"All Power Attack, All the Time?"

[Ridley's Cohort]

Average damage calculations don't take into account the fact that if you smear the other guy, you don't take any damage at all. If your damage is big enough, you can just wait and wait and wait for that one hit. So I'm not convinced it's a bad tactic.

Yes, there are benefits to going KILLtacular, as my buddy likes to put it. Especially true if you have a talent for exploiting Cleave.

"Just wait and wait and wait" means you are conceding control of the pace of combat to the dice, and that really interferes with many common team tactics.

If you serious about this tactic, I recommend take a level of Sorceror or Cleric w/Magic Domain. For the cost of 1 BAB, you could get the full Power Attack to hit every other round with True Strike. And you may get lucky with follow on iterative attacks as a bonus.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Let's hope the next edition doesn't kill APAATT.

 

[Fifth Element]

Y'know, after reading this thread and then the other one about precise calculations of Power Attack, I must admit I am strongly tempted to play a half-orc fighter of the APAATT philosophy. I would use a Scythe (because if a crit. with full power attack feels good, then a crit. with full power attack and a x4 2 handed weapon will feel better!), call myself "The Reaper", and go to town! Hopefully I will play this delibarately sub-optimal character with an understanding DM, or it will be a short-lived (thought perhaps fun) experiment.

Dude, if you're going to play suboptimal, drop the scythe. Its crit multiplier makes the APAATT strategy better than a weapon with a lower one. Besides, if you're doing things in-character, what warrior wields a scythe? It's a farming implement!

 

[jasin]

Well I didn't finish the thread due to laziness, but I can't believe nobody (on the first page) mentioned just using power attack for super-E-Z-lazy math.. I usually APAATT for the first few levels, until I get a total attack modifier of five.. then I just keep it set to "on" so I have a total attack modifier that is really easy to add to dice due to laziness, ie 5 or 10 or what have you.

Now that's some lazy gaming.

Yeah, I do that too. Either a number that will round off my attack bonus to a multiple of five, or a number like 5 or 10 which will be easy to add to damage, or a number that will round off the bonus to damage to something that's a multiple of ten, or something that will negate "outside" bonuses like from flanking or the enemy being prone... actually, that's quite a lot of possible values, so this gives me plenty of room to pick a number that's also close to the (estimated) mathematical optimum. But then, I tend to play cool-headed types where not overdoing it is in character.

As a DM, I've seen a lot of misses because of too much Power Attack, but I've also witnessed a number of Spirited Charging max Power Attacking paladin smites, and let me tell you... witness one, and you'll understand the appeal of max Power Attack!

 

[frankthedm]

Besides, if you're doing things in-character, what warrior wields a scythe? It's a farming implement!

A warrior who wants his foes to know he is the god of death!

It's a farming implement!

Perfect for harvesting your foes' lives.