Help me use Power Attack

[Rel]

Re: Re: Help me use Power Attack

For your charcter right now, I can't see much use for Power Attack in most cases - your Attack bonus can't be much more than +6 or +7, and it's tough to give up much at that level.

That makes me feel a bit better about my present character as well as many of the NPC's that I've run as a DM (who were seldom much higher level than I am right now). The thing is that when you get so few feats (assuming you are not a fighter) you try to make every one count as a way of enhancing the character, both in terms of effectiveness and character concept. It just seems a bit weird that Power Attack, which is a prerequisite for so many other feats, is really fairly useless at low levels unless you get lucky an awful lot on your attack rolls.

I suppose that alternately you should full Power Attack any time you need a 20 to hit anyway. But in that kind of circumstance, you are probably better off to do Full Defense (assuming the bad guy has a good chance to hit you).

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

What about iterative attacks?

Same thing as Full Round Attack; if your worst attack won't hit on a decent roll (between 7-10, I'd say), you're likely better off NOT power attacking, unless you think there's a good chance that one swing will drop your enemy (thereby rendering the iterative attacks moot, and allowing you a move-equivalent action).

 

[kigmatzomat]

Re: Re: Re: Help me use Power Attack

I suppose that alternately you should full Power Attack any time you need a 20 to hit anyway. But in that kind of circumstance, you are probably better off to do Full Defense (assuming the bad guy has a good chance to hit you).

Why not do both? In the game I run the fighter was blinded, prone, and fighting something with a high AC. He realized his attack needed a 20 anyway so he maxed power attack and fought defensively. As fate would have it he rolled a 2, but his AC went up and had he landed the blow it would have been a glorious thing.

 

[Rel]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Help me use Power Attack

Why not do both? In the game I run the fighter was blinded, prone, and fighting something with a high AC. He realized his attack needed a 20 anyway so he maxed power attack and fought defensively. As fate would have it he rolled a 2, but his AC went up and had he landed the blow it would have been a glorious thing.

If I was fighting the Uber Bad Guy (defined in this case as somebody who I needed a 20 to hit and who had a fairly good chance of hitting me) for the purpose of buying time for my fellow party members to do something useful, I think the extra 2 points of AC derived from Full Defense would give me a better chance of success than a 1 in 20 chance of hitting with a full Power Attack. Obviously this would be influenced by a variety of other factors such as how many hit points I had left and how much damage the Uber Bad Guy would likely do if he hit.

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Real Damage = Chance to Hit * Average Damage

You can use calculus on that to figure out that you get the highest Real Damage when Chance to Hit = Average Damage.

Common sense once you really think about it. 1*5=5; 3*3=9

So when you are just making one attack, power attack an amount that allows you to hit on the same number of numbers on the die as the damage you average. If you're average damage is 4.5 (say, a shortsword +1) and you need a 13 to hit, then your chance to hit is 8 (on a 20 point scale instead of a 100 point scale), you should power attack until 21-the number you need to hit and average damage (with power attack figured in) are the same (or close, since the same is impossible), which would be about 2 points, so you would average 6.5 damage and hit on a 15 or higher.

You can also figure out from this that if your chance to hit is lower than your damage, you shouldn't power attack.

And I haven't figured out how to do it with itterative attacks figured in.

--Unclear Spikey

 

[Jens]

Some time ago there was a similar thread about PA. "Someone" posted a neat formula/rule for determining hor much to PA for. Sadly, I have lost the link so I can't give it here. But the basic idea is (as SpikeyFreak says) to make expected damage and hit-chance (counted in sides on the d20 that will hit) equal. (Because the largest rectangle of a given circumference is a square.) If you have iterative attacks, you should simply use the *average* hit-chance.

(oddly, this means that PA is more beneficial when using a one-handed weapon, especially if using Weapon Finesse...)

Sadly, this 'formula' breaks down in the 'edge' cases when one or more attacks either only hit on 20 (PA costs nothing) or only miss on 1 (again, PA costs nothing), and there are special situations as mentioned in previous posts where PA shoudl be used/not used.

Does anyone have a link to the post I remember?

 

[Petrosian]

on any given swing...

power attack increases your expected damage if...

the chance of hitting (number of sides on a d20 that hit)

is greater than

the averge HP of the normal swing.

When this is true, maximize the damage by power attacking "halfway"...

Example...

A 10th level fighter making one swing has a BAB of +10 and strength/docus/weapon mods of +7 for a net +17 to hit.

His damage is 1d8+7 for an average around 12 hp.

Against Ac 26 or better, he needs 9 or more on the dice (so 12 or fewer hits out of 20) and power attack does him no good.

Against lower Acs, he should shift 1 to power attack for every 2 Ac lower. So if the enemy is Ac 20, he should power attack 3 points.

******************

If you have iterative attacks, then look at the numbers for the different attacks. If you shift so that the middle attack of three breaks even, you wont gain much overall. first attack gains, second attack ties, third attack loses.