Talk:Power Attack, Grimoire (3.5e Feat)

Other feats

Doesn't that effectively turn things like Weapon Focus and Weapon Finesse into damage dealing feats?--Tavis McCricket 02:20, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Sure, in theory, but mostly those are still, "can I even hit things at all" feats that focus on actually hitting rather than damage. --Ghostwheel 02:31, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Touch Attacks

Also, how does this affect melee touch attacks?--Tavis McCricket 02:22, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Same deal, Emerald Razor is a good maneuver to use this with, for example. --Ghostwheel 02:31, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Pathfinder Power Attack

No, not the scaling garbage. Anyone have any comments on whether it would overpower this feat (and power attack in general) to increase the damage of two-handed power attack by -1/+3, one-handed power attack to -1/+2, and offhand power attack to -1/+1? Seems like it'd make power attack less sucky for sword-and-boarders, as well as twfers. --Ghostwheel 12:11, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

Sounds unnecessary, but I have no real justification for that feeling. It's probably better in your extremely managed RNG situation than in general though. - TarkisFlux 15:45, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, after re-reading the alternate formulation, it is unnecessary. Old power attack at least carried a relatively minor trade-off. There's no chance with this of swinging hard and missing, you just swing and get a bunch of bonus damage. For comparison, a level 10 full bab guy with 18 starting str and your balanced wealth will have >+19 (10 level, +7 stats, +2 weapon) against your grimoire standard AC of 32. Using this version of power attack, he will deal an average bonus of 1.5 * handedness multiplier (since he hits on a 13, the bonus damage is 30 points between hitting on 13-20, split amongst all rolls). Old power attack will deal and average bonus of .8 * handedness multiplier (optimal decrease is -4, for bonus total of 16 between hitting on 17-20, split amongst all rolls). Against the types of opponents you want people to be fighting with this feat, it's a straight powerup over power attack even before the multiplier changes, and it does so while also reducing the drawbacks of the old feat. So yeah, unless you were really really looking to increase the boost power attack gave you, this multiplier increase is unnecesary. - TarkisFlux 16:32, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

That's actually one of the primary reasons I retooled Power Attack--barring Shock Trooper and the like, if people need to be around the middle of the d20 to hit, PA becomes horribly ineffective. The main reason it's so effective in "regular" D&D is because your attack bonus is so much higher than the AC of most monsters you save. Taking an extreme example, at level 20 a straight barbarian might have an attack of +41 (20 (BAB) + 12 (Str) + 4 (Rage) + 5 (Magic) before adding things like Weapon Focus and the like) while a Pit Fiend has an AC of 40 and a Balor has an AC of 35. Thus, Power Attacking in that case is a no-brainer, while it basically involves shooting oneself in the foot in the Grimoire system where you're hitting only half the time without power attacking. Thus, this feat came into being, since I wanted to give Power Attack a boost in power, which is how I came up with this feat. That said, the multiplier change is mostly there to make it viable for TWFers who have a high attack roll and sword-and-boarders.

However, to tell the truth, I'm really dissatisfied with this feat as it is. I feel as though calculating by how high you hit, multiplying it, and subtracting it from damage is an incredible pain that will potentially waste a lot of game time. Do you have another idea on how to rework it so that it remains viable, semi-flavorful, and streamlined? --Ghostwheel 16:50, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

I have 0 desire to make power attack viable for TWFers. TWF is already the style of trading a bit of attack bonus for a whole bunch of on-hit damage bonuses, they don't need any more pushing in that direction. YMMV.

If you just wanted to make power attack worth a bit more, you could keep the old formulation and just boost the starting damage bonus. You could do something like +3 damage for the first -1 attack, and +1 for each -1 after that * multiplier. That makes new optimal -3 to hit for 25 damage over hits on 16-20 (avg bonus of 1.25 * mult). Boosting to +4 for the first changes that to optimal at -3 to hit for 40 daamge over hits on 16-20 (avg bonus of 2 * mult).

Actually, if you really want to streamline it, you could go the pathfinder route and just fix the penalty and the bonus. Your RNG management should allow you to pre-optimize it in a way that didn't make us all sad. You lose some effectiveness against high or low AC targets, but not a particularly large amount. - TarkisFlux 17:24, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

Hrmmm, comes out to something like -2 to attack for +20 damage or so by level 20 per attack for a two-hander. On one hand, that's not bad, but on the other I'd like to allow people to PA all their BAB away to gain tons of damage on touch attacks and the like.

Ooooh, now that's an idea. how does the posted-in-a-moment look? --Ghostwheel 22:27, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

It's streamlined and easy to apply, doesn't favor TWF very much, and the damage scaling doesn't make me cry. It's not especially nice to one-handed guys (don't care) or sword and boarders (sorta do care, and think you do too). An off the top of my head idea to make it more attractive for SnB, you could allow them to drop their shield bonus by 2 points to get another doubling of bonus damage. It's sorta shock-trooper light, in that it doesn't require a shield and doesn't need the charge. I have not actually thought that through very much though, and it could be a terrible suggestion. - TarkisFlux 23:12, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

"If wielding a shield and nothing else in your offhand, you may lose 2 AC for one round to treat your primary weapon as two-handed for the purpose of this feat."

Something like that added to the special section? --Ghostwheel 23:15, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

That was the idea. - TarkisFlux 00:24, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, added. Also, why don't you care about guys who use a weapon in one hand and leave the other one free? --Ghostwheel 01:06, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

It's not that I have a thing against those guys, they just don't need it and probably won't use it. It's either used by people who don't primarily use weapons and need a free hand (so they don't care), or it's a finesse thing and uses dex instead of str (and they don't care), or they get a special thing that gives them bonuses already (and they don't care). So I don't care because they don't care :-) - TarkisFlux 01:34, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

Ranged Attacks

As-is, the feat currently applies to ranged attacks as well. Is there any reason to restrict it only to melee attacks? --Ghostwheel 20:38, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

Not any particularly strong ones, but kiting / murdering from range is already pretty awesome just because of damage avoidance and doesn't particularly need the boost. I don't think I'd let them count as two-handed, maybe only getting the bonus as if they were one-handed. - TarkisFlux 20:58, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't it need a boost though? Apart from the sharpshooter and archer-clerics, most ranged fighting in D&D sucks :-/ Or do you think differently? --Ghostwheel 04:02, July 6, 2010 (UTC)

It's not as fast as melee, but it's just as effective over the long run and you're less likely to suffer damage or use non-ammunition consumables. You trade short term effectiveness (i.e. DPR) for damage avoidance. I'm pretty happy with that trade-off and don't think it needs a boost. - TarkisFlux 06:11, July 6, 2010 (UTC)