Whirlwind Attack [3.5]

[fishyfishyfishy]

What if, in addition to it's normal benefits, Whirlwind Attack allowed you to make a full attack after a charge? Would this make it worthwhile to actually take? What kind of impact do you suspect this type of change would have if the feats Dodge and Mobility were combined into a single feat? Would the feat tax still be too much?

This is something I'm considering introducing into an ongoing campaign that would not immediately benefit anyone in the party.

[Flickerdart]

Well, you could take a useless feat (Dodge+Mobility) and then a second useless feat (Whirlwind Attack) to get Pounce...or you could dip a level of barbarian and get all that and more.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I think WWA should give a 2nd attack vs. all at BAB +11 and a 3rd at BAB +16 (all at full BAB...basically I want to be outright better than Adamantine Hurricane). I also let it count as an area attack (since it literally hits EVERYTHING within reach) against swarms. So, you'd basically roll to hit once (or twice, or 3 times, if you have the BAB for more attacks, as above) against the swarm's AC and then dish out 1.5x as much damage with the hit.

[shortround]

If you keep in mind that adding this extra benefit would also allow players to Whirlwind Attack at the end of the charge, I think the feat is pretty neat, but that's still a lot of resources and feats invested to get pounce and something pretty neat. Even combining Dodge and Mobility doesn't change your stat distribution or that you still had to take Spring Attack.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Hmm you guys have good points. I feel the desire to make it better...extra attacks at appropriate BAB amounts is a good idea. It is pretty feat intensive as is so it does need something to make it worthwhile. Thanks for the feedback.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hmm you guys have good points. I feel the desire to make it better...extra attacks at appropriate BAB amounts is a good idea. It is pretty feat intensive as is so it does need something to make it worthwhile. Thanks for the feedback.

On the note of feat intensive, while I did not reduce the feat load at all (other than point out to my players that Mobility is a +1 armor property in MIC), I made Dodge a blanket +1 vs. all and Mobility is simply +4 dodge AC vs. any attack of opportunity -- I figured there's a feat for +4 to hit on AoOs, so having the exact opposite should be fine, too -- and nothing cataclysmic has happened yet. They're still not great feats, but definitely less awful.

[VoxRationis]

Why does everyone hate Whirlwind Attack so much? It replaces a full attack action where subsequent attacks have dramatically reduced accuracy with a full attack action where all the attacks have the same, high chance of hitting. It does prevent focus fire, but that's not necessarily important.

Say you're in a fight against a horde of goblins at 6th level. Successive attacks against them aren't that important, because a) you only have 1, being at 4th level; and b) each of your attacks is likely to kill them in one hit anyway. But Whirlwind Attack allows you to fight and kill as many as 8 in one round, or as many as 24 if you have a spiked chain or another method of getting both reach and adjacent attack at the same time.
And Lord help the goblins if you have Cleave (easily possible at 6) in addition to Whirlwind Attack; any goblins that are tough enough to survive one hit just earned a flurry of other, full-BAB attacks chaining off of their dead fellows.
Yes, the wizard could just wipe out an equal number more or less automatically with fireball at that level, but that argument has problems because:
1) a 6th-level wizard doesn't have that many third level spells per day, and may well have used it before that fight;
2) a lot of people don't like fireball and would prefer to use their spell slots on other spells;
3) it's poor form to say "but the wizard could just do X" because the wizard could just do anything—that argument negates the point of having a magic-impaired class, and that's not what we're talking about.

I suppose it's not that great when you're fighting a nest full of juvenile red dragons at 15th level or something like that, but not all play takes place at high level. I've been in lots of fights where the party goes up against a lot of low-level foes, and DM'ed more than a few. So yes, the feat is situationally useful, but not terrible.

[Seerow]

Say you're in a fight against a horde of goblins at 6th level

Here's your problem. A horde of regular goblins at 6th level isn't really a threat. You can fight them, but you will do just as well killing them all even without Whirlwind Attack. At 6th level a 'hard' encounter of Goblins is going to be somewhere between 48 and 96 goblins that have almost no chance of hitting you and when they do, they deal very little damage. Whirlwind Attack is going to make you more efficient at dealing with them, but honestly not going to change the outcome of the fight. And Whirlwind Attack requires 3 prerequisite feats that are all completely useless to you.

If you put those 4 feats anywhere else, you will still have no problem chopping up a big group of goblins without being injured, but if you face a real CR8-10 challenge, those other feats could mean the difference in whether or not you are capable of winning.

[VoxRationis]

I contest the idea that a large number of low-level opponents is not a threat. Most of the party deaths in campaigns I have run have come from large numbers of low-level opponents. Goblins might not be the best choice of monster for the idea, but lots of level 1 warriors with high-damage weapons can strip a player's hit point total pretty quickly. They might not hit a lot (depending on player armor) but they will hit pretty hard, and there's a lot of attack rolls between them all.

That said, I see that the prerequisites are rather costly, and that the feat isn't as useful for a lot of other encounter scenarios. I suppose it tends to be more useful for my campaign settings, with fewer monsters and more nonmagical soldiers.

[StreamOfTheSky]

You're also forgetting that WWA precludes extra attacks from things like Imp. Trip and haste.

And that in general, focus firing is the path to victory in D&D, due to critical existence failure (ie, "I do the same damage at 1 hp as I do at 100 hp!"). You're better off attacking each foe over and over till he drops, rather than spreading it out each round. The sooner each foe drops, the sooner he's no longer attacking you.

Sure, if you can for sure drop each foe in a single hit, WWA can be useful if there's enough of them. But that's very situational, and the massive amount of (horrible) requirements makes it pointless to take something so situational. If it had no pre-reqs other than (for example) BAB +6, maybe it'd be more worthwhile.
Or you can just leave mook clearing for the party caster, much as he leaves beating down the single tough guy (once he's neutered it with debuffs enough to the point that anything else would do nothing or be severely dimishing returns) to you rather than blowing half a dozen of his spells just to burn off a few dozen hp from an already defeated target. It's a team game, no shame in outsourcing your weaker areas for someone else to cover.

[VoxRationis]

Yes, I understand the logic behind focus firing. I have understood it for many years. You don't have to explain it to me. I was saying that there are times when that's not the most applicable line of thought in combat.

However, it appears as though my view of the feat has been colored by my preference as a DM for lower-magic settings where the players are more likely to be fighting low-level minions than they are to be fighting 1d4+1 8HD monsters. I concede that for many typical dungeon crawl adventures, Whirlwind Attack is less useful.

[Flickerdart]

In my experience with D&D, situations where my reach is entirely occupied with easy to kill enemies that nevertheless pose a threat to me have come up exactly zero times. When DMs deploy squads of weak foes, they are skirmishers that never stick together (because then a fireball can take care of the lot, without having to waste 4 feats) and use predominantly ranged weapons (since they're only hitting on a 20 and dealing a pittance in damage anyway) and traps. Using melee weaklings is also a really dumb idea, since only a limited amount can surround any given character, and they'd be giving up their advantage in numbers for absolutely no reason.

[(Un)Inspired]

Yes, I understand the logic behind focus firing. I have understood it for many years. You don't have to explain it to me. I was saying that there are times when that's not the most applicable line of thought in combat.

However, it appears as though my view of the feat has been colored by my preference as a DM for lower-magic settings where the players are more likely to be fighting low-level minions than they are to be fighting 1d4+1 8HD monsters. I concede that for many typical dungeon crawl adventures, Whirlwind Attack is less useful.

I would say that even in a low magic, bug hunt setting where all the character just beat up high number of very weak enemies (RHoD anyone?) then whirlwind attack still isn't worth all the feats.

As was pointed out earlier, why waste a bunch of feats when you can just use adamantine hurricane FTW?

[VoxRationis]

Well, not everyone likes quasi-spellcasting anime fighters who forget how to do their well-trained battle maneuvers in mid-combat, so throwing out Tome of Battle for every post isn't as great an argument as you seem to think;
also, I looked it up and it's a level 8 maneuver, so comparing it to a feat that can be attained at level 4 is a little unfair. "Why cast flaming sphere when you can roflstomp everyone with incendiary cloud?"

[(Un)Inspired]

Do I mention ToB every post? I figured I just mentioned it as a solution for bad design like with Whirlwind attack.

[TroubleBrewing]

Well, not everyone likes quasi-spellcasting anime fighters who forget how to do their well-trained battle maneuvers in mid-combat, so throwing out Tome of Battle for every post isn't as great an argument as you seem to think

Ugh. As strawman arguments go, this is a pretty wretched one. If you don't like your melee interesting, don't blame those of us who've found a solution.


Do I mention ToB every post?

Lot of melee questions today, and ToB solves a lot of melee problems. Nothing wrong with it.

[Seerow]

Well, not everyone likes quasi-spellcasting anime fighters who forget how to do their well-trained battle maneuvers in mid-combat,

And this is a great way to derail a thread with stuff you probably don't care about. Just saying.


so throwing out Tome of Battle for every post isn't as great an argument as you seem to think;
also, I looked it up and it's a level 8 maneuver, so comparing it to a feat that can be attained at level 4 is a little unfair. "Why cast flaming sphere when you can roflstomp everyone with incendiary cloud?"

Okay so how about "Why would I want to spend literally 5 feats (It also apparently requires Combat Expertise. Fun!) to do less than a Wizard could do with a single low level spell?", especially when you consider the benefit you yourself get from investing those 5 feats literally anywhere else. Seriously, you will see better returns on the Weapon Focus line of feats. You might see a better return taking the weapon focus line on a weapon that isn't your primary weapon

[Erik Vale]

I also let it count as an area attack (since it literally hits EVERYTHING within reach) against swarms.

What prevents it, your hitting each individual insect/other once at full BAB?
[Not RAI, but if I ever end up using it I'll be arguing such with the DM]

[VoxRationis]

And this is a great way to derail a thread with stuff you probably don't care about. Just saying.



Okay so how about "Why would I want to spend literally 5 feats (It also apparently requires Combat Expertise. Fun!) to do less than a Wizard could do with a single low level spell?", especially when you consider the benefit you yourself get from investing those 5 feats literally anywhere else. Seriously, you will see better returns on the Weapon Focus line of feats. You might see a better return taking the weapon focus line on a weapon that isn't your primary weapon

Ah, that's a better argument. Thank you. I was just pointing out that a high-level splatbook ability isn't a good comparison for a low-level core ability. And good point about derailing the thread; I don't even want to go there. I'm just going to pretend I didn't say that.

[VoxRationis]

Do I mention ToB every post? I figured I just mentioned it as a solution for bad design like with Whirlwind attack.

No, you don't; I apologize. I was not in spirit addressing you specifically with that comment, but rather the common mentality that all matters relating to melee should immediately be addressed with reference to the Tome of Battle.

[shortround]

Honest to goodness as much as I want to believe in Whirlwind Attack in those kind of situations, I just can't justify running encounters with that many disposable minions. I like the idea of making my players expend their resources in these kind of scenarios, but moving and managing that many minions at once has only ever turned my combats into a big great slog of "do i really have to roll for this?" situations where it's one of those things you just sort of expect your character ought to be able to do, like not having to make a balance check to get out of bed in the morning. These tasks, mechanically, aren't challenging so feats like Whirlwind Attack just sort of give you this neat option to deal with a situation you're already pretty handy at by the nature of having gotten to an ECL where you character can actually take it.

[StreamOfTheSky]

also, I looked it up and it's a level 8 maneuver, so comparing it to a feat that can be attained at level 4 is a little unfair. "Why cast flaming sphere when you can roflstomp everyone with incendiary cloud?"

Well, Adamantine Hurricane (AH) is the level 8 for two hits. Mithral Tornado is level 4 (available at 7th level, a bit higher level than a fighter could get WWA if he were willing to waste all those feats so early) for 1 hit per foe and is more comparable to the existing WWA. I was just saying with my boost to the # of hits for WWA at later levels, I wanted it in the end to be outright superior to AH.


What prevents it, your hitting each individual insect/other once at full BAB?
[Not RAI, but if I ever end up using it I'll be arguing such with the DM]

By RAW? Nothing, IMO. But every single time I've tried to argue "Whirlwind Attack should work on swarms! It hits EVERYTHING!", everyone tells me I'm wrong or that's unrealistic, or "it's still weapon damage", or "that's not how the rules work" and other dismissive bs. You'll need someone else to step up to the plate and defend that viewpoint, I obviously disagree with it completely. It also could be argued that rolling 10,000 attacks (against each member of the swarm) is nuts. I agree; that's why I just treat it as area damage and have one roll vs. AC for 1.5x damage.

[(Un)Inspired]

No, you don't; I apologize. I was not in spirit addressing you specifically with that comment, but rather the common mentality that all matters relating to melee should immediately be addressed with reference to the Tome of Battle.

It's okay buddy. I personally like ToB because I'm having a lot of fun running a game where my little brother is playing a pathfinder ninja/ swordsage and my good friend is playing a paladin/ crusader.

To be honest it took me like 6 months after starting to play 3.5 to give ToB a good looking at. It reminded me too much of 4e which I had just switched from. It wasn't until I sat down and read it that I started to think it was cool and full of awesome options for mundanes.

If it's not for you, then ignore my recommendations that include it. I want to offer help based on my experience and not just dictate what people should build (but I can be thick headed enough not to realize I'm doing the latter when I'm attempting the former).

[VoxRationis]

You can take it at levels where your character can be plenty threatened by low-level opponents. A 4th-level fighter, or even a 6th-level, can be killed by a mob of 1st-level fighters or warriors.

[Flickerdart]

You can take it at levels where your character can be plenty threatened by low-level opponents. A 4th-level fighter, or even a 6th-level, can be killed by a mob of 1st-level fighters or warriors.
A 4th level character is appropriately challenged by three level 1 fighters (CR4), and kills one per round. That's not really a mob. A 6th level character is challenged by 6 of them, but kills 2 per round. Either way, they are hard-pressed to do very much to him in the 3 rounds that they are alive - and this is supposed to be a 50/50 fight by the CR rules.

[VoxRationis]

By RAW? Nothing, IMO. But every single time I've tried to argue "Whirlwind Attack should work on swarms! It hits EVERYTHING!", everyone tells me I'm wrong or that's unrealistic, or "it's still weapon damage", or "that's not how the rules work" and other dismissive bs. You'll need someone else to step up to the plate and defend that viewpoint, I obviously disagree with it completely. It also could be argued that rolling 10,000 attacks (against each member of the swarm) is nuts. I agree; that's why I just treat it as area damage and have one roll vs. AC for 1.5x damage.

I think it's because a swarm counts as a single creature, and you don't get to make attacks against specific parts of a creature.

[Captnq]

Why Does Whirlwind Attack Suck?

The Feat:

Whirlwind Attack
Prerequisites: Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, base attack bonus +4.

The WSA:

WHIRLING
- MAGIC ITEM COMPENDIUM (3.5)
Price: +1 bonus
Three times per day, you can use this weapon to make a whirling attack that has a chance of striking all nearby opponents. This property otherwise functions like the Whirlwind Attack feat.


You're Welcome.