more of a homebrew variant question on the swordsage

[TechnOkami]

So, I know that the Swordsage is basically a magical swordsman of badassery, but in all technical terms, would changing the source of the Swordsage's power from magical to psionic energy do anything significant/break the class?

I was thinking something along the lines of a Swordpsion...

[The Glyphstone]

It'd be a purely fluff change, especially since all of a swordsage's special abilities are Supernatural instead of Spell-like abilities, it'd make no difference balance-wise.

[Morph Bark]

It'd be a purely fluff change, especially since all of a swordsage's special abilities are Supernatural instead of Spell-like abilities, it'd make no difference balance-wise.

Well, it would make a huge difference if you'd use the arcane (in this case, psionic) adaptation of the swordsage... real huge.

[TechnOkami]

Oh good, this could actually work (maybe). I'm making an Illithid Swordsage (yeah yeah working on the monstrous LA with my GM) who was part of the Illithid Psionic Storm escape from the future, and proceeded to have he and his entire race smacked down by the dragons (as per the Dragonlance story and campaign). He was "lucky" and survived by being imprisoned (as per the imprisonment spell) by a dragon wizard who didn't want to deal with him. It's been a loooooooong time since then, and he's still underground which is when the party stumbles upon him as they are searching for the BBEG. They wake him up, and he has amnesia from being underground and in temporal stasis for so long. He knows he's a swordsage (or possibly this technical variant for the lolz, and was once a very high level swordsage), that he's an Illithid, and that a great catastrophe happened to cause his current predicament. Oh, and he wields that really awesome scythe found in the Ebberon Campaign Setting, unerrata'd.

[TechnOkami]

Well, it would make a huge difference if you'd use the arcane (in this case, psionic) adaptation of the swordsage... real huge.

Erm... can you deliberate on this plz?

[The-Mage-King]

Erm... can you deliberate on this plz?

It's elaborate, and I can.


There is a variant rule, mentioned only in passing in the Tome of Battle (Page 20, top left side, under the heading "Adaptation"), that suggests dropping the swordsage's HD to a d6, losing armor prof.s, but being able to select arcane spells from the abjuration, evocation, and transmutation schools instead of maneuvers, with the same recovery mechanic.

Most people ignore that for the unarmed variant above it.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, it would make a huge difference if you'd use the arcane (in this case, psionic) adaptation of the swordsage... real huge.

Does anyone?

Erm... can you deliberate on this plz?

At the very back of the Swordsage section, there is a short section that partly detail an 'Arcane Swordsage' variant. Instead of learning maneuvers, it instead learns arcane spells, but retains everything else, including its method of recovery. It's both poorly written and horribly, horribly broken, so you probably shouldn't worry about it.

[TechnOkami]

1. You are correct on the spelling, my apologies.

2. Aren't maneuvers the bread and butter/point of a swordsage in the first place? Why then would you want to swap them for spells? (or am I reading this wrong?)

Never mind, Glyphstone answered it.

[TechnOkami]

I did notice one thing though. Since the magic of a Swordsage is more wisdom based and the Psionic powers are more intelligence based, wouldn't a swordpsion then have all its wisdom based rolls (whether it be for his AC or a manauver) be intelligence based instead?

[The Glyphstone]

I did notice one thing though. Since the magic of a Swordsage is more wisdom based and the Psionic powers are more intelligence based, wouldn't a swordpsion then have all its wisdom based rolls (whether it be for his AC or a manauver) be intelligence based instead?

Probably not. Swordsages aren't magical the way arcane magic is, or even divine magic. They're mystical or supernatural the way a Monk is, doing impossible things because they're just that awesome, or they've meditated that hard. As you said, they're 'magical swordman of badassery' - change that to 'psionic swordman of badassery', and you've pretty much word-for-word described the Psychic Warrior class...who happens to be Wisdom-based.

[TechnOkami]

Probably not. Swordsages aren't magical the way arcane magic is, or even divine magic. They're mystical or supernatural the way a Monk is, doing impossible things because they're just that awesome, or they've meditated that hard. As you said, they're 'magical swordman of badassery' - change that to 'psionic swordman of badassery', and you've pretty much word-for-word described the Psychic Warrior class...who happens to be Wisdom-based.

Yeah, I was about to change my comment after looking through the ExP, but my laptop is kinda buggy and tends to disable itself from noticing there's wifi in the air, so yeah :/

[Morph Bark]

I did notice one thing though. Since the magic of a Swordsage is more wisdom based and the Psionic powers are more intelligence based, wouldn't a swordpsion then have all its wisdom based rolls (whether it be for his AC or a manauver) be intelligence based instead?

He could always be a Swordpsychicwarrior?