Community

May 29, 2012 -- 4:44PM, Christopher_Dy wrote:

I want to know how The arcane Swordsage variant really works

It's a variant that was never explicitly spelled out, so you'll have to work with your DM. Let me try to give you the answers as best as I understand them.

Just so everyone's on the same page, here is all of the relevant text relating to this variant.

If you prefer, you could instead emphasize the magical talents of the swordsage by giving the swordsage the ability to learn arcane spells in place of maneuvers of equivalent level. In general, spells from the schools of abjuration, evocation, and transmutation are most appropriate for a swordsage of this type, especially spells with a range of personal or touch. The arcane spell is “cast” as if it were a martial maneuver. In this case, you should remove the class’s light armor proficiency and reduce the swordsage’s Hit Die to d6.

1º He can chose manuvers AND spells, or just spells INSTEAD of manuvers?

 
It appears to be "AND", but the sentence can be interpreted as "OR" instead. Note that spells and maneuvers are most certainly NOT balanced with each other. The most hilarious example of this I can think of (since the names, theme, and level are all equal) would involve comparing the 8th level Earthstrike Quake to the 8th level Earthquake. (Yes, Earthquake is an arcane spell; the Wu Jen list is amazing for this sort of thing.)

The main reason why I think it's easiest to treat it as an "And" is because you can't readily replace stances with spells, and arcane swordsages still learn stances, which are clearly and explicitly counted as maneuvers.

2º He need a WIS score to cast spells from highers lvls just like all other spellcasting classes?

Since he's using them as maneuvers, and maneuvers don't have a required ability score, no. In fact, even if he were "casting" them, there's no reason to assume he'd use Wisdom as the linked stat, particularly because there's no Wisdom-based arcane casters that I know of. (Honestly, we can't even see what stat he'd use for the DC. Wisdom seems to be used for most supernatural maneuvers, but the limited errata we have on the ToB (which for some reason switches to errata on Complete Mage midway through) makes it clear that schools, not maneuver type, sets the DC stat. Meanwhile, most arcane casters use Intelligence or Charisma for their spells: if you learn a spell off the Duskblade list, is its DC set by Int, or is it Wis, or even Cha (if it also appears as a sorcerer spell)? We just don't know.)

3º Does he get arcane spell failure chance from armor and shields? (i don't think so, considering the spell it's cast as a manuvers)

Again, he's using them as maneuvers, which don't suffer from ASF. However, the variant isn't proficient in armor either.

4º What schools can he pick spells, it's just abjurantion, evocation and transmutation, or that it's just a tip?

That's just a tip, but I imagine any DM using this variant would enforce it - or other restrictions, depending on the game.

5º How does his other class abilities will work, the one's that depend on manuvers schools?

Technically the spells have no school, so none of his class features will intersect with them. 

6º If the spell its cast as a manuvers, can he cast while Raging? On the FAQ it's sayed that u can use manuvers that do not require a concentration check while raging

This is one of the haziest areas of the variant - spells require concentration, while maneuvers generally don't "unless the specific maneuver calls for it", and the spells generally do. 

Not that it matters; rage will not improve anything related to using the spell-maneuvers, so there's no reason to ever consider barbarian as a multiclass. It'll only matter if you grab a ragelike spell or have a similar ability from another source (i.e. you're a shifter).

7º Can he use metamagic feat on his spells?

Probably not since he isn't casting the spells, he's initiating them as maneuvers.

8º Can he Get Prestige classes that require "ability to cast spells", like Abjurant champion?

Again, he's not a spellcaster of any sort and isn't actually casting the spell, so no.

9º Does he actually have a spell list, like "swordsage spell list" ?

It doesn't look like it at all. In fact, the variant doesn't even appear to add the spells to the list of maneuvers he could learn (so an arcane swordsage can't use a martial PrC to continue to learn spells - that remains a function of the swordsage base class alone.)

10º Can he get feats like Arcane disciple from complete divine ?

Again, you're not a caster, so I don't see how he could. Anything that interacts with casting simply doesn't interact with spells-as-maneuvers. You're not chanting "Klatu Verata Nikto", twisting yourself into a yoga pretzel, and juggling bat poop; you're basically doing the same thing Desert Wind or Shadow Hand adepts do when they use supernatural maneuvers, just with a different result. (There's a fluff description of this on page 47.)

11º I think archvist can quicken spell he prepare from the paladin list with the battle blessing feat, if a swordsage prepare a spell that's in the paladin spell list on his swordsage slots , can he benefit from(or even get) that feat ?

Since he can only learn arcane spells, even if the spell appears on the paladin list he wouldn't be casting it as a paladin, and even if he were, he wouldn't be casting it at all, so no, Battle Blessing would do nothing for him. (Honestly the only reason the archivist trick seems to work at all is because he's actually learning spells from the paladin list instead of transferring those spells to a different list.)




Basically, any form of caster cheese becomes very hard to do with this variant (because you aren't casting spells at all), but the raw power of the spells themselves and the vast power gap between the martial adepts (typically Tier 3) and those with access to 9th level arcane spells (generally Tier One) produces a far stronger character than you'd think. 

I've only wanted to use the variant in one case. My group occasionally posts build challenges to each other (which is often the source of builds that will appear on my weekly showcase), and one of those challenges was to replicate the element-benders from Avatar: The Legend of Aang. The easiest way to do this was to use the arcane swordsage based around the Wu Jen list (already has three of the four elements explicitly on it, along with metal, which shows up in the sequel series), adding in an extra restriction that the choices made had to be restricted to spells that fit the theme of whichever element you were trying to replicate. (I used the loose "theme" guide because there's no [Air] descriptor or Wu Jen element, for instance, and some spells without an element, like Jump or Mountain Stance, perfectly fit into one of the elements.) Interestingly enough, once most of the spell choices were made, the different builds still tended to converge around the restrictions above - most of the spells were evocation or transmutation, and most of them were personal or touch (there were plenty of exceptions, but most of the exceptions still "originated" in some way on the caster - ray spells or AoEs centered on them, for instance), even though I wasn't trying for that. The final results (which exist for all four elements but aren't well-developed enough to present here) suggest that with this restriction, the arcane swordsage approximately works out to a lower-end Tier Two class. If you treat it as such, your expectations should match up to what it can deliver.