The Gaming Den

google the King of Smack. Basically a Psychic Warrior focused on using powers to create claws and augment them for as much damage as possible. Makes use of other buffs. There are variants of this build, including the Warmind PrC and martial adepts, but the focus is the same; Tearing people a new arsehole with big fucking claws.

NineInchNail wrote: Lago has hate for the crusader. I've never quite understood why, but that's his choice.

The only thing Book of Nine Swords characters have that keep them even remotely going past level 12 is the fact that they can string together offensive and defensive combos to keep them alive and struggle to keep them in the damage arms race.

Crusaders have access to two really suckass-in-the-longterm schools (Stone Dragon and Devoted Spirit) out of the three that they get. And they don't get all of their maneuvers at the start of an encounter. At least a Swordmage can hope (and pray) that they can take down an enemy with combos before they run out of maneuvers. A Crusader just can't.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Crusaders have access to two really suckass-in-the-longterm schools (Stone Dragon and Devoted Spirit) out of the three that they get. And they don't get all of their maneuvers at the start of an encounter. At least a Swordmage can hope (and pray) that they can take down an enemy with combos before they run out of maneuvers. A Crusader just can't.

This is sort of true.

Pg.96 of the ToB actually provides the cure: "If you choose to add the maneuver readied to a martial maneuver progression derived from crusader class levels, you also gain one additional maneuver granted at the beginning of the encounter for each additional maneuver you can ready."

You can actually use (through multi-classing and PrCs) this to get all your known maneuvers granted every round (with the stipulation that you can't know more maneuvers than you're granted).

Previn wrote: You can actually use (through multi-classing and PrCs) this to get all your known maneuvers granted every round (with the stipulation that you can't know more maneuvers than you're granted).

Crusaders only get two of their maneuvers back when they recharge regardless of how many they get granted at the beginning of an encounter. And since they will always have at least three maneuvers withheld each round, they will blow through their Killer Combo pretty damn fast. I mean, a level 10 Crusader / 5 Eternal Blade has a dead zone of two rounds for every three where they can activate a two-maneuver combo on account of their blade guide and recovery method. So you don't constantly have access to maneuvers every round--in fact you need to blaze through all of your maneuvers very fast or you'll lose them when you crash and burn Puzzle Quest style on round four. The feat 'Extra Granted Maneuever' is a trap because of this.

Moreover, it doesn't change the fact that crusaders have really suckass access to schools. White Raven is pretty good, but Stone Dragon and Devoted Spirit have trash maneuvers after their level three ones. This is a very huge problem.

Don't tell me that they can just abuse martial adept items to plunder the maneuvers they want. Those things are totally nonsensical and broken. And I mean broken as in the items are so ambiguous in function that they do not work.


Seriously, if you want to have a character who constantly has access to manuevers, you should either be a Warblade / Master of Nine or a Warblade/Eternal Blade. Or if your campaign goes that high a Warblade 7 / Master of Nine 4 / Eternal Blade X. If your DM interprets those stupid-ass Bo9S maneuver items in your favor, then a level of Crusader could be very useful. Otherwise, stay away.

Oh undoubtably Crusaders recovery mechanic sucks super hard. Thats why I think the much superior option is Warblade that dips Crusader stuff whether through a level dip or the often much more effective feat dip. And I wouldn't really worry about them starting to lose the arms race at 12+ because you seem to only want a 6th level character. And their third level maneuvers are, as you pointed out, unbelievable.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Crusaders only get two of their maneuvers back when they recharge regardless of how many they get granted at the beginning of an encounter. And since they will always have at least three maneuvers withheld each round, they will blow through their Killer Combo pretty damn fast.

First, there are 2 recharge rates for crusaders: 2 per round, and 'all.' The trick is to get yourself to the point where you hit the all one because you have no withheld maneuvers remaining every round.

This is actually pretty simple, as an example: Grab 2 levels of Warblade first, and pick the only 2 possible maneuvers in both the Stone Dragon and White Raven style. Now at 3rd level you take 1 level of Crusader, as the Crusader's initiator level is only 2, you are limited to first level maneuvers, and you only have 2 you can choose (both from Devoted Spirit).

At this point the Crusader has 2 readied maneuvers and 2 granted, and thus gets all of his maneuvers back every round. From there you should start looking toward PrCs for increase your actual maneuvers readied/known/granted because it keeps your readied and granted maneuvers at the same number, thus insuring you get them back every round, at level 3.

From there you're just toying with the rest of the build to give you the access to the levels and maneuvers you want.

I suppose if you didn't understand what I was talking about you could have asked, but whatever.

Previn wrote: First, there are 2 recharge rates for crusaders: 2 per round,

??? You only get one per round. Ever. Says so right in the class description.

and 'all.' The trick is to get yourself to the point where you hit the all one because you have no withheld maneuvers remaining every round.

Previn. Simple question time.

If you take a level of wizard and then you take a level of sorcerer, are you allowed to take magic missile as a spell for each class both times?

What in the world POSSIBLY lets you think that you can only choose one maneuver ever instead of once per martial adept scheme?

Secondly, even if you only could pick two martial maneuvers, you would just stack your deck with them several times. Apparently Andy had some dumbass house rule about only readying a martial maneuver once ever, but since it's not in FAQ or errata or in the book you can just ignore it. And you definitely should, because the Book of Nine Swords is a complete waste of fucking time if you aren't allowed to spam Flashing Sun or Dancing Mongoose.

Previn wrote:From there you should start looking toward PrCs for increase your actual maneuvers readied/known/granted because it keeps your readied and granted maneuvers at the same number, thus insuring you get them back every round, at level 3.

Even if your above trick worked, which it doesn't, Crusaders only get back two powers when they refresh, unless they have the 'extra granted maneuvers' feat. They do not get the entire set granted back to them. This is consistent throughout the entire book.

Previn wrote: I suppose if you didn't understand what I was talking about you could have asked, but whatever.

If had I asked you I would've only gotten fake cargo-cult min-maxing of a sub-gleemax quality, so you can just stick your useless help right up your ass.

I feel this should be added:

If it's an SRD game, there aren't many melee builds that can't be hurt by being buffed up by a wizard, cleric, or both.

Enlarge Person, Bull's Strength, Bear's Endurance, Protection from Evil/Shield of Faith. If you're playing in a standard party, those should be available and should be used.

Another trick I did before I discovered Tome was borrow randomly generated treasure from the rest of the party for tense situations. And the fighter asking to borrow a ring of deflection, amulet of natural armor, cloak of resistance and the better shield from the rest of the party actually went over well and got me roleplaying XP for being very in character (always played him as practical). The deal was he would go an attract attention, and he wanted to come out of it alive. So he did that. After being buffed out and having a swanky Ring of Protection and Amulet of Natural armor which together would probably be most of his wealth-by-level...

Succeeded on breaking the door into the room, too.

Prak_Anima wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:DMs are really suspicious about people who come to the table with an armload of thematically unrelated books who cherry-pick options from them.

...they are? I've never worried about it. I've only seen two dms who prohibit BoVD because they think it's more for NPCs, and one of them also just prohibits books he hasn't read, which is understandable.

my high school friends and I tend to go kind of hog wild on sources as long as things can be reflavoured.

Oh hell yes. Most common rule for allowed books is the DM has to have read it. Sometimes for individual feats I'll ask the player to read it to me. If they paraphrase the mechanics (I don't care about the fluff), I say no, because there's either a penalty or a significant bonus they don't want me to know about, and I hate players keeping secrets like that from the DM.

I'd also nix out-of-theme source books unless they were reigned in tightly and the players attempted to keep within the theme.

Finally, I look over each and every character sheet before I approve it. If someone sets a stack of 6 books in front of me so I can reference and make sure it's a legal character, I'm going to shit-can it. Making the DM's life complicated is never a wise decision, and doing it before the game even starts is even more stupid.

This is actually why Wizards are better than Druids. Wizards go full power with just the PHB, some DMG items, an maybe some spells from the Spell Compenium. They seriously don't need anything else.

Druids need some bullshit book you've never heard of to augment their wildshape and then some obscure entry out of a monster book and then some buff spells out of the Spell Compendium to pull off their cheese. That means that it's much harder to convince DMs that it is a good idea to let you play one - even in games where nominally WotC materials are by default considered balanced.

-Username17

TheFlatline wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:DMs are really suspicious about people who come to the table with an armload of thematically unrelated books who cherry-pick options from them.

...they are? I've never worried about it. I've only seen two dms who prohibit BoVD because they think it's more for NPCs, and one of them also just prohibits books he hasn't read, which is understandable.

my high school friends and I tend to go kind of hog wild on sources as long as things can be reflavoured.

Oh hell yes. Most common rule for allowed books is the DM has to have read it. Sometimes for individual feats I'll ask the player to read it to me. If they paraphrase the mechanics (I don't care about the fluff), I say no, because there's either a penalty or a significant bonus they don't want me to know about, and I hate players keeping secrets like that from the DM.

I'd also nix out-of-theme source books unless they were reigned in tightly and the players attempted to keep within the theme.

Finally, I look over each and every character sheet before I approve it. If someone sets a stack of 6 books in front of me so I can reference and make sure it's a legal character, I'm going to shit-can it. Making the DM's life complicated is never a wise decision, and doing it before the game even starts is even more stupid.

Are you in a situation where you don't know the people you're playing with? Sounds like there's a basic lack of trust between player and DM there. That must suck.

FrankTrollman wrote:This is actually why Wizards are better than Druids. Wizards go full power with just the PHB, some DMG items, an maybe some spells from the Spell Compenium. They seriously don't need anything else.

Druids need some bullshit book you've never heard of to augment their wildshape and then some obscure entry out of a monster book and then some buff spells out of the Spell Compendium to pull off their cheese. That means that it's much harder to convince DMs that it is a good idea to let you play one - even in games where nominally WotC materials are by default considered balanced.

-Username17

Druids get baleful polymorph at the same time wizards do, and even in the core rules they still get a pet bear that gets replaced for free and can turn into a bird and just SoD people. That's all core. Add in just SpC and you get bullshit like kelpstrand and owls insight. Druids don't need anything else and only benefit from monster books (that the DM also benefits from) and SpC. Wizards on the other hand like to dive through things like races of the wild, forgotten realms campaign setting, and PHB2 on top of the stuff that druids want.

So yeah, druids benefit from each additional book less than wizards do.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:??? You only get one per round. Ever. Says so right in the class description.

I suggest you go re-read the refresh description for the crusader then. If no have no withheld maneuvers left, they are all refreshed and you are granted 2 immediately, so no, it's not only one per round ever.

Previn. Simple question time.

If you take a level of wizard and then you take a level of sorcerer, are you allowed to take magic missile as a spell for each class both times?

What in the world POSSIBLY lets you think that you can only choose one maneuver ever instead of once per martial adept scheme?

CustServ:

Q Another multiclass question. Can a multiclassed martial adept (eg. Swordsage/Warblade) choose/and or ready the same maneuver for each of it's classes (provided you have access to the same maneuver)? And if you gain a maneuver in one class, can you use it as a prerequisite in gaining a maneuver in the other class?

A No, you can only ever learn/ready a maneuver once. If you gain a maneuver in one class it can indeed fulfill prerequisites in another class!

Secondly, even if you only could pick two martial maneuvers, you would just stack your deck with them several times. Apparently Andy had some dumbass house rule about only readying a martial maneuver once ever, but since it's not in FAQ or errata or in the book you can just ignore it. And you definitely should, because the Book of Nine Swords is a complete waste of fucking time if you aren't allowed to spam Flashing Sun or Dancing Mongoose.

The rule about only readying a maneuver once was actually from CustServ, that being said, by getting your maneuvers back every round, you're getting to spam the same maneuver over and over every round, so it's specifically letting you "spam Flashing Sun or Dancing Mongoose."

Ferret wrote:Are you in a situation where you don't know the people you're playing with? Sounds like there's a basic lack of trust between player and DM there. That must suck.

Actually, no. I know the people I play with all too well.

You haven't been gaming long if you haven't ever played with an epic-level munchkin. They simply aren't fun to game with, either as a PC or as a DM. They may not overtly cheat, but they may... you know... forget all the penalties of their choices, assuming it's up to the DM to remember and enforce it all, and if I as the DM haven't read the book or don't remember, then that's not their fault, that's mine. It's about as common as soda at the gaming table. I'm even going to say that's where a lot of the Gygax "The party is your enemy" DM mentality comes from, at least in my experience. If my party plays "what the DM doesn't remember won't hurt me", I'll *focus* on their penalties to make sure they're playing balanced characters, and I'll end up running a pretty negative game. If the players are up front about their flaws, I don't have to focus on them constantly and don't end up so negative.

As far as trust, sometimes math gets screwed up inadvertently, or on occasion you get complete bullshit abilities that unbalance the game. I also like to look over character sheets because sometimes I like to write encounters that specifically make individual characters shine. I try to make sure everyone gets one of those "I'm the hero!" encounters once every couple levels. In some ways, that feeling of succeeding far better than anyone else in the rest of the party, or just having the DM throw you a setup that allows you to show off your character build to his utter, absolute fullest, to the cheers and laughter of your party, feels better than any loot drop could ever make you feel. If all you want is a loot drop, then go play Diablo.

Hell, I think the DMG should specifically talk about encounters as rewards, along with XP and gold/items. It's empowering, it creates great, memorable moments, and it shows the players that you, the DM, are actually thinking about your players.

I'm sorry that I haven't responded to you in a timely fashion, Previn, but after you responded to me with a quote from CustServ my eyes kind of glazed over while I tried to think of a response.

Regardless, when I said 'one per round' by a strict reading the of the rules Crusaders only get one back one maneuver per round from their class scheme. That's all they get.

Moreover, going back by just the book, you only get two of your granted maneuvers back (three if you have a certain feat) when your class refreshes--and the ONLY trigger for refreshing running out of withheld maneuvers.

The problem with it is that when a crusader runs out of withheld maneuvers, it resets their granted maneuvers back to two/three. There is nothing in the rules, and I've looked, that says that crusaders get back whatever maneuvers they had at the beginning of the encounter when they refresh.

Now, if you're allowed to stack one or two maneuvers at the same time, this isn't much of a problem. If you use Martial Study to stack, say, Burning Brand and Flash Sun and also back that ass up with a White Raven tactics then a level of Crusader is actually some serious money.

But the idea of using the Crusader as a primary base to build maneuvers off of is a fool's game. Their schools suck anus, having no access to Tiger Claw / Diamond Mind (which will be doing the heavy lifting at mid and high levels) and there are many occasions where they get caught with their pants down. So go with a level of Swordsage if you don't have the feats to burn for Martial Study and you don't mind the BAB hit, or go with Crusader if you want that extra +2 to attack and you have some Martial Study in your corner pocket.

But your primary Bo9S chassis is going to be Warblade. No question about this.

Crusader can work under very specific circumstances (i.e., Stand Still build with a Large race and a rope dart) but yes, for the most part it's inferior to the Warblade. Mostly this works because such a build does not rely upon maneuvers as its main source of efficacy. The character contributes through battlefield control and can take whatever maneuvers he damn well pleases, because his standard action is just about meaningless compared to his AoO contribution.

And damn, Lago, if you don't abuse metaphors.