Can one of the lead designers of D&D please stand up and clarify "Rain of Blows"?

I was sorely disappointed to see no clarification in the recent update/errata.
The battle rages on.
Is Rain of Blows granting
2 attacks, one of them conditional, or
3 attacks, one of them conditional, or
4 attacks, two of them conditional?

My personal opinion is that this power gives the spear and flail fighter a little bonus after suffering from low damage dice, no high crit and brutal weapons, and many limitations on feats, powers, and items.

But really, we need a lead designer like Mike Mearls stepping up and explain this to us. Customer service published contradicting answers, and nobody trusts them anyway.

Thanks!

I'm at a loss to the confusion.

The attack line: Str vs. AC, two attacks.

Make two attacks.

If you're wielding a spear or light blade, make a secondary attack.

Secondary attack line: Str vs. AC.

Make a third attack.

The initial attack line is for the power, by itself. The secondary attack line is for the conditional. The secondary attack is not identical to the initial power, it is detailed separately. I don't think this needs errata. It's written pretty clearly.

The way I have always read it was as follows.

You get two attacks.

Each one of those attacks has the conditional Weapon: If you’re wielding a light blade, a spear, or a flail and have Dexterity 15 or higher, make a secondary attack.

If you hit with 1 or your initial attacks you make a follow up attack, if you hit with both you make two follow up attacks as you met the condition for each of the attacks it gave you.

My initial reaction is to say I'm at a loss to see the confusion just as hafrogman did and yet my answer is entirely different.

There is so much debate over this power I think clarification would go a long way.

Written clearly? Ha. There are four different interpretations of this power floating around. Each of those interpretations have valid arguments. Whats clear to you is not clear to everyone else.

Orcus, I Unfortunitaly don't think any of the devs are going to clarify this. The best we can hope for is that will tackle this power in the March update.

I can see how there may be confusion between the 3 attack and 4 attack crowd... here is my take: Powers are laid out in a certain way throughout the book: indented secondary attack entries under a "Hit" entry are conditional upon the hit.

If a power says "two attacks," under the "attack" heading, this seems to mean that the body of the attack portion (any hit and miss lines, along with their indented subparts) take place twice.

Consider the following:
Interpretation 1 (2 attacks possible: 1 primary and 1 secondary):
If the power were redone to NOT have "two attacks," listed in the Attack line, wouldn't this be the outcome (ie: are people who argue for this interpretation saying that unlike many other powers with secondary attacks, the writers decided to add "two attacks" to the attack line?) I have not seen arguments for this case (and don't have time to go searching right now, but if someone has a link to one, I'll read it). BUT, any such argument, to have merit to me, would need to address the fact that the "two attacks" heading is superfluous (ie: they would need to explain why its there, even though it seemingly doesn't do anything...)

Interpretation 2: 3 total attacks
I can see how some might interpret it this way. The book doesn't clearly lay out what the "two attacks" line means under the "attacks" section. I believe their argument would be that the primary attacks are repeated, but that the secondary attack is just once, and only needs one primary to hit.

I do not like this argument... it seems to disregard how secondary attacks work--whenever you hit with the primary, you get the secondary.

If the intention was 2 main attacks with 1 conditional, there should have been an unindented Effect line with "If at least one of the main attacks hit, make a secondary attack"

I guess I see the indented subportions as inextricably tied to the main portion of an attack (but then again, I'm a programmer, so I tend to think of it like a function call with a conditional subfunction call). If you do the primary portion twice, the secondary portion should come along with each of them, not be tied in to at least one of them hitting in some sort of weird way that isn't laid out in the rules...

3rd interpretation: 4 attacks
This is the one I agree with (but I think it is overpowered)
Two attacks means to do the body of the attack twice. The body of the attack includes a primary and conditional secondary attack.

uh uh uh, welcome to thread #236 discussing Rain of Blows.
I know that Mike Mearls is frequenting this forum, and others do too. Please give us a definitive answer. For me this is one of the most annoying rule problems, popping up all the time.

I reckon the power as written is 4 attacks max, though it probably shouldn't be.
However, as far as balance is concerned, sweeping blow gives it a run for its money.
Potentially higher # of attacks, higher hitroll, higher damroll (due to weapon type).

Sure, it's more difficult to get the most out of, tactically.
Sure, you can't lay the massive beatdown on a single target.
But by the numbers, damage output for rain of blows ought to be lower.

Unless you have a *gasp* tempest fighter with a double sword.

has anyone calculated what the average damage of rain of blows at the level it can be used?

If no interpretation is clear then the best idea is to find out the average damage compared to the other ablities at its level and use that.

Danceofmasks said:

sweeping blow gives it a run for its money.
Potentially higher # of attacks, higher hitroll, higher damroll (due to weapon type).

Click to expand...

Ah sweeping blow. My old character used a hammer (aka no bonus to the power) and I STILL used that power

Yes.
It's been done in multiple places, but the assumptions behind those number experiments can be dodgy.

Big picture has to be considered, since just by using one of those weapon types, the rest of your powers would be a little weaker (compared to, say, hammer or heavy blade).

What's more, a lot of builds (guardian fighters in particular) happily take 20 str, which means (at least in LFR) Minotaurs, Orcs, and Warforged can be awesome with axes and hammers .. but those str/dex builds can't make full use of rain of blows till lv 8 or 11 (as str 20/dex 14 is not recommended).

Suffice to say, though .. that for raw damage, rain of blows and sweeping blow both far outstrip any other lv 3 option, including all options from martial power.
For that matter, it does far more potential damage than most low level dailies .. which I guess is a fair complaint .. and it scales into being one of the most damaging powers in epic tier .. which is also a fair complaint.
However, the tactical versatility of the powers from martial power makes them valid choices .. so it's far from a no-brainer.

In particular, I like these ..

Parry and Riposte:
Can be used as a reaction as your foe misses you (or if they miss an ally, but CC's interrupt is better), so it's good for action economy. CA is nice if the party initiative-stacks (so you act right before the enemy) and/or the enemy is backed into a corner.

Probing attack:
Targets Reflex, which is nice. If you intend to AP this round or next, or if your party likes to provoke OAs so you get extra swings, that power bonus is really nice to have.
Can be used as an OA, but I'm not sure that's so great .. though if the fighter in question has a high wis, the almost-certainty of landing this hit means you'll get the power bonus to land a daily.

Rhino strike:
Fantastic for shield users .. leave a tiny gap in your line, and the fighter charges right through at the enemy boss without provoking OAs.
Potentially a board clearing power in combination with level 7's come and get it.

Just sayin' ... if Fighters were strikers, rain of blows would be worship-worthy, but they're not.