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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 1240371" data-attributes="member: 2011">Power Attack only affects melee attacks as per its description.The point you are missing is that this CDG not a melee attack whatsoever. It is a CDG action.If you want to attack someone out of the blue, you get a surprise round (maybe) and can do a standard action melee attack against them. You cannot do a full attack against them. The moment you attempt to attack someone in "melee", you immediately go into combat.If you try to CDG someone out of the blue, you do not get a surprise round against that target. Just like you do not get a surprise round if you decide to pick a lock. It is a concentration action, not a melee action. You just do it. If you do not kill the character or if the DM has other characters around that want to stop you from doing a CDG, then maybe you will end up in melee.But, if it is just you and the target, there is no combat. CDG is not a combat melee action, even though it can be used in combat.You cannot add Power Attack melee damage bonuses to an action which is not a melee attack because Power Attack states that it affects melee attacks. Not spell attacks. Not dropping boulders from the roof attacks. Not missile attacks. Not alchemy fire attacks. Not CDGs.If your DM states that you threaten the squares around you while doing a CDG and you get an AoO, you can Power Attack that AoO. But, you cannot Power Attack a CDG, regardless of whether you are using a melee weapon to perform that action. It is the wrong type of action. It is a concentration action as specified in its own description. The CDG action allows you do your normal damage as if you were doing a melee attack, but it is not specified as a melee attack anywhere. It also specifically allows Rogues to add sneak attack damage. But, it does not call out anywhere that it allows anymore damage than a normal successful critical damage plus sneak attack damage.It is an attack, but it is not a melee attack. It can be done out of combat. You are not "meleeing" when you CDG (i.e. you are not swinging your sword and hoping to hit a vital spot), you are performing surgery (i.e. carefully placing your sword in an appropriate location and thrusting it in).Now granted, I am taking an extremely literal definition of how Power Attack is described and how Coup De Grace is described. The reason I am doing that is because it is unfair (IMO) to lower a non-existent to hit roll and add to a damage roll. I do completely understand your POV, I just think that it should not be allowed and an extremely literal reading of the text disallows it, hence, that is the position I am taking.But, I doubt you and I will find consensus on this. Let's go argue about something else. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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