Swordsage/Scout Help

[SleepyShadow]

Hey there, I am trying to put together a swordsage/scout and I would like some help doing so. It seems like a cool and effective thing to do, since most maneuvers are only standard actions, making it easy to trigger skirmish. I imagine a highly mobile character with an emphasis on Desert Wind and Shadow Hand schools.

All books except for Unearthed Arcana are allowed, and if it helps at all the character is going to be used in The Red Hand of Doom.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[Rebel7284]

Sudden Leap and X Mongoose Maneuvers are nice.  Improved skirmish seems good too. 

[Vorpal_Bunny]

There are a couple of issues:

--There's no Martial Initiator prc that advances maneuvers as well as Skirmish/Sneak attack, so in order to get past the maximum  of 4d6 that taking 5 levels of Scout and the Improved Skirmish Feat, you have to take EVEN MORE Scout, which further hurts your Maneuvers known/readied, Initiator Level, etc.

--Your BAB (which you will use for a few Maneuvers at least) will be severely hampered by taking levels in two different 3/4 BAB classes (unless you use fractional accounting)

Considering that Red Hand of Doom is designed for something like levels 5-12, if you DO try to maximize your Skirmish dice, you're only ending up with a handful of Swordsage levels.

My suggestion would be to ask your DM if you can use the Sublime Way Variant Ranger (below), and go with a melee Swift Hunter build (something like Scout 3, Sublime Way Ranger 6+).

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19519074

I hope that helps, there are probably other ideas, but this is what struck me first.

VB

[SleepyShadow]

What about something like Scout 4/Swordsage 3/Ranger 13? I would space out the swordsage levels to pick up higher level maneuvers, and I would grab Swift Hunter so I could have good skirmish damage and BAB.

Any suggestions?

[Jackinthegreen]

You still won't have all that many maneuvers though, but at least there's some Wis synergy with a ranger's spells and SS's features.

If you were going Mystic Ranger it'd probably be worth it.  Not totally sure about a regular ranger though.

[SleepyShadow]

That's a good point. This idea is proving to be harder than I thought to implement lol.

[Rebel7284]

Halfling Monk 1/Scout 3 qualifies for improved skirmish a level earlier.

Sneak attack is probably easier to optimize.

The most powerful build here probably would go something like Monk 1/Scout 3/Swordsage 1/Ur Priest 2/Ruby Knight Vindicator 7/X6