Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
3.5 power attack: the designers' rationale
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="frisbeet" data-source="post: 953785" data-attributes="member: 10287"><p>This change does not bring PA even close to "broken".</p><p></p><p>Compare how much damage a 3.0 (or 3.5) TW fighter, 3.0 THW fighter, and 3.5 THW fighter do against a range of ACs. They all know the AC of their opponent and strike with the optimum PA which maximizes their average full attack (FA) damage/round.</p><p></p><p>Each Fighter is level 16 and has 24 Strength. Each has feats of </p><p></p><p>Power Attack</p><p>Weapon Focus, wielded weapon</p><p>Weapon Specialization, wielded weapon</p><p>Improved Critical, wielded weapon</p><p></p><p>The weapons wielded are +4 keen.</p><p></p><p>Fighter 1 (3.5 GS):</p><p>3.5 wielding a Greatsword</p><p></p><p>Fighter 2 (3.0 GS):</p><p>3.0 wielding a Greatsword</p><p></p><p>Fighter 3 (3.0 SSx2):</p><p>3.5 wielding two Short Swords. Has all appropriate TWF feats, such that he gets 3 off-hand attacks at level 16.</p><p></p><p>The average FA damage/round is = P(hitting AC__)*ave D + P(crit hitting AC__)*ave crit D, summed for all attacks. You can check the 3.0 numbers in the optimum PA spreadsheet on my website (large!); just click my signature. The 3.5 #s come from a very slight modification to this sheet.</p><p></p><p>The optimum PA maximizes ave FA dam/round, and is found by brutally calculating this value for all possible PAs (17 in this example). Format for each column: optimum PA__ave FA dam/round.</p><p></p><p>AC______3.5 GS________3.0 GS________3.0 SSx2</p><p></p><p>10_____15__210.1_____11__152.5_____13__203.2</p><p>11_____14__202.2_____11__148.1_____12__195.8</p><p>12_____13__194.3_____10__143.7_____11__188.5</p><p>13_____12__186.4_____10__139.4_____10__181.1</p><p>14_____11__178.4_____9___135.2_____9___173.8</p><p>15_____10__170.5_____9___131.0_____8___166.4</p><p>16_____9___162.6_____8___126.9_____7___159.1</p><p>17_____8___154.6_____8___122.9_____7___152.0</p><p>18_____8___147.0_____7___119.0_____6___145.0</p><p>19_____7___139.5_____6___115.0_____6___138.2</p><p>20_____7___132.3_____5___111.0_____5___131.5</p><p>21_____6___125.1_____4___107.1_____5___125.0</p><p>22_____6___118.3_____3___103.1_____4___118.6</p><p>23_____5___111.5_____2___99.1______3___112.3</p><p>24_____4___104.8_____1___95.2______3___106.2</p><p>25_____4___98.3______0___91.2______3___100.2</p><p>26_____4___92.1______0___86.7______2___94.5</p><p>27_____3___86.1______0___82.2______1___88.8</p><p>28_____2___80.2______0___77.7______0___83.1</p><p>29_____1___74.3______0___73.0______0___76.4</p><p>30_____0___68.3______0___68.3______0___69.7</p><p>31_____0___62.3______0___62.3______0___63.1</p><p>32_____0___56.4______0___56.4______0___57.1</p><p>33_____0___50.5______0___50.5______0___51.2</p><p>34_____0___45.8______0___45.8______0___45.5</p><p>35_____0___41.1______0___41.1______0___39.9</p><p>36_____0___36.6______0___36.6______0___34.4</p><p>37_____0___32.1______0___32.1______0___30.3</p><p>38_____0___27.8______0___27.8______0___26.3</p><p>39_____0___24.6______0___24.6______0___22.5</p><p>40_____0___21.4______0___21.4______0___18.8</p><p>41_____0___18.3______0___18.3______0___15.2</p><p>42_____0___15.4______0___15.4______0___13.0</p><p>43_____0___12.6______0___12.6______16__11.3</p><p>44_____16__11.6______0___10.8______16__11.3</p><p>45_____16__11.6______0___9.1_______16__11.3</p><p>46_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3</p><p>47_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3</p><p>48_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3</p><p>49_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3</p><p>50_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3</p><p></p><p>The new PA helps make average damage more equatable in an apples-to-apples comparison.</p><p></p><p>Such analysis says nothing about the greater cost in feats of TWF, even in 3.5, nor the greater cost in wielding two +4 keen swords vs. one. This is the only meritous point for declaring the new PA change "broken", but is a weak one IMHO.</p><p></p><p>From other posts I repeat myself here with these calculations, not as a blowhard (I hope), but because I believe this kind of topic hugely benefits from exact and complete analysis, and suffers from approximation and gross generalization. And because we can do such analysis. Indeed my analyis is not complete, insofar as I haven't calculated the multitude of other comparisons also germane to the topic (the 13 Str Fighter, for example).</p><p></p><p>Anyways...new PA is not broken. It's an improvement (at least for the level 16 GS wielding fighter, putting him on par with his TWF slightly richer twin).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="frisbeet, post: 953785, member: 10287"] This change does not bring PA even close to "broken". Compare how much damage a 3.0 (or 3.5) TW fighter, 3.0 THW fighter, and 3.5 THW fighter do against a range of ACs. They all know the AC of their opponent and strike with the optimum PA which maximizes their average full attack (FA) damage/round. Each Fighter is level 16 and has 24 Strength. Each has feats of Power Attack Weapon Focus, wielded weapon Weapon Specialization, wielded weapon Improved Critical, wielded weapon The weapons wielded are +4 keen. Fighter 1 (3.5 GS): 3.5 wielding a Greatsword Fighter 2 (3.0 GS): 3.0 wielding a Greatsword Fighter 3 (3.0 SSx2): 3.5 wielding two Short Swords. Has all appropriate TWF feats, such that he gets 3 off-hand attacks at level 16. The average FA damage/round is = P(hitting AC__)*ave D + P(crit hitting AC__)*ave crit D, summed for all attacks. You can check the 3.0 numbers in the optimum PA spreadsheet on my website (large!); just click my signature. The 3.5 #s come from a very slight modification to this sheet. The optimum PA maximizes ave FA dam/round, and is found by brutally calculating this value for all possible PAs (17 in this example). Format for each column: optimum PA__ave FA dam/round. AC______3.5 GS________3.0 GS________3.0 SSx2 10_____15__210.1_____11__152.5_____13__203.2 11_____14__202.2_____11__148.1_____12__195.8 12_____13__194.3_____10__143.7_____11__188.5 13_____12__186.4_____10__139.4_____10__181.1 14_____11__178.4_____9___135.2_____9___173.8 15_____10__170.5_____9___131.0_____8___166.4 16_____9___162.6_____8___126.9_____7___159.1 17_____8___154.6_____8___122.9_____7___152.0 18_____8___147.0_____7___119.0_____6___145.0 19_____7___139.5_____6___115.0_____6___138.2 20_____7___132.3_____5___111.0_____5___131.5 21_____6___125.1_____4___107.1_____5___125.0 22_____6___118.3_____3___103.1_____4___118.6 23_____5___111.5_____2___99.1______3___112.3 24_____4___104.8_____1___95.2______3___106.2 25_____4___98.3______0___91.2______3___100.2 26_____4___92.1______0___86.7______2___94.5 27_____3___86.1______0___82.2______1___88.8 28_____2___80.2______0___77.7______0___83.1 29_____1___74.3______0___73.0______0___76.4 30_____0___68.3______0___68.3______0___69.7 31_____0___62.3______0___62.3______0___63.1 32_____0___56.4______0___56.4______0___57.1 33_____0___50.5______0___50.5______0___51.2 34_____0___45.8______0___45.8______0___45.5 35_____0___41.1______0___41.1______0___39.9 36_____0___36.6______0___36.6______0___34.4 37_____0___32.1______0___32.1______0___30.3 38_____0___27.8______0___27.8______0___26.3 39_____0___24.6______0___24.6______0___22.5 40_____0___21.4______0___21.4______0___18.8 41_____0___18.3______0___18.3______0___15.2 42_____0___15.4______0___15.4______0___13.0 43_____0___12.6______0___12.6______16__11.3 44_____16__11.6______0___10.8______16__11.3 45_____16__11.6______0___9.1_______16__11.3 46_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3 47_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3 48_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3 49_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3 50_____16__11.6______16__8.2_______16__11.3 The new PA helps make average damage more equatable in an apples-to-apples comparison. Such analysis says nothing about the greater cost in feats of TWF, even in 3.5, nor the greater cost in wielding two +4 keen swords vs. one. This is the only meritous point for declaring the new PA change "broken", but is a weak one IMHO. From other posts I repeat myself here with these calculations, not as a blowhard (I hope), but because I believe this kind of topic hugely benefits from exact and complete analysis, and suffers from approximation and gross generalization. And because we can do such analysis. Indeed my analyis is not complete, insofar as I haven't calculated the multitude of other comparisons also germane to the topic (the 13 Str Fighter, for example). Anyways...new PA is not broken. It's an improvement (at least for the level 16 GS wielding fighter, putting him on par with his TWF slightly richer twin). [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
3.5 power attack: the designers' rationale
Top
