| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's always seemed rather ridiculous to me that Spring Attack doesn't scale at all with your character's growing abilities and capabilities. We have lots of attacks that are designed to work with movement, like Vital Strike and Cleave, but that don't work with Spring Attack, because the latter only allows for a single attack.
I don't know whether I'd feel that the feat should be called out to specifically work with some other feats and abilities, or whether those feats and abilities should specifically call out that they work with Spring Attack, but one or the other should occur as an errata at some point. A single melee attack (or ranged with Shot On The Run) just isn't significant enough as levels increase to justify the action taken, let alone the 3 feats spent on being able to perform the action.
Certainly, most abilities (not pounce) that can work on a charge should probably function for Spring Attack as well.
Thoughts?
Agreed. My understanding is that it actually did work like this at first, before Spring Attack was changed to a full round action in errata. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind the change was, but it would be nice to have a solution to allow Spring Attack/Vital Strike or Cleave or whatever. It would make those feats much stronger at higher levels, and hopefully promote more mobile tactics.
|
i agree 100%
spring attack cannot be used with vital strike, a charge action, or most combat maneuvers. its almost not worth taking. only reason why i would invest the feats is if im going for whirl wind attack, or fighting a lot of creatures with reach. even then i dont like writing it down on my character sheet.
it needs to be reworked to allow for more uses.
Agreed. My understanding is that it actually did work like this at first, before Spring Attack was changed to a full round action in errata. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind the change was, but it would be nice to have a solution to allow Spring Attack/Vital Strike or Cleave or whatever. It would make those feats much stronger at higher levels, and hopefully promote more mobile tactics.
I don't know that it was errata'd to change its functionality. It was a full-round action in 3.5 and wasn't aware of it being treated differently here.
I feel like the non-interaction of feats was one of the major problems in 3.5 that Pathfinder had largely made worse. Too many abilities that function as standard actions, that feel like they should work with each other, but don't.
It isn't much of a spring attack if you spring forward and start hacking with cleave. Spring attack is pretty powerful. A striker jumps out, hits an enemy, and then vanished behind an invulnerable guard. It is a teamwork action. What's not to love?
Early in the game it's pretty nice, but you get to the point where single melee attacks that aren't modified by much tend to be rather lackluster compared to monsters' HP and what the spellcasters are doing, let alone the guys that can stand toe-to-toe with the critturs.
3.5 at least had the added feats to the Spring Attack line that allowed you a 2nd and then a 3rd attack during the Spring Attack. Personally, I think that spending 5 feats to do with is egregious, but it was an option for people who wanted to be mobile and had the feats to spare.
On other abilities that fall under the same set of concern, I find the non-interaction of such abilities to be particularly problematic for monks, who seem like they want to be mobile, but who are largely tied to 5' steps due to Flurry of Blows being a full-attack-only bonus. I'd like to see Flurry gain 1, and then 2 extra attacks on a standard action attack eventually. Ditto for Manyshot--I feel like that should be +1 arrow on the first attack you make in a round. Period.
I don't know that it was errata'd to change its functionality. It was a full-round action in 3.5 and wasn't aware of it being treated differently here.
I went back and checked the errata file. The 1st printing of the CRB didn't include "As a Full-Round Action," though I guess that addition was more of a clarification than a change. I was half-remembering this post as allowing it, rather than a generic "that would be awesome, if it worked."
On the plus side, I'm now reminded how long people, including James Jacobs have been wanting to allow this. Hopefully it isn't too substantial a change to slip into a CRB errata someday.
I houserule it so that Vital Strike works any time you make a single attack. So it would work with Spring Attack or charges, but not Cleave.
The 3.5 PHB2 also had a couple of feats (Bounding Assault and Rapid Blitz) that allowed you to take a second and then a third attack when using spring attack. It would be nice if something similar could be made for Pathfinder :)
in 3.5 spring attack was a non action that was used when you make an attack action with a weapon. this was a much better version of spring attack, and with the 3.5 version you would be able to use cleave or vital strike while making the attack.
Actually, in 3.5 it is not very clearly worded. It says that when you use the attack action, which would be a single attack, you can move, but doesn't specify how this interacts with other abilities, such as normal movement or standard action attacks. Nothing in its description suggests that you could take a standard action to make an attack, such as for Vital Strike or Cleave, in the middle of the action.
The 3.5 PHB2 also had a couple of feats (Bounding Assault and Rapid Blitz) that allowed you to take a second and then a third attack when using spring attack. It would be nice if something similar could be made for Pathfinder :)
Personally, I'd prefer Spring Attack to allow for the usage of Vital Strike and Cleave, etc... and to automatically grant you a 2nd and 3rd attack, perhaps at -2 penalties, similar to the way Bounding Assault and Rapid Blitz work. I feel like that makes the 3-feat investment worthwhile, whereas I don't feel that a 5-feat investment is warranted unless the last two feats are doing more than just giving you the extra attacks during the Spring Attack sequence.
Shot On The Run should receive similar treatment.
I'm on board for options other than full attack, full attack...
+1
Spring Attack should let you take any standard action between your movement, just like Flyby Attack. Unlike Flyby Attack, it would still work with any movement mode instead of just flight (but if you CAN skirmish with flight, who wouldn't choose to do it like that anyway?) and not provoke AoOs from the target. The tradeoff being that it requires 2 other feats of questionable use while as Flyby requires none, and has those pesky restrictions on needing to start and end your turn a certain distance from the target that Flyby also isn't beholden to.
In short, it's actually be a decent, useful, balanced feat.
Perish the thought!
|
|
Actually, in 3.5 it is not very clearly worded. It says that when you use the attack action, which would be a single attack, you can move, but doesn't specify how this interacts with other abilities, such as normal movement or standard action attacks. Nothing in its description suggests that you could take a standard action to make an attack, such as for Vital Strike or Cleave, in the middle of the action.
i reading the ability for a second time and it is very clear to me. you could use it with vital strike (pathfinder) or cleave (3.5 version) or both.
I find Spring Attack to be strong.
For multiple classes and builds.
A Vital/Spring would become the default attack mode of most barbs I think.
Now I have reworked Scorpion Style to Scorpion Strike as a houserule and it allows for a combo with Charge/Spring and it's a very nice combo.
I'm not sure that Cleave is a good candidate for an argument, it's VERY different in PF than 3.5 mechanically and Vital is a new feat. So ......
I don't see Cleave as being overpowered with Spring in it's current form.
I am all for more mobility but hoping to equal a full attack's damage output may be reaching. Actually the Vital Strike tree is frequently Better than a full attack, since that last iterative isn't very accurate.
I think Vital Strike averages a few less points of damage, 5 or 6 at level 6, against a full attack... which I think is fine sense fighters do so much damage. To me, Vital Strike is better than a full attack because the extra DPR isn't necessary.
Vital strike averages a LOT less damage than a full round.
Using a two handed fighter as an example (which is the most beneficial example for Vital, as two weapon fighther would be quite clearly favoring the full round), at level 6, a fighter with a +1 falchion, weapon specialization, STR 18, and power attack, does 4d4+15, not counting other possible bonus (such as a bard's song).4d4+15 is a lot less damage than 2d4+15 and +2d4+15. At higher levels, it's even worse. At level 16, my king maker fighter/barbarian does 2d4+47 on most attacks (all of them but the first one. I have 5 attacks, including the boots of haste. Adding a few extra d4 to damage, and losing the full round, can reduce my damage like 180 to 200 points.