Talk:Whirling Cleave (3.5e Feat)

This One Requires Zombie Rats
So they can be asked to ready actions to get one new one into reach after every whirl. --Foxwarrior 04:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm almost ok with that. Almost. Hrm... - Tarkisflux Talk 04:15, 11 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, 2 easy ways forward. Require an AoO sacrifice to activate each whirling cleave, or just limit the number of whirling cleaves per round to your normal number of iterative attacks per round. The former requires additional feat investment or houserules to be used more than once per round, but the latter is a hard cap and can't be improved on short of leveling, which doesn't feel quite right. Could also be other solutions though. Open to suggestions and thoughts. - Tarkisflux Talk 04:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Balance, and generalizing
Having thought about it, I don't think this is rogue level. It's a potential AoE damage burst, and is only sorta impressive with spirited chargers. While that is a low rogue level build, getting any mileage out of this requires lots of additional targets to be within range that you wouldn't expect to drop with Great Cleave already. So most of the time it's either no better than Great Cleave or just deals piddly damage to more targets without breaking stride, and that looks so niche to me as to not actually be much better than Great Cleave on its own, and thus fighter. I mean, would you consider taking this instead of Combat Brute, Shock Trooper, or Stand Still?

That said, I've been thinking about expanding it in a way that would pretty clearly make it rogue. Instead of triggering off of a cleave opening, it could trigger off of any bonus attack opening. Improved Trip, Cleave, whatever - if you would gain a bonus attack at the same bonus as a triggering attack because of a feat, you could turn it into a whirling strike. And also adding additional text so that you could unambiguously use the whirling strike for any attack action you wanted, be it straight damage, a trip attempt, disarm, whatever.

I'm not worried about weird fluff out of there, but I am worried about weird interactions in that case. Some limitation on the number of whirling strikes that you could make in a round would still go in, since this otherwise opens up lots and lots of cascading bonus AoE strikes. Thoughts - Tarkisflux Talk 16:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC)