Tribal Protector's Wild swing -- whoah Mama!

[Pielorinho]

Since my poor dwarven druid got et by a howler, I'm creating a new PC -- a half-orc Brb1/Ftr4/Tribal Protector1. He'll be dishing out the damage, lemme tell you what. (And just to protect my back: I chose the PrC based on the character idea, not vice versa).

I'm wondering, though, about the level 2 tribal protector power: it's basically flurry of blows with any weapon you want. Since I'll be using a greatsword, that's a pretty huge advantage.

Have other folks used this class? Is it reasonably balanced? After all, at first level it's just like first-level fighter, only better saves (I think) and two bonus abilities.

But specifically, I'm wondering whether folks think wild swing is well-balanced.

I'd like some feedback on it: even if I don't use the exact rules for it, I really like its overall flavor, and would like to use something like it in the game.

Daniel

 

[Crothian]

It's a good class, maybe to good. I think they did that because of the restriction of the Races allowed. None of the other prerequites are any sort of restriction. All the feats are really good and all in the same chain. The BAB is not that high, and the 4 ranks of wilderness lore is not a hindrance.

Of the abilities the Tribal Enemy, Homeland, Terrain AC bonus, and Smite are all specific to a certain thing. This weakens the abilities. The feats are good and Wildfighting is just amazing. I just noticed that it does not say "requires a full around action". I don't see any reason, according to the wording here, why you can't take two swings as a standard actio.

So, ya, it might be a bit too powerful.

 

[graydoom]

Hmm. I hadn't looked closely at the Tribal Protector before. Wild Fighting is pretty powerful, but looking at the rest of the class abilities I don't think the class as a whole is overpowered. An adventuring protector in most cases would lose almost all of the benefits. If you ever leave your homeland, out go the abilities HomeLand and the Terrain AC Bonus, and Smite and Tribal Enemy are very specific... even narrower than a Ranger's Favored Enemy! The class may be quite good for NPCs that stay with their tribe, but I think an adventurer (necessarily going outside his homeland) with the class might be a bit underpowered, if anything.

Of course, if you just took 2 levels to get Wild Fighting and an extra feat, it'd be different. With just two levels of it combined with other classes, it could be overpowered even on a PC outside his homeland. But if the class is taken to the full ten levels, I would be more concerned about the PC being underpowered.

Oh, and by definition, you only make one attack with a standard or partial action. Wild Fighting is intended to just be Flurry of Blows for any weapons, and thus usable only on the Full Attack action.

 

[Crothian]

Oh, and by definition, you only make one attack with a standard or partial action. Wild Fighting is intended to just be Flurry of Blows for any weapons, and thus usable only on the Full Attack action.

I understand that. I'm just saying that it can easily be argued the other way. The language is lose and not specific. But, that's nothing new with Wizards products.

 

[Pielorinho]

I understand that. I'm just saying that it can easily be argued the other way. The language is lose and not specific. But, that's nothing new with Wizards products.

Well, a few points:

1) I'm playing the character as a temp character, hopefully, until the party can find the corpse of my permanent character and have him raised or reincarnated. So I'll very likely not be playing him through the full ten levels of the class.
2) As a way to work him into the adventure, it's probable that I'll take as favored enemy the very cult that the party is fighting. So the class benefits will likely come into play.
3) My understanding is that there's a nearly hard-and-fast rule that a creature CANNOT take more than one attack per round except with the full attack option; the only exception to this rule that I know of is the Pounce ability that some great cats get. Since the wild fighting ability doesn't specifically mention that it breaks this rule, it follows it. Which is good, because it would be ludicrously good otherwise.

Daniel

 

[EOL]

I hadn't really noticed that before but it's horribly mind numbingly broken, here's why(using the greataxe as an example):

You'll notice that getting one extra attack and having all your attacks at -2 exactly duplicates ambidexterity, plus two-weapon fighting, plus having the off weapon be light. It therefore makes your greataxe in to a double greataxe with the second head counting as a light weapon it then additionally gives you ambidexterity and two-weapon fighting. The orcish double axe is an exotic weapon, so at the minimum this ability gives you three virtual feats for free (plus it gives you some sort of virtual largeness to upgrade from a normal axe to a great axe). And to top it all of rather than Str bonus on the primary head and +0.5 on the off hand you would get the full +1.5 on both ends!

Now maybe two-weapon fighting is broken, certainally that has been argued in the past, but something is horribly, beyond all reason out of whack.

 

[Crothian]

3) My understanding is that there's a nearly hard-and-fast rule that a creature CANNOT take more than one attack per round except with the full attack option; the only exception to this rule that I know of is the Pounce ability that some great cats get. Since the wild fighting ability doesn't specifically mention that it breaks this rule, it follows it. Which is good, because it would be ludicrously good otherwise.

Daniel

Yes, using this ability should be a full round action. But no rule is a hard fast rule. There are exceptions to them all. That is why the wording and language needs to be more precise or people will be argueing otherwise.

 

[Crothian]

I hadn't really noticed that before but it's horribly mind numbingly broken, here's why(using the greataxe as an example):

You'll notice that getting one extra attack and having all your attacks at -2 exactly duplicates ambidexterity, plus two-weapon fighting, plus having the off weapon be light. It therefore makes your greataxe in to a double greataxe with the second head counting as a light weapon it then additionally gives you ambidexterity and two-weapon fighting. The orcish double axe is an exotic weapon, so at the minimum this ability gives you three virtual feats for free (plus it gives you some sort of virtual largeness to upgrade from a normal axe to a great axe). And to top it all of rather than Str bonus on the primary head and +0.5 on the off hand you would get the full +1.5 on both ends!

Now maybe two-weapon fighting is broken, certainally that has been argued in the past, but something is horribly, beyond all reason out of whack.

How about combining it with 2WF? No reason that can't be done. THere are a few other prestige classes that gives this ability undera different name. But you are right, this is more powerful the flurry of blows becasue it is not limited to certain weapons. This ability can be used with any melee weapon.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Well, it really gets nasty when you combine it with two weapon fighting for yet ANOTHER extra attack, albeit at minus 4.

 

[Avatar of the North]

that gets even meaner when you take 4 levels of Singh Rager from OA to get the Lion's pounce ability (full attack at the end of a charge action)