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So while playing with my fighter and monk PCs, I've noticed that they've been hitting creatures obnoxiously hard, multiple times. Maneuvers like "Flurry of Blows" and "Whirlwind Attack" in the current package are granting additional Complete Melee Attacks. By this I mean that instead of using the martial damage dice to do a little extra damage without modifiers, the fighter and monk are hitting at least three times in one turn at full power. The number of hits doesn't upset the balance, but a minimum of 15 damage per turn (often upwards of 20 damage in a turn) to one creature with flurry of blows is where I feel the wording of the maneuvers is broken.

Correct me if I'm wrong (really; please point out if I'm wrong), but didn't the ability to hit multiple times in a turn come at the expense of overall damage in previous packages? The additional attacks used to do damage equal to the martial damage dice spent without modifiers, where the wording on the current maneuver file tells me that it's additional attacks + relevant modifiers.

With all the discussion of player characters hitting too hard, I feel like this is a step away from balance in the game. My recomendation would be that when spending MDD to hit additional creatures/times, the damage should come only from the MDD rolled.

That is true for whirlwind attack, but flurry of blows has no such "you must attack 3 different monsters" limitation. Each attack in the flurry can be directed at the same target. The end result is more damage, including a higher chance of hitting at least once, and a higher chance of scoring at least one critical hit.

Whirlwind also requires you to spend one MDD per attack, including the first attack, while Flurry grants bonus attacks for each MDD spent in addition to a normal unarmed attack. If you spend two dice, whirlwind grants two attacks, while flurry allows for three.

MDD is getting an overall so I dunno what will happen in the future, but expect both of these maneuvers to change significantly.

Feb 21, 2013 -- 6:25PM, Redvers wrote:

I sure hope they do. One concern about whirlwind attack is how it affects the Cleave feat, if at all.

It will give you rarely small damage boost for a single turn for using incredibly timing, positioning and cleverness

You will basically need to find a monster diagonally adjacent to a low health monster, then you will trade in dealing a great hit on the healthy monster to clean up the low health monster and have a chance of hurting the big one for roughly same damage you would have dealt

Using 3 for STR
Just attacking the big = 1d8+2d6+STR = 14.5
Using Whirlwind = Big - 1d8+STR x2 = 15 // Small 1d8+STR +7.5

Tho of course, if your hit on the small doesnt kill it, then you will only deal 7.5 on the big as well

Its a solid combo, but you are spending a Manuever and a Feat on something that probably won't happen too often

I think Flurry of Blows should grant full damage only against multiple targets, just like Rapid Shot, otherwise it should be treated something like Two-Weapon Fighting (Multi-Weapon Fighting?) with no attack penalty.

There's no reason **not** to flurry.

Regular Damage:
1d6 + 3 + 2d6 (13.5 avg)

Flurry Damage:
1d6 + 3 (6.5)
1d6 + 3 (6.5)
1d6 + 3 (6.5)
Total: (19.5 avg)

And with flurry you have a higher chance of scoring at least one attack, which makes it better against low-HP enemies.