Whirling Blade with Arcane Strike

[Mark1733]

I saw on an earlier post that the feat Arcane Strike has no limit on the number of spells you can sacrifice to channel into an attack. Is that correct? Also, if used with Whirling Blade, the bonuses work for the entire round, and therefore all whirling blade attacks get all the bonuses, correct?

 

[Celebrim]

I saw on an earlier post that the feat Arcane Strike has no limit on the number of spells you can sacrifice to channel into an attack.

It sure doesn't sound like it should be correct. If it is correct, the designer should be flogged.

My impression of the feat is that it is one spell per attack action, and that the spell only modifies that attack action. I have that impression both from the wording and the fact that you are usually not allowed to take multiple free actions of the same type in a single round unless otherwise stated.

Also, if used with Whirling Blade, the bonuses work for the entire round, and therefore all whirling blade attacks get all the bonuses, correct?

I would consider that a fair reading. However, again, I certainly wouldn't allow you to stack multiple Arcane Strike uses.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While I seem to recall your interpretation of Arcane Strike to be correct- or at least one of the more common ones- I don't have a problem with the dumping of a bunch of spells into it. You're giving up a LOT of spellpower to add to some melee (or in this case, Whirling Blade) damage. And as anyone who knows the power of arcane spells will tell you, dealing damage is one of the least efficient ways to use spells to defeat foes. It's handy, it's flashy, it's flavorful, but even compared to some of the actual damage spells, it comes up short.

 

[Celebrim]

While I seem to recall your interpretation of Arcane Strike to be correct- or at least one of the more common ones- I don't have a problem with the dumping of a bunch of spells into it. You're giving up a LOT of spellpower to add to some melee (or in this case, Whirling Blade) damage.

You are looking at it wrong. You aren't giving up spell power, you are dominating the action economy by reducing the number of actions you have to spend. Casting all those spells individually would certainly be more powerful, but requires spending dozens of actions. If you can collect all those individual actions into a single action, even if that has a diminishing margin of returns, the resulting single action will be so powerful that it will act as a win button. It would be like giving the player dozens of quickened spells in a single round.

And as anyone who knows the power of arcane spells will tell you, dealing damage is one of the least efficient ways to use spells to defeat foes. It's handy, it's flashy, it's flavorful, but even compared to some of the actual damage spells, it comes up short.

I'm envisioning a nova with no saving throw doing average of 300-400 damage on every target in a room. It wouldn't be hard to figure out a way to do 1000 damage in a round with this I'm sure to single targets, completely solo. Stacking this with an area of effect as the OP suggests pretty much gives you unlimited flexibility. Efficiency in terms of outcome per spell slot spent, sure, this strategy sucks. But efficiency in terms of outcome per action spent, it will be hard to beat that. It will pretty much let a single character win every character level appropriate encounter by themselves. Damage dealing is usually less effective than save or suck, but if you can stack it, it's much more reliable. Lot's of things may be immune to your mind effecting spells, spell resistance, and have saving throws that make your save or suck unreliable. But almost nothing can resist a sufficiently large amount of physical damage.

At low levels, ruling that you can dump multiple spells into a single strike doesn't sound so bad. But the total of spell slots times spell levels increases exponentially for arcane casters leading to degenerate strategies and degenerate gameplay. There is no way in heck the designer intended the feat to be read or used in that way. The language of the feat is entirely singular, "one of your spells", "the level of the spell sacrificed", and the example given likewise is of a single spell being utilized. Common or not, it's a pretty ridiculous interpretation.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Novas don't bother me at all. You want to clear the room at the cost of not being able to do jack-all for the rest of the day? Be my guest!

Do not, however, expect to be able to rest and restore your spells whenever you want to, because that is simply not going to happen. Opportunities to rest will occur when it makes sense within the campaign world's framework, not player requests.

 

[Celebrim]

Opportunities to rest will occur when it makes sense within the campaign world's framework, not player requests.

And that is precisely my point. If a player can go nova like that it vastly reduces the design space available to the DM, leading to a more limited campaign with lower diversity of challenge and too many cakewalks. The only way to challenge a player is to lure out a nova and then follow up with even more. And if you are really following the sense of the campaign's world framework, that isn't always remotely logical. You're letting imbalance impinge up on your world's framework.

If you aren't metagaming against the player, of course there will be plenty of opportunities in many cases to flee, evade, hide, find refuge, rest and so forth. I don't have an idea what you mean by 'player requests'. If the player declares they are camping in the wilderness, whether or not a monster shows up later has more to do with the rate monsters are found in your wilderness (logically) wandering about looking for heavily armed humanoid prey, than it has to do with whether the PC's went nova earlier in the day or whether the DM wants to punish the PC for using up most of his daily resources.

Proactive villains are great! But not every villain out there is going to be proactive and have lots of allies ready at hand precisely because we will be using the logic that makes sense in the campaigns framework. Even villains that are proactive won't necessarily have the means to find the PC's or penetrate their havens at all times. What you are saying is, "I'm fine with the game being a cake walk in every situation that the campaign's world framework provides for a gap in time between encounters." That's going to be a huge chunk of them.

And beyond that, it doesn't even really matter. Because nothing requires the character go nova in situations where it doesn't make sense to do so. What the feat would give at a very low cost is the option to go nova in situations when it does make sense to do so. Using Arcane Strike to go nova is far cheaper than using Quickened Spell and involves sacrificing far less value.

If on the other hand, all Arcane Strikes is the opportunity to sacrifice a utility spell for a relatively low value attack spell that is tied to making attack rolls, then all we are getting is a certain limited sort of versatility. It's useful, but it would not be game breaking nor would it impose any metagame requirements on the design of setting you used.

 

[Dandu]

I saw on an earlier post that the feat Arcane Strike has no limit on the number of spells you can sacrifice to channel into an attack. Is that correct?

Do bonuses from the same source stack?

 

[Mark1733]

Just to be clear, I was interpreting the feat as channel one spell, but then I saw the post that seemed to interpret otherwise. Upon rereading it, I think it could be stretched to channel multiple spells...but then upon reading the potential for coupling it with Whirling Blade (a 2nd level spell), it seems like it could be way too much damage. I could technically cast whirling blade and channel three 5th level spells into each of my melee attacks. From the feat alone, that would be a +15 to hit and then additional 15d4 damage per attack. If I get a good line of opponents within range...lets say 5 opponents...that's a total of an additional 75d4 (75-300 pts) points of damage potentially in one spell action. So...my 5th level spell is prismatic ray and I can cast three of them per day. If I cast 3 of those (instead of channeling), I could presumably luck out with 80 points of electrical damage from each one (totalling 240 pts of "guaranteed" damage), or turning to stone, or sending to another plane provided I get past spell resistance and reflex saves. And I would have cast each one separately over three separate turns. Now let's say I dump all my remaining spells (7 1sts, 7 2nds, 7 3rds, etc) into the whirling blade...my attack bonus is off the charts. I am pretty much guaranteed to hit every target that is affected by normal physical damage and slice every one of them up like a spiral-sliced ham. Granted that is an extreme hypothetical scenario, but I cannot legitimately believe that would have been intended.

Sorry that I had to work out that math for myself...all of your previous posts all summarized this nicely. I appreciate the input. I will ask my DM, but I think I will end up with a single spell sacrifice interpretation. I am okay with that...I don't want lots of math

Thanks, all!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And that is precisely my point. If a player can go nova like that it vastly reduces the design space available to the DM, leading to a more limited campaign with lower diversity of challenge and too many cakewalks. The only way to challenge a player is to lure out a nova and then follow up with even more. And if you are really following the sense of the campaign's world framework, that isn't always remotely logical. You're letting imbalance impinge up on your world's framework.

If you aren't metagaming against the player, of course there will be plenty of opportunities in many cases to flee, evade, hide, find refuge, rest and so forth. I don't have an idea what you mean by 'player requests'. If the player declares they are camping in the wilderness, whether or not a monster shows up later has more to do with the rate monsters are found in your wilderness (logically) wandering about looking for heavily armed humanoid prey, than it has to do with whether the PC's went nova earlier in the day or whether the DM wants to punish the PC for using up most of his daily resources.

Your assertion does not match my experiences as a player or DM.

By "player requests", I mean that simply because someone declares they're ready to rest does not mean that they will be able to. To use an extremely silly example, if the player went nova in "Location 1" and requested a rest immediately after, if Location 1 happens to be a major thoroughfare for the baddies, he will be in for a rude surprise.

Similarly, if the party decides to retreat to camp after going nova, they may well find the space they cleared to be not only repopulated, but possibly reinforced. And perhaps their mission objective is no longer where they thought it was, having been moved due to the obvious threat of attack.

This is NOT metagaming but its antithesis: the campaign world is reacting normally to the stimulus provided by the PCs.

So, while going nova may be fun and all, it isn't a trump card. Sometimes it is an appropriate response, sometimes it is a foolish overreaction, and it is up to the players to decide if/when they'll use that option. And as such, novas don't bother me one bit.

 

[captnq]

Sorry, but I just read the feat.

"you gain a bonus on all your attack rolls for 1 round equal to the level of the spell sacrificed"

Key word being BONUS. It doesn't ADD damage to your attack, it is a BONUS to your attack.

So, you use a free action to burn every spell you know into your weapon, but Bonuses from the same source don't stack, so only the highest level spell you burn actually counts.