Jonathan Tweet denounces Power Attack

[Hypersmurf]

Couple players I know took the feat not to optimize, but to demonstrate when their characters were getting cheesed off - the more angry they were, the more they went for the hard hit. Consider telling your friend about that - make it a way for the rules ot reflect character anger

I had an archer character who wound up with an intelligent bastard sword. Threw my plans off completely, and I ended up taking a level in barbarian and Power Attack. He'd occasionally Power Attack for 1 or 2 points... except when Raging, at which point it was APAATT

-Hyp.

 

[PoeticJustice]

Am I alone in thinking that, while stuff like Grappling and Bull Rushes may have slowed the game down significantly, a line might be drawn between those effects and the comparatively simple Power Attack? It seems like they're axing a good feat (accessible, easy to use, and creative) for a pretty bad reason.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Not entirely. Maybe closer to, oh, .0925.

But I think that's actually irrelevant as to whether or not I feel they're "dumbing down" the game, which was the specific issue I was addressing.

I guess the point is, if they're honestly batting .925, it doesn't appear to matter much how they arrive at the decisions they are making. As far as I can tell, they could be tying little scrips of potential 4e changes to rampant weasels and just working in whatever they can catch during Weekly Weasel Roundups, and it wouldn't make a difference-- you'll find a way to appreciate it and defend it.

That's my way of saying I commend your boundless enthusiasm.

But that's irrelevant to the issue of dumbing down the game. You are right-- they're not. From what little we've seen so far, my impression is that they're adding complexity, while telling us they're streamlining play.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Am I alone in thinking that, while stuff like Grappling and Bull Rushes may have slowed the game down significantly, a line might be drawn between those effects and the comparatively simple Power Attack? It seems like they're axing a good feat (accessible, easy to use, and creative) for a pretty bad reason.

Stuff like Grappling and Bull Rushing, while more complicated, tended to get used less (partly since it was more complicated) than Power Attack... Which gets used during almost every round of combat. So Power Attack may actually have had a more dramatic effect on game speed than those more complicated aspects.

I would much prefer if power attack could be fixed rather than tossing it completely, but if it has to go... It can pretty easily be house-ruled back in by folks who want it, and maybe it'll make room for something even better.

Later
silver

 

[Henry]

Stuff like Grappling and Bull Rushing, while more complicated, tended to get used less (partly since it was more complicated) than Power Attack... Which gets used during almost every round of combat. So Power Attack may actually have had a more dramatic effect on game speed than those more complicated aspects.

I will say that the first time we've (my game group) really LOOKED at Grappling (as in, really used it extensively with lots of grappling-related feats) was the past three game sessions, with one of the PCs as a grappling-built character. We spent so much time debating if this clever wrestling feat goes off before that op-attack, or this close-quarters fighting feat works with that other conditional modifier, etc. that it dominated the whole combat's time. In fact, the player of a party barbarian, when wrestling the other PC, was so flustered he conceded their bout rather than try to figure out if he stood a chance. The rules weren't broken, really - but they were extremely convoluted.

Power attack, I can understand, can be convoluted to those over-analyzing it; however, if there's one thing that some of my group are concerned with it's the total stamping out of all in-game "tinkering" options that the designers seem to be doing. It happened with Star Wars - there have been some rather long discussions on the WotC forums about tech specialist characters losing their reasons for existance; Rodney provided some good web enchancements, mind you, but because of careful "bonus rationing," a lot of the focus was moved from tweaking stuff and making stuff, over to high-action maneuvers.

I see the same sort of thing with skills - no more tinkering with 3 points here and 5 points there possible, every 5th level character gets a certain amount of bonus to each, and there's no micro-managing that. Vancian spellcasting bites the dust in the same way - the fewer memorizations, the fewer "strategic" options to be tweaked. It's great for the majority of players who don't care about it, but for that minority who love the micro-management of resources, it's looking like a pretty sparse field.

 

[Ahglock]

They are making changes that speed up play and remove metagaming, both of which are good. Power attack can be fixed to work with these interests in mind.

Both can be good, it just depends on what you give up to get there.

The fights would be much quicker if it was deiced ed by a single flip of the coin. Heads you win the fight tails you lose. I'm not sure speed and lack of metagaming would save that from being a sucky game.

Whether or not removing the sliding scale speeds up game play enough to justify its loss of options is up for debate. Since I doubt it will even speed my games up at all for my table its just a loss of options if they put this change in the game.

 

[Ahglock]

Sorry if it's already been posted, but I didn't see it. Tweet has added an addendum to his blog:

http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Pages/Communities/BlogPost.aspx?blogpostid=23612&pagemode=2&blogid=2076


Seems like he's not so much concerned about the slow down as much as how that slow down represents a failure of the feat to capture the flavor he was shooting for.

AD

Wow that almost makes it worse to me.

If we had given power attack a different name it would be ok?

Sorry I guess I fall into the camp already displayed in this thread where the name was just one type of flavor to the feat. The -to hit and +to damage might be a precise thrust for a rapier, a wild swing with an ax or anything you could come up with.

Though I can see how it could be a problem at his table they way he described his players.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

I guess the point is, if they're honestly batting .925, it doesn't appear to matter much how they arrive at the decisions they are making. As far as I can tell, they could be tying little scrips of potential 4e changes to rampant weasels and just working in whatever they can catch during Weekly Weasel Roundups, and it wouldn't make a difference-- you'll find a way to appreciate it and defend it.

That's my way of saying I commend your boundless enthusiasm.

But that's irrelevant to the issue of dumbing down the game. You are right-- they're not. From what little we've seen so far, my impression is that they're adding complexity, while telling us they're streamlining play.

Well said. I am unsure as to how power attack is complex compared to situational terrain based modifiers, situational conditional based modifiers, situational terrain based modifiers triggered by conditional based modifiers, situational character abilities that impact monster modifiers and ....

 

[BryonD]

Meh. I've never yet seen an argument that the game is being "dumbed down" that holds any weight with me.

To me, streamlining the on-the-fly math isn't "dumbing things down," it's smoothing out gameplay. If and when that streamlining harms the overall play experience, then maybe I'll agree with you.

But this? Not so much. Especially considering that the people I've seen stopped in their tracks by Power Attack are among the smartest people I know.

shrug

It is simple addition and subtraction.

But that is beside the point. If Hawking has trouble with it then dumbing it down is a good idea, but it remains dumbing it down. I don't accept that this case meets that criteria of good idea.

I'm boggled that +2/-1 is all that tough and forced to wonder.

As I said before, I'm perfectly fine with replacing PA with something else if it still catches the feel. But if the reason you stated and I quoted is the basis, then it is simply dumbing down and I find that sad.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm boggled that +2/-1 is all that tough and forced to wonder.

Read the rest of the thread. It's been said before: The problem is not any one individual bit of "quick math" like "add 2 here, subtract 1 there." It's the combined effects of even that small delay when imposed over and over again, and the vast magnification of delay caused by stacking mathematical modifiers.

I would hope that one of the goals for 4E is to reduce the total number of said modifiers, focusing instead on a smaller number of more easily applied and more significant ones, with fewer on-the-fly choices necessary to apply them. While PA may not be the most egregious of these, it's certainly a solid example of one--and one that, as this thread suggests, some people do have problems with.

I'm confident that it'll be replaced with something comparable, though, simply because the "wild swing" is a staple.