Talk:Hulk Out (3.5e Spell)

Balance and Bonus TypingEdit

So, untyped bonus to Strength. This doesn't look Moderate. There's plenty of big beasts that can be summoned/your buddy already/you wildshaping as a druid that only have a single attack or just make natural attacks and don't care about base attack bonus. Like a bear. Let's look at the brown bear (+4 BAB), makes 3 natural attacks, large, improved grab. The bear benefits pretty heavily from this spell. If you wanted to stack that with an enhancement bonus to Strength, you could. This can pull a high amount of value at higher levels for such a low-level spell slot. What's the intent on this spell here? --Ganteka Future (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Right, so this is a thought experiment I mulled over via a vis War Hulk. It will probably end of being an ACF or trait as well (one that can't be turned off), but I started with a spell to get a gauge on it. For most Strength to melee based people, the end result of this is no change in your attack bonus and a +1 to +20 increase in damage, countered by the loss of extra attacks. The loss of +1 BAB is countered by +2 Str, for +1 attack/+1 damage. It's for this reason I did not make this an enchantment bonus as I wanted to ensure there's a clean conversion of BAB to Strength without any losses due to already having a +X item of Strength, which at higher levels you almost certainly will be packing.

As brought up by others during bouncing this idea around beforehand, this is very comparable to a smite. PF Paladin smite specifically, sans the attack bonus, or AC bonus, but just in terms of damage. Obviously this is strongest on a high BAB character, so I determined there are two "ideal" situations for this spell: The full BAB two-hander (who will gain +30 for one attack), and the natural attack build on account of being able to bypass the whole single attack problem. However the latter is within range limits as most natural attacks come in the flavor of one attacking being +Str, and all others being +1/2 Str. In addition, the most likely candidate for such a build is the druid, who is medium BAB and thus will not be taking the full benefit anyways.

Using the Brown Bear example, it means we're handling an 8th level druid, or BAB +6. It's Claw Claw Secondary-Bite, and we're gaining a conversion of +6 damage, so your new numbers are +6, +6, +3. Seems reasonable for a 3rd level spell to grant these damage bonuses. Grapple is unaffected, as grapple uses BAB in its mechanics and we just swapped BAB for more Str, it's an even wash. It does help with pure strength checks through, so bashing through doors, climbing walls, and tripping are all going to be improved. That's working as intended, and why I felt most comfortable putting this at 3rd rather than the suggestion of about a sample size of 10, which suggested 2nd for a shorter duration. This also lines up with previous work with Condemning Smite, which goes from an action-heavy cost with similar damage increases at 1st, and then can be extrapolated from there to be 2nd at a less punishing action cost, and 3rd by increasing its duration a step.

Also, because the spell is caster level agnostic I didn't want it to be (easily) put on a wand, so 3rd level it is, as opposed to Condemning Smite's scaling.

One more example: What's the very toppest optimization can be get out of this? Probably the Hydra, with five full strength attacks and an already optimal means of attacking. But then we're a 15th level druid by that point with a BAB of +11.

You could go the other way, grab totemic of become a templated mess with grafts to try and pile on more natural attacks but in practice I find this difficult and at that point your entire build is "man with 100 tentacles". Getting the likely 1/2 Str increase to your damage is not going to be the source of your optimization. In practice, I've never reliably seen an excess of four natural attacks at any one time, and even then they tend to be mid-level plays.

Incidentally I do plan to have the ACF/trait done at some point. It would work as this, and as War Hulk, which conceptually I find fascinating. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 04:03, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I have some concerns about this because it looks like the kind of this that's made specifically to abuse, but looking over creatures with the Animal subtype (because obviously the Druid is casting it on themselves), the only one that's giving huge concerns is actually the Giant Octopus. It's Large with 8 HD, so the Druid can turn into it as soon as Large creatures are an option, and it has 9 attacks. This actually kind of looks like a power attack replacer to a certain extent, almost?

That being said, I do feel a bit concerned by this because it feels like something designed to be abused, even if I'm not entirely certain how. Actually - thinking on it again - both of you already said how; natural attack builds, just not using Wild Shape. --Undead_Knave (talk) 04:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)