Jonathan Tweet denounces Power Attack

[JoeGKushner]

I wonder if this will lead to them eliminating the 1.5 bonus for two handed weapons or the .5 bonus for off handed attacks in order to speed things up?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I wonder if this will lead to them eliminating the 1.5 bonus for two handed weapons or the .5 bonus for off handed attacks in order to speed things up?

Nah, you don't need to recalculate your Strength often.

Unless you use lots of buff spells. I wouldn't be surprised if ability-score-buffing spells (including things that change your shape) get nerfed though.

 

[frankthedm]

I wonder if this will lead to them eliminating the 1.5 bonus for two handed weapons or the .5 bonus for off handed attacks in order to speed things up?

Unless that was changed in saga, I'd guess it stays.

 

[Remathilis]

Unless that was changed in saga, I'd guess it stays.

Nope. Changed.

2 Hand: Str Mod X2
Off Hand: Str Mod

Bare in mind that without iterative attacks and with twf being a royal pain in saga, this works. If D&D makes multiple attack as rare, then I think these will be the new weapon damage mods.

 

[Holy Bovine]

oh yeah, it takes ages to subtract form one number and add to another number. :\

At 15th+ level it does.

And don't forget
Prayer
Bull's Strength
Combat Expertise
the Dragon Shaman's Aura
Hero's Feast
etc
etc
etc

I've seen the math on PA take up to 15 minutes to figure out. from a PhD with an IQ in the 180 range.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Nah, you don't need to recalculate your Strength often.

Unless you use lots of buff spells. I wouldn't be surprised if ability-score-buffing spells (including things that change your shape) get nerfed though.

They were already in 3.5. And I don't think for the better. Removing the random factor was a good idea, but reducing the duration means that you have to recalculate your ability scores and their modifiers more often.
I think granting a +2 enhancement bonus and giving the spell a duration of 1 hour per level would have worked better than the +4 enhancement bonus and 1 minute per level duration.

Generally, modifiers that affect ability scores should last very long and be reliable, but not high. Modifiers that work on short terms should be direclty to the statistic they are supposed to improve.
Example would be the Starwars equivalent of Rage (+2 moral bonus to attack and damage) or 3rd edition Bards Inspire Courage. That's a lot easier to use than the 3.x Rage or Bull's Strength, because you immediately know what the ability affects and how much it does so .
(Rage in 3rd edition wasn't that bad, because the player himself could simply write down his stats for Normal, Rage, and After-Rage down and he controlled when the ability was activated)

 

[Najo]

1) It does to me, but that is a subjective thing. Which I guess is my point.

2) "Immersion of roleplaying"? That's amusing. Then I guess rolling all those dice when you hit someone with a fireball or doing any calculations at all does the same thing. D&D is a system, and a rather complex one, so if you're going to talk about how numbers and calculcations disrupt roleplaying, then you are going to have to criticize D&D quite highly in this regard--along with Hero, Exalted, Shadowrun, and just about every RPG out there that involves numbers (which, I warrant, is the vast majority of them).

In any case, I doubt that the "immersion of roleplaying" is going to be damaged very much at all by Power Attack, especially when players are dusting Cheeto powder off their fingers before they roll dice or move their little counters/miniatures around a map grid while juggling 2-liters of Mountain Dew and PHBs.

3) Ask a batter on a professional baseball team. Or a golfer.

1) Because they can fine tune the number and choose it (as oppose to it being random or maxed out) it lacks a give it all you got kind of feel to it. It doesn't feel like "power attack". It feels like some sort of aimed strike.

2) Most of D&D's mechanics become intuitive and run under the radar once players are comfortable with them. Roll d20 + mods vs Difficulty. Rolling damage. Doing saves. All of these things are consistent and flow. Power attack becomes disruptive when a player decides to sit there and figure out the odds for each step of power attack they an do. This is not the same as the player's planning out their strategies and it is not a tactical choice. Sliding power attack's value up and down is stepping outside of the game and looking at the mechanics removed from the story. This is how it breaks immersion and the other rules don't.

3) I will give you this one, though they are driving through with more accuracy and not swinging wildly. Again, the feat as it is is more of a aimed strike than a power attack.

 

[Najo]

For the people perplexed by where the complex math comes into play, I thought I'd reiterate the point that choosing how much to power attack is a well-defined math problem, and that choosing without doing the math is often quite counterproductive -- or has no real effect except to complicate things.

Power attack is most useful when (a) the attacker has a high probability of hitting, and (b) the attacker does not normally do much damage.

As this damage per attack spreadsheet points out -- assuming a single attack at -1 to hit for +1 to damage -- power attacking does not makes much difference once an attacker is doing serious damage.

For instance, an attacker doing 1d8+4 damage and hitting his target on a natural 10 or higher averages 4.68 points of damage per attack (not hit), and power attacking by one increases that to 4.75, for 2 percent more damage. Power attacking by one more then decreases that to 4.72.

An analytical player may be tempted to spend an inordinate amount of time calculating such values at the table, and a non-analytical player may be tempted to make demonstrably terrible -- but seemingly appropriate and fun -- decisions.

BAM! This is the point ALL of us who get it are trying to make to the power attack is fine crowd. This ability costs you a FEAT! It slows down play! It does not feel right! And...it doesn't really do anything for you

 

[Najo]

Let me suggest that the smarter your players are, the less they indulge in behavior that bogs down the flow of play, even if it means a slight loss in their own character's effectiveness...

Have you played with smart players and math probability? That isn't quite how it goes down...Power Attack becomes a moment to use that math brain of theirs...and they do just that.

 

[ThirdWizard]

That's using the assumption that you should power attack all the time, which is completely bogus.

It's actually quite the opposite.