Revised Tempest

[Plane Sailing]

Questions:

1. The spring attack chain seems particularly strange, since the essence of spring attack is that it prevents you getting a full attack off... and the tempest is fundamentally about getting full attacks! Wouldn't expertise have made more sense?

2. You don't mention whether ranger virtual feats allow him to qualify? I presume so. Since a ranger loses his virtual feats when in medium+ armour, and thus loses the pre-reqs, does he lose tempest class abilities or do you see the tempest ability to use this stuff in medium armour as overriding that?

3. The large number of feats mean that a fighter could qualify after level 6, a human ranger could qualify after level 6, a nonhuman ranger could qualify at level 9, human paladins and barbarians at level 12 and nonhuman paladins and barbarians at level 15(!)

Cheers

 

[comrade raoul]

Questions:
1. The spring attack chain seems particularly strange, since the essence of spring attack is that it prevents you getting a full attack off... and the tempest is fundamentally about getting full attacks! Wouldn't expertise have made more sense?

Now, the short answer is that the spring attack chain was there in the original version, and it wasn't something I saw as needing pressing revision. On the other hand, I do think it makes some sense; tempests are suppposed to be skilled, mobile fighters -- something the spring attack chain models effectively. Moreover, one of the main advantages of the revised version was that it provides special abilities that enable you to make off-hand attacks when not making a full attack, so my version of the tempest will be able to put both spring attack and two-weapon skills (like whirling defense and superior ambidexterity) to use simultaneously. But yes, without this ability, I do think expertise would've made more sense.

2. You don't mention whether ranger virtual feats allow him to qualify? I presume so. Since a ranger loses his virtual feats when in medium+ armour, and thus loses the pre-reqs, does he lose tempest class abilities or do you see the tempest ability to use this stuff in medium armour as overriding that?

This certainly is confusing, and it's not handled explicitly in my account. Probably, the best solution is to return to the original class and limit the tempest's abilities to light armor. This might weaken the tempest somewhat, but if agility is so conceptually important to the class, it's not that bad, and whirling defense is powerful enough so that I don't worry about the tempest being defensively weak.

3. The large number of feats mean that a fighter could qualify after level 6, a human ranger could qualify after level 6, a nonhuman ranger could qualify at level 9, human paladins and barbarians at level 12 and nonhuman paladins and barbarians at level 15(!)

Yes, that's about the way it goes (note that at 9th level, characters with a rogue-like BAB can meet the BAB requirement; at 12th, so can wizards and sorcerers). Some prestige classes require a lot of feats to qualify for; it's hardly new. Note that this will be somewhat eased in 3.5e, when Ambidexterity is built into Two-Weapon Fighting (I think this demands house rules of its own, as I discuss here.)

Anyway, thanks for the intelligent, thoughtful questions and the post.