Making Power Attack an Encounter Power

I'm not a big fan of power attack feat currently. My main issue is that much of the use it had in 3e has been eliminated (dealing with DR, sundering, attacking low AC targets). Further, attack bonuses mean so a lot more now, because attacks often carry rider status effects upon them.

Still, I think the idea of power attack is a good one, but the attack penalty is just generally too harsh. So here's my idea:

Power Attack
Prereq: Str 15+
Benefit: You can use power attack once per encounter as a free action. If your next melee attack hits, it does extra damage given by the table below.

1-10th
+2 (+3 THW)
11-20
+4 (+6)
21-30
+6 (+9)


So while power attack can be used much less frequently it is a straight up bonus to your damage.

Sorry, but I don't like the idea of per-encounter feats very much. It overlaps too much with the powers system in a way that makes me vaguely uncomfortable. (I don't like all the per-encounter class features and skill uses, either. If it works like a power, it should be written up like a power.) The more per-encounter things a person can do, the less of a balancing factor per-encounter becomes. This feat, in particular, seems redundant with all the per-encounter powers that exist solely to deal more damage, like the famous Brute Strike.

Plus, I don't agree about Power Attack's utility. -2 to hit is roughly a 10% decrease in expected damage value. So if your average damage is 10 points, the expected value drops to 8 points. So the +2 to damage cancels nicely. For 2HW, +3 damage anticipates an average damage of 15, which I think is actually generous, and helps make up for the fact that 2H weapons don't deal much more damage than 1H weapons. This math is all very rough and it gets skewed at higher levels.

Of course, I wouldn't use Power Attack when hurling my Daily (the attack bonus is worth much more than the damage bonus in this case) but for most at-will powers it makes sense and for basic attacks (charging, OAs) there's almost no reason not to do it.

-- 77IM

Meh. Boring, and much weaker than most other feats.