Bag of Rats

[Jack_of_Spades]

I need reasons that the Bag of Rats trick should not work. I looked at one of my player's character sheets and he had.

Feats:
Dodge
Mobility
Spring Attack
Whirlwind Attack
Power Attack
Cleave
Great Cleave
Exotic Weapon Prof: Spiked Chain

Possesions:
Bag of Holding (contains 200 rats)
+2 spiked chain
Breastplate +1
2 Potions of Cure Mod Wounds


After reading that I realized his plan.
Step 1: Take bag of rats in one hand and the chain in another
Step 2: Stand five feet away from whatever needs to die.
Step 3: Dump out the rats.
Step 4: Whirlwind attack the rats.
Step 5: Use the cleave attacks form killing the rats to hit the big enemy.
Step 6: Refill bag and continue.

I need to know if there are rules to stop this.

[Orzel]

When you whirlwind attack, you give up all extra attacks from feats, abilities, and spells (ie cleave).

[Jack_of_Spades]

When you whirlwind attack, you give up all extra attacks from feats, abilities, and spells (ie cleave).

Thank you! I forgot the wonderful benefit of reading ALL of a feat's text! I'll just point that out to him after he tries to do it.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Reference:

WHIRLWIND ATTACK [GENERAL]

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

Benefit: When you use the full attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your full base attack bonus against each opponent within reach.

When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities.

(My emphasis)

- I also hear that rats like to gnaw through bags, Bags of Holding in particular.

- Also note that the player is clearly made of cheese, so he would be swarmed by the hungry rats instantly.

[Indon]

-A bag of holding with a live rat in it is a broken bag of holding; punctured bags of holding break and rats gnaw through anything.

-Alternately, you put too many rats into the bag and they suffocate and die before they get a chance to gnaw through things. Then you have a bag of dead rats. (The bag contains oxygen enough for 1 medium creature for 10 minutes, I do believe)

Technically, it might work. Logistically, though, probably not. Not with rats, anyway.

[Captain van der Decken]

How is this plan at all useful in anyway?

You could kill some rats then cleave in to the enemy, at the expense of several feats.

Or, y'know, you could just full attack him.

[Quietus]

I need reasons that the Bag of Rats trick should not work. I looked at one of my player's character sheets and he had.

Feats:
Dodge
Mobility
Spring Attack
Whirlwind Attack
Power Attack
Cleave
Great Cleave
Exotic Weapon Prof: Spiked Chain

Whirlwind Attack [General]
Prerequisites

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

Notice anything?

I don't see Combat Expertise on his list of feats.

[Inyssius Tor]

Wait, he's actually trying to do this? Oh god.

Is there an inevitable that eats munchkins? I know that trying to make a Pun-Pun gets you bitch-slapped by the original Pun-Pun...

[martyboy74]

Also, Cleave only lets you take one extra attack per round.

I don't think that there's a single part of the plan that would work. I guess you could probably fit 200 rats in a Bag of Holding. If they were dead.

\/ My bad.

[Emperor Tippy]

Great Cleave.

That part works.

[Quietus]

Great Cleave.

That part works.

Yeah, he could kill all the rats and get one free shot at the enemy.

[Emperor Tippy]

No.

If Whirlwind attack worked like he wanted then he would get 1 free attack on the enemy per rat killed.

It would go:
Rat killed
Great Cleave on target
Rat Killed
Great Cleave on Target

etc.

[Starsinger]

People actually attempt things like this? Wow.. that's just... wow.

[martyboy74]

Unless he has some way to get more than 10' reach (i.e. enlarge person), he can only reach 12 other squares. Because rats are tiny creatures they take up 1/4 of a square. That would only be 48 rats, assuming his foe is airborne, or somehow not taking up the area on the ground around him.

[Penguinizer]

And the rats die in 10 minutes anyways.

[Mr the Geoff]

Yup seeing as he killed 200 rats in one attack, he gets 1 cleave attempt, not 200.

That and all the other reasons above of course. Though I would not tell him any of that until he tries it of course.

DM "You drop 200 dead rats on the floor"
Munchkin "oh I forgot, I had a bottle of air in there with them"
DM "ok you drop 200 live rats on the floor"
Munchkin "I whirlwind attack them"
DM "You don't have the prerequisites for that skill, 200 rats attack you, 10 of which get natural 20s, take 10 points of damage. Oh and while you are at it make a fort save, one of those rats was carrying a disease"
Munchkin "err I figure out some other cheesed up way that noone on the boards thought of to kill them all in one go, I now get 200 cleaves"
DM "no you don't, you killed them in 1 go, have 1 cleave"

and so on

[tsuyoshikentsu]

I'd like to point out that this trick is perfectly legal in 3.0. Which is why I don't play in 3.0.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I'd like to point out that this trick is perfectly legal in 3.0. Which is why I don't play in 3.0.

It isn't specificaly dis-allowed in 3.0, but there's still text that would hint that it doesn't. 3.0 Whirlwind attack says "give up all your regular attacks". It depends on if the DM (as official rules lawyer) counts cleave attacks as 'regular' attacks.

Also note that the bag of holding does not hold infinate air.

[Quietus]

No.

If Whirlwind attack worked like he wanted then he would get 1 free attack on the enemy per rat killed.

It would go:
Rat killed
Great Cleave on target
Rat Killed
Great Cleave on Target

etc.

Yes, if Whirlwind Attacked worked the way he wanted, it would. Going by the rules for WW in 3.5, however, he could either take his whirlwind attack, kill all the rats (those he didn't roll a nat 1 on anyway) and get one shot on the target, OR he could make each of his X attacks individually, either going Rat->Cleave bad guy, Rat->Cleave bad guy with each, or Rat->Cleave rat->cleave rat until he ran out of rats, then finish his attack sequence against the enemy. There's no benefit in 3.5 to attempting to do this.

[de-trick]

with 200 rats to make attacks against lots of chances to get a critical miss or natural 1 or grim reaper of DnD

[Leon]

Step 6: Refill bag and continue.

Thats going to take time to pickup the remaining rats, 200 rats are not going to just sit there

and this is assuming that what ever he plans to attack is a imobile sitting duck

[Indon]

Yup seeing as he killed 200 rats in one attack, he gets 1 cleave attempt, not 200.

That and all the other reasons above of course. Though I would not tell him any of that until he tries it of course.

DM "You drop 200 dead rats on the floor"
Munchkin "oh I forgot, I had a bottle of air in there with them"

Right here is when the DM says, "All right, the bag is empty. It appears to have a hole in it."

Rats, after all, have some mean teeth.

[Leon]

Right here is when the DM says, "All right, the bag is empty. It appears to have a hole in it."

Rats, after all, have some mean teeth.

Hehe, 200 rats floating in the void

[Citizen Joe]

You could cheat slightly... maybe say that the 200 rats multiplied within the bag and now there is 300 rats... which makes it a swarm...

[SpikeFightwicky]

Worse comes to worse, ask a simple question: Why is your character (in game) carrying a bag of rats? Since that was a rules loophole abuse which makes no sense, I doubt he'll be able to come with anything good. At any rate, rats WILL chew through anything, including bags of holding.