Min/Maxed Swordsage

[Rahdjan]

I'm not overly familiar with ToB right now (but I am working on it) and I need a single swordsage that can humiliate (without killing) 3 person group that is level 3. The group will consist of a Human Fighter, Elven Sorceror and a Dwarf Monk. Obviously not the most optimal group. Barring a lucky streak or whatever, what's the lowest level swordsage that could consistantly beat the group?

The general idea will be that the swordsage will be hired to kill the party, but when he encounters them, he finds that they aren't enough of a challange. So he whoops them pretty bad to show that he could kill them and then tells them he'll be back when their worthy to face him. I want this guy to be something of a constant threat and eventually seek out a temple of the Nine. If they do that I'd allow the monk to train with them and possibly cross train into a ToB class without penelty OR I'd allow him to swap some monk levels all together. Anyways, I see them finaly confronting their enemy around lvl 7 and by then he'll either be signifigantly higher level to pose a credible threat or he'd bring friends.

[Starsinger]

Why can't the Fighter swap some fighter levels or something too?

But anyways, Perhaps 4 levels higher? A Merciful weapon would help, since it would deal non-lethal damage and thus the Swordsage isn't at as much risk of actually killing them.

[Rahdjan]

I'd allow the fighter to take warblade or crusader levels too, it just wasn't on my mind when I wrote the first post

[Behold_the_Void]

You might try the unarmed strike variant for starters, so he can do nonlethal to bring them down.