Nothing wrong with this.

3) Tailor your choices to the party, and the foes you tend to face. If your campaign involves a lot of beasts with good DR, grab some Stone Dragon moves for their ability to punch through DR and hardness (as well as rack up extra damage). If you have another warrior or two in your party, or use Leadership, grab some White Raven moves.

4) You are a Warblade. Learn Iron Heart Surge. Even without abusing it (as I'm sure you can find out about on this forum), it allows you to negate disabling conditions on yourself, so you'll actually be able to survive a round of combat against a Conjurer. This is a pretty specific line of advice, but... eh.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Out of the tactical feats, which I can qualify for at level 6, which would be the better of the two between the Iron Heart and the Diamond Mind feat?

[Darrin]

Out of the tactical feats, which I can qualify for at level 6, which would be the better of the two between the Iron Heart and the Diamond Mind feat?

Perfect Clarity of Mind and Body relies on Intimidate, but the DCs are fixed so once you can reliably hit DC20, you can use both Expert Mind and Press the Advantage as free actions. Expert Mind requires a Duel of Wills, but it looks like Press the Advantage can be used on anything, essentially +2 AC against whatever opponent you hit last round.

Stormguard Warrior can uncork a lot more whoopass, but requires a more specialized build: either an uber-Combat Reflexes build to rack up AoOs for Channel the Storm, or a TWF/flurry/snap kick/totemist monstrousity build to rack up touch attacks for Combat Rhythm. Both options a pretty feat-intensive.

[Sinfire Titan]

Stormguard Warrior can uncork a lot more whoopass, but requires a more specialized build: either an uber-Combat Reflexes build to rack up AoOs for Channel the Storm, or a TWF/flurry/snap kick/totemist monstrousity build to rack up touch attacks for Combat Rhythm. Both options a pretty feat-intensive.

Feat-intense is correct: Most Stormsurge characters require flaws just to make up for the fact that they deal no damage round 1.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Yeah, I don't plan on optimizing Stormguard Warrior anytime soon.

I did think of using Quickdraw in conjunction with Unnerving Calm for a sort of Gunslinger effect... stare them down, whip out a sword, and go to work, but I also want an EWP at 1st level for Warblade aptitude fiddling.