[Workshop] Optimising Setting Sun school

[Saintheart]

So what I'm doing here is seeing what can be done to optimise maneuvers and stances within the Setting Sun discipline out of Tome of Battle. Not necessarily creating entire builds around one maneuver, this is more about drilling into the maneuvers and stances in Setting Sun and coming up with nice combinations or mini-builds that make best use of, or really steroid up, a given maneuver or stance.

If there's enough interest, I might be convinced to expand it out into a one-by-one series of threads on each of the schools. I may be systematic about going through the maneuvers and stances and I may not - this is just an informal workshop, not an actual guide thread as yet - but if you've got combination specifically focused on and/or including a maneuver or stance that optimises or heavily uses Setting Sun, please throw it in here and glory in the adoration of your fellows (and get credit from Saintheart if he ever gets around to doing an actual guide/resource/handbook on this.

A couple of combinations I had thought of, happy to hear improvements or entirely different others:


Baffling Defense (Setting Sun, Swordsage 2 maneuver) + Marshal 1 (Motivate Wisdom) + Exemplar 1 + Child of Shadow (Shadow Hand, Swordsage 1 stance)
Baffling Defense is basically "immediate action on being attacked, replace your AC with a Sense Motive check." (The description is literally the Crane Kick from Karate Kid, lol).
Marshal's aura doubles your Wisdom mod on the Sense Motive check; Exemplar 1 allows you to take 10 on Sense Motive (albeit you're not entering this class before Character Level 10.) Child of Shadow stance grants you concealment to give you a last chance if the opponent rolls a natural 20. Other standard abilities aimed at boosting skill checks can be bolted on - I think this thread basically demonstrates that you can boost the check to +104, albeit with a lot of stuff. 10 + 2xWIS no-roll Sense Motive check isn't bad, and only gets better with skill ranks. Indeed clerics have a solid base of spells to work off here - Guidance of the Avatar for cheese, Divine Insight and so on.


Clever Positioning (Setting Sun, Swordsage 2 maneuver) + Awl Pike (weapon, AEG) + Animal Devotion (Feat, CChamp)
Clever Positioning basically says 'make a melee attack, trade places with the opponent if it fails a Reflex save (DC 12 + your Dex).'
Get flying via Animal Devotion and hit something with the Awl Pike from 15 feet away. If the target fails its Reflex save (which it will because it's a big bruiser), it gets flicked 15 feet into the air while you land safely on the ground. No weight limits, target takes falling damage of 1d6 per 200 pounds of weight. Possibly takes an AoO for leaving a threatened square. Pick something appropriately big-looking like an elephant which has a low save and weighs (real world) minimum 4,500 pounds. 22d6 damage against the SRD's elephant hitpoints of 104 hitpoints. And it's prone presumably, so you can just take off and do it again when it gets up. More hijinks apply depending how high you can get your Reach and possibly your size.

(EDIT: I conflated the falling damage and damage from falling objects rules, please sue me. :) That said, one interesting tactic might be hoiking the enemy's mount or companion into the air and switching positions with one if its squares - if you're perhaps flying right above said enemy's head.)

(EDIT THE SECOND: Falling Sun Attack out of ToB increases the DC of the Reflex save by 1, as well as turns it into a stunning attack.)

Clever Positioning + Bloodstorm Blade 2 + Animal Devotion + Divine Agility (Cleric 5)
Bloodstorm Blade essentially turns all your melee attacks into ranged attacks, meaning Clever Positioning can be pulled from hundreds of feet away depending how good your throwing arm is. Divine Agility grants a +10 enhancement bonus to Dex, meaning the save against your move is a minimum DC 17.


Next thing I want to work on is the Mighty Throw line, especially those that add extra throwing distance depending on how well you pass the ability check. Would be interesting to see if you can put someone in orbit off a stratospherically high Str or Dex check. Over to you guys ...

[Korahir]

S


Baffling Defense (Setting Sun, Swordsage 2 maneuver) + Marshal 1 (Motivate Wisdom) + Exemplar 1 + Child of Shadow (Shadow Hand, Swordsage 1 stance)
Baffling Defense is basically "immediate action on being attacked, replace your AC with a Sense Motive check." (The description is literally the Crane Kick from Karate Kid, lol).
Marshal's aura doubles your Wisdom mod on the Sense Motive check; Exemplar 1 allows you to take 10 on Sense Motive (albeit you're not entering this class before Character Level 10.) Child of Shadow stance grants you concealment to give you a last chance if the opponent rolls a natural 20. Other standard abilities aimed at boosting skill checks can be bolted on - I think this thread basically demonstrates that you can boost the check to +104, albeit with a lot of stuff. 10 + 2xWIS no-roll Sense Motive check isn't bad, and only gets better with skill ranks. Indeed clerics have a solid base of spells to work off here - Guidance of the Avatar for cheese, Divine Insight and so on.

Replace Exemplar with the Hardened Criminal feat? Has Iron Will as a prerequisite and is way earlier available.

[Inevitability]

Fool's Strike + Brittleskin + Vile Rigidity + Cancer Mage deals infinite damage to something that attacks you, no save, and you never actually 'attack' or 'hit' the target so defenses like 100% miss chance or instantaneous teleportation presumably won't save them.

How it works: Vile Rigidity + Cancer Mage gives NI natural armor, so under a Brittleskin effect you take +NI damage from every hit, Fool's Strike causes an enemy to take damage equal to their normal damage roll result. You need to hit on an opposed check, but at this point mixing in Festering Anger for NI strength should hardly up the level of cheese.

[Prime32]

Fool's Strike + Karmic Strike^CWar + Divine Justice^PHB2 = Take a -4 penalty to AC, but you can attempt to reflect a foe's attack back at them. Whether you succeed or fail, you then get an AoO against them which deals damage equal to their attack's.
Robilar's Gambit^PHB2 can be substituted for Karmic Strike (or combined with it), and grants the foe a damage bonus but makes it harder to parry. Doesn't stack with the Vengeful Spirit^CM feat, but that could be a fun add-on.

Step of the Wind stance grants bonuses when making or resisting trip and bull rush attempts against foes hindered by difficult terrain. Knight^PHB2 and Deepstone Sentinel^ToB can both create auras of difficult terrain, though they're difficult to use. I considered a naityan rakshasa with 3 levels of Stoneblessed (dwarf), using its Earth Serpent shape to fuel Mountain Fortress Stance while keeping up Step of the Wind at the same time... but RAW the naityan's style shapes don't belong to any particular discipline, even if they grant maneuvers from a specific discipline. Also consider the Earth Devotion^CC feat (expend use of turn undead to create difficult terrain as an immediate action) or the briar web, spore field and vertigo field spells.
EDIT: My head isn't screwed on today. Earth Serpent isn't a stance, it grants the Strength of Stone stance and has you automatically enter it. But at the same time Outsiders can't enter Stoneblessed, so you'd need to stick on either the half-troll template or Human Heritage (it works since they can breed with humans to produce more of their kind).

Clever Positioning can be combined with 2 levels of Bloodstorm Blade to swap with foes at a distance.
Arguably this maneuver can also be used to set up Shadow Pounce. And since it has no prereqs, you might be able to get it onto an Idiot Crusader and spam it (you can do that with some Shadow Hand teleports too, but they don't come with an attack built in).
It also has a strange interaction with the War Mind's Sweeping Strike class feature, which allows your melee attacks to affect two adjacent creatures.

And then there's the notorious combo of Persistent footsteps of the divine + Tornado Throw.

[Inevitability]

Step of the Wind stance grants bonuses when making or resisting trip and bull rush attempts against foes hindered by difficult terrain. Knight^PHB2 and Deepstone Sentinel^ToB can both create auras of difficult terrain, though they're difficult to use. I considered a naityan rakshasa with 3 levels of Stoneblessed (dwarf), using its Earth Serpent shape to fuel Mountain Fortress Stance while keeping up Step of the Wind at the same time... but RAW the naityan's style shapes don't belong to any particular discipline, even if they grant maneuvers from a specific discipline. Also consider the Earth Devotion^CC feat (expend use of turn undead to create difficult terrain as an immediate action) or the briar web, spore field and vertigo field spells.

Per page 163 of the PHB, "Rubble, undergrowth, steep slopes, ice, cracked and pitted surfaces, and uneven floors" all count as difficult terrain as well, so if you can generate terrain of such a sort that should also work. Undergrowth and ice are probably the easiest.

[Saintheart]

Per page 163 of the PHB, "Rubble, undergrowth, steep slopes, ice, cracked and pitted surfaces, and uneven floors" all count as difficult terrain as well, so if you can generate terrain of such a sort that should also work. Undergrowth and ice are probably the easiest.

Impeding Stones (CScape, Drd 1, Rgr 1) by that definition generates difficult terrain in all but name, right down to halving movement rates for anything that doesn't fall prone. That would lock almost entirely in with Step of the Wind.

Indeed an active Step of the Wind stance + the whole Mighty Throw line of maneuvers is a nice little combination: the stance buffs trip attempts by +4, and the explicit instruction for each of the maneuvers is to resolve the throw in the maneuver as a trip. So that's typically a quick +8 to your ability checks. Better yet if you're wielding a Martial Discipline (Setting Sun) weapon, that puts your touch attack rolls for these situations at a +5 bonus - +2 from Step of the Wind, +3 from the weapon. If you've got some sort of exotic weapon that provides bonuses to trip attacks, e.g. Dwarven Warpike it gets even better.



EDIT: Also, where are my manners - many thanks for all the contributions so far guys, this provides really good grist for the mill and encourages me to think about separate threads for other disciplines. What I might actually do in the eventual thread is just have 9 posts with the maneuvers/stances named at their level, and then spoiler tag them to describe what combinations can be achieved with them.

Other stuff I was musing over:

Scorpion Parry (Swordsage 6) + Robilar's Gambit + War Mind 5
Scorpion Parry says "make an opposed attack roll against the enemy's attack roll, if yours beats his, redirect his attack to another opponent he threatens and which is adjacent to you".
It's similar to Wall of Steel over in Iron Heart, in that the maneuver applies to "attacks", which would include a touch attack spell or any other touch attack. "Attack" also includes an AoO made against you, since Scorpion Parry is an immediate action which can be taken outside your turn. And it would also include ranged attacks and ranged attack spells, since these all require attacks (albeit those usages are going to be limited since you need another target that your opponent threatens and which is adjacent to you).
Anyway, Robilar's Gambit gives you a free attack of opportunity on an attempted strike from an opponent, and the attack from R.Gambit is taken after the enemy's attack is resolved. Sweeping Strike from War Mind 5 allows you to basically apply the effects of any melee attack you make to 2 adjacent squares you threaten. So if you're being attacked by 2 opponents next to one another, on a Scorpion Parry, the attacker's friend takes two attacks (1 from Scorpion Parry, 1 from Robilar's Gambit from War Mind 5) and the attacker himself takes 1 (Robilar's Gambit).


Shifting Defense (Swordsage 5 stance) + DC 40 Tumble check (Oriental Adventures}:
Shifting Defense basically is "while you're in this stance, take a 5 foot step every time an opponent attacks you, consuming 1 of your AoOs."
Oriental Adventures says if you make a DC 40 Tumble check, you can take a 10 foot step instead of 5 foot.
Thus, 10 foot steps every time an opponent attacks you, at least while your AoOs hold out.

Shifting Defense (Swordsage 5 stance) + Sparring Dummy of the Master (A&EG - item):
Same deal. Sparring Dummy of the Master requires a Monk level or a good UMD check.

Shifting Defense (Swordsage 5 stance)+ Press the Advantage (White Raven, Warblade 5, Crusader 5 stance):
(Warning! - only Warblade 20 or Master of Nine can have 2 stances active at once.)
That said: same deal, 10 foot step.

Shifting Defense (Swordsage 5 stance) + Evasive Reflexes (ToB, feat) + Robilar's Gambit:
10 foot step on getting attacked. Robilar's Gambit activates on the opponent making an attack, granting an AoO - thus triggering Evasive Reflexes' 5 foot step. Shifting Defense outright grants a 5 foot step on an attack. Arguably Evasive Reflexes does not consume an AoO attempt, which otherwise would make the cost of this 2 AoOs for the 10 feet of movement.

Note each of these grant the 10' of movement required for Skirmish to apply, in the case of Scout and similar.


Mighty Throw (Swordsage 1 maneuver) + Battle Jump (feat, UnappEast) + Improved Trip + Goliath race (RoS)
Mighty Throw is the foundation of a line of throwing maneuvers which get gradually better on the damage they inflict to stuff in the way of an opponent that you throw - more about that later, because that has its own loophole-y or questionable RAW at hand. For the moment, Mighty Throw basically says, make a touch attack on the opponent, and resolve it as a trip. If successful, you throw the target 10 feet away from you, where it ends up prone. The movement doesn't provoke AoOs (and likely none of the other throws do either, since they all function as Mighty Throw does except where noted.)
Since Mighty Throw is a standard action, it works with Battle Jump, which in turn allows you to be considered one size bigger than usual for a trip. Goliaths get Powerful Builds that treat them as one size bigger for opposed checks, which stack with similar such abilities. So as Medium to start with, taking a touch attack, we're considered Huge (+8), and then get another +4 from Improved Trip, and then +4 from Mighty Throw for a +16 before we pick either our STR or DEX as the functional stat for the opposed check.

Mighty Throw (Swordsage 1 maneuver) + Battle Jump (feat, UnappEast) + Improved Trip + Jotunbrud (Feat, RoF) + Stoneblessed 3 (Goliath)(RoS):
Same deal but more cheese, since Jotunbrud allows us to be considered 1 size larger as a humanoid, and Stoneblessed allows us to be considered a Goliath for all effects related to race. Thus giving us STR +4 (Mighty Throw) +4 (Improved Trip) +12 (Medium -> Large (Jotunbrud) -> Huge (Goliath Powerful Build) -> Colossal (Battle Jump) = +20+STR on opposed check for trip.

[Chronos]

From the Clever Positioning one:

No weight limits, target takes falling damage of 1d6 per 200 pounds of weight.

Where do you get this rule that falling damage scales with a creature's weight?

[Saintheart]

From the Clever Positioning one:

Where do you get this rule that falling damage scales with a creature's weight?

Looks like I conflated the damage to characters from falling objects with damage to characters from falling itself. Thanks. :)


Moving on:

Feigned Opening (Swordsage 3 Maneuver ) + Robilar's Gambit + Karmic Strike
Feigned Opening is essentially "if the opponent makes an AoO on you, swift action and two things happen: either the AoO misses, in which case you get an AoO on them; or the AoO hits, in which case your allies get an AoO on them."
Best effect is with a rogue buddy flanking the target. Feigned Opening and Karmic Strike give you -8 to AC and Robilar's Gambit gives the opponent a +4 to attack, so unless something really unexpected happens you're getting a hit on you.
If you're hit: 2 AoOs on the target from Karmic Strike and Robilar's Gambit, and all your friends get an AoO on the target as well.
If you're not hit: 2 AoOs on the target, from Robilar's Gambit, and Feigned Opening.

Feigned Opening (Swordsage 3 Maneuver ) + Robilar's Gambit + Karmic Strike + Double Hit
Expensive to set up with prerequisites, but doubles your attacks.
If you're hit: 4 attacks on the target, from Double Hit giving you 2 attacks for each AoO, and all friends get an AoO on it as well.
If you're not hit: 4 attacks on the target, from Double Hit giving you 2 attacks for each AoO.
Not bad for just trying to take other than a 5 foot step away from the target.


Ballista Throw (Swordsage 6 Maneuver) + Knock-Down (S&F)
Ballista Throw functions like Mighty Throw, but upgraded a bit: it grants a +4 on the ability check, and if the trip comes off the target gets thrown in a 60 foot line, and everything in that line takes 6d6 damage (along with the target itself, which falls prone).
Knock-Down is 3.0 but unupdated and thus still valid: if you do more than 10 points of damage to an opponent in melee, you make a trip attack against the opponent.
The argument being that anything which takes 6d6 along the line of the throw has taken (you would hope) 10 points of damage in melee from you, and as such everything in that line wears a trip attack from you.

However, there is a simpler RAW trick to make this more interesting, that being that none of the throw line of maneuvers addresses movement in three dimensions. By RAW, you can hurl something into the air 60 feet straight up, or in such direction as you see fit. You're placing them in an empty space, and they'll certainly end up prone, just after 60 feet of falling distance. And while the movement upward likely doesn't trigger AoOs, there's nothing to say the fall back from 60 feet up doesn't. So just hurl them straight up into the air, and then hit them with an AoO on the way down, following which they land prone and you can start it all over again.

... what? It is a ballista throw, after all.

Ballista Throw + Eilservs School (DoTU) + Knowledge Devotion (CChamp)
Eilservs School adds a straight untyped +5 to attack and "damage rolls" if you're using a magic staff, depending on the number of charges in it. A staff of Light costs 1,500 market price and can be wielded like a quarterstaff, which is within Setting Sun's favoured weapons. Anyway, this unqualified +5 stacks with Knowledge Devotion's potential max of +5 for a +10 to all damage rolls under this maneuver, i.e. it's 6d6+10 damage to all targets along the line of the throw. Similar tactics apply to anything that applies an unqualified bonus to "damage rolls", of which there are a few.

[Saintheart]

Stalking Shadow (Swordsage 5 maneuver) + Thicket of Blades (Crusader 3 stance)
This one wasn't easy to come up with an interesting combo for, happy to hear suggestions or ideas.
Stalking Shadow is "immediate action, if opponent adjacent to you moves, take a 5 foot step into the square he just departed."
Thicket of Blades allows you to hit the opponent with an AoO every time they move, Stalking Shadow steps you forward 5 feet so you get another Thicket of Blades AoO on him if he keeps trying to run. Handy if you haven't got a Reach weapon on you at that moment, or you're not feeling like the more obvious Thicket of Blades + Stand Still lockdown trick.


Ghostly Defense (Swordsage 8 stance) + Cloak Dance (Feat, XPH)
This one I saw in the ToB combos library, it is not original to me.
Ghostly Defense says "if an opponent misses you due to concealment, direct his attack into another opponent you threaten, as with Scorpion Parry."
Cloak Dance says "take a move action to grant yourself concealment (or a full-round action for total concealment until your next action)."
Mix with Robilar's Gambit for more fun.


Ballista Throw (Swordsage 6 Maneuver) + Freezing the Life Blood (CWar, Feat) + Contagious Paralysis (Feat, LibMort)
Again, not original to me, and might invoke a DMG thrown in your direction for 6d6 damage.
Paralyze your victim and throw him in a 60' line, damaging and paralyzing everything he hits on the way.
Does require that Freezing the Lifeblood is an (Ex) or (Su) ability, and that the DM accepts there is a hit on anything in the 60 foot line, but otherwise, pretty solid.


Comet Throw (Swordsage 4 Maneuver) + Freezing the Life Blood (CWar, Feat) + Contagious Paralysis (Feat, LibMort)
Same deal as Ballista Throw, since it's the same mechanic at play: Comet Throw does 4d6 damage and normally does 20 feet +extra distance depending how good your trip attempt was, but it specifically says it does 4d6 to a target you throw the victim at, with a Reflex save to halve the damage and remain standing - point being that we care more about the fact the target is paralysed by touching the target you threw.


Mighty Throw (Swordsage 1 Maneuver) + Improved Trip
Worth noting here for the cheese since you get a free attack if you trip your opponent in a melee attack, which Mighty Throw does. So the combination is potentially start Mighty Throw, get a melee attack, and then hurl the opponent through the air.


Giant Killing Style (Swordsage 3 stance) + Underfoot Combat + Confound the Big Folk
Giant Killing Style basically gives +2 to attack and +4 to damage against opponents larger than you. Confound the Big Folk renders the target flat-footed if it's two sizes larger than you and you're in its space. Underfoot Combat gives you a +4 to AC in the same situation. Possibly Mighty Throw can also be used in conjunction with Confound the Big Folk's trip maneuver, ask your DM.


Hydra Slaying Strike (Swordsage 7 maneuver)
Beats me. This maneuver doesn't even affect a hydra, since hydras can attack with all their heads as a standard action and don't need a full attack. Would be nice against a dragon, except dragons can breathe as a standard action too.


Mirrored Pursuit (Swordsage 5 maneuver) + Overwhelming Assault (PHB 2 feat)
Mirrored Pursuit is an upgraded form of Stalking Shadow, i.e. stay adjacent to the opponent if he moves away, up to your speed.
Overwhelming Assault says "If the enemy starts a turn adjacent to you, ends a turn still adjacent to you, and doesn't attack you, get a +4 to your attacks next turn."
The ideal would be that you get up next to an enemy undetected, and then they move. Mirrored Pursuit then kicks in, you are adjacent at the end of the creature's turn, and have a +4 on your attacks.

[CactusAir]

I seem to recall, way back when, that someone suggested using the Contagious Paralysis feat with the Ballista Throw maneuver.

[Saintheart]

I seem to recall, way back when, that someone suggested using the Contagious Paralysis feat with the Ballista Throw maneuver.

That was likely Tleilaxu_Ghola off the minmax forums - I found that combination over in a web archived thread, and it's part of the "proper" optimisation library I've put up over here. I'll close this one down, but feel free to stop by in there too :)

[Bonzai]

I love the setting son maneuvers. I went so far as to male a gnomish supremacist judo build character. Out to prove the superiority of the gnome race through the manly arts of unarmed combat. I made it a dex monkey build with the shadowed blade and weapon finesse feats to make dex give bonuses to hit and damage. He then focused on throws that created attacks of opportunity for himself and his team mates.as a swordsmen he got monk like Unarmed attacks, a hadouken, and teleports. Total street fighter stuff.