[3.5] Power Attack - can this possibly be right?

[Celtavian]

re

I am going to have major headaches with this new Power Attack, but then again the character that will give me the headaches already does so.

I am currently running a Half-dragon (human) greatsword wielding Paladin with a natural 24 strength at 8th level. He only has a +1 greatsword because I am skimpy on the magic items. He is going to be a nightmare with this new Power Attack.

Most people have been saying monster AC's are higher than in 3.0. I have been waiting to see the new Monster Manual to see if what they say is true.

I'm going to give it a try because a few folks who have run the math say that the increase in damage won't be as substantial as it looks. Then again, they didn't list the percentage of creatures at a given level with AC's that make power attacking very beneficial. My intuition tells me that high AC monsters of a given challenge rating are rarer than we might think.

 

[Hypersmurf]

And I realized that there will no longer be any way for melee characters to move and still full attack (in 3e, a haste action partial charge+full attack was typical by the time characters reached the level you're discussing) so I reconsidered yet again.

Savage Species is supposed to be vaguely 3.5-compatible, isn't it?

So Lion's Charge is potentially viable?

-Hyp.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I doubt Lion's Charge will be core.

Hopefully AC scores are going up ... even my players are tired of hitting things on a "2".

 

[Hypersmurf]

I doubt Lion's Charge will be core.

Not core, no, but in a supplement designed to be compatible.

-Hyp.

 

[isoChron]

I doubt Lion's Charge will be core.

Hopefully AC scores are going up ... even my players are tired of hitting things on a "2".

I think it's not a problem of AC but a problem of the BAB rising to fast. You can't give all your 10th level Rogue NPC's a chainshirt +5 and a ring of deflection +3 only to let them survive 1 round of combat ... well, ok, you can but it seems a little bit magic overloaded to me.
Just my 2 cents.
BYE

 

[Grog]

The reason I don't like the new Power Attack is because it screws over dual-wielders (as if dual-wielders needed to be any crappier than they already were...)

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'd note too that 2H weapons appear overpowered in direct proportion to the level of ability scores in a game. While a natural strength of 20 at low levels is anticipated by the game system, it should be extremely rare -- never mind anything well beyond that.

Consider that at the stat ranges at which the game is designed and playtested (ie, 25-pt/default array characters), an 18 strength is about the expected limit up through 7th level: +6 for two-handed damage vs the +9 for a 22 Str starts to seem a pretty significant difference. The further you get from the game's design point, the wider the variance in the mechanics -- and the more potentially unbalanced things may appear.

I think Power Attack scales quite well with the range of ability scores (as some of the in-depth analysis has shown) -- but it certainly may not appear that way at first glance.

 

[shilsen]

Here's the situation. He has a half-orc Ftr3/Bbn6 with a Str of 20. He also has a Belt of Giant Strength to bring his Str up to 24. He wields a +2 Keen Two-Handed Sword. Nothing too unreasonable for his level, right?

Not too unreasonable, but pushing the wealth levels in the DMG. A 9th lvl PC should have 36,000 gp. Between these two items, this PC has 34,350 gp (18,350 for the sword and 16,000 for the belt). So unless he has almost no other magic items, in which case he must be suffering in other areas than melee damage-dealing, he's likely to be overly wealthy for his level, and that would be a contributing factor.

 

[apocalypstick]

I think it's not a problem of AC but a problem of the BAB rising to fast. You can't give all your 10th level Rogue NPC's a chainshirt +5 and a ring of deflection +3 only to let them survive 1 round of combat ... well, ok, you can but it seems a little bit magic overloaded to me.
Just my 2 cents.
BYE

well, yeah, but your 10th level rogue NPCs should be smart/sneaky enough to not end up in HTH with a melee machine anyway... OTOH, a 10th level barbarian NPC can rage away, and use PA as well...

 

[Marshall]

And I realized that there will no longer be any way for melee characters to move and still full attack (in 3e, a haste action partial charge+full attack was typical by the time characters reached the level you're discussing) so I reconsidered yet again.

HUH? If the number of FAA's drops in 3.5, which it will. Then the number of times that it is DIS-advantageous to use Power Attack drops. This rule change alone makes a good 3.0 feat better in 3.5.

Once you add in the 1 for 2 mechanic. Yeesh!

I always looked at PA as being for the 1 Big Swing, that it wasn't a good idea combined with an FAA didn't bother me.