Hey Treebore, good to see you in the thread.
I will try and approach this from a different angle. Lets assume you are correct, and the intent was "bonuses or extra attacks, from feats or abiities" NOw lets see what happens.
Treebore said:
Besides, I ruled it only applied to bonus' given by feats, not spells.
Interesting. But if 'bonuses' and 'extra attacks' are separate, they should be treated the same. And it clearly states that extra attacks from spells do not apply, so shouldn't it also mean that bonuses from spells do not apply?
Tell you what, if you think it isn't over powered and useful, ask your respective DM's to hit your group with NPC's wielding range weapons, inside of a keep, where movement/space is limited. Give them the feats leading up to whirlwind, boost them up with prayer, bull strength, etc..., throw in the feats with bonus' for good measure.
But that seems like a pretty stacked scenario.
Apparently, I have different experiences than you. Whirlwind deals out a lot more damage than Great Cleave, or Cleave.
It can, but at 9th level, you get two attacks, if you drop someone you get a third attack. Which means you need to be surronded by 4 people before Whirlwind is better. And that seems to happen less often that fighting 2 or 3 people. (granted, with one it doesn't matter.) And those times you *are* surronded by that many, they are usually much lower level, and you are more likely to get off a string of cleaves.
See, when your playing 9th level characters you are fighting NPC's with 30+ HP's. No one normally does that kind of damage with any one hit, unless they crit multiple times in a row.
Yet your example below has the fighter WW for 25+, and you say a single attack for 38 (and it should be higher...)
Now throw in bonuses from prayer (average 20 Damage), how about bard song (average 22 Damage)?
Actually, it would be 24 damage. (9+7+5+1+2) But this is allowing spell affects.
Now throw in bonus' from feats (average of 25+ with Specialization/power attack damage).
He is already doing 24 pts, and you are worried about the extra few from feats? (Remember, power attack isn't a straight + to damage, since it lowers your to hit). The big pain here isn't the whirlwind, it is the 2d6 bane weapons.
But here is the kicker. You are saying all bonuses from feats and abilities. If that is what they meant, than it means all feats. And it *doesn't* say just damage. So forget about weapon focus, or blind fighting, and best of all, 'proficiency' is a feat. So they get the -4 if they don't get the bonus from that feat. (or from the class ability)
So, if you want to read it like that, you also have to ignore all spells that give bonuses, and *all* feats that give *any* bonus. Seems like a lot for an assumed grammar error.
So for giving up his iterative attack he gets to do anywhere (on average) of 19 to 25+ points of damage, at least once, to every NPC that is within 10' of his character when he attacks. In comparison he would get to do 38 damage to only one creature by not doing his Whirlwind.
That would be "38-50+" to one creature. And yes, Spike chain/whirlwind is a powerful combo, I think it is more of a spike chain problem though.
the Great Cleaver actually gets to great cleave because she also has a Goblyn Bane weapon and has a high strength and is power attacking with +5.
So looks like Great CLeave did more damage than Whirlwind.
I don't have a problem with your ruling, but it seems like you are not being consistent with your presumptions.
Have fun.
(sorry for nicknaming your nickname, couldn't help it...)
