Sacrifice to Caiphon - Overpowered?

[Runestar]

What's the bag of rats rule?

 

[James McMurray]

DMG p. 40

When a power has an effect that occurs upon hitting a
target—or reducing a target to 0 hit points—the power
functions only when the target in question is a meaningful
threat. Characters can gain no benefit from
carrying a sack of rats in hopes of healing their allies
by hitting the rats.

 

[DracoSuave]

One could argue that the attack is being attempted against perfectly meaningful targets (such as in the case of Mantle of Glory), but it is only the attack itself that is not meaningful. Ergo, you avoid the Bag-of-Rats rule.

If ever you need to rules lawyer or technicality your way around the Bag-of-Rats rule, then the Bag-of-Rats rule should -definately- apply. The Bag-of-Rats rule is to avoid using technicalities to do broken crap, not to avoid beating on bags of rats.

All that said, the Bag-of-Rats rule came into play when some enterprising young fighter decided to go Whirlwind Attack+Cleave with a bag of rats. He'd Whirlwind Attack, kill an ungodly number of the little rats, and then each dead rat would then let him get a free attack on who he wanted... say... Orcus. The 'bag-of-rats' rule is a direct homage to this cheese and its prevention.

 

[Runestar]

You mean great cleave, right? Since Whirlwind forces you to give up any extra attacks...but point taken.

 

[Agamon]

My doppleganger warlock took this as her 2nd level feat (1st level was Ranger multi...it worked storywise, I didn't realize how powerful it was though until play, a lot more than StC). In two sessions and 7 encounters, I've used StC once. Of course, that means I only missed once. So while it's nice insurance, I'd hardly call it overpowered, and it sure doesn't turn her Witchfire into an at-will. The DM agrees...and maybe feels sorry for me being a doppleganger; great for RP, but not a combat optimized race, for sure.