Power Attack, Two Handed Weapons and Crit

BryonD · Feb 8, 2005

I thought this was pretty simple, but now I'm not 100% certain.

If a character power attacks with a two handed weapon and scores a crit, what is the damage?

Assume a -4 to attack for power attack, so a +8 damage and a greatsword (X2 crits). My initial assumption was that two handed power attacks are considered a doubling, so a further doubling for a crit would yield +12 total by normal doubling rules. However, my player questioned that +8 was just the amount of damage set by power attack and thus should be doubled to +16.

He didn't argue or try to rules laywer when I ruled +12. But the wording in power attack was just vague enough that it wasn't perfectly clear to me that setting a bonus equal to two times a penalty is not the same as doubling a bonus. Has this been questioned? I didn't see anything in the faq.

Thanks

Pinotage · Feb 8, 2005

During a critical you roll damage twice instead of simply doubling it. So a x2 greatsword critical would yield 2d6+8 + 2d6+8 for the critical, hence making it +16..

From the SRD:

A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together.

Pinotage

Plane Sailing · Feb 8, 2005

Yet another reason to house-rule away the twinky double power attack effect for 2H weapons IMO

diaglo · Feb 8, 2005

don't forget the str bonus too. OUCH.

Liquidsabre · Feb 8, 2005

Didn't someone calculate the to-hit vs damage ratio for power attack at higher levels (past 6th, where damage starts ramping up considerably) that showed that a minimum use of power attack was the best use of it (damage per round output)? Or something like that, since high power attacks would rarely hit the higher ACs in later levels?

DanMcS · Feb 8, 2005

Liquidsabre said:
Didn't someone calculate the to-hit vs damage ratio for power attack at higher levels (past 6th, where damage starts ramping up considerably) that showed that a minimum use of power attack was the best use of it (damage per round output)? Or something like that, since high power attacks would rarely hit the higher ACs in later levels?

You can figure that out empirically; I'm playing a greatsword-powerattacker and it's starting to be hard to hit stuff. Action Points make full power attacking viable for a longer time, though.

ForceUser · Feb 8, 2005

Plane Sailing said:
Yet another reason to house-rule away the twinky double power attack effect for 2H weapons IMO

Man, have you ever actually played the game? That doubling of damage is a necessity for my group--last night, for instance, our roughly 12th-level group fought multiple encounters of 3-6 CR 7 Huge earth elementals, and were it not for the fighters' ability to down one of those elementals in a single round or two of combat (by power attacking with a 2handed weapon), there'd have been deaths in the party for sure. When you have monsters hitting 50% of the time or more for 2d10+12+power attack, you damn sure better have a way to respond in kind.

Nail · Feb 8, 2005

BryonD said:
... But the wording in power attack was just vague enough that it wasn't perfectly clear to me that setting a bonus equal to two times a penalty is not the same as doubling a bonus.

So, to clearly answer the original posters question:

First calculate the regular damage from a power attack.
Then apply the crit multiplier.

You have been doing it wrong. Your player has the right of it.

Put another way: Power Attack does not "double" the bonus when using a 2 handed weapon. It adds the bonus twice. That's a big difference.

SRD said:
If you attack with a two-handed weapon, or with a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands, instead add twice the number subtracted from your attack rolls.

So....no need to use the multiplier rules.

It's quite clear, when read slowly.

Nail · Feb 8, 2005

Liquidsabre said:
a minimum use of power attack was the best use of it (damage per round output)? Or something like that, since high power attacks would rarely hit the higher ACs in later levels?

There are several PA spreadsheets available.

When I've run the numbers, using AC from the MM (average AC by CR), it shows power attack is useful between levels 3-9, and 13-14. Unfortunately, at high CR the AC is *so* variable, and the number of creatures per CR *so* few that such calculations are meaningless.

The sweet spot for PA is during levels 3 to 9, as there are so many abysmally low ACs in that CR range. As a DM I always cringe when writing down the AC for that CR 8 creature and find it's a AC 14. Ouch! Why even bother rolling to hit?

Piratecat · Feb 8, 2005

I haven't had any trouble with two-handed power attack as written in 3.5. I'd rather it be 1.5 times, but it hasn't negatively impacted my game. Heck, sometimes it gives my bad guys a fighting chance.