D&D 4E Najo's D&D Challenge!!! FREE CONTEST: Break Power Attack REAL 4e PRIZES

[Najo]

Ok, we have been debating the value of power attack in this thread:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=212732

And I am going to put my money were my mouth is, but first a bit about us:

I am the owner of Borderlands Games. We are a family owned game store in Salem, Or. Our website is www.borderlandsgames.com and our ebay store store front is http://stores.ebay.com/Borderlands-Games.

EDIT: I clarified the rules based on questions asked below. Let me kow if there are any more grey areas and someone please help tighten up the legalese. I would like to keep this as fun and open to people as possible.

(on a side note: if any one knows someone with the technical skills to help us tie our instore inventory with our online inventory and/or knows a good web designer who can help us tie our website and ebay together, and they are interested in helping us make our website awesome I would love to speak to them, because I hate our website )

Anyrate, we are a very progressive game store 5100 sq ft, half of which is game play space. We have hosted Magic states twice (150+ people). We hold events for Magic, D&D and Warhammer and other games every week. We just have a bad website (which I really, really want to change).

Anyrate, this should give me some legitamacy. I also have a team of creative folk who plan to publish D20 materials, once we get the web design issues out of the way.

GETTING TO THE POINT:

Power attack is broken, it is a terrible feat. At least IMHO. I want you to a) either prove me wrong and show my how awesome it can be or b) help me totally redesign it.

Here are the rules for my challenge:

I WANT TO PROVE NATE (najo) WRONG:

1. Submit a fully fleshed out D&D 3.5 character using only official WOTC published materials. The character needs to be shown at level 5, 10, 15 and 20. I want you to quote sources for the character's feats, magic items, etc. Use a 28 point build for abilities and use pregenerated gold by level as stated in the DMG. If there is an errata or updated mechanics, use the newest version.

2. Detail how the character effectively and creatively makes use of power attack. Show your math when needed. Then take and describe how that character uses and abuses power attack against CLs equal to its level. Detail all math and game mechanic usage.

3. Email your entry along with your name, email, phone. You won't be entered into any mailing list and your email will not be sold. Send your email to: borderlandsgames@yahoo.com. In the subject put: D&D Challenge - I WANT TO PROVE NATE WRONG

It will be tested against typical threats on our end once your submission is sent. We are looking for effective and creative use of the feat. The top ten submissions will be posted here for the commnuity to pick a winner from by the end of January 2008.

I WANT TO PROVE NATE (najo) RIGHT:

1. Submit your most creative approach to Power Attack. Rebuild the damn feat from the ground up. The feat needs to stand on its own and interact with the other official WOTC feats. It needs to remain true to its feat description. The feat needs to solve the following issues:
a) It should benefit the character to use in a manner that is straight forward to see.
b) It needs to be balanced
c) It needs to be fun to use.
d) It shouldn't bog down game play with the open ended possibility of calculus being needed to make a descision with it. (if you are prone to do this that is...)

2. Keep the feat streamlined and fun. State what problems you see the current feat having, and then present your solution to fixing it. Show math when needed.

3. Make sure the feat is laid out and written as close to official WOTC material as possible.
Then email with your contact info (as above), to the Borderlands email (again, above) but with the subject: D&D Challenge - I WANT TO PROVE NATE RIGHT

Ok, so here is what I am going to do. I am going to sort through all of the entries between now and the end of the month. That is 30 days. You can only enter each contest once. On December 31st, no more entries.

Then, we will take the top 10 we select of each entry, post them here on enworld in a poll for each contest by the end of January. We will then allow you guys to decide (assuming thats fine with Morrus) who deserves to win by posting polls for you to vote on.

WHAT DO I GET AND WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS:

First, myself, my family and any of my employees are exempt. But all of the rest of you, are fair game. The reason I am doing this is these power attack debats need to be resolved so I want to give you guys a reason to resolve them, one way or another. I figure this would be a fun way to do it.

SO, HERE IS THE PRIZE!

I will send you a brand new copy of the 4e Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master Guide and Monster Manual, and I will hook up your gaming group with 4 copies of the Player's Handbook. That way you are up and running with D&D 4e all for either proving me wrong or solving the power attack crisis we have on our hands

I will honor this prize to one winner from each contest (2 prizes total) and though you can enter both contests once per person, if you win both prizes then the runner up in one of the other catagories gets the second set of books. We do want to spread the love around don't we...so one prize package per winner. We want to see two people win!

Sound good? If we get a huge turn out for this or some support from our suppliers, we will throw in a bunch of other fun stuff and possibly some 2nd and 3rd place prizes too.

Oh, and if you have a good web designer contact or database tech who wants to help out a family business with our computer and web issues and they charge a fair rate, have them send an email to the one listed above and put the subject as ATTN: Nate web/ data guy willing to help out... or something to that effect.

Thanks everyone. I look forward to your entries.

Nate (najo)

 

[RangerWickett]

I imagine this is only open to contestants in the USA, and various legal mumbo jumbo may apply as per most normal contests. We give permission for our names and likenesses to be used for promotional purposes if we win. All entries become property of you, and so on?

 

[Stalker0]

Might I suggest adding "with real prizes" into your thread title. Else a lot of people might think this is just another rant about power attack, as opposed to an honest to god contest.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Bookmarked! I'm so going to give this a shot over the Xmas break.

 

[Njall]

By "broken" do you mean it's to weak or too strong? Or do you simply mean it's an ankward mechanic?
Also, are you considering the feat in a vacuum or in conjunction with other feats?
For exemple, I agree that a full attacking fighter using power attack in conjunction with normal full attacks will probably fall back in terms of raw damage, but if you consider, say, a charging power attacker with shock trooper (CW), leap attack (CAdv) karmic strike and combat reflexes that's another matter. Add pounce the mix ( easily done with a dip into barb if you've access to CC ) and it becomes a no brainer.

 

[Rystil Arden]

By "broken" do you mean it's to weak or too strong? Or do you simply mean it's an ankward mechanic?
Also, are you considering the feat in a vacuum or in conjunction with other feats?
For exemple, I agree that a full attacking fighter using power attack in conjunction with normal full attacks will probably fall back in terms of raw damage, but if you consider, say, a charging power attacker with shock trooper (CW), leap attack (CAdv) karmic strike and combat reflexes that's another matter. Add pounce the mix ( easily done with a dip into barb if you've access to CC ) and it becomes a no brainer.

I would guess that he won't let you use the one where you turn the penalty into an AC penalty instead of an attack penalty because that changes PA fundamentally and defeats the point of showing that trading to-hit for damage can work. It should be rather trivial to prove him wrong, for anyone who cares to try, using any of the following:

1) Standard Power Attack against monsters that almost die in one hit but not quite (the classic example of why relying on expected damage is not correct--anything using wasted excess damage works here; for instance, doing 36 damage to a monster with 40 hp 95% of the time is much worse than doing 40 damage to a monster with 40 hp 85% of the time, even though the expected damage is lower (34.2 for no power attack and 34 for power attack 2) because the expected damage per round over two rounds, ignoring extra wasted damage, is actually ~19.95 for no power attack and 34 for power attack)
2) Touch attacks--Deep Impact works here, but more-broken things like Wraithstrike make it worse.
3) Large damage multipliers on a single blow--Spirited Charge with a Lance is a classic core example, but Diamond Nightmare Blade from Bo9S is more egregious. This can also include increased Power Attack multipliers like Frenzied Berserker and Leap Attack. Breaks faster if combined with #2 (so if you have a Bo9S Diamond Mind character with Deep Impact, Psionic Meditation, and Diamond Nightmare Blade, you can regain focus as a move action and then attack as a standard, expending focus, for a touch attack fully power attacked for x4 damage).

 

[Patlin]

2) Touch attacks--Deep Impact works here, but more-broken things like Wraithstrike make it worse.

Demonstrating that power attack is broken with wraithstrike is sort of like demonstrating a sling is broken with a hand grenade. (I otherwise agree with Rystil.)

 

[Rystil Arden]

Demonstrating that power attack is broken with wraithstrike is sort of like demonstrating a sling is broken with a hand grenade. (I otherwise agree with Rystil.)

Hence I prefer to use Deep Impact as the first choice and mention that Wraithstrike is broken I agree with you. That doesn't stop people from somehow thinking it isn't broken though (including the usual suspects who think pretty much nothing WotC is broken, like Mistwell).

Heck, I'd actually never really seen anyone who thought PA was underpowered until recently, so who knows, they might think Wraithstrike is balanced or something.

 

[WhatGravitas]

3) Large damage multipliers on a single blow--Spirited Charge with a Lance is a classic core example, but Diamond Nightmare Blade from Bo9S is more egregious. This can also include increased Power Attack multipliers like Frenzied Berserker and Leap Attack. Breaks faster if combined with #2 (so if you have a Bo9S Diamond Mind character with Deep Impact, Psionic Meditation, and Diamond Nightmare Blade, you can regain focus as a move action and then attack as a standard, expending focus, for a touch attack fully power attacked for x4 damage).

I'd go the same route, especially because you can start to (ab)use Power Attack with the Warblade a with Emerald Razor, and also up your damage by adding in some White Raven charges, as this would make the character pretty good with using Power Attack early on (i.e. for the levels 5 and later, until you can pick up the better X Nightmare Blades).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Najo]

I imagine this is only open to contestants in the USA, and various legal mumbo jumbo may apply as per most normal contests. We give permission for our names and likenesses to be used for promotional purposes if we win. All entries become property of you, and so on?

I would like to keep this open to everyone possible, even over seas. The more ideas and the more input the more likely we are going to get some over the top charatacters and some good ideas for power attack. What sort of disclaimer do I need to have to keep this open to anyone?

Does anyone have links to boiler plate contest legalease? What are the legal pit falls I need to know about? I like to keep this open and fun as possible.