One thing you do have to remember is the lunge feat, which increases reach by 5 feet, and that unlike great cleave whirlwind doesn't require targets to be adjacent. I haven't ever seen great cleave used, but then again the tendency of enemies to line up in my games is almost nonexistent.
I would suggest dropping combat expertise, since maneuvers can be subbed for attacks that encourages fighters to start doing things like trip everything in a 10-15 ft area, which hardly seems like it should be encouraged.
Whirlwind Attack guarantees 1 attack against everybody in your reach as opposed to Greater Cleave, Which stops when you miss (all you need is a 1).
Most warriors (especially fighters in PFRPG) already have a 13 or better Dex, which makes Dodge a natural for an additional point of AC.
Whirlwind Attack guarantees 1 attack against everybody in your reach as opposed to Greater Cleave, Which stops when you miss (all you need is a 1).
Most warriors (especially fighters in PFRPG) already have a 13 or better Dex, which makes Dodge a natural for an additional point of AC.
but not mobility and spring attack, the latter can't even be used with Whirlwind Attack, and only specialized fighters use combat expertise and even then usually as a pre-req for imp trip.
Actually alot of fighters pick up Mobility to (+4 to some AoO), but still, that's fewer requirements you are going out of your way to get.
And I reiterate
Whirlwind Attack guarantees 1 attack against everybody in your reach as opposed to Greater Cleave, Which stops when you miss (all you need is a 1).
Whirlwind Attack guarantees 1 attack against everybody in your reach as opposed to Greater Cleave, Which stops when you miss (all you need is a 1).The imbalance though is that it is a lot easier to focus and massage Great Cleave to work effectively.
It is? How so? With Great Cleave, you need targets adjacent to each other. Since you can't normally maneuver enemies around as you please, you can't really 'massage' Great Cleave to work.
With WA you have to suffer from MAD, diving up your stats among Str, Dex, and Int in order to make it work. You end up having to water down all of your stats.
Agreed, though almost every fighter will have STR and DEX to qualify for this anyways, so it's only INT that's the issue. In the chain of feats leading to Whirlwind Attack, only Combat Expertise can really be considered a sub-par choice (Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack are all decent feat choices). And 13 INT is cheap. You'll have to lose like 1 point of STR to get from INT 10 to INT 13 (or INT 12, if you want to take the INT boost later in character building).
In terms of the situational use, WA is seemingly easier because everything is in reach, however you have to use a full round action to use the feat, so you need to spend a round getting into position, then the next round using the feat. That gives a round for enemies to clear out of your range.
Metagame thinking. You do not have a sign over your head saying "Possesses Whirlwind Attack, please spread out".
With GC the feat is used as a standard action, which in many ways makes it easier to pull off a sold effect. You can spend a move action to jam yourself into a position and then strike.
Great Cleave is a gamble; miss the first shot and you're done, though it's an inexpensive gamble (-2 AC). Potential to daisy-chain a few enemies is nice.
Whirlwind Attack is feat heavy, but reliable - you don't lose AC and you can attack everything you can reach.
This is something for somebody to number crunch; I'm sure there's a real tipping point with regards to number of enemies and required to hit roll where Great Cleave really becomes sub-standard with respect to Whirlwind Attack, where that is, however...
My solution, I think, would be to make Whirlwind Attack basically Grand Cleave. When you think about it, Mobility and Spring Attack have nothing to do with hitting multiple enemies at once; quite the opposite, in fact. Cleave and Great Cleave do, however, and Pathfinder is supposed to reward focused builds.
So I think I would actually make Whirlwind Attack follow Great Cleave.
Requirements: Str 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, BaB +4.
This arguably pushes Whirlwind Attack back a bit, but it makes it follow feats that are thematically similar and reward fighters who build to hit multiple foes at once, instead of the strange dichotomy of "Do I want to hit lots of people with Great Cleave, or lots of people with Whirlwind Attack, since I can't do both?"
The easiest fix I can see to houserule Whirlwind Attack is make it a standard action. As a full-round action it's very situational and only really works when you are getting swarmed by enemies and that's only if they go for you.
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I always viewed Whirlwind attack as the non musclebound version of great cleave. it fits a monk's archetype better than hulking brutes. like the scene from one of the matrix movies where neo plants the pole and spins around it kicking everyone once. Making it tree off of PA/cleaves means characters like monks (or even some rogues) are less likely to take it and changes who its ment for IMHO. Its punishing non str-based character by making them take feats they dont need rather than helpin str-based character who can great cleave and do almost the same thing if they can set it up.
Barbarians should be cleaving, monks should be whirlwinding.
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I'd like to see what you could do with the following:
Whirlwind Attack
As a full-round action, move up to half your move rate, making 1 attack against each enemy you threaten along your movement path. You provoke Attacks of Opportunity as normal for this movement.
Or, perhaps that last line could say "You do not provoke attacks of opportunity from any enemy you hit with an attack, but otherwise provoke attacks of opportunity as normal for this movement."
This follows the path of the rest of the feat chain better, and allows for lots of tactical decisions.
With WA you gain the potential for more attacks in a very specific setup, but with Great Cleave you gain the ability to stack Power Attack, along with any other effects you wish, onto the attacks. WA however stipulates that you can not combine any other effects onto the attacks.
This had to be clarified: Whirlwind Attack allows other 'effects' to be combined with it; the only restriction is on any additional attacks granted.
When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities.
That's any bonus attacks or extra attacks, however an ability might describe them. Not "any bonus and any extra attacks". Simply, that wouldn't make any sense - that would mean weapon focus/spec wouldn't apply to it either.
There was a class (that I liked very much) put out for 3.0 in a 3rd party product. Can't remember who did it, but it was in the book called 'City Works'. It was called an Acrobat. Basically a stage performer with monk like movement abilities and ac bonuses, but with a rogue like feel.
One of their abilities was, around 15th level I think, to make a full move and attack every target along their path without provoking an attack of opportunity. I think that would work for this as well. It was a full attack action that combined movement and attacks.
There's a 6th-level Desert Wind maneuver (Desert Tempest, I think?) from Tome of Battle that lets you move up to twice your speed (I think) and attack every enemy you move past. Also, have you checked out Frank K's Tomes projects? I've got it saved on my computer as Tome of Awesome, but I'm not sure what it's really called... Anyway, the writers tweaked the feat idea so that every feat scales with your level--whirlwind attack starts out with the basic version, but as you level up you can do more stuff with it, like moving and attacking. I'm a huge fan of this idea and I'm steadily applying pressure to my GM to make it happen in our game.
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There's a 6th-level Desert Wind maneuver (Desert Tempest, I think?) from Tome of Battle that lets you move up to twice your speed (I think) and attack every enemy you move past. Also, have you checked out Frank K's Tomes projects? I've got it saved on my computer as Tome of Awesome, but I'm not sure what it's really called... Anyway, the writers tweaked the feat idea so that every feat scales with your level--whirlwind attack starts out with the basic version, but as you level up you can do more stuff with it, like moving and attacking. I'm a huge fan of this idea and I'm steadily applying pressure to my GM to make it happen in our game.
Frank and k's stuff definitely evoke a knee jerk reaction from people. you either love it or hate it.
some of it is really well done, but some of the stuff makes people scream Over powered. I'm not a big fan of a lot of their stuff *cough* samurai who can sunder walls of force *cough* but a lot of it has some good principals to it.
the thing i liked the most about the Tomb of Battle was that it finally made non magical worriers equal in power to caster, not everyone agreed that there was a big difference in power but i was always one who felt that casters were a lot more powerful than standard no magical characters.
Yes, that. Interesting, I seem to have a newer version that has a little more stuff than that.
Whirlwind is useful but you are right, the preq's are borderline psychotic. You have to be a human fighter to make it worth getting there, and you still come up a little limp because NONE of the preqs do improvements to damage or attack rolls directly. An expierienced player can use them for some good tactics, but they come up short in the power department. And they are off two different feat "trees" not just one simple sequence.
I say make it one preq feat, Dodge, and then make it +4 BAB, 13+ Dex, and leave it.