Or it could be that as a T3 class the Swordsage would be expected to be a significant contributor in more types of situations, including ones where undead minions are less appropriate. Since, you know, Tiers aren't about solo play in the first place, but rather your ability to deal with common situations in D&D.
Strangely, if tiers aren't about solo play, you have so far been remarkably relaxed when I mentioned the problems a group has with a necromantic adept
I commented on all your objections, which were silly.
- with carnexes debuffing the party (in debatable frequency; both each have 60ft diameter effect),
This is roughly like saying Glitterdust is a bad spell because it will hit your party. Quite simply, you either position people correctly, or better yet just make the entire party immune (Necropolitan is easiest, especially with a Necromancer already in the party).
- zombies with single actions slowing down the party,
By level 12, you teleport places anyway, so who cares? Nor does movement speed matter much out of combat, and in combat the party isn't slowed down.
- non-intelligent undead without skills preventing any stealth of the group
When you really need stealth, you can either leave them behind or make use of extradimensional space. Heck, if flight will get you past whatever you wanted to sneak by, the flying dragon actually makes that easier.
- huge zombies preventing the group form entering/moving around many (humanoid-sized) adventuring areas - or having to be left behind
There's a Shrink Collar you can buy in A&EG to handle this if it comes up significantly. Makes any creature small. Note this also fixes your stealth questions, since you can now fit everything in extradimensional space.
- undead minions preventing the group from settings like city adventures - or having to be left behind.
See: Collar + Extradimensional space if this is a major issue. If it's not (cause your major fights are all while out adventuring) don't worry about it.
But let us now see what your swordsage ideas (unfortunately not yet a detailed build) can do to surpass the adept's might...
Probably multi-class builds for class comparisons make no sense... but the barbarian is not necessary I guess, since you can get the pouncing charge strike. Still, I am not quite sure whether you can get two full round attacks in a single round with just the pounce effect and battle jump/sudden jump. Usually, you cannot move after a charge - and the sudden jump is a move. (If you could, the monk would also be able to get it, btw! )
Sudden Leap lets you jump as a swift action. More importantly, you have to jump really high to make it work... the stance makes this work, because of the +10ft bonus to jump distance. Just jump up. Monk can't.
At least, the swordsage is similar to the adept in that he'll not be able to detect the hiding dragon before combat starts (no spot as class skill, odd as it may seem for the swordsage).
Hunter's Stance would let him roughly know where the dragon is, which is better than your Monk. And it's pretty much the only first level stance I'd ever take.
Unfortunately for the swordsage, though, for charging you need to be able to see the opponent - so at the beginning of combat that may not be possible.
You need to look at the maneuvers more. They let you do things like teleport next to the opponent, or jump before charging, making the Swordsage far better at charging that a Monk.
The attack bonus in that charge for a 25pt buy swordsage may also be an issue - and with a tanked AC after the charge there may be a problem in case the dragon can still counterattack fully with full PA of its own.
Lucky the Swordsage can make touch attacks then, eh?
Also, I miscalculated the damage. It's much higher. Power Attack alone with Leap Attack gives +36 damage with a two hander at BAB 9, and then the damage is tripled by Valorous + Battle Jump to +108 per attack. Even just Pouncing Charge + Sudden Leap gives three charging attacks, no multiclassing necessary. With multiclassing you'd have Whirling Frenzy and you'd be pouncing on both charges, so that's actually 6 attacks. Instant kill.
Well, shadow jaunt is kind of meh. You need line of effect AND sight and can "teleport" then 50ft every other round (recovering it with a full round concentration). The swordsage has no way of detecting the traps, so he would just randomly teleport into them and trigger them, anyway. Stone dragon is useful, but in case the unarmed variant swordsage gets the powerful unarmed strike damage progression of the monk, it plays less of a role. Dance of a spider is good, better in most cases than shadow jaunt.
Still, probably the adept with his minions triggering traps and spells like lightning bolt tearing down obstacles is ahead here.
Shadow Jaunting still skips 11/12ths of the spaces you'd otherwise be in, making it VERY unlikely to hit any given trap. And he has a chance of not alerting anyone, which the Monk (and Adept) lacks.
Good idea, but probably the hide skill of the swordsage getting so close to the dragon will not be high enough (+24 spot). Then, combat reflexes and AoO kick in and will likely ruin any kind of attack. And I guess that the swordsage might need more than 40ft speed to avoid the dragon's counterattack that might pinpoint him with listen checks as well.
There's no counter attack due to the dragon being flat footed and not ever seeing the Swordsage. Also, as a Dark Whispergnome (thanks to the collar) he's got quite a significant hide score.
The number of maneuvers you mention are starting to exceed the 12th level swordsage's repertoire of readied maneuvers (or even known?). Maybe you could post a 12th level build? Note though, that the adept has better fire spells that also work at a range.
So far I do not see the swordsage doing better than the many great powers that you and others attributed to the adept in the adept vs monk thread. But I'll wait and see.
I'm just throwing out options. A fire swordsage, a stealth/ninja swordsage, and a charger swordsage. You could combine two of those if you wanted, but these are just showing some of the basic options.
Whereas a monk with total concealment up all the time and doing 200 dmg before most orcs could even react of course likely will fail more often than a swordsage doing that once per encounter. Hm.
He kills one, alerting everyone, and then arrows rain down and kill him. Game over. The Swordsage, unlike the Monk, is never seen at all, and can thus do this right in front of all the enemies.
Still...anyhow again the adept's chicken wights are way ahead. And as for the slave resistance movement...the adept's domination tactic also has to be surpassed by the swordsage somehow.
No, it really doesn't. That's not how this works.
Yes, that appears to be the impression (you are not alone in it, given the other usual mocking content-free comments). Others that actually read my build and subsequent posts detailing monk class abilities may think ... that the surprise round only got lost the moment the dragon got a perfect blindsense-shaped cave (since then the monk's superior movement skill no longer granted him the ability to charge outside blindsense range of the dragon - darkstalker feat last time I checked can be taken by all classes) ... that the monk had a flying item and also even the step of the wind stance to charge across difficult ground ... that the monk had 60% miss chance vs the dragon unlike other contenders helpless vs a dragon's surprise snatch/grapple attack ... well...
Ah yes, the Monk was alone (hence being easy to take out with a single grapple, unlike the Adept) and you were shocked that a smart dragon might build his house according to his own abilities. Truly shocking.
@Skydragon: Yeah, make sure he doesn't know that! But yes, you need both Move Silently and Hide to be quite significant for this to work. Still, a Dark Whispergnome gets you much of the way there... it's by no means perfect, but he's far from a liability in combat.
JaronK