"All Power Attack, All the Time?"

[Greybar]

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.

I had a player put together such a spreadsheet (hey, we're mostly tech geeks) and they joked about it before the game, but it was ignored during the game. And last game, the spreadsheet writer was the one egging the tank on with "All Power Attack, All The Time!". Yeah, it's more fun that way.

I think I'm fortunate in that while many of us at the table (including me, the usual GM) can be very analytical in how we think about making characters and such, we kinda leave that behind once the dice get rolling.

john

 

[frisbeet]

Suppose your character was a Barbarian1 Fighter10. Raging. Strength 22. Wielding a +2 flaming greatsword. Had feats of PA, WF, gWF, WS, & iC. What is the breakdown? Here's the average full attack damage/round, including chance of crits.

AC	0PA<D>	optPA	max<D>	11PA<D>
10	88.6	11	143.8	143.8
11	88.6	11	138.0	138.0
12	88.6	11	132.3	132.3
13	88.6	10	126.7	126.5
14	88.6	10	121.2	120.8
15	88.6	9	115.9	112.1
16	87.1	9	110.7	103.5
17	85.5	8	105.6	94.9
18	84.0	7	100.6	86.3
19	82.4	6	95.6	77.6
20	80.9	5	90.5	68.7
21	77.8	4	85.5	59.9
22	74.6	3	80.4	51.4
23	71.5	2	75.4	45.7
24	68.4	1	70.4	39.9
25	65.3	1	65.3	33.8
26	60.6	0	60.6	28.0
27	56.0	0	56.0	22.3
28	51.3	0	51.3	19.5
29	46.7	0	46.7	16.6
30	42.0	0	42.0	13.4
31	37.1	0	37.1	10.4
32	32.4	0	32.4	7.6
33	27.8	0	27.8	7.6
34	24.7	0	24.7	7.6
35	21.6	0	21.6	7.6
36	18.3	0	18.3	7.6
37	15.1	0	15.1	7.6
38	12.1	0	12.1	7.6
39	10.5	0	10.5	7.6
40	9.0	0	9.0	7.6
41	7.3	11	7.6	7.6

So a lot of the time you're better not PA at all than taking an 11, if you care about the "average round". That's a value judgement, how to roleplay, etc. etc. Not taking sides. Just wanted to provide an analysis of what's being advocated here.

I will take sides on one point though: why does everyone think you need a calculator to do this kind of thing. Just download a spreadsheet like the one on my site, punch out your character & weapon stats, and print it off once! There you go, your good until you level next. Staple it to the back of your character sheet. You don't have to do any calculations on the fly. That would suck.

 

[MDSnowman]

That is wrong on so many levels... maybe you missed the point about it being fun.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

That is wrong on so many levels... maybe you missed the point about it being fun.

I was about to post the same thing.

 

[Sejs]

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.

Orson, from Record of Lodoss War.

Goes berserk, swings at Parn, misses, and proceeds to take a giant chunk out of the side of the cliff that he hit instead of the main character.

 

[Painfully]

Because my half-giant barbarian with his large greatsword loves to see a guy go down in one shot. It makes a statement to all the surviving bad guys, "who's next?!"

The other main reason is that I don't like redoing my math every combat round. I write out my attack/damage for when I use max power attack, and then max power attack and rage together. If I'm gonna rage, I'm gonna power attack during the entire rage. It's about style and flavor, and how I want others to view my character when he's in a "bad mood."

And looking at a power attack chart during combat is just sooooo uncool.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm playing an archer at the moment. Had my level progression all mapped out. Not completely optimised, but planned. For example, I took archery feats with fighter levels instead of the ranger combat style... I'd intended to use a few ranger levels to pick up TWF for melee and qualify for Horizon Walker, etc.

And then the DM landed me with an intelligent bastard sword, and plans changed

So instead of Ranger levels, I took a Barbarian level, and Power Attack.

And now I'm quite happy plinking away with my bow, or using the bastard sword in melee without PA... but as soon as I Rage, I just stick everything in Power Attack. As far as I'm concerned, if you're not swinging as hard as you can while Raging, you're not a proper barbarian

-Hyp.

 

[Mark]

spoiler alert

Spoiler

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end spoiler alert

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Why would people do this? There's a demonstrably optimum amount to Power Attack, when the goal is to maxmize damage against a given AC, and that number is usually fairly small. So what's with APAATT?

Dude, this is the only way to play a barbarian. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it!

Edit: And if you're a DM, you haven't lived until a rampaging horde of ogres or other critters goes APAATT on the party. You may get a flurry of misses, but occasionally the response from the other side of the screen is "Ouch!.

 

[frisbeet]

adamant, brassbound, inexorable, obdurate, relentless, rigid, unbending, uncompromisi

Describe the idea that to have fun you (Edit: you=the proverbial you, ie everyone in this thread) have to Max cause you're a Barbarian.

Character sheets for wizards come with lots of spell sheets. You're telling me the players you roll with never consult them, because that wouldn't be fun? So you have a chart stapled to your character sheet. WTF how hard is that? It's like ordering from the Denny's menu. It's fun. Lessee, I think against this guy I'll hack for x.

I tell ya what's fun: missing, because you swung too damn hard.

There, I've weighed in with an actual opinion.

let the record show I don't advocate and never have advocated roleplaying with calculators