Heart Seeking Amulet... Too powerful or is it something else?

[Moon-Lancer]

We have been playing in a campaign were the dm randomly rolled up a heart seeking amulet. It lets the user make 3 touch attacks a day ( sort of like wreath strike)

It was my character that received it because he does the most average damage per a hit, and he has power attack.

imho, this item seems a tad strong. The last encounter of saturdays session was a fight with a Stone Giant. Within a round or two the rogue fighter was down to 3 hitpoints, so i knew i needed to step in and give it my all.

I turned on dervish dance, and moved in and with my first attack used the amulet, power attacked for 4 (two handed weapon) average damage 24. This went on for 2-3 rounds were the first attack my character made was using the heart seeking amulet and using power attack. The second round I also hit and rolled a very lucky 19 doing average damage of 24 and then another 24. In two rounds, the hill giant was 3/4ths dead. during this time My character was taking very careful preclusions not to remain within a 5 foot-full attack range.

On the third round My character was hasted, So feeling confident my character went in and power attacked for a full 7 using the heart seeking amulet and hit for an average of 30, but missed with all the other attacks. It was then the the rogue who was still at 3 health, had improved invisibility cast on him, and he moved in with the sneak attack finishing off the giant (although the giant was mostly dead).

somehow through this whole ordeal, my character had not been hit once by this giant, but was attacked once but the dm rolled a 2 or something to that effect.

So i have some questions.

Is a heart seeking amulet broken? Or was it the dervish dance? or a broken combination, Or just good luck/good use of the amulet?

How is a level 8 party supposed to deal with the hill giant that doesn't have a proper wizard? would having a level 8 wizard make any difference?

The party was a

monk2 barbarian2 fighter2 dervish2 (me)
beguiler
rogue3 fighter2 invisblade3
dragon shaman8
some kind of tiny dragon (cohort for a level 8 character from dracanomicon)

As i see it though, two things happened that were luck based that the amulet had no part in.

1 I rolled a 19 on a second attack with a power attack of 4
2 the dm rolled really bad to hit me in return

 

[blargney the second]

I would be hesitant to allow the use of this item and that spell in my game. I'd be more likely to let it fly if it couldn't be used with Power Attack.
-blarg

 

[Rhun]

Three times a day? I don't think it is broken. It is the equivalent of having the feat Deep Impact three times a day, which would be completely okay for a psionic character.

 

[hong]

It is completely broken in the hands of a ToB character, or any character with damage multipliers stacking off the one attack (eg charging Power Attack smite). The same goes for Deep Impact, really.

I change it so it requires a standard action instead of a swift action to activate. That makes it much more reasonable for the price.

 

[Stalker0]

As you commented in your discussion, you often hit with the first attack but missed with the others. You might have actually done more damage if you had hit more often, and that's without needing a magic item. Also one thing the MIC does is add a lot of swift action items. That swift action seems fine now, but if you start getting other items that use swift actions everything will compete with each other. I think its fine because it only affects ONE attack, it isn't wraith strike

 

[hong]

As you commented in your discussion, you often hit with the first attack but missed with the others. You might have actually done more damage if you had hit more often, and that's without needing a magic item. Also one thing the MIC does is add a lot of swift action items. That swift action seems fine now, but if you start getting other items that use swift actions everything will compete with each other. I think its fine because it only affects ONE attack, it isn't wraith strike

With diamond nightmare blade or a charging Power Attack smite, you only need one attack....

 

[pawsplay]

If you ban this, you might as well ban Deep Impact and true strike, too.

 

[hong]

Eh, true strike is perfectly fine. Needing a round to cast it is enough to ensure it won't get spammed.

As for Deep Impact, that's pretty much what I said above.