A) Lots of people--smart people, educated people--stumble when asked to do even simple math quickly.
B) The complexity of the math increases fast when dealing with crits (or other abilities that increase damage).
C) Even a small delay is significant when added to the length of time a high-level round of 3E combat already takes, or when added up every round over the course of a session.
C) Even a small delay is significant when added to the length of time a high-level round of 3E combat already takes, or when added up every round over the course of a session.
Solves very little. An optimized build then deals far too much damage for a character of his level and the non optimized character never hits. Damage bonuses that come in precise amounts from feats along the lines of weapon specialization can be accounted for in balancing characters with far more regularity than the power attacker with the keen falchion.
And make no mistake, damage dealing feats in 4E will be far more in line with Weapon specialization rather than power attack.
How about for a fixed escalation of attack roll penalty (-3/6/9), the character gets an extra damage die of some type (d6, or same die as weapon) per penalty range taken:
C) Even a small delay is significant when added to the length of time a high-level round of 3E combat already takes, or when added up every round over the course of a session.
Yep. And it gets a lot worse at higher levels -- the number of bonuses increase, the number of attacks per critter increase, and the number of critters on the board increase. Cubic escalation of annoyance? No thank you.
Which shows that the feat was not doing what it was designed to do (You Puny! Thog kill you!! -type of unsophisticated, yet powerful strokes), and instead it was being picked up by all kinds of martial characters in order to be able to do something!
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Merlin the Tuna said:
Warblade + Diamond Mind is how manly men make swashbucklers, just so you know.
Thanks Merlin the Tuna, for another example of "bad rules forcing players to bend rules from one concept to another" (the "no-weapons-swordsage as a better-monk-than-the-monk" is another prime example)
PA grinds my brain to a halt every time I use it. I never did well on those timed math tests as a kid. I have to have a cheat sheet that shows me what happens for +5 PA and +10 PA and never pick anything other than one of those two.
As a DM, I've made it a prerequisite for the feat that the player must fill out attack entries on the character sheet for whatever level of power attack they will be using.
Really like Power Attack's results - IMO, it's nice for a high level fighter type to be able to splatter someone from time to time - and helps them keep up with the neighbours (spellcasters).
But do find it one of the most complex bits of the game - sat on top of a pile of 'fiddly' buffs... IME, can result in a fair bit of slowdown - with multiple attacks and crits all piling up.
Personally, I'd like to see fighter types given some more interesting options to play with instead of 'I hit the monster'. The talk of per encounter and per day special abilities would IMO seem to fit the ticket? It could negate the need for power attack... When it's time to kill things, Mr(s) Fighty would pull out the special moves?
Edit: And while I think about it, they would need to fix what started our group using Power Attack... a monster with DR 15/Weapons You Don't Have and the 'Runs Faster Than You' ability. It was a TPK for our lovely party of Dual Weilding/Sword and Board guys. Sniff.
