Age of Worms warblade build suggestions

[Gilmord]

Hi guys,
Long time reader, but first my post here.

Our 6-player party recently started Age of Worms campaign. Now we're near the end of "Whispering cairn" and looking round on recent encounters i asked our DM to retrain my elven bow-oriented fighter (i planned to take Arcane Archer) to warblade before we start "Three faces of evil". We agreed that i won't change race and ability scores (i rolled pretty high) only class (and skills and feats).
I don't have experience playing ToB characters and want to get opinions and suggestions to my current and planned build.
We are restricted to PHB, PHB II, CA, ToB

Level 3 High Elf Warblade using bastard sword and buckler when needed (plan to switch for 2h sword or elven court blade if DM allow later)

Stats (after applying racial bonuses):
Str 17
Dex 20
Con 15
Int 16
Wis 15
Cha 13

Spoiler: Current feats

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Lvl 1: (One flaw taken)
Exotic weapon prof (bastard sword)
Weapon focus (bastard sword) plan to retrain this with Combat reflexes on lvl. 4
Lvl 3:
Power attack

Spoiler: Current maneuvers

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Sapphire nightmare blade
Steel wind
Moment of perfect mind
Leading the attack
Emerald razor

Current stance Hunter's sense.
I'd like to go plain warblade 20.

Spoiler: Planned feats

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5th: Ironheart aura (Bonus)
6th: Leap attack
9th: Stormguard warrior/Blind-fight (Bonus)
12th: Rolibar's gambit
13th and above i'm open for suggestions

Spoiler: Planned maneuvers

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4th: Steel wind => Wall of blades
5th: Iron heart surge
6th: Sapphire nightmare blade => White raven tactics
7th: Bounding assault
8th: Leading the Attack => Death from above
9th: Iron heart focus
11th: Greater insightful strike
13th: Avalanche of blades
14th: Death from above => Finishing move
15th: Diamond nightmare blade
16th: Emerald razor => Adamantine hurricane
17th: Time Stands Still
18th: Finishing move => Strike of perfect clarity
19th: Mountain Tombstone Strike

Spoiler: Planned stances

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5th: Tactics of the wolf or Leaping dragon stance or Pearl of black doubt (haven't decided yet)
11th: Hearing the air
17th: Stance of alacrity

Rest of our party are
Half-elf twf ranger
Halfling scout (archer)
Human shapeshift druid
Human wizard
Half-orc cleric of Fharlanghn (Luck and Travel)

Thanks in advance for help and suggestions

[liquidformat]

Just some random comments, have you taken a look at the elven courtblade? If you are going exotic weapon anyways it is a much more interesting choice. Also Eternal Blade prc might be a good choice for you...

[Mr Adventurer]

(plan to switch for 2h sword or elven court blade if DM allow later)

Just some random comments, have you taken a look at the elven courtblade? If you are going exotic weapon anyways it is a much more interesting choice. Also Eternal Blade prc might be a good choice for you...

Looks good Gilmord

[Telonius]

I'd go with Leaping Dragon Stance, if you have any of the maneuvers that base things off of your Jump check.

Any particular reason you're going with Bastard Sword? It doesn't really give you any advantage over Greatsword, other than letting you go sword-and-board. That generally isn't an optimal strategy; you'd be losing out on a lot of Power Attack damage (particularly since you have Leap Attack and Robilar's Gambit) if you use it 1-handed instead of 2. I would take Improved Bull Rush, with an eye to take Shock Trooper as soon as possible, instead.

[Cavir]

I'd greatly recommend Adaptive Style feat. Never know what you'll face and not having the right maneuver available for a whole fight can be a game changer, in a bad way.

<puts on asbestos suit>
For warblades I prefer using maneuver damage over power attack. In the games I'm in I see so many whiffs by others due to power attack. What good is the potential extra +10 damage when you barely miss and do all of zero damage? Warblade's easy refresh plus the above feat keeps you flexible.

My current warblades
Suga (5th level orc)
Kalir (14th level raptoran)

[Telonius]

<puts on asbestos suit>
For warblades I prefer using maneuver damage over power attack. In the games I'm in I see so many whiffs by others due to power attack. What good is the potential extra +10 damage when you barely miss and do all of zero damage? Warblade's easy refresh plus the above feat keeps you flexible.

I don't think that's quite as controversial as you might think. It's the melee equivalent of preferring an SR: No, Saves: No effect. It's better to do something useful than to waste your action. If it's just Power Attack versus maneuver, there would definitely be times when maneuver is what you want to do. But when you throw things like Shock Trooper and Leap Attack into the mix, Power Attack becomes a much stronger option. Some of the White Raven Charge maneuvers and the Tiger Claw pseudo-Pounce maneuvers can even let you do both at once.

[ExLibrisMortis]

If you are going for a Stormguard Warrior build with that very nice Dexterity score (and generally great stats), I would suggest picking up Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Midnight Dodge (or Desert Wind Dodge, or Expeditious Dodge), and Karmic Strike (requires two flaws, I suggest Vulnerable--also take the Aggressive trait, if you can). That lets you do what Robilar's does (to an extent), but at level 3.

[Gilmord]

Thanks for all your suggestions

Just some random comments, have you taken a look at the elven courtblade? If you are going exotic weapon anyways it is a much more interesting choice. Also Eternal Blade prc might be a good choice for you...

Yep, elven courtblade was the reason i picked exotic weapon, but our DM said elven courtblade isn't available to buy, instead he'll allow me to roll percentile dice to find it after some encounters.

Any particular reason you're going with Bastard Sword? It doesn't really give you any advantage over Greatsword, other than letting you go sword-and-board. That generally isn't an optimal strategy; you'd be losing out on a lot of Power Attack damage (particularly since you have Leap Attack and Robilar's Gambit) if you use it 1-handed instead of 2. I would take Improved Bull Rush, with an eye to take Shock Trooper as soon as possible, instead.

I plan switch to elven courtblade when my character find it, as mentioned above.
Shock trooper is great, but we don't use Complete Warrior (maybe i can convince our DM to pick it, but i'm not sure).

If you are going for a Stormguard Warrior build with that very nice Dexterity score (and generally great stats), I would suggest picking up Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Midnight Dodge (or Desert Wind Dodge, or Expeditious Dodge), and Karmic Strike (requires two flaws, I suggest Vulnerable--also take the Aggressive trait, if you can). That lets you do what Robilar's does (to an extent), but at level 3.

Same here as with Shock trooper. We are not allowed to use Complete Warrior

[Telonius]

I think this may be the first time I've ever heard of a DM who's okay with Tome of Battle, Complete Adventurer, and Races of the Wild, but not with Complete Warrior.

Anyway, I get why you're thinking about going Courtblade with your Dex being higher than your Str. But you'd be spending two feats (Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Courtblade, and Weapon Finesse) to take advantage of that. Right now your Strength is +3 and your Dex is +5. Getting a +2 to hit is not worth two feats.

[Eldariel]

All your level-ups should go to your Str anyways and since you want to two-hand eventually, Power Attack is not a bad investment (I've made great use of it with e.g. Rabid Wolf Strike and Rabid Bear Strike - naturally it also combines well with Emerald Razor and the damage multiplication gets pretty brutal with Nightmare Blades down the line).

Far as maneuvers, obviously you'll always want White Raven Tactics and Iron Heart Surge as those become available; really powerful, unique effects. Well, you have them in your line-up already so perhaps I needn't expound on their virtues.

I really like picking up Leading the Charge -stance perhaps even over a 3rd level one (though Pearl of Black Doubt is great too); it's a team benefit and it goes superbly with Pouncing Charge (the 5th level Tiger Claw charge). If you can pick up Pounce from an auxiliary source (Barbarian is the typical one but there are some feat-based options too as well as Polymorph), White Raven charges and Bounding Assault (Diamond Mind) combo even more superbly with it.


I recommend looking into Manticore Parry when you get that high. Good counters are valuable and being able to reflect an attack on another enemy is just sweet. I do think you want to shore up your Will-save with Moment of Perfect Mind too, but that could easily become Diamond Defense down the line. It's not a horrible idea to pick up an extra stance or two with Martial Stance; the Warblade selection is pretty good and you want a mix of utility and combat ones.

[Gilmord]

Eldariel, thanks for your detailed suggestions.
From current party tactics looks that only my character will use charge on regular basis, that's why i plan to skip Leading the Charge stance. Do you think it's worth picking even only for one character?

[Eldariel]

Eldariel, thanks for your detailed suggestions.
From current party tactics looks that only my character will use charge on regular basis, that's why i plan to skip Leading the Charge stance. Do you think it's worth picking even only for one character?

I've picked it up on a solo character. Scaling by initiator level is really strong on higher levels. It's kind of weird in that much like Blood in the Water, it's a 1st level stance that only really comes onto its own in the mid-levels. On level 20, getting a charging full attack adding 20 to each attack is pretty great especially if you have other multipliers to throw on top of that. My Eternal Blade Archer setup has a +1 Valorous Quarterstaff in the Elvencraft Bow and a level of Barbarian picking up Pounce. Activate Boots of Speed, switch to Leading the Charge, pick up Bounding Assault from Eternal Training (or use Eternal Training for bonuses with Bounding Assault readied), start Whirling Frenzy, initiate: move 240' feet (by air if needed), 6 attacks at +37/+37/+37/+32/+27/+22 for 2d6+24 Str+2 enhancement+34 Leading the Charge = 69 average each (so at Power Attack -5 against a target with AC 35 and DR 15/-, the average damage is around 303 oneshotting a Balor). The beauty of all this is that it's extremely low investment; Whirling Frenzy, which you'd want anyways, an 8k weapon (which on level 20 is nothing), a 1st level stance, with everything else kinda falling in place inherently at no real investment.

Of course, lacking Pounce inherently restricts you somewhat but you can still easily use Pouncing Charge from Tiger Claw; everything else is the same except you're suspect to the usual Pounce movement restrictions. But you have means to deal with those and it's good for splatting people.