"All Power Attack, All the Time?"

[Gez]

It's how I played KotOR. That or critical strike.

But losing the whole BAB in D&D? I've a hard enough time to hit the critters my DMs send against us, they always have impossibly high ACs.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Since I believe the phrase, "All Power Attack, All The Time" is my own (see Heroes of High Favor: Half-Orcs) I feel qualified to opine.

Yet so many other people here already "get it" there's not much left to say.

Min/maxing is a curse, you have to let it go. If you extrapolate that premise to its infinite (absurd) conclusion, there’s only one “maximum” character concept you, or anyone, can play—and what fun would that be?

All power attack, all the time is about FUN. It's the fun of missing, missing, missing, your companions are begging you to give in, to HIT something for a change, missing, missing, and then WHAM! You're a hero.

You want a quick analogy?

It's about swinging for the fence even though a sacrifice bunt is the "best" thing to do.

Swing away, man. Swing away.

Wulf

 

[Li Shenron]

Want to scare your players, DMs? Use this tactic for a bad guy and make sure to describe the misses as well as the hits. Guaranteed they'll take him down as quickly as they possibly can.

That's a good idea... I can see an Ogre or other giant wielding some tree-like greatclub and swinging like a windmill. Screams to the players: be quick because as soon as it lands one successful blow...

 

[diaglo]

That's a good idea... I can see an Ogre or other giant wielding some tree-like greatclub and swinging like a windmill. Screams to the players: be quick because as soon as it lands one successful blow...

Olgar Shiverstone did this to our party. check out the story hour in my sig.

 

[HellHound]

In our games, full power attack is never seen, but most people run with some 'standard' attacks at -2 / +4 power attack or -5 / +10 power attack, and just run like that for the whole session.

 

[MichaelH]

Recently my group got ambushed by 3 invisible ogre mage's, a few bugbears and a fire giant. Three Cone of Cold spells later and only 3 out of 8 of us still stood, including my dwarf (bbn2, rgr1, ftr4). Using my greataxe, I charged the nearest ogre mage with "full power attack" and scored a critical hit worth 80-something points of damage. Scratch one ogre mage. After killing a couple bugbears, I charged the fire giant with full power attack. As luck would have it, another critical hit doing another 80-something points of damage. The fire giant was toast (he was already damaged by our ranger who is quite good with his bow). Anyway, I use "all power attack, all the time" and I can tell you that it is FUN, especially when you crit.

 

[Particle_Man]

If you go this route, you really should have a bright red skull shaped cod-piece, wield a scythe, and get a cool middle name, like Alanthas "The Sexicutioner" Goodtree, the elf.

 

[iwatt]

There is a problem with the "optimum" PA. Like all optimum it depends on what you want to maximize. Most Optimum P.A. sheets calculate for maximum average damage per round. But this is not really usful ina game were it doesn't mateer how many hitpoints you've lost, what matters is that you're still alive (no ability attrition as in other game systems were wounds have consequences).

APAATT is optimum sometimes. When you have Cleave, APAATT increases your cleave attempts. It's hard to quantify the effect of a cleave attempt into optimum PA criteris When you HAVE to kill something RIGHT NOW, APAATT is optimum.

Besides, just in case you haven't heard...it's FUN

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Maybe because the DM would ban anyone from the table that showed up with a spreadsheet calculating optimal power attack situations, or that took time during his turn to figure it out.

If a player wants to turn it into a math competition, then I'll do the same. And since I know the player's stats long before they know anything about their opponents, I *will* win that contest.

I don't mind, however, if the player adjusts his power attack on the fly if the character would have reason to, eg he keeps missing, so he recognizes his opponents is a slippery one, and takes more care in his attacks.

 

[Umbran]

I don't know why one would use such a tactic all the time...

Because the character would do so.

You and I may be tactical wargamers, out to optimize, to maximize average damage each round. But Thog the Barbarian is... Thog. He can't pronounce "optimize", much less understand the detailed mathematics behind the choice.

Thog's this guy. He's in the fight, he's cheesed off that the gnoll has stolen his olive loaf, and he goes with his gut instinct - to hit the bastard gnoll and hit him hard. In the thick of combat, lots of people do sub-optimal things, you know.