D&D 4E 4e Contest: Prove Nate Right - Power Attack Entry Finalists - You help decide winners

[Najo]

I checked that the poll was hidden unilt it is over. As for the unregistered guest voting, I didn't see an option for that. I didn't think guests can vote. Can an admin get in touch with how we can fix this please.

Thanks

Nate

 

[Belorin]

I like 'A', it's clear and concise, as for those that feel it leaves the weapon & shield without an option, remember you have things like shield rush that two-handers and those that drop their shields to wield a weapon two-handed don't get.

Bel

 

[Cactot]

D is ridiculous. The penalty and the bonus are extraordinarily variable. Flatfootedness is potentially costing the Power Attacker nothing if they lack dodge bonuses or have Uncanny Dodge. Dealing in damage multipliers is rather messy, and crits especially so - since the potential bonus varies from x2 to x4. Base weapon damage changes only slighly in response to changes in crit multiplier, so using this feat is massive boost to axes, scythes, etc over otherwise similar weapons. Moreover, using the feat is a standard action, but it can also be part of a charge for some reason? It seems like that particular exception is begging to be abused with other charge multipliers.

C Once you have multiple attacks, it's really lackluster (like Lunge). Also, it's unclear whether it's adding an additional half str, or a full out 1.5/2xstr. Ie, does a longsword add 2.5xstr, cause it normally adds 1xstr and this feat adds 1.5x str? I assume not, but...
D go go 1st level grim reaper instant kills - doesn't care about critical range or critical confirmation and is immensely too powerful. Cool idea, but really not developed all the way through.

Just to clarify, we are talking about 4ed right? I was under the impression that weapons no longer have multipliers, crits are instead "max damage" hits. (so a 1d6 short sword would do 6 damage) I was also under the impression that iterative (multiple) attacks went the way of the dodo in order to speed up the per-round combat time.

Am i totally misinformed?

 

[Victim]

Just to clarify, we are talking about 4ed right? I was under the impression that weapons no longer have multipliers, crits are instead "max damage" hits. (so a 1d6 short sword would do 6 damage) I was also under the impression that iterative (multiple) attacks went the way of the dodo in order to speed up the per-round combat time.

Am i totally misinformed?

It says redesign the 3.5 Power Attack feat. As far as 4e goes, we don't even know that STR and two handed weapons work the same as 3.x so mechanics based on the old version are unsound. Similarly, there is no flat footed.

 

[FadedC]

Hmm......B and D are insanely overpowered. C seems fairly weak, and increasingly useless at higher level. A is a little too good, but nowhere nearly as overpowered as B and D. So I voted for A because it was the closest to being fair, but I wasn't too impressed with any of them.

 

[PoeticJustice]

I actually think all of these are strong entries. Sure, they are a bit more powerful than the current feat, but was not the point of the contest to redesign an weak feat so that it is more viable?

Kudos to A's writer, whoever wrote it, because that's a design I'd have never though of. Very clean, easy to understand, easy to use.

C & D are also a step up from the current feat; by treating power attack a special attack it eliminates the calculus that plagued the original.

I don't think B is quite as bad as people are making it out. Pointing to a few situations in which the feat is more useful than the printed version doesn't make it a broken feat.

 

[HukdUnFonx]

I actually think all of these are strong entries. Sure, they are a bit more powerful than the current feat, but was not the point of the contest to redesign an weak feat so that it is more viable?

Kudos to A's writer, whoever wrote it, because that's a design I'd have never though of. Very clean, easy to understand, easy to use.

C & D are also a step up from the current feat; by treating power attack a special attack it eliminates the calculus that plagued the original.

I don't think B is quite as bad as people are making it out. Pointing to a few situations in which the feat is more useful than the printed version doesn't make it a broken feat.

I disagree; the problem with power attack isn't that it's underpowered. For instance, by my back-of-the-envelope math, at level 5, a fighter with 16 str attacking a creature with AC 15 using a greatsword gets a bonus of 2.28 to his average damage output on every attack if he uses power attack optimally. To put it in context, that's slightly better than a +3 to damage rolls, better than most other feats on the market.

The problem with power attack, as given in this gleemax post: http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Pages/Communities/BlogPost.aspx?blogpostid=23612&pagemode=2&blogid=2076 is simply the amount of math required to calculate the power attack modifier to give this optimal bonus. Therefore, the issue here shouldn't be whether these feats are more powerful than power attack; on the contrary, they could probably stand to be a bit weaker, compared to the optimal case.

So the criteria used to judge these feats shouldn't just be their power, as long as they're balanced properly against other feats available at level one (not that I think all of them are). Rather, they should be judged by their ease of use, intuitive math, and flavor.

P.S.: Intuitive math is the major reason I have a problem with any feat with a sliding modifier, especially an unbounded one. It seems inevitable that the modifier should always be maxed out, in which case it should be an on/off ability, the modifier should always be zero, in which case the feat is useless, or the modifier is situational, which means someone has to spend time trying to figure out the maxima of some function on each turn.

 

[Najo]

Power Attack is either extremely under powered or hard to use (hence this half of the contest) or it is grossly overpowered in bizarre builds. But, more on that in 2-3 weeks when we post the Prove Nate Wrong entrees

 

[Pinotage]

Hmmm. A I think is mechanically wrong. For one, creatures with natural attacks only get 1.5 times their Strength to damage if the attack is the ONLY attack they can make. How this works with A is not stated, and hence I've scrapped that one as clumsy.

C and D are similar, but D is crazy. True Strike and D are just insane. So that get scrapped too. C is OK - it kinda puts one-handed and two-handed weapons on roughly the same power scale, but the increase in damage from the attack is very minimal and even worse since you only have one attack. So scrap that one as a weak replacement.

Which leaves B. Not great. Just a different variant of Power Attack as it is. I've gone with that one, but personally out of these 4, I'd just as easy stay with the normal Power Attack entry.

Pinotage

 

[Baka no Hentai]

My hope is that the fact that A.) does not provide any bonus for one handed weapons (or natural weapons, as Pinotage pointed out) is an accidental ommision. If so, that is by far the best option in my book... if not, then it needs some work.