Hey Nightfall - Spinning blow feat from Scarred Lands?

[JRRNeiklot]

This feat is from the "Player's Guide to Fighters and Barbarians." What, exactly, is the purpose of this feat?

Benefit: When wielding a double weapon, make a single attack roll. This attack is applied to both ends of the weapon and is made at the normal –2 penalty for using two-weapon fighting
with a double weapon.

You make only one roll instead of two? Why would you ever use this feat, unless you had previously cast true strike? Sure, it gives you one less chance to miss, but it also gives you one less chance to hit. If you roll low, you miss twice, if you roll high, you hit twice. I'd rather take my chances rolling twice, and not have all my eggs in one basket. Or am I missing something?

 

[gabrion]

Hmm...I'm not familiar with this feat, but could it be that you are actaully making one attack, but you get to hit with both ends of the weapon? Or is it only used in full attack? If the former, then the feat would be pretty useful cause you could get two attacks in a standard action. Does the rest of the text of the feat lead you to think that this is possible?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Hmmmm. Not really. Here's the full text.


SPINNING BLOW [GENERAL]
Legends tell of powerfully muscled berserkers
cutting a swathe through their opponents, their
two-bladed swords spinning in deadly arcs.
Prerequisite: Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: When wielding a double weapon,
make a single attack roll. This attack is applied to
both ends of the weapon and is made at the
normal –2 penalty for using two-weapon fighting
with a double weapon. Apply the roll separately
against the critical threat range of each end of the
weapon, but take only a single roll (as with the
initial attack) to confirm any potential critical.
If your base attack bonus allows more than
one attack each round, you may attempt multiple
Spinning Blows. Doing so is extraordinarily difficult,
however: multiply the two-weapon fighting
penalty by the number of attacks being made.
Thus, a character using Spinning Blow three times
applies a –6 penalty to each of the attacks.
Special: A fighter may select this feat as one
of his fighter bonus feats.


This would be a great feat for fighter/mages, though. Imagine a +14 to hit for 3 attacks with one casting of true strike. Otherwise, I don't see the point, especially as the flavor text seems to hint that barbarians would be the main ones using the feat.

 

[gabrion]

Um the feat makes it sound like the spinning blow is done in place of one attack. It says you can do it multiple times, although you will have some major penalties for doing so.

The way I read the feat is that with 4 iterative attacks, you could make 8 attacks in a full attack round, but you would have a -8 to attack on all of them. Generally speaking, you would be better off with TWF, ITWF, and GTWF.

The only way this would really be worthwhile is if you can get your penalty to TWF down to zero, since the drawback of the feat is based on mutiplying that. I think Tempest would help with that.

Edit: Ya, if you had four levels of tempest then you could have twice as many attacks as you normally could, without any penalties. The thing is, this is pretty much the same as if you had the TWF chain with tempest, except in the end you will get one more attack. It is also good because depending on how your DM reads the feat, it could allow for two attacks as part of a standard action. Maybe not though. In any case, I don't think it is nearly as bad as it first seemed.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Ah, I'm beginning to see the light now, thanks.

A 16th level fighter with this feat would make 8 attacks at +8/+8 +3/+3 -2/-2 -7/-7 (plus any bonuses for strength, magic, etc.)

A 16th level fighter with the twf chain, would attack 7 times at 14/14 9/9 /4/4 -1

Have I got that right?

So, the true strike combo would apply only to the first TWO attacks, as it's a single attack roll.

 

[gabrion]

Yup.

That's strage though, although it seems intuitive, the feat doesn't say that you can't benefit from TWF when doing a spinning blow. If that is the case, then this feat along with the aforementioned levels of Tempest would cause some problems. With all of the TWF feats, you could have three attacks at each of your attack bonuses (except the lowest one), without penalties. Worse, if the spinning blow could be used when making the "off-hand" attacks from TWF, then you would have four attacks at each of your attack bonuses.

I think it is safe to say that the feat was not meant to be combined with TWF and that it is instead an alternate form thereof. So you can make two attacks at each of your attack bonuses, but you can't add on another attack for TWF.

BTW, this could work well for monks, since they can flurry with a quarterstaff. They would have 10 attacks per round with this feat.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I think I'll edit the title and see if I can get Nightfall in here, being as he's the local Scarred Lands geek.

 

[radferth]

Seems to me it lets high level fighting types with unimpressive dex scores get a bunch of attacks on lesser opponents. Seems to me using a big weapon and the cleave path would be more effective, but if you want barbarians chopping up lots of small guys with a two-bladed sword, this would fit the bill. Maybe this one turn out better if you DM likes to send large numbers of guys you can't down in one swing.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Back to page one!

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Thread necromancy at work!

I never did get an answer to this question from anyone in the know, though I did get a few helpful replies. Has anyone used the spinning blow feat, or like me, do you find it completely uselsee compared to the twf chain? Especially since twf is required to take the feat in the first place. 3 feats for GTWF at -2 to each attack or 2 feats for -8 for each attack with a bab of 16+ in each case. I know which route I'd choose.

Anyway, I have a player wanting to play a Warrior of White Fire from the Player's Guide to Fighters and Barbarians and this feat is required, so I'd like to know how it works. Nightfall, you around? Anyone else?