A change to Power Attack

[Stalker0]

Currently Power Attack isn't that good of a feat. The penalty to attack rolls doesn't balance the damage in most cases.

Here's an option to make power attack more useful, but in a limited number of cases. Note: Remember that basic attacks are technically powers, so the feat works with them as well.

Power Attack
Prereq: Str 13
You can make your most powerful attacks even stronger.
Benefit: When you use a power that has a single attack, and the attack deals at least 3[W] damage, increase the damage dealt by 1[W].


So this feat gives you a free bonus, no attack penalties just extra damage. But the damage only applies when you are using the big attacks. It also naturally scales between one handed and two handed weapons. A rogue doing 3[w] with a rapier might like this feat, but a barbarian using a mordenkrad gets even more damage.

I also like the fact that it makes the big single damage powers more useful. Right now powers that have lower W's but side effects, or powers that have multiple attacks are often better than a single big damaging power.


My only concern off hand is the Barbarian's Avalanche Strike. Its the only encounter power I know of that does 3[w] at low levels.

 

[keterys]

There's a paladin equivalent of avalanche strike too. Anyhow, interesting idea, it wouldn't actually do anything with basic attacks because they never do more than 2W.

I'd have to poke through some stuff to know for sure what I felt about it, but my gut instinct is to say to put it off to paragon tier, then it's totally fine. I definitely like the idea of improving single bit hits.

 

[ravenheart]

The problem is, as you say, with the low amount of 3[w] powers at low levels. So why not just require a 2[w] power instead? To maintain a bit of balance, keep the 3[w] requirement for dailies and increase both by 1[w] at 21st level.

Another thing this does is leave at-will powers crying for attention. Maybe they could get a static boost or something, +1 feat bonus/tier?

What I'd like is an implement equivalent to power attack, any thought on how that could be done?


PS. This is my third reply to one of your posts today, gotta catch 'em all!

EDIT: Now that I think about it, this idea doesn't really solve the issue, it just makes 2[w] powers with nifty riders must-have choices. Thus if anything, it makes big damage powers even less attractive. Back to the drawing board...

 

[Mentat55]

What if the amount of bonus [W] damage scaled in some way with the base [W] damage of the power? Like +1[W] for powers with base damage up to 5[W], and +2[W] for 6[W] or more. Or scaled with tier, like the current Power Attack feat -- +1[W] at heroic, +2[W] at paragon, +3[W] at epic. Maybe that is too much.

But I like where this is going. I particularly like the benefit this provides to weapons with large [W].

 

[keterys]

Hmm. Slight variant just to keep things percolating:

'When you use an action to make a single attack*, you gain a feat bonus to the damage roll equal to the [W] of the power.'

Doesn't stack with weapon focus, explicitly helps more [W] powers more.

* Insert better words here

 

[hirahito]

Keep the sacrifice...

Part of the appeal of the power is the sacrifice required to boost the damage output.

Just increasing the damage output both changes the flavor and utility of this feat.

What about changing the wording to something like the following:

Power Attack

For each -1 to attack rolls you take, to a maximum of -3, you grant a +3 feat damage bonus with each successful hit.



That bumps the damage output and allows for the feat to be used with implements as well.

 

[Stalker0]

Hmm. Slight variant just to keep things percolating:

'When you use an action to make a single attack*, you gain a feat bonus to the damage roll equal to the [W] of the power.'

Doesn't stack with weapon focus, explicitly helps more [W] powers more.

* Insert better words here

This one isn't bad, the only "issue" (if you consider it an issue) is that one handers and two handers get the same benefit.

 

[On Puget Sound]

I think the action that was modeled as the Power Attack feat in 3E is properly modeled as high-damage powers (devastating strike, avalanche strike, etc) in 4E. I don't think it should be a feat at all in this edition.