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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mike Sullivan" data-source="post: 954924" data-attributes="member: 9824">An interesting claim that Psion made was that Power Attack would have been a "must have" feat, even if it had not been changed, because you'll more often have to cut through 3.5 DR.  I have no idea if this is true, so I thought I'd run the numbers.I'm going to pair a Werewolf (which will almost certainly have DR 5/Silver) against a greatsword-using Fighter level 4 (Werewolves are CR 3 in the present game, and I think it's not unlikely that their CR will be bumped by one for the DR change).Werewolves have AC 16 in hybrid form, which seems unlikely to change.Our Fighter will have Str 18 and be specialized in his Greatsword +1 (and have focus in it, of course).  He has no silver Greatsword, and thus is going to be sucking up the DR.Fighter's attack bonus is:  +4 (BAB) +4 (Str) +1 (Magic) +1 (WF) = +10Fighter's damage is: 2d6 + 6 (str) + 2 (WS) + 1 (Magic) = 16 before crits.  Crits multiply by 1.1, so that's 17.6 damage.  Subtract 5 for DR, and we're looking at 12.6 damage.He hits on a 6+, which is to say 75% of the time, so his expected per-round damage is 9.45, before any Power Attacking.Using 3.0 PA for 2 points:He now hits on an 8+, 65% of the time, and his damage goes to 18 pre-crit, 19.8 after crit, -5 for DR is 14.8.  14.8 * .65 = 9.62.Using 3.0 PA for 3 points:He now hits on a 9+, 60% of the time, and his damage goes to 19 pre-crit, 20.9 after crit, -5 for DR is 15.9.  15.9 * .60 = 9.54So, yes, 3.0 PA would help this guy.  It would add a little less than a fifth of an expected hit point of damage per round.  I'm going to go ahead and suggest that that's not a "must have" feat.But maybe we should look at something different.  How about a high-end challenge?A Pit Fiend (<a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=rpga/articles/baatezustats" target="_blank">http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=rpga/articles/baatezustats</a>) has DR 15/holy silver, and I gather that it's supposed to be a very high-level challenge, so let's pit a 20th level fighter against one.Our 20th level fighter has a kick ass +5 keen greatsword of speed, but it ain't holy silver.  He's got a modified strength of 28, and has the feats Improved Critical, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, and Greater Weapon Specialization.So, his attack bonus is +20/+20/+15/+10/+5 (BAB, speed quality), +9 (Str), +5 (Magic), +2 (Feats) = +36/+36/+31/+26/+21His damage is: 2d6 + 13 (str) + 5 (magic) + 4 (feats) = 29 base.  His crit thresh is 15-20 x2, so he does 1.3 times that damage, or 37.7 expected damage per hit.  Minus 15 for the DR, and we get 22.7 damage per hit.The Pit Fiend's AC is 40, so the fighter hits on a 4,4,9,14,19.  Ugh, that last one affects his average per hit damage.  Okay, so that's 22.7 * .85 + 22.7 * .85 + 22.7 * .60 + 22.7 * .35 + 16.9 * .1 = 61.845 damage per round, expected, on a full attack.Now, suppose that the fighter uses 3.0 PA for 1:His damage increases to 39 per hit, on average, minus 15 for the DR is 24.  So, he ends up with:  24 * .8 + 24 * .8 + 24 * .55 + 24 * .3 + 16.5 * .05 = 59.625 damage per round, expected, on a full attack.So that's a decrease in per-round damage, making PA far from a "must have" (actually, I doubt that 3.5 PA would be a lot of use here either).I don't know, maybe there's something in the middle there where 3.0 PA would be wildly useful.</blockquote>

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