Orien's Fury (Blade of Orien)

[Mr.Kraken]

"Orien's Fury (Ex): At 10th level, you learn to unleash lightning-swift attacks even as you shift through space. Whenever you use your swift leap ability to dimension leap as a move action, you can make a full attack at the end of your leap."

Imagine the following situation: the 10th level Blade of Orien is next to his enemy. He uses his standard action to attack his opponent and then, uses his move action to dimension leap to another space next to same enemy. Could he full attack?

A full attack is a full-round action, and you can't take full-round actions if you had already taken standard, swift or move actions. Now, in my opinion, Orien's Fury was supposed to let you full attack after you teleport, but the writers were kinda naive when choosing the words.

Can you guys give me some insight?

[Fax Celestis]

You get to full attack.

[Mr.Kraken]

You get to full attack.

Does it mean that the BoO gets a free full attack, then?

Let me propose another scenario. The 10th level Blade of Orien uses his move action to dimension leap next to an opponent, and uses Orien's Fury to full attack. If this full attack is free, then he decides to exchange his standard action for another move action, dimension leaps to another square next to the same enemy and full attacks him again.

Is this accurate?

[Keld Denar]

A full attack is always a full round action, but a full round action isn't always a full attack. It gives you a full attack. That doesn't mean it gives you a standard action + a move action. You either full attack, or you don't. No halfing it out.

And yea, there are a lot of multipouncing builds that get multiple full attacks in the same round. Heck, you don't even have to multipounce if you have a Belt of Battle.

[Mr.Kraken]

So it is correct to say he could full attack twice per turn? This doesn't look right.

[T.G. Oskar]

So it is correct to say he could full attack twice per turn? This doesn't look right.

Think about it as being capable of making as many full attacks as uses of Dimension Leap the Blade has available. Swift Leap is based on the Dimension Leap SLA gained by means of its Dragonmark, therefore its uses are pretty limited.

In this case, you're looking at a nova build; find as many ways to use Dimension Leap in one round, but consume just as many uses. Think of that as its balancing point; once the uses of Dimension Leap are consumed, he can't use Orien's Fury for the rest of the day, so might as well conserve uses.

[Red Fel]

It may look shocking, but think not only about what you're using - a limited daily resource - but what you're investing. You're investing 10 levels in a PrC to get this one ability. You may as well get your money's worth.

Even so, is it really that terrible to give melees a source of multiple full attacks? ToB does it in spades. And as others have mentioned, there are plenty of shadowpouncing builds designed to do precisely that. One of my favorites involves getting a source of shadow pounce, and combining it with the Shadow Jaunt, Shadow Stride, and Shadow Blink maneuvers, letting you teleport three times in one turn (1 standard, 1 move, 1 swift action) and full attack on each.

Yeah. This is a thing that does what you think it does.

[T.G. Oskar]

It may look shocking, but think not only about what you're using - a limited daily resource - but what you're investing. You're investing 10 levels in a PrC to get this one ability. You may as well get your money's worth.

Even so, is it really that terrible to give melees a source of multiple full attacks? ToB does it in spades. And as others have mentioned, there are plenty of shadowpouncing builds designed to do precisely that. One of my favorites involves getting a source of shadow pounce, and combining it with the Shadow Jaunt, Shadow Stride, and Shadow Blink maneuvers, letting you teleport three times in one turn (1 standard, 1 move, 1 swift action) and full attack on each.

Yeah. This is a thing that does what you think it does.

Don't forget that, with Adaptive Spell or a method of faster recovery, you can do this trick once every two rounds. That's even better than Blade of Orien, but the point still stands: it's a nice trick, so while it may feel overpowered, it really isn't; full attacks (and movement between those, if possible) are the lifeblood of martial characters, and you're spending a lot of resources to make this work. Might as well make it work as it should (after all, a spellcaster has better forms of action economy, and their tools are far more flexible).

[Mr.Kraken]

Still, as a DM, this seems unbalancing. How many enemies could full attack as much as this PC? A marilith, maybe, but the PC could do this in every fight, while melee enemies would be way simpler, and by comparison, weaker.

But hey, after you compare it with the Arcane Duelist's Flurry of Swords, I guess it's not as game-breaking.

[Bluydee]

Does the number of attacks the melee makes really matter when a wizard could've just summoned stuff to completely make the melee useless?

It's not unbalancing, simply because melee needs all the help they can get.

[Extra Anchovies]

I may be reading this wrong, but... is there any way to get more than 2 daily uses of the least and lesser dragonmark powers? Dragonmark Heir grants one additional use for each over the base 1, but I don't see anything else. All in all, 2/day telepounce as a 10-level PrC capstone is really weak. You get a significantly better version from four levels in Telflammar Shadowlord.

[Deadkitten]

Improved Dimension Leap (Ex): Dimension leap is the signature ability of the blade of Orien, and you can use it an additional number of times per day equal to one plus one-half your class level (minimum 1). When using dimension leap, you can move in 5-foot increments instead of being limited to 10-foot increments.

You actually get 6 additional uses of the ability from the class by the time you get to 10th.

If you don't plan to NOVA all at once, that should be enough uses of the Ability to get you through a day. Theoretically at least.

[Extra Anchovies]

Improved Dimension Leap (Ex): Dimension leap is the signature ability of the blade of Orien, and you can use it an additional number of times per day equal to one plus one-half your class level (minimum 1). When using dimension leap, you can move in 5-foot increments instead of being limited to 10-foot increments.

You actually get 6 additional uses of the ability from the class by the time you get to 10th.

If you don't plan to NOVA all at once, that should be enough uses of the Ability to get you through a day. Theoretically at least.

Indeed. You really only need one, to get into full-attack range of the enemy, unless you're up against a skirmisher.

Also, how did I miss that? I must've skipped to the end of that ability and only the 5-foot increment bit registered.

That's... kind of a cool prestige class, actually. I now want to try it, because 8/day telepounce = goody goody.

[Fax Celestis]

Dragonmark Prodigy/Adept/Visionary give you extra uses of dragonmarks. Also dragonshard reservoirs and dragonmark scepters.

[Keld Denar]

Also look at the fact that this doesn't come online until level 15 at the EARLIEST and requires a lot of resources. By then, 8th level spells are on the table. Its not terrible, but its really not as good in practice as you think. Even with a large number of attacks, any character with Pounce could probably out damage a BoO with a single charge with a much less investment of feats and class levels.

[Red Fel]

Indeed. You really only need one, to get into full-attack range of the enemy, unless you're up against a skirmisher.

Also, how did I miss that? I must've skipped to the end of that ability and only the 5-foot increment bit registered.

That's... kind of a cool prestige class, actually. I now want to try it, because 8/day telepounce = goody goody.

A lot (possible all? I haven't checked) of the House-specific Dragonmark PrCs increase your daily SLA uses. There are also feats (e.g. Dragonmark Prodigy) that give you additional SLAs and increase your existing uses. Further, the PrCs also give you bonus functionality by allowing you to spend charges of your SLAs to do other cool things.

It's why, for example, I'm a huge fan of the Storm Sentry PrC.

EDIT: Orien'd.

[Deadkitten]

Also look at the fact that this doesn't come online until level 15 at the EARLIEST and requires a lot of resources. By then, 8th level spells are on the table. Its not terrible, but its really not as good in practice as you think. Even with a large number of attacks, any character with Pounce could probably out damage a BoO with a single charge with a much less investment of feats and class levels.

That is why in my Eberron games, that as long as everyone wants to play a dragon marked character, I tend to give them the dragon marks and their greater versions for free.

That's the only way it seems worth the effort sometimes. Which is disappointing considering how much RPing can be done with dragonmarks.

[Mr.Kraken]

Does the number of attacks the melee makes really matter when a wizard could've just summoned stuff to completely make the melee useless?

It's not unbalancing, simply because melee needs all the help they can get.

Well, yes if the melee could suddenly teleport past all the summoned stuff and next to the wizard, full attack him, teleport next to him again and full attack him again. If the wizard is not well-prepared, bye-bye wizard.

But I guess that makes the class cooler.

[Twilightwyrm]

Well, yes if the melee could suddenly teleport past all the summoned stuff and next to the wizard, full attack him, teleport next to him again and full attack him again. If the wizard is not well-prepared, bye-bye wizard.

But I guess that makes the class cooler.

I don't think that was quite the point of what was being said. Assume in this case that the Wizard and the BoO are on the same side. At 15th level, the BoO is going to get those two full attacks against the enemy on his turn. The Wizard can (assuming for the moment he is not abusing Celerity and its ilk) cast Summon Monster VIII to get 1d4+1 Celestial Dire Lions (netting him the equivalent of 1d4+1 full attacks with the same number of attacks as the BoO has), or 1d3 Elder Xorns (each with four attacks per full attack). This is with no investment on the Wizard's part, other than preparing the spell that day. If they actually invest in summoning, each of these monsters is likely to have several bonuses on top of everything, potentially in addition to bound outsiders they've previously summoned with the Planar Binding spell, each of which will have their own full attack routines. Or they can Polymorph themselves into a Twelve Headed Cryohydra for Twelve attacks per full attack, twice the number the BoO would get even with his teleporting attacks (of course, this would be better utilized by polymorphing the BoO into a Twelve-Headed Cryohydra, but I digress). Do you see where this is going?

Note on Bold Text: While I'm not of the opinion that one should always assume all wizards to prepared for anything, if at 15th level as a wizard you do not at least have a preparation in mind for someone attacking you in melee combat, you are seriously under-utilizing your potential.

[Mato]

I don't think that was quite the point of what was being said.I agree, it sounds like it was a measurement of damage more than who can kill who prior to his post.

And that point is considerable if you look at your first example. 1d3 averages 2 and each elder Xorn only deals 35.5 on average if every attack hits, and it won't. So the spell is worth less than 70 damage per turn. Which is less than what you would expect out of two full attacks (+5 greatsword at say 28 str=96).

BoO is a more optimized means of damage, but not as great as charging normally or an optimized caster's means of damage such as a hydra.

[Zweisteine]

"Orien's Fury (Ex): At 10th level, you learn to unleash lightning-swift attacks even as you shift through space. Whenever you use your swift leap ability to dimension leap as a move action, you can make a full attack at the end of your leap."?
I feel like something rather important has been overlooked here.

If you have already taken a full attack, you can not use swift leap as a move action.
But, by RAW, you could use a standard action to make another attack.

And my opinion on the ability:
I'd guess that the intent of this ability is to let you dimension leap and full attack together as a full-round action.

[Extra Anchovies]

I feel like something rather important has been overlooked here.

If you have already taken a full attack, you can not use swift leap as a move action.
But, by RAW, you could use a standard action to make another attack.

And my opinion on the ability:
I'd guess that the intent of this ability is to let you dimension leap and full attack together as a full-round action.

Hm. If only it weren't at the end of a ten-level PrC, that would make a good combo with Warblade: use a strike (or recover your maneuvers), then teleport, then full attack.

[Mr.Kraken]

I feel like something rather important has been overlooked here.

If you have already taken a full attack, you can not use swift leap as a move action.
But, by RAW, you could use a standard action to make another attack.

And my opinion on the ability:
I'd guess that the intent of this ability is to let you dimension leap and full attack together as a full-round action.

I think this makes more sense rather than getting a free full attack after a dimension leap move action. Specially fluff-wise.


Hm. If only it weren't at the end of a ten-level PrC, that would make a good combo with Warblade: use a strike (or recover your maneuvers), then teleport, then full attack.

That would also make a good combo with a 13th level Duskblade: arcane channeling, then teleport, then full attack.


I don't think that was quite the point of what was being said

I understand. My point was that teleportation can be easily abused, and this class, which is teleportation-oriented could be used to easily destroy strategies. Now add the possibility of using a full attack twice per round, and you have a pretty strong class. Probably a bit too strong. As a DM, I feel strongly inclined to almost always have my enemies have Dimensional Anchor, since a BoO PC destroys most strategies. Add that to him becoming a damage-dealer, and suddenly the spell becomes a must.

[Fax Celestis]

You do realize that Blade of Orien is the weakest teleport-pouncer option? Telflammar Shadowlord, Crinti Shadow Marauder, and others gain it on every teleport.

[Mr.Kraken]

You do realize that Blade of Orien is the weakest teleport-pouncer option? Telflammar Shadowlord, Crinti Shadow Marauder, and others gain it on every teleport.

Really? Ouch... any ideas for a strong strategy against these types of characters as a DM?

[Bluydee]

full attack twice per round

Because Time Stands Still doesn't exist? In a game where Wizards exist, does letting a MELEE character, who has this one niche, being able to make two full attacks in a turn 8 times a day by teleporting really that overpowered? Swordsage can pull off both ideas of teleporting and multiple full attacks, without gimping themselves and having limitations on doing this each day anyways. And, specifically, teleporters are merely glorified at moving. They can just walk through people, which anyone with tumble can do. Any tactic can counter teleportation merely by not having any space to teleport to.

[Extra Anchovies]

Really? Ouch... any ideas for a strong strategy against these types of characters as a DM?

Dimensional anchor, AMF, etc should help as long as you can justify it in-character (for example, BBEG would probably eventually learn about said telepouncing, but random ogres would not).

On the topic of telepouncers: Would it be worth a Totemist's time to grab a teleport pounce from somewhere and combo it with blink shirt, or is it better to just grab Sphinx Claws and a fly speed?

[Red Fel]

Really? Ouch... any ideas for a strong strategy against these types of characters as a DM?

The thing is, defense against a shadowpouncer isn't substantially different from defense against any other form of melee DPR build. Yes, the fact that they teleport instead of charge means they have slightly better maneuverability and are somewhat harder to keep from charging, but by the same token many have limited-use resources.

Without substantial optimization, the best you can squeeze out of these builds, generally, is one full attack after a shadowpounce. With substantial optimization, you can squeeze out two, three tops.

Now, that sounds like a lot. But if you step back and consider what a caster could be doing with that same round, two full attacks really doesn't seem like all that much at all. Furthermore, it generally requires a very niche level of optimization - in other words, the character who can pull this off really can't do much else. Outside of combat, his utility will be limited.

In other words, if you're strategizing against melees doing this stuff, what are your strategies against game-breaking casters? Because they have plenty of such options open to them; if this bothers you, I can only imagine what casters must do.

That said, if you have a PC who manages to squeeze out three full attacks in a round, reusable, and that intimidates you, I don't think the issue is how to deal with the PC. I think the issue is that you have a player whose optimization threshold exceeds yours. And that's okay. As a DM, it's important to know the limit of your abilities. If you find you're dealing with players who optimize beyond what you can handle, don't try to nerf them in-character. Sit down with the player and explain your concerns. Explain that you find that, for example, a PC able to teleport and perform three full attacks in a round is a daunting prospect, and you would much prefer that the player limit himself in the future. That's a fair request.

@ Anchovies: Blink Shirt shadowpouncing is always fun. Just remember that Blink Shirt calls out Dimension Door, which means that you can take no actions (other than your full attack) after using the Shirt. (Before using it, however...)

[Twilightwyrm]

I agree, it sounds like it was a measurement of damage more than who can kill who prior to his post.

And that point is considerable if you look at your first example. 1d3 averages 2 and each elder Xorn only deals 35.5 on average if every attack hits, and it won't. So the spell is worth less than 70 damage per turn. Which is less than what you would expect out of two full attacks (+5 greatsword at say 28 str=96).

BoO is a more optimized means of damage, but not as great as charging normally or an optimized caster's means of damage such as a hydra.

I'm not quite sure where you are getting the 96 number from. Based upon my basic calculations (7 (greatsword) + 5 (enhancement) + 13 (Str) = 25), if all attacks hit you are averaging 25 damage per hit, hence 150 damage per round. This is, on the one hand, assuming all attacks hit, and on the other hand, not assuming any other sources or damage, or PA. And while it may seem like I'm talking myself even further into a corner, my point here is damage will depend largely on the amount of investment we are talking about. In order to gain the Summon Monster VIII or Polymproh full attacks, the Wizard need invest practically nothing, at most the 3,800gp and/or 1,100gp respectively to buy the scrolls and scribe them in their spell book. The BoO, by contrast is investing 50,350gp on the Greatsword, plus 36,000 for a Belt of Giant Strength +6, plus 27,500 gp for a Manuel of Gainful Exercise (+1) and all of his stat increases up until this point in order to get his Strength to 28, not to mention assuming that he used enough points at character creation point buy (assuming that is the method that was being used) to get an 18 to Strength. That's 113,850/200,000 for the average WBL for a character of that level, plus ever stat increase, plus 17 points at character creation. While I will grant you that these are all things that also help the BoO in the course of his normal vocation, even considering this that is a considerably larger gap in investment in terms of both character and wealth verses the investment the wizard is making. And this is before we even get into the investment of feats, or skill points, or character levels.
Further, it should be important to note that I was not saying that the Wizard could do this better than the BoO, but rather than he could do something similar with comparatively less investment out of core. And, like I said, all this starts getting more and more powerful as the wizard invests more and more in summoning.

[Mato]

I'm not quite sure where you are getting the 96 number from.Well there are ways to hit it but I have no idea either. :smallconfused:

I think we can all agree that Orien's fury isn't as good as shadow pounce, charge multipliers, tome of battle, or a wizard, but being able to full-attack off a move action is better than nothing.