@Captnq: Just wanna remind you, Sculpting spells like Fireburst is an exercise in futility. A spell's area cannot exceed its range, so go ahead and turn the spell's area into a 20' rad burst, where any part of the area which is greater than 10' from the caster simply does not manifest. Also, how do you use Whirling Blade on a Fist of Stone? Whirling Blade only works on held weapons, not natural or unarmed. Also, you only get one attack against each creature in the area, so you only get to cleave against foes adjacent to the caster. The Poison spell is a touch attack spell, not something that is put on a weapon, so it does absolute dick with Whirling Blade, and wouldn't work past the 1st enemy hit even if you did manage to make it somehow work on a wielded weapon.
I simply do not wish to get into the breaking range limits argument again. I have stated my position elsewhere, google it.
As for Fist of stone:
"You transform one of your hands into a mighty fist of living stone, gaining a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength for the purposes of attack rolls, grapple checks, or breaking and crushing items. "
Nothing says you have to use the fist of stone. I can take the +6 to attack rolls for any weapon I choose. For example, I carry around a solid gold Oversized balanced fullblade that I hurl after using truestrike. +6 to strength as a 1st level spell beats out +4 as a 2nd. I don't care what the duration is. Especially when I can apply x1.5 damage by hurling a scimitar about with two hands.
As for poison spell...
"Calling upon the venomous powers of natural predators, you infect the subject with a horrible poison by making a successful melee touch attack."
Assassination:
"In addition, the weapon seems to eagerly drink in poison. The wielder never risks poisoning herself when applying poison to an assassination weapon, and the save DC of any poison applied to the weapon increases by an amount equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus."
Assassination placed on a battle gauntlet or ward cestus, it will carry the poison as a touch attack. I didn't say you could combine it with a normal attack. You know, people don't read the rules very much. Touch attacks are an art form, really. There's so many ways you can use your weapon for touch attacks it's not funny. 3.0 interactions with 3.5 rules often results in f-ed up crap like this.
I also said Whirling Blade is broken as written. It should NEVER allow you to poison a whole crowd, but it does. RAI clearly has every other example stopping poison from working in this fashion. But I'm not here to talk about right or wrong. I'm talking about the RAW of the matter.
I also said it depends on your DM. I don't allow whirling blade as written.
You hurl a weapon held at the time of casting, and it magically attacks all enemies along a line to the extent of the spell’s range. You make a normal melee attack, just as if you were attacking with the weapon in melee, against each foe in the weapon’s path, but you can choose to substitute your Intelligence modifier or your Charisma modifier (as appropriate for your spellcasting class) for your Strength modifier on the weapon’s attack rolls and damage rolls. Even if your base attack bonus would normally give you multiple attacks, a whirling blade gets only one attack (at your best attack bonus) against each target. The weapon deals damage just as if you had swung it in melee, including any bonuses you might have from ability scores or feats. No matter how many targets your weapon hits or misses, it instantly and unerringly returns to your hand after attempting the last of its attacks.
That's the broken part. All those other "hit area effect melee attack things" has you roll for each target one at a time. Therefore poison only works on the first target. But the Whirling Blade Spell is "make
A normal melee attack." Single attack. One roll.
Sentence structure, in this case, is a bitch. It should read, "You make a
separate melee attack" Because you are making more then one melee attack. However, since you only make one attack, the roll applies against everyone equally. Which also means any effects from that one blow affects everyone equally. It might hit or miss based on the AC of the targets, but everyone still gets bitch slapped with the same roll. It also means one attack, and therefore everything on that one attack affects everyone it successfully hits.
Put blister oil on my sword and everyone gets hit with it. Poison, same thing. It should only affect the first target, but there is only one roll.
RAI? Hell no. RAW, sorry, yes. Bad place to put a comma.
And the whirlwind feat says that you can't use cleave afterwards. They don't say that in the spell, only that you can't hit the same target twice, so you'll have to use your cleave on other targets. Well, if I drop 12 people, I get 12 attacks on the guy next to me? That's screwed up.
As written, it's borked. There are many ways to twist that spell. Even if you nerf it back down to how they intended it, it's still fairly kick ass. I just need to do things like get a sizing viper weapon so I can throw a Giant Poisonous snake at everyone. That solves having to bother with unarmed strike touch attack weapons. If it was 5th, I'd be okay with it, but a 2nd level spell? Just broken.
