No more buckets of snails (not a house rule)

[BlindKobold]

Allowing WWA+GC by the rules will allow the fighter to get a huge advantage against the vampire where the vampire should, in my opinion, be at the advantage - thus, my house rule. The fighter still gets to be powerful in that he wipes out all the rats and gets an extra attack against the vampire, but I wouldn't want the fighter to get 20 extra attacks because the vampire brought friends to the fight

Don't be silly. OF COURSE the player should get the attacks. Look at the TIME and FEATS he invested... look at what LEVEL he should be.

Feats required:

Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack (is expertise in here?)

Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave

That's 7 feats. That's a minimum of level:

1st - Power Attack, Dodge
2nd - Cleave
3rd - Mobility
4th - Spring Attack
6th - Great Cleave, Whirlwind Attack

Ok... so... at level 6... IF the fighter chose NOTHING but those feats, he would get extra attacks.

Consider that a 6th level mage can cast haste and then fireball 2 times for 6d6 points of damage each (12d6) in a round. Hmmm... I don't really see anything unbalancing here.

If the vampire summons low HD friends, not realizing the fighter is a whirling dervish... that's his problem. However, if the same vampire goes head to head with the fighter... the fighter is going to be in trouble since his feats are directed at taking out groups of small things instead of one powerful opponent.

The fighter could just have easily specialized the other direction:

1st - Power Attack, Weapon Focus - Reach Weapon
2nd - Improved Initiative
3rd - Combat Reflexes
4th - Weapon Specialization
6th - Expert Tactician

This combination would allow him to move in, whack an opponent once (maybe twice if denied their DEX) and then keep them at bay with a reach weapon. If they move in, he either steps back or draws another weapon and full attacks them.

This same fighter would be effective against the vampire alone... but not the minions.

Don't penalize a fighter for taking feats that work well together... that's all they have really - good BAB and lots of feats.

Likewise, don't penalize a mage who takes the right combination of spells that are great in a specific circumstance or a rogue who takes skills that make him particularly adept in one situation.

It's checks and balances. That same whirlwinding/great cleaving fighter is nearly useless to a flying foe, a ranged foe, a charging / ride-by foe, an invisible foe (50% miss chance), magic like fireballs, lightening bolts, etc. and a ton of other things.

NOW... that said... any person who brings a bucket full of snails around thinking to EXPLOIT the combination is going to be in for a WORLD of hurt. Because the rumor will spread and soon, everyone will do it. I don't think his party members, like the rogue, cleric or mage and really going to like being hit 21 times by an ogre fighter with the appropriate skills. Plus, the dragon in the example above would get the Large and In Charge feat, power attack, sunder and improved sunder and take out the fighter's weapon before he even got the chance.

Don't let player ingenuity limit DM creativity!

 

[IceBear]

I *REALLY* don't want to get into this again, but I don't want a powerful opponent to become weaker just because it brought friends

I don't think I'm severely hampering the fighter or making light of his feats. He still killed all the rats and got an extra attack against the vampire in one round That's good, and he couldn't have done it without those feats.

I know that WWA + GC mimics someone who has trained to fight well in a crowd, and as far as I'm concerned, he is....he just killed all the weak monsters and gotten an extra attack in one round. But if I allowed him to get, lets say 8 extra attacks, against the vampire in one round I just made the vampire much weaker than if the vampire didn't bring the rats. Normally, the EL increases with more opponents. In this case, it should be lower.

Again, I know that it never happens in reality, so this is a moot point. Suffice it to say, I've been in this conversation before and don't really want to repeat it. I feel that my house rule keeps this feat combination powerful but doesn't force powerful adversaries from *not* using weak minions in order to keep themselves from being killed.

Again, I also know that the chances of the fighter being surrounded by a large number of weak monsters and the powerful monster at the same time is rare, so I don't have a real issue with it.

Also, I'm actually not a DM that tries to rule away player inventiness. I actually let them get away with a lot. I just see allowing the all GCs to be applied to the vampire as being just too much - killing all the low level minions and getting an extra attack is enough for me.

IceBear

 

[BlindKobold]

Wouldn't it make more sense for the vampire to summon a horde of rats and send it against the fighter to test his strength and observe his tactics?

Why would the vampire do that anyway?

Besides, the first hit the vampire makes against a 6th level fighter with those feats drops him 2 levels, effectively preventing access to those feats....

 

[IceBear]

*sigh* As I said, this will probably *NEVER* (did you not see me say that in every post) happen anyway, and as such we are arguing a moot point. I was just stating that this was the most likely scenario where it would come up.

I just said that if (*IF*) it occurred, I would use that house rule, because that's how *MY* group (not just me, but my group - I actually told the players about this rule, in case it should come up and they said, "Well, isn't that how it's supposed to work?" ) would play it.

IceBear

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Oops...

I must admit, I started this thread without much information, but much confusion. I once read about a fighter that could hit a dragon for 300d8 damage... if it was surrounded by bats, to prove that a fighter is more powerful than a rogue. The poster mentioned Great Cleave but not WWA (perhaps they thought everyone knew about the WWAA). I was angry enough to post a sarcastic reply, but I was in agreement with him that rogues should continue to get multiple sneak attacks. Since (and even before) then, I had seen many examples of Great Cleave (no one ever mentioned the WWA 'till now) being abused.

I've seen many abusing combos: mindfeeder dissipator weapons, time stop/haste combos, ring of blinking/sneak attack, GC/WWA/vampiric weapon/many blind kobolds and Trigger Power/Polymorph Self come to mind. Unfortunately, no matter how much playtesting WotC decides to do, they will never uncover all of these tricks beforehand. If these tricks ruin the game, then the DM has full rights to outlaw them somehow.

IMC, I would only allow the PC to get one more attack (I usually try to avoid house rules); otherwise, I could get a fighter/cleric to use summon swarm or insect plague and GC/WWA to deal insane amounts of damage.

BTW, The fighter hit by the vampire gains two negative levels. Hefty penalties, but no loss of feats. He loses two actual levels 24 hours later.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The more practical variant of WWA + GC is Combat Reflexes + GC and toss in some summoned blind kobolds provoking AoOs.

At higher levels, turn a low level summon spell into a few extra full BAB attacks could be pretty efficient way to boost offense for divine spellcasters.

Sorry, Icebear. Couldn't resist.

 

[Darkness]

You know, slowly but surely, I'd really like to hear the Sage's answer regarding this.

 

[IceBear]

I think the Sage's answer was that you could choose to cleave anyone you wanted, which is why the bucket of snails is technically legal.

As I said, it seems like it would be an awesome tactic, but it rarely happens in practice, and just about all DMs wouldn't allow such a obvious attempt to bend the spirit of the rules.

IceBear

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Well, here's an attempt at a rules reason why the snails wouldn't work.

The snails are fine, so that's +8 AC. Then most of them would have at least partial cover, that's another +7 AC. AC 25 would be hard to hit all the time.

Bah, nevermind. IMC I would just have the God of Snails (what's his name? Akunin maybe?) turn them into Colossal Legendary Half-Dragon Snails.

Then we'll see whose doing the cleaving.

--Delirious Spikey

 

[IceBear]

Yes!!! What an excellent idea!!!!! Muhahahahahahha!!!!