Coup de Grace and Power Attack

[FrankTrollman]

Readying a Coup de Grace... And using power attack on it, too. Wow... But, if it automatically hits, what's to keep me from power attacking for a ghazillion points, since there's no penalty to a roll I don't make, and deal so much damage that nothing could make that fort save? Or, is that the point entirely? Man, I need to take Power Attack!

True. This is one of the reasons I truly do not understand why Andy Collins thought it was necessary to improve Power Attack for two handed weapon fighters.

-Frank

 

[The Souljourner]

Amen, Frank. I thought power attack was fine in 3.0. Now it's just ridiculous for two handed weapon guys, and useless for two weapon fighting guys.... like the two styles needed more balance in *that* direction

-The Souljourner

 

[Henry]

True. This is one of the reasons I truly do not understand why Andy Collins thought it was necessary to improve Power Attack for two handed weapon fighters.

-Frank

the BAB cap to Power attack aside, did you by chance see any of the multiple threads on these forums in August about the math behind power attack? (I noticed you had only been signed up since september, but didn't know if you had been lurking previously or not.)

In any case, the extensive statistical analysis of power attack in 3E versus 3.5 showed that at best, power attack works out to cause equivalent damage with versus without around an Armor class of 22 or so, worse if the AC is higher, and better if the AC is lower. Furthermore, weak fighters using power attack on two-weapon fighting turns out superior to a two-handed weapon fighter in the 3.0 version of power attack. They made the change so that it was a more attractive option to two-handers than two-weaponers, like they intended it originally. As it was, there was mathematically no reason to take it, and even less so when many creatures in 3.5 had their Armor Classes improved.

 

[FrankTrollman]

But Henry - that's largely irrelevent. Power Attack is and always has been a prerequisite of Cleave - it's a feat used for clearing away large numbers of zombies, and other inconveniences.

When you have Cleave, it is better to have a lower chance of hitting and a higher chance of killing your target in one hit. When you have Great Cleave - even more so. "Average Damage" is completely irrelevent, it's a feat which feeds into the strategy of attacking weak creatures.

So people can go ahead and do statistical analysis on how much damage you do per round against a heavily armored BBEG. While it doesn't come out especially favorably - that's a meaningless comparison. The question is not "how much damage do I do to the BBEG in five rounds" - it's "what are my odds of killing a zombie in one attack?"

Let's say you are a 4th level Warrior-type and have an attack bonus of +10 with your Greatsword (2d6+7 damage on a hit). In order to kill a zombie in one attack you need to hit (which you do on a 2+), and then inflict 16 damage (which you do if you roll a 9+ on 2d6). So without Power Attacking you kill a zombie in one attack 19/72 times - which is 26.3% of your attacks. If you power attack for everything you need to roll a 5+ on a d20 and then a 5+ on 2d6 - which is 26/45 of your attempts - which is 57.8%.

That's old Power Attack - the one that is supposed to be underpowered and in fact doubles your chances of getting a cleave every time you attack a zombie. Power Attack delivers on the Zombie Killing. That's what it is for and it does the job exceptionally well. It delivers huge on the thing it is actually supposed to do. So acting like it is underpowered is either ignorant or dishonest.

And yes, powering it up until it is a good idea all the time will make it even better at what it was already good for - and then it is completely overpowered.

-Frank

 

[Endur]

Absolutely. When Conan cuts off the head of an enemy, he is definitely using Power Attack.

I know that this has been flamewared across the forums and back, but can you Power Attack on a Coup de Grace?

 

[Saeviomagy]

Amen, Frank. I thought power attack was fine in 3.0. Now it's just ridiculous for two handed weapon guys, and useless for two weapon fighting guys.... like the two styles needed more balance in *that* direction

-The Souljourner

Monkey grip.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Monkey grip.

Whether Monkey Grip makes any difference to how Power Attack and Two-Weapon Fighting interact is very dependent on how you update the wording of the feat for 3.5.

-Hyp.

 

[FrankTrollman]

The 3.5 weapon size rules are so messed up that Monkey Grip's effects - if any - would be entirely up to the DM.

I mean, right now it takes a house rule to allow you to throw a baseball or kitchen knife at someone (what with medium sized creatures being unable to wield diminutive objects) - so what would happen with old school weapon size modification abilities is completely up in the air.

Of course, back in the day Monkey Grip was total butt - it was an entire feat to use a weapon that averaged 2 more points of damage than you normally could - at a cost of -2 to-hit. So it was really just a feat that forced you to power attack for 2 points all of the time so long as you used a specific one handed weapon that wasn't light. Power Attack was a great situational feat - Monkey Grip was smaller and couldn't be used situationally, making it one of the worst feats ever.

So as it is unlikely that Monkey Grip will be reprinted - how it is supposed to interact with the new weapon size rules is probably never going to get an official answer.

-Frank

 

[Darklone]

So as it is unlikely that Monkey Grip will be reprinted - how it is supposed to interact with the new weapon size rules is probably never going to get an official answer.

-Frank

I still don't give up hope that the game designers will think very hard about which feats they reprint and how... And though even MG was a weak feat as you pointed out, I wouldn't miss it at all.

I just loathe the thought they might actually give it a power boost...

 

[Hypersmurf]

So as it is unlikely that Monkey Grip will be reprinted - how it is supposed to interact with the new weapon size rules is probably never going to get an official answer.

The sensible way to translate it directly would be to say it allows you, for a -2 penalty, to treat a specific two-handed weapon as a one-handed weapon.

You can already treat a one-handed weapon of a size category larger as a two-handed weapon, for a -2 penalty, so you could also take Monkey Grip with that weapon to treat a one-handed weapon of a size category larger as a one-handed weapon, for a -4 penalty.

Anything else causes problems.

If you don't want to translate it directly, but instead three-point-fiveify it, you might say it applies to all two-handed weapons, like Weapon Finesse applies to all light weapons, and switch the Weapon Focus prerequisite for something else.

-Hyp.