Balancing Power Attack

[Meeki]

I wanted to prove to you that your contention, that a shield-using character is equivalent in overall adventuring effectiveness to a character that uses large weapons, is false, and provably so by that experiment I suggested. It's not just about more damage; instead it's about tradeoffs. I can show systematically that the AC loss is too small for the massive gain in damage; lots of people have done so already.

Where, exactly has this been "proven". High AC is more valuable at lower levels than higher levels, at it should be IMO. AC is easier to boost at lower levels than to hit is and in later levels to hit seems easier to boost than AC. Measuring character effectiveness is subjective and has no basis of "proof".

Airwalk your feat just makes sure everyone uses two handed weapons still. On top of that the ones that either use big crit big dice weapons (d12's X3) or high average damage weapons (2d6). -5 to hit for an extra 7 damage on average doesn't seem that bad but when you roll 4 1's on a great sword the fighters are going to complain about not being able to overcome damage reduction.

 

[airwalkrr]

Airwalk your feat just makes sure everyone uses two handed weapons still. On top of that the ones that either use big crit big dice weapons (d12's X3) or high average damage weapons (2d6). -5 to hit for an extra 7 damage on average doesn't seem that bad but when you roll 4 1's on a great sword the fighters are going to complain about not being able to overcome damage reduction.

And how does your last point make sure everyone still uses two-handed weapons? I think you are being a bit pessimistic. I like to look at the optomistic side of things, such as the fact that two-weapon fighters actually get a benefit for their light weapons with Power Attack.

Besides that, I don't think the greatsword fighters will complain when they roll four 6s. And at any rate, the more dice you roll, the more likely it is for the total to approach average. Such quad snake eye events will be rare, i.e. about 1/1296th of the time.

 

[Meeki]

Two weapon fighters already have enough penalties to hit and are trying to rely on alot of attacks to do damage. Taking another -5 penalty no top of that to roll an additional damage die with out strength multiplied is not really worth it. On top of that many TWF's use light weapons in their offhand, making the exchange -5 to hit for probably only 3.5 damage, assuming the offhand is d6. Of course they get to do this to both attacks, but they are now at -7.
Power attack is used to help create some sort of reliable damage dealing. Often it is used to overcome damage reduction. I think your feat waters down melee oriented characters even more.

 

[Arkhandus]

Yep. A TWFer will be almost incapable of hitting anything with that version of Power Attack and their existing TWF penalties. A sword-and-boarder will get less benefit than a two-hander, and an extra 1d8 damage or so would be really exceedingly terrible for the price of a -5 on the attack roll. It's far, far worse for people using daggers, rapiers, scimitars, and such.

So really, it does nothing but continue to ensure that two-handed weapon wielders are the only Power Attack users. While making it rather worse for the other warriors.

 

[shurai]

Where, exactly has this been "proven". High AC is more valuable at lower levels than higher levels, at it should be IMO. AC is easier to boost at lower levels than to hit is and in later levels to hit seems easier to boost than AC. Measuring character effectiveness is subjective and has no basis of "proof".

If you think character effectiveness is so subjectively measured that comparisons can't really be made, then I suppose I'm not really able to convince you either way. I will say, though, that in that case, you can't really make claims about how valuable AC is nor whether the game is imbalanced with respect to meleeists generally . . . I mean, that counts as measurements of character effectiveness right? ; ]

 

[Meeki]

I did not say they cannot be made and the term subjective does not suggest so. I'm not claiming any basis of proof and you haven't presented anything you believe is proof. You can compare all you want but when you look at numbers who is to say what value they weigh? That is the subjective part. Do you want to have higher AC to increase your chances of not getting hit or do you want to do more damage with a 2 hander? I am still curious to see this proof about power attack and 2 handers compared to giving up AC.

 

[airwalkrr]

Yep. A TWFer will be almost incapable of hitting anything with that version of Power Attack and their existing TWF penalties.

Hardly. A -7 to hit is not as terrible as you suggest, otherwise iterative attacks would be worthless. Besides that, the Tempest class, plus a few other options, can reduce such penalties.

A sword-and-boarder will get less benefit than a two-hander,

Well yea... is that a problem?

and an extra 1d8 damage or so would be really exceedingly terrible for the price of a -5 on the attack roll.

How so? You take a -5 penalty to gain +4.5 average damage. That is practically the same as the existing Power Attack rule. And that's assuming the SnB is using a longsword. There is also the bastard sword, or my personal favorite, the Monkey Grip bastard sword for 2d8. A -5 penalty for +9 average damage is not bad at all.

It's far, far worse for people using daggers, rapiers, scimitars, and such.

Yea, that's kind of the point. Not many people are going to Power Attack with a dagger, unless they really need the extra damage. And you shouldn't gain as much benefit using Power Attack with such a small weapon anyway. Its weight doesn't add significant momentum to the blow.

So really, it does nothing but continue to ensure that two-handed weapon wielders are the only Power Attack users.

It may still favor THFs, but not as strongly as before.

While making it rather worse for the other warriors.

That conclusion doesn't follow at all. Things don't really change much for a fighter with a longsword. It gives extra damage to TWFs and those with light weapons that was unobtainable before; it may not be ideal or overpowered, but it is available. THFs do not have as big of a relative benefit, but it is still a better benefit than using a smaller weapon.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Adopt the Iron Heroes attack challenges.
usable by anyone without a feat, they work across the board, same for any weapon.
-2 hit for +2 damage
-4 hit for +4 damage
-6 hit for +6 damage

poor man's Power Attack, even with a dagger.