NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 955213" data-attributes="member: 3146">On the other hand, mowing down zombie hordes seems like a staple of gaming. And groups of zombies are an appropriate challenge for mid level characters like the ones we're discussing here. 8 huge zombies or 16 large zombies, for instance are EL 9. Toss in a 8th or 9th level evil cleric to command them (ignoring HD limitations for the moment) and that's a very tough encounter for the PCs (EL 10-11)--one suitable for a boss fight. And in that case, how quickly the fighter can plow through the zombies is going to be one of the deciding factors of the fight. (The cleric can probably only turn one or two at a time). I've been in quite a few situations like that with my characters....I'll grant that these are often mild benefits but they do apply in a lot of cases. The bugbear, for instance is a case where the average damage/round calculation would indicate that power attacking is a poor idea. However, it turns out to be mildly beneficial.I suspect that similar calculations might move the benefits from mild to significant where average damage/round calculations also reveal an advantage.Now, mind you, I don't think that the new power attack is a bad idea. (I like it because it somewhat makes up for the loss of the partial charge-full attack manuever popular in 3e). I'm just maintaining that power attack was already a very useful feat--possibly even "must have" before the change.</blockquote>

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