Optimization Q: Why is Adaptive Style an assumed feat for Swordsages?

[Endarire]

Why is the feat Adaptive Style assumed for every Swordsage?  Sure, the feat gives you a better version of the Swordsage recovery mechanic, but using it still takes a full-round action!  I've played with Swordsages since Tome of Battle came out and I've only withnessed three occasions where a Swordsage recovered any maneuvers in battle.

Maybe it's because my fights don't last that long (a round or 3), and I can understand Adaptive Style being useful if you're pounded relentlessly with saves and use save swap maneuvers, or if you have really large reach and can rely on AoOs, or you actually need to change your Swordsage readied maneuvers mid-fight.

Adaptive Style is... a niche feat.  If you reliably run out of fuel and you simply need to recover quickly, it's wonderful.  For what I've seen, Extra Readied Maneuver is better.

[InnaBinder]

"A round or 3" is a very fast combat, in my experience; most players don't optimize to the level where they can reliably hit that target (five rounds appearing more typical and longer combats not unheard of), even if it's their desired goal, and for those groups that I've seen do so, Swordsage was at the low end of passable for expected character power.  In other words, in my experience, the groups that aren't going to get a lot of mileage out of Adaptive Style aren't going to get a lot of mileage out of Swordsage as a whole.

The other thing to consider is the character level at which you're playing D&D.  The smaller your pool of access to maneuvers and stances, the more valuable it is to you to be able to reliably refresh that pool in the middle of a fight, even at the cost of a full-round action.

[SorO_Lost]

Look who is busy with new threads yet again...

Don't forget, you can still use Swift/Immediate actions, not only meaning with a Belt of Battle you can recover once per day as a Swift action but also use a Boost or Counter. Not to mention the tons of other combos presented (perpetual incorporeality).

Maneuver usage has a very steep curve to it. IE look at Diamond its self, of your 8th level choices only one is a strike (x4 damage), after that you only option is 7th level for an attack till you miss Strike that imposes a cumulative -4 penalty (and you're not even a full BABer), odds are you'd be lucky to hit a second time, good luck with that fourth to be comparable. It comes to the number of Maneuver schools known is the number of effective rounds you'll have, after that your combat ability drops significantly.

And it's not just Strikes either, you'll be burning Boosts/Counters at a fairly rapid rate if you know what your doing, three Combat rounds is 6 Maneuvers spent, you don't exactly have an infinite number of 'Ready's. You'll need to refresh soon or you'll be behind that of a normal mundane. Remember, you don't have the Rogue's SA to offset your pitiful damage, or the Fighters godaweful Feats. Without Maneuvers you're worse than the lowest of low, the Barbarian.

The last point to consider is you are not the Warblade. You have a significant number of Maneuvers Known, so instead of focusing on the absolute best series you can use you can pick some circumstantial ones and Adaptive Style can pull them in. Like for example Leaping Flame is an excellent counter against range abusing opponents but worthless if they stick close. As part of your refresh you can pull that on in and even Counter with it within the same round.

tldr; four reasons. Good combo potential, more deadly offense if used once every couple of rounds, prevents you from running out in extended battles, lets you Adapt your Style to the current encounter.

[Nunkuruji]

I agree in most cases, however, in practice occasionally a Swordsage may need to recover a particular maneuver that punches through an enemies defense in one way or another.

For example, fighting a brute with high DR. The swordsage may be able to engage and use Mountain Hammer to ignore DR, but standing in the fight and using other readied maneuvers won't be effective against the DR, and may simply be too risky to stand up there. So the Swordsage maneuvers out, recovers, and then re-engages with Mountain Hammer again.

[Unbeliever]

Look who is busy with new threads yet again...

+1

To answer the question, it's also a huge reward for a single feat.  It may rarely come up, but for one feat you get to mitigate the biggest drawback of your class, and sometimes get to nova twice in a combat when you wouldn't be able to. 

[phaedrusxy]

I've never bothered to take it, and have played several swordsages. So yeah, I agree. Sure, there were occasionally times when I wished I could have traded out my readied maneuvers, but not enough of them to make me willing to burn a feat slot on it. I'd rather take something that I expect to use every combat, not occasionally.

[Jackinthegreen]

It's nice to be able to use something in every combat, but sometimes you have feats that don't apply to every combat because the ones it does apply to are likely to be the most challenging.

[StreamOfTheSky]

When I play a swordsage, I tend to use a strike and either a buff or a counter every round.  Swordsage starts with a whopping 4 maneuvers readied, so that obviously presents a problem....

And IME combats last 2-6 rounds most of the time, usually 3-5, so spending a round on recovering maneuvers, while not always a good idea (the combats where you've run out and things are nearly over) is often worth it.

Also, my friends and I, as DMs, tend to frequently have fights that occur in "waves", where the entire enemy force isn't present from the beginning.  This helps stretch out a fight and prevents a nova caster from locking down / save or sucking every foe at the start of the fight.  Among other things, like making a barbarian player consider whether he should immediately drop into rage or wait a bit to get a feel for how long the combat will be (even if you can cure fatigue, you're still not raging again that encounter).  In one of the most extreme cases, a DM a few months ago decided to rule that our party's rushing through an enemy mega fortress, slaying foes as we went, would count as a single "encounter", because we had at most 1 or 2 rounds without fighting for the whole length of it.  That "encounter" lasted 36 rounds before we teleported out, my poor Dervish with her presumably lengthy 10 round dance spent the latter 2/3 of the fight unable to dance again. 

If you have a DM who likes to do things like that, the staying power of Adaptive Style is a must.

Also, at higher levels as a swordsage, you WILL have such a giant amount of maneuvers known that you can afford to get some situationally useful ones, and the feat then lets you access them in just 1 round.  So at lower levels, you need it to not run out of mojo, at higher levels, it's great for utility/versatility.

[phaedrusxy]

You know... now that I think about it, I have never played a single-classed swordsage, or even a character whose main schtick was "being a swordsage". I usually dip swordsage on a character that has other things, and I usually just pick up a few maneuvers that augment whatever else it is that the character does, or provide some extra defenses (the saving throw counters). So I guess for what I'm using it for, Adaptive Style isn't really all that necessary, but I could see how it would be if your main thing was using the maneuvers.

[xaotiq1]

I ended up changing the Swordsage recovery mechanic to "Full-Round Action=All Maneuvers recovered". It just felt more right to me.

[SorO_Lost]

You know, Adaptive Style is either a shining example of "Feat tax", or a prime example of what Feats should do.

[Halinn]

You know, Adaptive Style is either a shining example of "Feat tax", or a prime example of what Feats should do.

Natural spell remains the best example of feat tax, with the only question being whether or not Leadership at 6th is better.