Bloodstorm Blade questions

[snoosnaa]

This is in reference to the Bloodstorm Blade prestige class in the Tome of Battle, page 100.

1. The Thunderous Throw ability seems to reference only attack rolls, but many threads and forums assume that this makes the entire attack as a melee attack.

"you can choose to treat your ranged attack rolls with thrown weapons as melee attacks" and "You use your melee attack bonus, including Strength bonus, feats, and so forth, to determine
your attack bonus for each attack as normal"

It specifically mentions attack rolls and attack bonus. I understand that it would not be OP to house rule this as treating every part of the attack as melee, therefore applying any melee feats to the attack and damage, and that is in fact what my group has chosen to do. But this is never mentioned in discussion of the class or skill that I can see. Am I missing something that makes it clear?

2. As far as taking the feat Boomerang Daze, it is suggested to use a weapon with the Aptitude enhancement(also from Tome of Battle) to apply it to attacks. The Bloodstorm Blade class gets weapon aptitude as a feat. If you use the same type of weapon for all of your attacks, wouldn't you be able to use that to apply the various feats for use such as Boomerang Daze, Boomerang Ricochet, etc?

Thanks in advance.

[Kayblis]

1.The class ability seems to only specify attack rolls, not the damage rolls. It specifically calls out Power Attack, so there aren't many other melee boosters to abuse. The houserule doesn't change much of the game and is usually a way to simplify play.

2. The class ability "Weapon Aptitude" lets you change weapon-specific feats like Weapon Focus to any other weapon that can have it, and lets you qualify as a Fighter. This includes Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, bought Weapon Proficiencies(usually exotic) and other feats that usually requires a specific weapon(note that your class proficiencies are not feats, they are class features). Boomerang Daze doesn't meet those criteria - it's a feat that requires a specific proficiency and applies a bonus effect to these same weapons, but it's not a weapon-specific feat for Weapon Aptitude. You can't change it around to be "Boomerang Daze(Throwing Axe)", because it's not a feat that can be applied to a weapon.

The Aptitude enchantment on the other hand makes the weapon count as a valid target for a feat, so you're not affecting the base feat Boomerang Daze in any way - it only affects a Talenta boomerang or Xen'drik boomerang, but now your Aptitude Throwing Axe counts as one of those two for the purpose of feats.

[RaiKirah]

...It specifically calls out Power Attack, so I don't see what other "OP feats" you would normally apply to your melee attack that would break the game if you could do it ranged. Am I missing something here?

I suspect the OP is referring to the use of combat maneuvers (trip, etc.), specifically such combos as: Knock-Down -> Improved Trip -> Attack, or: Jotunbrud -> Knockback -> Dungeon Crasher. There are plenty of melee combos that don't really make sense at range, but are usually allowed on BSB.

[Kayblis]

Sorry, I reread the OP and changed a couple things around before seeing replies.

I see your point, and most effects don't make sense. I believe the DM would have to talk things through with the player and figure out what makes sense with this class.

[RaiKirah]

I see your point, and most effects don't make sense. I believe the DM would have to talk things through with the player and figure out what makes sense with this class.

Definitely a DM conversation, though I happen to think that throwing a weapon hard enough to slam someone into a wall, or knock them over, is hilarious and should be allowed. You can also make the 'at least I'm not a full spellcaster' argument to get away with pretty much anything. Since you're not charging you're not going to be reaching Ubercharger levels of damage so getting a few perks seems reasonable.