Whirlwind and Cleave?

[IceBear]

Yes, rats are pretty useless against a 12th level fighter, but the reason I use vampires and rats is because this REALLY is the only logical scenario where this comes up - a wizard and 7 blind kobolds surrounding a fighter will probably never happen so the argument is moot - ask anyone if this has ever actually HAPPENED in a game.

Anyway, as I said, there are rats there with the vampire (Just because I as the DM know that rats will not make much of a difference against a 12th level fighter doesn't mean I'm going to metagame that rats said fighter will never encounter rats again, but that's a different argument). You argue that that it's only fair that the fighter should get 7 attacks against the vampire for using up all those feats. I think it's too cheesy for words and I would then HAVE to metagame away all weak creatures or else all the powerful monsters would die too easy.

However, if, somehow, there were 7 orcs surrounding the same fighter and a powerful evil knight in front of him, I don't see the fighter using his feats to kill all 7 orcs (who could grapple him to the ground if they got the chance) and getting two hits against the evil fighter at full BAB as the fighter not getting full use out of his 8 feats. Compared to the normal fighter who only got to attack three times and at best was left with the evil fighter and 4 orcs left standing after his action.

YMMV, and it obviously does, but I don't think the fighter is getting too screwed. He can still wade through ranks of goblins and kobolds he just can't use the fact that there ARE goblins and kobolds around to suddenly get 7 extra attacks against a well trained opponent when he wouldn't have gotten those 7 extra attacks if there weren't any goblins and kobolds around.

[Edit] Yes I can see merit in your analysis of WWA+GC vs just GC. Again, neither I (and here's the important part) nor my PLAYERS feel that you should suffer just because there are weaker creatures around. That's the bottom line in our opinion. We also see WWA as being used mainly when you are surrounded by several fairly tough monsters and you'd rather trying to damage all of them using you highest BAB rather than taking your iterative attacks. Against blind kobolds, just make a normal attack and let GC take care of the rest for you.

Again, the case where a 12th level fighter is surround by 7 weak opponents and 1 strong has NEVER come up as far as I can remember. The vampire situation is the only plausible one I can think of and as you said it's not really something an intelligent vampire would do anyway. So, for the most part, this will never come up. If it does, I'm in favor of ruling for the defensive.

IceBear

 

[hong]

Useless? Not strictly. Worthwhile, hardly.

As to your concerns about the vampire. The reason why it is easier to defeat when it is using rats (Rats against a 12th level fighter?) as mooks, is that the Fighter has spent eight feats to learn how to deal with this situation.

This is a stupid reason to justify something that strains most people's sense of disbelief.

If you think of the synergy between WWA/Great Cleave as a virtual feat, one is hard pressed to think of another feat that has 8 feat and 3 ability score prerequisites. One extra attack is sort of like leaving a penny tip.

(snip)

1) 9 attacks on 9 targets is not the same as 9 attacks on one target.

2) You've overlooked the fact that WWA functions whether or not you drop everyone, whereas GC requires that you drop each target before going on to the next.

3) Fireball is a useful wizard spell against hordes of mooks, but it isn't so useful against one strong guy. The same applies here.

4) In the final analysis, nobody is forced to take both GC and WWA.

 

[Henry]

Just to forestall a possible follow up question - yes, whirlwind and great cleave is subject to abuse:

Case 1 - you are surrounded by a demon and seven of his kobold buddies. You whirlwind attack, drop the first kobold, cleave onto the demon, attack and drop the second kobold, cleave onto the demon, attack and drop the third kobold, cleave onto the demon... etc. Finally you take your ordinary whirlwind attack against the demon. That makes eight full-attack-bonus attacks on the demon in one round. Wow

Yes, this is what my group calls, "Get away from the ****er ****er with the big weapon who looks like he knows what he's doing."

A mid-or high-level fighter can really clean up a battlefield if he gets into melee. Bow-users and finesse-users can be deadly too, but nothing quite matches the hand-to-hand fighter with both the Whirlwind and Great Cleave chains.

Except a mage with an instakill spell with a 15 foot radius.

Now, the fun part of this is to take such a fighter and give him a keen vorpal weapon. It certainly reduces the hit-dice barrier for performing such a trick on multiple high-level melee enemies, such as some of the Demons and Devils.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Ok I did a little more thinking on this.

Cleave and great cleave give you extra attacks when you drop a foe. Pretty simple. Those extra attacks have to be made on foes as close as possible to the foe you just dropped. So if you kill rat #1 you get a cleave attack on either the rat to his right or left. It is completely illogical to let the figher to use the cleave to hit a foe completely on the other side of him since the cleave idea is you just continue the swing into another foe.

Now of course if the only foe available is on the other side of you then that is a different story. You would attack him as the only option.

 

[Ywain]

IceBear,

Your houserules are your business, of course. I just want to make it crystal clear that there are no balance issues at play. The fighter will not become too powerful if you allow the combination. In fact, I think that the fighter was intended to capitalize on the synergies between multiple feat chains (after all they are the only ones who can do this) and reducing the power of these synergies reduces the power of the fighter class in the same way as changing the flatfooted rules reduces the power of the rogue. With your system I would drop some of the prerequisites of WWA so that it is more in line with Great Cleave (which you can get sooner and is more powerful at high levels by your houserules).

Personally, I think that you and your group are approaching the situation from the wrong angle. You see 7 extra attacks by adding great cleave to whirlwind attack. I see 3 extra attacks by adding whirlwind attack to great cleave. And I don't have a problem with synergy bonuses to skills, so I don't have a problem with synergy tactics with feats. You spend 8 feats on a tactic, you are going to be very, very good at it.

Hong,

"This is a stupid reason to justify something that strains most people's sense of disbelief."

So, lesse, I'm being stupid and you are speaking for most people. Why in tarnation didn't you pipe up sooner?


"1) 9 attacks on 9 targets is not the same as 9 attacks on one target."

There's no way you can get 9 attacks on 9 targets with either WWA or Great Cleave or the combination of the two (well, Spiked Chain is the exception, but there's an extra feat involved). You can only have 8 targets around you at any given time, and WWA only works on opponents 5' away. You are misrepresenting my argument with fabricated numbers.

Actually, if you read the entire post you'll see that with either system there are multiple attacks on the leader. The nerfed system gives full iterative attacks and the core system gives cleave attacks. The difference between the systems works out to one or two attacks in a best case scenario. But I reiterate, both systems allow multiple attacks on the leader, IceBear's system just usually allows more in a simple great cleave than a WWA/GC combo.

"2) You've overlooked the fact that WWA functions whether or not you drop everyone, whereas GC requires that you drop each target before going on to the next. "

Not overlooked at all, just set aside in favor of the extreme circumstances that seems to make everyone nervous. In the vast majority of circumstances the Fighter will only see one or possible two great cleave attacks in any given round that he uses WWA. (Which, to me, means that mostly the arguments against are scaremongering) But not always.

At higher levels, it is usually most beneficial to concentrate on one opponent at a time to try to reduce the amount of damage you are taking. After all it will take 2 or 3 rounds to finish off any one of the foes surrounding you. A smart player with 8 feats can get a small advantage by mixing up his tactics. Start with a full iterative attack for a round or two, then when you think the first opponent is close to dropping you power attack for +2 or +4 while you WWA (all at highest attack bonus so you get more bang for your Power Attack) and hopefully drop the first opponent. This allows a cleave on the next opponent (power attack is still in force). You probably switch back to iterative attacks for a round on the second opponent, then back to WWA to finish him off (cleaving into an opponent who has been WWA'd twice already). Now, depending on how many HP you think the 3rd opponent has you have to decide between WWA or Iterative attacks but at some point you just switch to WWA and the last 3 or 4 opponents will be wiped out in a round or two as the accumulated damage allows multiple great cleaves. The great cleave in the last round probably shaves two rounds off the length of a long, tough combat.

Typical situations are far less dramatic than artificial blind kobold/bucket of snails hysteria-fests.


"3) Fireball is a useful wizard spell against hordes of mooks, but it isn't so useful against one strong guy. The same applies here. "

Sure. Exactly. You spend 8 feats to be able to achieve this combination and it is not applicable in the least to a large number of encounters. If a fighter has foregone Focus and Specialization in order to get this combo 3 or 4 levels early it definitely isn't a powergaming choice. If you nerf it even more than the core rules it becomes in many ways weaker than just taking Great Cleave, if for no other reason than you can take the extra feats and apply them to something useful at level 16+.

"4) In the final analysis, nobody is forced to take both GC and WWA."

I agree. Who could argue with this. I do believe though that if it is a core option (and a feature of the fighter class) then it should be worth the trouble to those who want it. The cost should reflect the benefit. I think that the benefit is appropriate.

 

[Vanye]

So that's 8 feats, 3 stats of 13 above and you can't be wearing medium or heavy armor. I can live with a fighter getting to deal

I thought I'd point out there that there is nothing in the description of Whirlwind Attack that states that you have to be in light armor to use the feat. Spring attack, yes, but not Whirlwind Attack.

 

[Ywain]

My understanding is that if you are unable to use a feat then you are unable to use any feats that take it as a prerequisite. So if you put on heavy armor you cannot spring attack, so you cannot WWA.

I could be mistaken, though. To be honest it hasn't come up in a game yet so I haven't had to confirm it.

 

[The Sigil]

Thought...

W/o quoting anything specific, let me throw a couple of thoughts out there...

1.) It seems reasonable to me to limit the Cleave to an opponent adjacent to the dropped one. That still gives a possible 4 attacks on the big bad guy (two flanking bad guy and diagonal from WWA guy, and two flanking WWA and diagonal from bad guy) with GC, but not 7. I wouldn't do it, though it seems a reasonable house rule.

2.) Why penalize the guy for bringing help? Short answer: "good help is hard to find these days" or "why am I constantly surrounded by morons?" The mooks interfere with the fighting style of the big bad boss, while the fighter with 8 Feats to get GC/WWA is quite comfortable fighting in a crowd. The rats are getting underfoot of the vampire too. His focus is not on the fighter while the fighter spins to his left and thumps a rat. I can come up with a lot of reasons why it's feasible that attacking with (incompetent) help is a worse idea than attacking alone.

3.) What happens if you get "army of mooks" surrounding TWO big bad guys with the WWA/GC combo. Now it gets ugly... these two will slice each other to ribbons quick and the mooks will be so much bloody mess. The villain can even use the Cassanova Frankenstein (Mystery Men) line... "I kill my own men, I don't care."

4.) A ftr w/GC and WWA should keep a sorcerer around w/summon monster II, III, or IV (use to summon lots of mooks around the fighter) if you allow the GC/WWA combo (which I do).

--The Sigil

 

[James McMurray]

Of course you can get 9 attacks with great cleave, you just have to use the last one on yourself.

 

[IceBear]

Re: Thought...

W/o quoting anything specific, let me throw a couple of thoughts out there...

1.) It seems reasonable to me to limit the Cleave to an opponent adjacent to the dropped one. That still gives a possible 4 attacks on the big bad guy (two flanking bad guy and diagonal from WWA guy, and two flanking WWA and diagonal from bad guy) with GC, but not 7. I wouldn't do it, though it seems a reasonable house rule.

2.) Why penalize the guy for bringing help? Short answer: "good help is hard to find these days" or "why am I constantly surrounded by morons?" The mooks interfere with the fighting style of the big bad boss, while the fighter with 8 Feats to get GC/WWA is quite comfortable fighting in a crowd. The rats are getting underfoot of the vampire too. His focus is not on the fighter while the fighter spins to his left and thumps a rat. I can come up with a lot of reasons why it's feasible that attacking with (incompetent) help is a worse idea than attacking alone.

3.) What happens if you get "army of mooks" surrounding TWO big bad guys with the WWA/GC combo. Now it gets ugly... these two will slice each other to ribbons quick and the mooks will be so much bloody mess. The villain can even use the Cassanova Frankenstein (Mystery Men) line... "I kill my own men, I don't care."

4.) A ftr w/GC and WWA should keep a sorcerer around w/summon monster II, III, or IV (use to summon lots of mooks around the fighter) if you allow the GC/WWA combo (which I do).

--The Sigil

1) I once thought of that, but that seemed too restrictive to cleave, making it next to useless (although it is sorta hinted at in the text of the feat).

2) I get that back everytime. The thing is, if the mooks are interfering with the big bad boss' fighting style that bad that he suffers 7 additional attacks, shouldn't he also suffer some sort of penalty even if the fighter doesn't have WWA and GC? If the big bad boss stood directly in front of the fighter and was totally defensive and there were three mooks behind the fighter I can hardly see how these three mooks interfer with the big bad boss to the point that he suffers an additional three attacks.

3 & 4) Exactly the reason I have this rule - although I would never allow a player to metagame this way.

Basically, as I think we all agree, the situation where a fighter with WWA +GC is surrounded by a horde of mooks and a big bad boss is a rare thing. So rare, that this whole debate is kinda pointless. If it came up in your game you would allow it while I would not. The other 99% of the time our fighters are identical, and the fighters in my campaign have not complained.

I dunno, when I think of WWA I imagine those old Conan comics where he whirls around with his battleaxe chopping everyone in half. I just don't see enough control and time to get full BAB attacking a mook, then turning and wacking the BBB, turning back and hitting another mook, then reversing and hitting the BBB again, etc.

Yes, I know that you could WWA with a piercing weapon like a rapier, but even then I see it as more of a thrust in one direction and then following through. But that's just me and my group.

We don't like the cheesiness of this tactic despite all the feats the fighter spent. That fighter is still getting lots of benefits from those feats whenever he is fighting mutliple foes - he's not being shafted.

IceBear