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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5896570" data-attributes="member: 4937">Yes, it could.  Which is why I only think something shouldn't be a feat when it gives a, "No." answer to something that ordinary untrained people could unambigiously try.  Heighten Spell is not something that intuitively, a 5 year old could try on the playground, ergo, it could be a feat.  Proving something should or shouldn't be a feat is harder, because more things go into that calculation, but its a base line.  I see nothing immediately in Heighten Spell that says it shouldn't be a feat.I use the 3.0 power attack, so its usuable on light weapons and doesn't grant significantly more advantage to two-handed weapon wielders.Not if you can also power attack.  Then you can translate any spare to hit bonus from any source into a damage bonus.Ok fine.  My basic problem is that I think that there are lots of good reasons for having the math work like that even if power attack doesn't exist.  I don't believe that the game was designed around power attack or that power attack is essential for the game.   For example, one of the most important reasons that AB outstrips AC over time is so that 3/4 BAB bonus classes will still be able to contribute to melee.   Over time, the 1/1 BAB bonus classes get a larger and larger gap on the 3/4 BAB bonus classes.   At first level, a fighter's BAB is only 1 larger than even the wizard, and so he only has a marginally better chance to hit things than other classes.   But by higher levels, the gap has gotten huge.  If AC kept up with the fighter's to hit bonus progression, then quickly no non-fighter class could hit the foe.   But that isn't to say that AC is only useful at high levels for resisting power attack.  The increasing difficulty of iterative attacks means that each additional attack is increasingly likely to miss and decreasingly likely to generate a confirmed critical.  Successful attacks are easier ways of generating damage than power attack, so that trade an increased 25% chance to miss on each attack (and a decreased chance to confirm criticals) for +10 damage might not always be a good idea.  Power attack is really only a no brainer when you are making single attacks against low AC foes.  But not every class needs power attack to generate damage.  Rogues for example are perfectly capable of generating massive amounts of damage through sneak attack, so trading a missed hit for a small bonus to damage just doesn't usually make sense.   Other strategies might be generating additional attacks on the enemy, or maximizing the chances for a critical, or using gear/spells/feats to generate lots of bonus damage, etc.   Power Attack didn't become THE strategy really until 3.5 introduced the 2 for 1 trade with two handed weapons because they thought the math would be too hard for us.   Power Attack is critical at high levels for straight forward melee builds only because WotC has done a bad job of giving fighters balanced and interesting options at higher levels.  That feeds directly into your observation about almost all brutes taking Power Attack.  Well, exactly what would their core options be anyway?  Even if Power Attack didn't fit the flavor, it's not like there are solid options in core in a Constitution based feat tree or a 'one man gang' sort of feat tree.</blockquote>

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