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View Full Version : Wouldn't a Marilith with 6 Speed Longswords be awesome!?



Sims
2011-02-08, 09:36 PM
That would just own! She have 6 additional attacks!

Bibliomancer
2011-02-08, 09:40 PM
An interesting idea, but she would be far, far above the treasure norm even for a CR17 monster. That concept should be reserved for a BBEG (although admittedly, at 17th level extra attacks won't save you from spells unless you're playing a rather non-optimized campaign).

MeeposFire
2011-02-08, 09:40 PM
Well it would also make her time even more ungodly long than it already is (no pun intended). Lots of attacks can be powerful but it gets time consuming in tabletop play (though it is not bad in video games).

Chilingsworth
2011-02-08, 09:43 PM
Wait: the Speed weapon enhancement stacks if you have multiple wepons? I wasn't aware of that.

EDIT: I'd personally prefer speed scimitars or great scimitars (Sandstorm Exotic weapon, basically a bastard sword, but with an 18-20 crit range.) Give the maralith the EWP and improved crit, while we're at it.:smallamused:

DeltaEmil
2011-02-08, 09:43 PM
Theoretically, yes. In practice, having the gm roll a dozen times for just one monster is actually really boring. It gets even worse when the marilith has other demons helping it, and the gm rolls even more times.
That's why the hecatoncheir on epic level for example is an unpopular monster.

AslanCross
2011-02-08, 09:43 PM
I'm pretty sure multiples of this don't stack.

DeltaEmil
2011-02-08, 09:45 PM
Here's the full text on the speed enhancement.


Speed

When making a full attack action, the wielder of a speed weapon may make one extra attack with it. The attack uses the wielder’s full base attack bonus, plus any modifiers appropriate to the situation. (This benefit is not cumulative with similar effects, such as a haste spell.)

Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, haste; Price +3 bonus.

Chilingsworth
2011-02-08, 09:47 PM
hmm... "similar effects" I'd have thought it would be 'similiar' to itself. I suppose I could be wrong... :smalltongue:

MeeposFire
2011-02-08, 09:48 PM
Speed

When making a full attack action, the wielder of a speed weapon may make one extra attack with it. The attack uses the wielder’s full base attack bonus, plus any modifiers appropriate to the situation. (This benefit is not cumulative with similar effects, such as a haste spell.)

Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, haste; Price +3 bonus.

The problem is it is not a stacking issue. The enchantment is affecting the weapon not you. Each enchantment on each weapon is affecting a different thing and so normal stacking principles do not really apply. Now I think it should and the entry should say that the target is affect by the extra attack portion of the haste spell so there would be no way of stacking.

DeltaEmil
2011-02-08, 09:50 PM
Having six speed weapons does not fall under the "similar effect" clause.

Although actually, you could simply use haste instead of having six speed weapons, because it achieves the same effect.

Kobold Esq
2011-02-08, 09:50 PM
I agree with Meepo. Here it specifically says "extra attack with it". Each weapon is clearly distinct.

Chilingsworth
2011-02-08, 09:53 PM
Having six speed weapons does not fall under the "similar effect" clause.

Although actually, you could simply use haste instead of having six speed weapons, because it achieves the same effect.

Definately not. Haste gives only one extra attack, no matter how many weapons you have.

Re'ozul
2011-02-08, 09:53 PM
For the same money (well actually 6000gp more) you can get 2 Bows of splitting and speed. Give those to an arrow demon with 16 BAB and improved rapidshot and you get to roll 24 times on a full attack action. See how long it takes to drive yourself nuts.

Innis Cabal
2011-02-08, 09:56 PM
For the same money (well actually 6000gp more) you can get 2 Bows of splitting and speed. Give those to an arrow demon with 16 BAB and improved rapidshot and you get to roll 24 times on a full attack action. See how long it takes to drive yourself nuts.

Considering normal party comp? Four to six times.

Bibliomancer
2011-02-08, 09:56 PM
Definately not. Haste gives only one extra attack, no matter how many weapons you have.

Really? The SRD seems to be ambiguous:


When making a full attack action, a hasted creature may make one extra attack with any weapon he is holding. The attack is made using the creature’s full base attack bonus, plus any modifiers appropriate to the situation. (This effect is not cumulative with similar effects, such as that provided by a weapon of speed, nor does it actually grant an extra action, so you can’t use it to cast a second spell or otherwise take an extra action in the round.)

'Any' there could either mean 'each' or 'any one'. I had assumed it meant 'each'.

Kobold Esq
2011-02-08, 09:57 PM
And lets be honest here folks. A maralith can't fly, nor make any pounce type attacks. Giving it an even larger full attack is unlikely to save it from a level appropriate party.

NichG
2011-02-08, 09:59 PM
At a certain point, one should just break attacks into groups of X and make one roll for each set of attacks. It does mean crits can get magnified, but its the only rational way to run something like 100 attacks a round like the Hecatoncheire.

Bibliomancer
2011-02-08, 10:04 PM
And lets be honest here folks. A maralith can't fly, nor make any pounce type attacks. Giving it an even larger full attack is unlikely to save it from a level appropriate party.

I mentioned this in the first reply to this thread. The conversation here seems to have moved on to the mechanics of the extra attacks.

Although this is an unusual form of optimization, that doesn't invalidate it as a topic of conversation.

Additionally, mariliths still have greater-teleport at will, which goes a long way to making life difficult for a level appropriate party.


At a certain point, one should just break attacks into groups of X and make one roll for each set of attacks. It does mean crits can get magnified, but its the only rational way to run something like 100 attacks a round like the Hecatoncheire.

This seems like a perfectly valid method. Although I haven't had a chance to run a high enough level campaign for it to be relevant, I've done something similar to model low-level attacks. Also, at the Hecatoncheire level, aren't there rules for average damage in the epic level handbook? Couldn't that be applied to attacks?

Innis Cabal
2011-02-08, 10:06 PM
Although this is an unusual form of optimization, that doesn't invalidate it as a topic of conversation.

It being optimized or not should not invalidate it as a topic regardless.

Bibliomancer
2011-02-08, 10:15 PM
It being optimized or not should not invalidate it as a topic regardless.

I agree, I was simply asserting that the topic was valid (a point which the person to which I was replying seemed to be attempting to contradict). I apologize if my rebuttal was excessively specific and seemed to link optimization to the requirements for an acceptable topic (I was simply trying to provide a more meaningful response than 'actually people can talk about it anyways' since I did not wish to appear to be vigilante modding).

JaronK
2011-02-08, 10:19 PM
It is, sadly, not awesome. It's EXTREMELY expensive to get this ability, and all it lets you do is kill stuff that you can full attack. Killing stuff you can full attack is really easy anyway, without spending all that cash.

JaronK

lightningcat
2011-02-08, 10:34 PM
I could easily see a BBEG (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad) or a Dragon (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDragon) of a Marilith with a pair of Arrow Demons for body guards. The arrow demons have dimension door at will, so the marilith could shorten the range on its greater teleport so that they could keep up.

I think that I might have my next campaign idea.

Innis Cabal
2011-02-08, 10:34 PM
Except this isn't a money thing, considering it's on a monster. So regardless of the viability in a totally optimized game, in a game where people don't sit around and crunch numbers or go off trite tier systems it makes for a potentially deadly monster.

Innis Cabal

Keld Denar
2011-02-08, 10:39 PM
I agree with Meepo. Here it specifically says "extra attack with it". Each weapon is clearly distinct.

"the wielder of a speed weapon may make one extra attack..."

If you look at it like this, the property is affecting the wielder. If its affecting the wielder, then each additional weapon of speed would also affect the wielder, and thus would not be allowed by the "similar effects" clause. The "with it(the weapon)." could be seen as a restrictive clause that says that the one extra haste attack you get HAS to be with that weapon, unlike a normal haste attack which can be made with any weapon you are wielding.

Also, the easy way to have the Marilith make extra attacks is to change two of it's feats to Improved Multiweapon Fighting and Greater Multiweapon Fighting. Or heck, even Improved Unarmed Strike would give it 6 extra attacks per round.

Draz74
2011-02-09, 02:52 AM
The question of whether multiple Speed weapons can work simultaneously has come up many times, and always in the end comes down to "It's ambiguous; ask your DM."

But a strong little piece of evidence in favor of Speed weapons working together is often overlooked. In a relatively modern, well-edited splatbook (Magic Item Compendium), there's an item, the Quarterstaff of Battle, which has a special ability to temporarily give both ends of it the Speed property. That would be pretty useless if you couldn't use them both, methinks.

MeeposFire
2011-02-09, 02:56 AM
I could easily see a BBEG (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad) or a Dragon (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDragon) of a Marilith with a pair of Arrow Demons for body guards. The arrow demons have dimension door at will, so the marilith could shorten the range on its greater teleport so that they could keep up.

I think that I might have my next campaign idea.

That would be the worst long fight ever with each DM turn taking forever, and a day. The archers would be fairly nasty since they will get those full attacks off.

JeminiZero
2011-02-09, 04:42 AM
You want additional attacks?

Take a Level 12 Wizard, his BAB should be 6. Or better yet make it a Gish with a BAB of at least 11, so that he has 3 iteratives. Buy 12 Mouthpick weapons +1 [LoM] at the sum of 8,000+ gp each.

Now Polymorph into a 12-headed Hydra and wield one mouthpick weapon with each head. Mouthpick weapons specifically allow iterative attacks without requiring the bite weapon to be a primary natural attack, so each head can attack 2-3 times (depending on whether you are a straight wizard or a gish) for 24-36 attacks per round (scaling to 48, if your Gish manages to gain a 4th iterative).

If you really want to go to town, make all your weapons bludgeoning, and cast reach chained Greater Might Wallop on all of them. It should be quite easy to push their effective base damage to colossal size (since Hydras normally wield huge mouthpick weapons). So if you were using e.g. Warhammers, you could deal 6d6 base +6 Str bonus + 1 Enhancement or an average of 28 damage per hit (and gets better if you can cast reach-chain Greater Magic Weapon).

LordBlades
2011-02-09, 05:26 AM
And lets be honest here folks. A maralith can't fly, nor make any pounce type attacks. Giving it an even larger full attack is unlikely to save it from a level appropriate party.

Marilith as written sucks. Marilith with changed feats can be quite a pain. Face a couple at some point with stuff like shape soulmeld (airstep sandals), mage slayer, pierce magical protection and the like....it hurt quite a bit.

LordBlades
2011-02-09, 05:29 AM
That would be the worst long fight ever with each DM turn taking forever, and a day. The archers would be fairly nasty since they will get those full attacks off.

Until a smart wizard shatters their non-magical quiver (did shock a couple of DMs with that tactic) :smallsmile:

Runestar
2011-02-09, 06:07 AM
Mariliths make pretty good ranged attackers themselves.

Hide them in a permanent image of a wall (they ignore this illusion due to their true-seeing), use project image to make them appear far away while bombarding them with telekinesis and blade barriers. :smallamused:

Gnaeus
2011-02-09, 08:22 AM
Marilith as written sucks. Marilith with changed feats can be quite a pain. Face a couple at some point with stuff like shape soulmeld (airstep sandals), mage slayer, pierce magical protection and the like....it hurt quite a bit.

Indeed. Just going up the improved multiweapon fighting tree helps it a lot.

Eldariel
2011-02-09, 08:29 AM
Speed is similar to speed and since it doesn't stack with Haste (which affects the wielder and grants exactly one extra attack, as per "The attack is made using the creature’s full base attack bonus..." as opposed to "The attacks are made using the creature’s full base attack bonus"), it obviously affects the wielder, not the weapon.

Multiple Speed-weapons do not grant you any extra benefits by RAW; else they would stack with Haste. Since they don't, they affect the wielder which in turn means multiple instances of Speed fall under the "similar abilities"-clause since the ability itself lists itself as similar to Haste.


And yeah, Marilith really needs quickened version of its teleport, pounce or some other way to attack with all its weapons while moving; it's extremely simple to smack it and move, cast a spell and more or whatever. It only ever gets two attacks a turn (an AoO and a standard action attack) as opposed to the 6+ attacks it gets that way.

The only exception is a literal cage where every square is in its reach and given how small Mariliths are, that's highly unlikely (not to mention, it still wouldn't stop you from just teleporting to more open space; even if it follows you, it has to give up its full attacks). Really, Marilith, Dragons and company are the perfect exemplars of how ****ty the full attack system in 3.X is; at least two-handed chargers can make that hit hurt even without pounce. And of course, Dragons can make do with magic/feats but the ability to move and attack is just so key for high level warriors to do anything and so hard to acquire in the game that it just hurts...

LordBlades
2011-02-09, 08:55 AM
Really, Marilith, Dragons and company are the perfect exemplars of how ****ty the full attack system in 3.X is; at least two-handed chargers can make that hit hurt even without pounce. And of course, Dragons can make do with magic/feats but the ability to move and attack is just so key for high level warriors to do anything and so hard to acquire in the game that it just hurts...

This. Basically, vs. every monster that has more than 2 attacks, it's more advantageous to keep moving. If you do, all he can do: move next to you+make a singe attack and do an AOO when you move away. that's 2 attacks/round, as opposed to ahy full attack routine that the monster might rely on.

In order to be viable, a full attacking monster would have to either:
a)be able to close distance without having to give up full attack to do so (quickened teleport, pounce, extra actions etc.)
b)once it's next to you, have a way to keep you there (Stand Still or any similar effect, BFC effects, etc.).
c)both of the above

Gnoman
2011-02-09, 08:57 AM
The Haste spell specifies "any weapon." Speed specifies the weapon with the speed enhancement. This means that you cannot use haste to get two extra attacks. Haste is not a speed effect, and because speed specifically applies to an individual weapon, and does not specifically state that no other speed weapons will work, RAW is that you can use more than one of them.

Runestar
2011-02-09, 09:16 AM
Indeed. Just going up the improved multiweapon fighting tree helps it a lot.

Be warned though that iterative attacks have a lower chance of hitting, so all you may end up achieving is wasting time rolling more attacks that rarely ever hit.

I would rather just focus more on their existing attacks. PHB2 has 2-weapon rend, for instance. Improved crit can be useful.

Starbuck_II
2011-02-09, 09:52 AM
Except this isn't a money thing, considering it's on a monster. So regardless of the viability in a totally optimized game, in a game where people don't sit around and crunch numbers or go off trite tier systems it makes for a potentially deadly monster.

Innis Cabal

Yeah, it is a money thing. remember PCS get that treasure when it dies.

Keld Denar
2011-02-09, 10:17 AM
The Haste spell specifies "any weapon." Speed specifies the weapon with the speed enhancement. This means that you cannot use haste to get two extra attacks. Haste is not a speed effect, and because speed specifically applies to an individual weapon, and does not specifically state that no other speed weapons will work, RAW is that you can use more than one of them.

Again, depends on whether or not you put the emphasis on the beginning of the sentance (as me and Eldariel have pointed out), or on the end of the sentance (as you and MeeposFire have stated).

I could really be read either way. Your reading is not the only reading.

Gnoman
2011-02-09, 10:24 AM
My point wasw that allowing them to stack isn't "not RAW" and there is a very strong argument that RAW can support either way. I was replying to a flat statement that by RAW, they do not stack. End of discussion. The wording is ambiguous as it is, and there is nothing to support either reasoning over the other. Sorry if that was not clear.

Draz74
2011-02-09, 12:12 PM
and there is nothing to support either reasoning over the other.

On the contrary, I posted something "to support one reasoning over the other" earlier in the thread. :smallwink:

I agree with you that the primary rules source is ultimately ambiguous.

hamishspence
2011-02-09, 02:30 PM
The question of whether multiple Speed weapons can work simultaneously has come up many times, and always in the end comes down to "It's ambiguous; ask your DM."

I've seen some creatures, with two Speed weapons, and their Full Attack routine having each weapon get an extra attack- Mask in Faiths and Pantheons, most notably.

So there is precedent for it stacking.

FMArthur
2011-02-09, 02:55 PM
Couldn't she have a Belt of Battle or something? There has to be something more efficient than buying six 32000gp swords.

Starbuck_II
2011-02-09, 05:06 PM
Couldn't she have a Belt of Battle or something? There has to be something more efficient than buying six 32000gp swords.

Belt lasts 1 rd (if using full attack action)
Speed weapons have no duration.

Runestar
2011-02-09, 05:13 PM
Belt lasts 1 rd (if using full attack action)
Speed weapons have no duration.

The belt would allow for up to 3 uses/day.

How many rounds do you expect the marilith to last anyways?

Alternatively, throw in travel devotion. Move as a swift action for 1 minute. :smallbiggrin:

Cog
2011-02-09, 05:23 PM
The belt would allow for up to 3 uses/day.
Not if you're using it to get extra attacks. A full-round action uses up all the daily charges.

Runestar
2011-02-09, 05:36 PM
Not if you're using it to get extra attacks. A full-round action uses up all the daily charges.

Then don't.

At 15000gp, I think it is quite reasonable to let the marilith move and still full-attack. Seems more efficient than blowing all the charges on 1 extra full attack.

Alternatively, if it is pounce you want, 1 lv of warblade, dervish or barb does the trick.

Cog
2011-02-09, 05:41 PM
Then don't.

At 15000gp, I think it is quite reasonable to let the marilith move and still full-attack. Seems more efficient than blowing all the charges on 1 extra full attack.

Alternatively, if it is pounce you want, 1 lv of warblade, dervish or barb does the trick.
All that's true. It does nothing to replace the six weapons of speed, though.

Starbuck_II
2011-02-09, 05:42 PM
Then don't.

At 15000gp, I think it is quite reasonable to let the marilith move and still full-attack. Seems more efficient than blowing all the charges on 1 extra full attack.

Alternatively, if it is pounce you want, 1 lv of warblade, dervish or barb does the trick.

I believe the only reason we mentioned speed weapon was for extra attacks, not for full attack more often... you kind of moved the goal post of discussion.

I'll admit better chance at qualifying for full attacks (extra move actions/pounce) can be more useful than double the number of attacks if within 5 feet of target (speed weapons), but not the same duscussion.

FMArthur
2011-02-09, 05:58 PM
Yes, I was using it as an example of a partial solution to get to the same effect with less gold. There are lots of ways to abuse the action economy in D&D. There must surely be one that can duplicate this 192000gp investment (which is apparently already a little unsteady on the rules front) for a lesser cost. Even scrolls of Greater Celerity (it's 8th level, right?) only cost 3000gp. Daze, I forgot.