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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pax" data-source="post: 1652738" data-attributes="member: 6875">There are enough already.Take two characters - with an 18 and a 10, one character with a high score in strength, the other with a high score in dexterity.  Give them appropriate nonmagical equipment, and assume a +5 inherent bonus to their main attrbute.  Assume both are Human and 20th level, just for giggles and gags.Mr. Strong plays to his strengths (pardon the pun), and goes for - oh, let's keep it relatively simple, and say Barbarian(11)/Frenzied Berserker(9).  His strength is 28 base after level and inherent bonus.  Between greater rage and greater frenzy, he gets +16 strength, for a net of 54(+22).  That's a totalof +42 to hit and +33 damage with a 2H weapon.  He wears a suit of mithril full plate +5, which counts as medium armor to preserve the fast movement bonus from barbarian, thus has an AC of 24 (up to 28 if he can and does augment his dexterity sufficiently).  He can power attack for -21/+60, giving him +22 to hit and +93 damage, at the most extreme - including an assumed Weapon Focus feat.Mr. Agile, OTOH, goes for Fighter(10)/Duellist(10).  His Dexterity is 38(+14) and he wears Bracers of Armor (+8).  He fights with sword-and-shield with two shortswords and a buckler (+5, in fact), always fights defensively, and always uses his Improved Combat Expertise to the maximum level allowed; with weapon finesse, a +20 BAB, improved buckler defense, a +5 defending dagger in his off-hand, Improved Two-Weapon Defense, Dodge (a prerequisite for Duellist, IIRC), the maximum allowed ranks of Tumble, and the ICE/Fighting Defensively options above ... he has a +13 to hit and +2 damage (weapon specialisation: shortsword), and an Armor Class of 65 (including Dodge, two-weapon fighting penalties, and max benefot form the defender weapon)!!So.  If Mr. Strong and Mr. Agile get in a fight (and we ignore criticalhits, to keep my math simpler) - Mr. Strong will power attack for the maximum, all right - because he needs a natural 20 regardless of how much he does or doesn't apply!  He has a 5% chance to hit each round, so will land one blow every ~20 swings, or one hit per ~5 rounds ... granted, that'll be a KILLINg blow when it lands, but it won't hit very often.Mr. Agile, OTOH, only needs to roll an 11 or higher to connect.  Sure, Mr. Agile is only dealing 1d6+2 per attack - but with access to Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, he has 7 attacks per round, needing to roll 11/11//16/16//20/20//20.  That's 50%, 50%, 25%, 25%, 5%, 5%, and 5% - that's an 88% chance to land at least one blow per turn, and decent odds to hit *multiple* times in a round.  Only a few points will get through the DR, but that's a guaranteed few points per hit, for probably 2-3 hits per round.  I'd guess net damage per round will come to the 6-10 range, which means an average of 30-50 in the time the strong-man needs to land his one blow.Now, at 20th level, we're talking about a pretty close-to-reasonably-even match - the dexterity fighter hits more often, but for piddling damage ... the strength fighter hits rarely, but for truly devastating amounts of damage, probably killing or half-killing his foe outright on the first blow.  Throw in criticals, and the gap narrows in fact - more dice rolled, easier to connect ... the dexterity fighter will get and confirm more crtical hits (and yes, he *needs* them).Now consider, that high dexterity also means you likely have the initiative; enhancements to strength up the agility fighter's damage dramatically (a simple belt of +6 strength is +3 damage *per hit*, which is potentially a lot of extra damage with his odds of hitting.  The agility fighter can also do some early damage with ranged combat before closing to melee, too.And if hte agility fighter plays it smart, he won't *go* for those full attacks - he'll attack, then Tumble away (with just 10 ranks of tumble and his +14 dexterity modifier, that's a +24 to his roll ... !).  Throw in spring attack if you like, though it's not neccessary IMO.And the whole thing changes yet again if you drop the two-weapon schtick and specialisation, go with Rogue/Duellist, and pick up a spiked chain. ^_^...With all that said ... I think the roblem lays in when a dexterity fighter also wants to be a high-damage fighter.  That's wrong-headed thinking; Dexterity is for DEFENSE and DISTANCE.  Strength is for high-damage-output tactics.</blockquote>

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