Lord Sessadore
Explorer
Valid points, all.I just wanted to point out that I believe Storm of Blades as written is actually less problematic than Rain of Blows.
1. While the number of potential attacks is higher, in practice this it doesn't have the base probability of making as many attacks as RoB's, since one miss ends it.
2. Much harder to do cheesy recursion tricks with.
3. Barbarian multi-classing doesn't currently give access to such stupidly good PP's as the Pitfighter.
4. It's much more stat dependent than RoB's
5. It's actually belongs to a striker class, and that's what they're supposed to do.
That's not to say I don't think it's maybe too good, but if you're not going to nerf RoB's I wouldn't touch this one. The biggest problem with it, is a general problem with the Barbarian class IMO, that maybe it's better to multi-class in and cherrypick than it is to actually be a Barbarian.
As with all multiple attack powers, it only becomes problematic when you play the system - getting a big attack bonus (usually from your leader-type), high static damage bonus, etc... More problematic the higher level you go.
But yes, the fact that a single miss ends the power is a big balancing factor. It's not much more powerful than [that ranger power whose name evades me at the moment - there was a big fuss over it right after 4e was released]. Which, since the barb is a striker, doesn't bother me much. A big reason I'm not a big fan of RoB is because it's a fighter power, and fighters aren't strikers.