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Magnor Criol
2008-12-08, 02:58 PM
So in one of the campaigns I'm in I'm playing a djinni, using the Savage Species class progression*. (Some of you may recall the last thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93001) I started pertaining to this guy.) Currently we're all level 5; at level 4 in the djinni class, you gain the ability to take whirlwind form once per day.

At the end of the last session, we'd just slain a vamp. He took mistform and fled through a tiny hole in an otherwise solid brick wall. Separated from the vamp's coffin by the stone wall, we had to find a way through in order to slay it.

So then I thought of a lovely idea. Two doors down was an old armory, filled with rows upon rows of mundane weapons - maces, swords, axes, what have you. (The building was an old fort.)

So I went in to the armory, turned into a whirlwind and sucked up all the weapons I could, then returned to the wall and let all the weapons go to work, chipping away at the brick a la a giant drill until we busted through.

So my question is, what if I want to keep doing this? I have a pretty decent Str, so its reasonable I could carry quite a few of these weapons. Next time we see a mob, I'd dump them on the ground, turn into a whirlwind and let the tornado o' blades go to town. How would this work mechanically?

I could use the Ragewind (MMII 173) as a source, but that's a CR 19 creature, and so a direct copy of that is way too strong; and that doesn't really cover how I'm thinking anyhow. I'm envisioning gobs of weapons jsut circling around me, a sort of wall of metal, dealing a nice bit of damage to anything bordering my 5-foot-wide base, and also to anything caught up in me.

Further, the whirlwind already does 3d6 damage to someone who fails a save; it could be that the weapons simply are part of this, maybe add a bit to it, and change its type.

Thoughts?



*For those of you who don't have it, Savage Species has a number of "Monster Classes." If you wish to play a monster, when you level up you take a level in its "monster class" instead of a traditional class. The monster's abilities are spread out over the class levels, which always equal what the LA would be. It's sort of like "growing up" as a monster.

Kyace
2008-12-08, 11:57 PM
If I had to homebrew from the hip:

Debris Ring: A djinni may form a debris ring 5' out from the base of their whirlwind form by picking up a one-handed medium-sized weapon per square of the ring. Entering or starting the round in a debris ring requires a reflex save (DC 13 + 1/2 HD + Str Mod) or take 3d6 damage. Holding the weapons into the ring weakens the Djinni's normal whirlwind, thus characters touching the funnel itself are not sucked in nor does touching the whirlwind deal 3d6. Once per round as a free action, a djinni may drop or pick up the weapons switch between this or the normal Whirlwind effect.

This is still the same damage you'd do normally but over a different area, giving up the quasi-grappling effect to deal damage to more ground level squares at once. Buying 8 (or 12 later) weapons isn't a great enough cost to balance dealing more damage. If you wished to spend a feat on this then having the ring deal xd6 where is the normal of Djinni racial HD you have, this would end up 7d6 at ECL 13; even with other At-Will sources of damage.

But yes, unless you spend a feat or something, having weapons in the whirlwind shouldn't make a huge difference to the damage: There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Kizara
2008-12-09, 01:12 AM
So in one of the campaigns I'm in I'm playing a djinni, using the Savage Species class progression*. (Some of you may recall the last thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93001) I started pertaining to this guy.) Currently we're all level 5; at level 4 in the djinni class, you gain the ability to take whirlwind form once per day.

At the end of the last session, we'd just slain a vamp. He took mistform and fled through a tiny hole in an otherwise solid brick wall. Separated from the vamp's coffin by the stone wall, we had to find a way through in order to slay it.

So then I thought of a lovely idea. Two doors down was an old armory, filled with rows upon rows of mundane weapons - maces, swords, axes, what have you. (The building was an old fort.)

So I went in to the armory, turned into a whirlwind and sucked up all the weapons I could, then returned to the wall and let all the weapons go to work, chipping away at the brick a la a giant drill until we busted through.

So my question is, what if I want to keep doing this? I have a pretty decent Str, so its reasonable I could carry quite a few of these weapons. Next time we see a mob, I'd dump them on the ground, turn into a whirlwind and let the tornado o' blades go to town. How would this work mechanically?

I could use the Ragewind (MMII 173) as a source, but that's a CR 19 creature, and so a direct copy of that is way too strong; and that doesn't really cover how I'm thinking anyhow. I'm envisioning gobs of weapons jsut circling around me, a sort of wall of metal, dealing a nice bit of damage to anything bordering my 5-foot-wide base, and also to anything caught up in me.

Further, the whirlwind already does 3d6 damage to someone who fails a save; it could be that the weapons simply are part of this, maybe add a bit to it, and change its type.

Thoughts?



*For those of you who don't have it, Savage Species has a number of "Monster Classes." If you wish to play a monster, when you level up you take a level in its "monster class" instead of a traditional class. The monster's abilities are spread out over the class levels, which always equal what the LA would be. It's sort of like "growing up" as a monster.


I don't know if I would even rule that your whirlwind is strong enough to usefully pick up many large, heavy metal weapons. If I was convinced of that, I'd use Blade Barrier as a reference source for houserule/homebrewing.

Magnor Criol
2008-12-10, 01:39 AM
I don't know if I would even rule that your whirlwind is strong enough to usefully pick up many large, heavy metal weapons. If I was convinced of that, I'd use Blade Barrier as a reference source for houserule/homebrewing.

It's strong enough to pick up entire creatures, should they fail their Reflex save. Any creature "one or more size categories smaller than the djinni" is subject, so something as small as a weapon is a definite go. Source. (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/monstersG.html#djinni)

Though it'd be really awesome to have the sort of mental picture I'm going for of a whirling wall of weapons (Alliteration Bonus Points! +1000), balance- and mechanics-wise it's really just not feasible.

I might run Kyace's idea by my DM as a feat, but most likely I'll simply posit that if I pick up any more weapons they'll just change the type of the damage the whirlwind deals from simply bludgeoning to bludgeoning and slashing, bludgeoning and piercing, or all three, depending on what's in me.

Thanks for the feedback, y'all.

Fax Celestis
2008-12-10, 10:50 AM
Try a combination of the cloud of knives (PHB-II), ring of blades (SpC), and blade barrier spells (maybe using 1/2 level as CL for effects). Also look into the control winds spell.