Spear Dancing Style vs Lunge

[Christopk-K]

I'm a huge fan of the black moon chronicles and the corresponding minis, especially the archangel of justice
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?53116

When the spear dancing feat tree came out I wanted to make an angelic aasimar with it.

However, it seem that there are just to many feats involved.

From a mechanical point of view, is there any real advantage of the three spear dancing feats over just taking lunge? And having two other feats to spend

[Christopk-K]

Go to Linkified.

Almost broke my fingers linking the pic on my phone :-)

[blahpers]

You don't lose AC. That's pretty much it.

Looks like an expensive tree that only exists to allow a very specific fighting style to exist rather than to be especially effective.

[shaventalz]

I don't see the two as particularly equivalent unless you're dealing with a non-reach weapon in the first place. Note that the first style feat removes the reach property from the weapon used.

Lunge gives an extra 5' of reach, and works with weapons that already have reach.

The style chain gives you an extra attack, enables finesse, and lets you give any spear or polearm normal reach. Those first two bits seem to be the focus of the feat chain, with the third just re-adding what the first removed. If you didn't care about finesse, you could just put lunge on the base style feat and save having to take Weapon Finesse and Spear Dancing Spiral.

[Christopk-K]

E. g. going into TWF rogue with two daggers and lunge you get finesse, reach from lunge and twf while saving a ton of feats. You even get dex to damage as an icing.

For spear spiral finesse is a prerequisite.

[lemeres]

Unless you are playing a pure figter and starting at high level... I think taht regular polearm+lunge is far superior.

Lunge is not just an extra 5' of reach on a polearm (although- it means you can full attack things 20' away- it is kind of a pseudo pounce really). It is an entire tactical dimension in and of itself.

Normally, with a polearm, you lose your chance to do AoOs if you attack first. When you attack first, enemies end up 10' away- they only need a 5' step to get next to you. That means no AoOs, and they can full attack.

With lunge, you attack from 15' away. Medium creatures (read- most humans, which are almost always relevant as enemies) and large but long creatures ahve to move 10' to get to you- a full mvoe action. That means they eat an AoO, and they lose their full attack. As such, it is more of a positioning tool to get enemies into the sweet spot without losing your options with your 2 handed weapon.

Spear dancing... can give you a bit of extra damage if you spend a ton of feats for TWF. That is the only unique thing it has. Reach weapons already enjoy a ton of extra attacks from AoOs, particularly if you use lunge to position. And honestly? Since you are losing the tactical aspect of reach until the end of the feat line, you probably are losing in net damage (these are extra attacks with a 2 handed, power attacking weapon mind you).

If you want finesse on reach weapon, there are other, far easier to use options. You need 5 feats to finesse with spear dancing style. In comparison, blade blush can do it in two (weapon finesse+ the feat itself; needs a particular deity). Just springing for EWP to grab an elven branch spear only takes 1 feat.

Spear dancing style is a theory crafter's game- good potential on paper, but not really worth it for a looong time in practice. It is often better to go with other options, and maybe retrain when you have enough feats available to grab everything at once.

[Christopk-K]

my sentiment exactly