Low Level Swordsage Help

[tedcahill2]

I'll be playing in a campaign soon in which I'm thinking of playing a greatsword wielding swordsage. My DM is okay with me using the unarmed swordsage adaptation, so from an RP perspective I plan to be someone that is reluctant to use violence as a means to an end, and even further I hate having to draw my sword. So I will be doing a lot of unarmed fighting and also hitting things with my sheathed sword.

All the swordsage guides I found seem to assume I will be dex based and will being using either a single shadowhand weapon, or twf. I do plan to be using shadowhand, and setting sun, and even a little stone dragon, but I am unsure of my best feat selections considering my choice of using a greatsword.

Can anyone suggest good feat chains for my 2handed swordsage? (I have really excellent stats, high dex, high wis, high str)

Update: after reading through some guides my plan is to go with Adaptive Style at level 1, with two-weapon fighting as a human bonus feat. My next three feats (at 3, 6, and 9) will be Shadow Blade, Power Attack, and Snap Kick.

I have a 17 Str (will increase to 18 at 4), and 18 Dex. So by level 4, when I get Shadow Blade and an 19 STR, I will deal 2d6+6 damage with my greatsword (13 on avg) and my unarmed attacks, assuming I'm in a shadow hand stance, will deal 1d8+8 (12.5 on avg).

I've found myself particularly torn between whether I should stick with my plan to get power attack, or go with something like Leap of the Heavens as level 3 or 6, so they I can better take advantage of Sudden Leap maneuver.

[tiercel]

To answer maybe the easiest question first:

Adaptive Style does two things you probably really want.

The first is that pretty quickly, your number of Maneuvers Known will significantly surpass your numbers of Maneuvers Readied -- if you want to be able to have the *right* maneuvers without 5 minutes of downtime (which is what it normally takes to change your readied maneuvers), then you need Adaptive Style.

If you only ever need to load maneuvers with plenty of prep time, then that won't matter as much; if your party's divinations/scouting reveal a certain challenge behind the next door, your party probably doesn't want to wait an extra five minutes for you to optimize your maneuver loadout.

The second thing Adaptive Style does for you is let you recharge your maneuvers in a somewhat less-painful in-combat way. By default, to recover an expended maneuver you need to blow a full-round action to get back one maneuver; with Adaptive Style, you can not only change but refresh all your maneuvers in a single full-round action. Losing a whole round in combat is pretty bad, but getting all your maneuvers back (while changing them on the fly at the same time) is much better than getting only one already used.

(Note that the text doesn't seem to make this 100% crystal clear, i.e. that you can refresh and not merely change maneuvers, but it seems to be widely agreed, including the official 3.5 FAQ (p.38), for what it's worth.

[emeraldstreak]

I'll be playing in a campaign soon in which I'm thinking of playing a greatsword wielding swordsage. My DM is okay with me using the unarmed swordsage adaptation, so from an RP perspective I plan to be someone that is reluctant to use violence as a means to an end, and even further I hate having to draw my sword. So I will be doing a lot of unarmed fighting and also hitting things with my sheathed sword.

All of the swordsage guides I found seem to assume I will be dex based and will being using either a single shadowhand weapon, or twf. I do plan to be using shadowhand, and setting sun, and even a little stone dragon, but I am unsure of my best feat selections considering my choice of using a greatsword.

I know adaptive style is on all of the guide, but I don't understand why?

Can anyone suggest good feat chains for my 2handed swordsage? (I have really excellent stats, high dex, high wis, high str)

1. I suggest you use a Large Scorpion Kama (MIC) as the numeric basis of your weapon.

2. Invest in at least one unarmed damage dice feat

[tiercel]

In line with what emeraldstreak said above:

If you're going to be significantly actually using Unarmed Strike, then the Superior Unarmed Strike feat is a simple way to get a weapon die increase.

When you kick it up to 11 and actually draw your sword, you can still benefit plenty from the Snap Kick feat (though it'll be a few levels before you get there).

For that matter, there's no reason you *can't* use Two-Weapon Fighting; even when swording, your "off hand" attacks will just be Unarmed Strikes (e.g. you'll be throwing some kicks or even elbow jabs in while wielding greatsword).

If your "doesn't want to draw the sword" thing is RP, but in plenty of fights you will be actually drawing your sword, then Power Attack is always useful (though you'll have less than full BAB to sink into it, and you'll want to be careful about eating TWF penalties on medium BAB and still Power Attacking).

It's worth noting, however, that if you are going to be relying on martial Strikes for most of your oomph in combat, then TWF and even Power Attack mean less, since you are more interested in making sure your attack connects so the maneuver can take effect.

So a vanilla approach to feats might wind up just looking something like:
1: Adaptive Style
3: TWF or Power Attack
6: Superior Unarmed Strike
9: Snap Kick

Where you could take both TWF and Power Attack if you're human, or have flaws in your game, or whatever, but honestly out of even these, the ones that will probably make the biggest difference are Adaptive Style and Snap Kick.

Heck, given that Swordsage maneuvers do most of what you need feats for if you're mundane melee, you could just pick Adaptive Style and then go nuts: take the Fey Heritage line of feats from Complete Mage and pick up some DR and spell-like abilities. (Works especially well if your stats are so high you can spare a little Charisma as well.)

[tedcahill2]

For that matter, there's no reason you *can't* use Two-Weapon Fighting; even when swording, your "off hand" attacks will just be Unarmed Strikes (e.g. you'll be throwing some kicks or even elbow jabs in while wielding greatsword).

I never really realized this was a thing. I checked the official FAQ, it checks out. That is awesome.

[tedcahill2]

After reading through some guides my plan is to go with Adaptive Style at level 1, with two-weapon fighting as a human bonus feat. My next three feats (at 3, 6, and 9) will be Shadow Blade, Power Attack, and Snap Kick.

I have a 17 Str (will increase to 18 at 4), and 18 Dex. So by level 4, when I get Shadow Blade and an 19 STR, I will deal 2d6+6 damage with my greatsword (13 on avg) and my unarmed attacks, assuming I'm in a shadow hand stance, will deal 1d8+8 (12.5 on avg).

I've found myself particularly torn between whether I should stick with my plan to get power attack, or go with something like Leap of the Heavens as level 3 or 6, so they I can better take advantage of Sudden Leap maneuver.

[Particle_Man]

Are you aiming for a prestige class?

[tedcahill2]

Are you aiming for a prestige class?

Was planning on Shadow Sun Ninja.

[Particle_Man]

Maybe you could aim for necropolitan or have some other pc do it. Then you get infinite healing between fights.

Or have a skeleton of a bat in a cage for similar reasons.

[tedcahill2]

Maybe you could aim for necropolitan or have some other pc do it. Then you get infinite healing between fights.

Or have a skeleton of a bat in a cage for similar reasons.

But I was asking for advice on my feats.

[rel]

Power attack is hard to get working with 3/4 BAB and TWF. Get more interesting feats and rely on boosts, stances and your extra attacks to deal damage.

In general strikes deal less damage than a full attack routine so stick to a few strikes with good riders and try to get boosts or utility tricks instead of damage strikes.

[emeraldstreak]

Not sure if you grasp what Unarmed Strike is about. Take a look at this Dex based Swordsage with av. of about ~100 per hit at level 10.

[Eldariel]

If you TWF, mix in Tiger Claw and Desert Wind. It gets you going earlier; Wolf Fang Strike is really nice for instance (Rabid Wolf Strike is also a great THF strike particularly with Power Attack). Also nice Wisdom and full attack maneuvers are really nice with Insightful Strikes. Just few things off the top of my head.

[Particle_Man]

Extra Readied Maneuver is nice to pick up when you can fit it in.

[RNightstalker]

The second thing Adaptive Style does for you is let you recharge your maneuvers in a somewhat less-painful in-combat way. By default, to recover an expended maneuver you need to blow a full-round action to get back one maneuver; with Adaptive Style, you can not only change but refresh all your maneuvers in a single full-round action. Losing a whole round in combat is pretty bad, but getting all your maneuvers back (while changing them on the fly at the same time) is much better than getting only one already used.

(Note that the text doesn't seem to make this 100% crystal clear, i.e. that you can refresh and not merely change maneuvers, but it seems to be widely agreed, including the official 3.5 FAQ (p.38), for what it's worth.

Could the confusion of it not being 100% crystal clear be in the mentioning of the granted maneuvers for a crusader? It's just a crusader thing that at the start of every battle, they only have access to two of their known maneuvers, and they get more randomly as the encounter continues. Aside from that, with Adaptive Style any time you want to reset your maneuvers no matter how many you have or haven't used, all you need is a full round action. There doesn't even seem to be any limit to the number of times per encounter/day that it can be used. My only question would be would taking that full round action provoke AOO's?

[tedcahill2]

Not sure if you grasp what Unarmed Strike is about. Take a look at this Dex based Swordsage with av. of about ~100 per hit at level 10.

This group does absolutely no optimization. So while I appreciate it I won't be attempting to do 100 damage a round.

[emeraldstreak]

This group does absolutely no optimization. So while I appreciate it I won't be attempting to do 100 damage a round.

Do you take my swordsage for a peasant? It's 100 damage per hit, hopefully per round is higher between pouncing and maneuvers.

Just kidding. What we're saying is: the feats for your idea of a martial artist who mixes greatsword with unarmed strikes don't necessarily mix well with each other. For unarmed strikes there are Shadow Blade, Superior Unarmed Strike, Improved Natural Attack, etc. Greatsword is Power Attack, Shock Trooper, possibly something to expand on its 19-20 crit range.

There's one way to unite both, namely to have the Scorpion enchantment from the Magic Item Compendium on a greatsword; or to use the original Scorpion Kama in that book, but one of Large size so your medium character can wield it as a two-handed weapon.