Power Attack too useful? When is it NOT taken?

[SidusLupus]

You can't power attack with light weapons.. so if you're weapon finessing you're probably using a light weapon with which you can't power attack.

Given that, your average two weapon user is pretty much screwing himself by power attacking, since he's reducing his +attack on both hands. His off hand will always be light (minus an additional feat), meaning power attack will make him less likely to hit with that hand and give no bonus to damage. You may aswell drop the offhand weapon and use the primary one 2handed if you're going to attempt to get more damage per hit out of two weapon fighting.

 

[Stormborn]

Instead of breaking it up, it may be better to simply de-couple it from cleave, and leave cleave's pre-req's as high as they are now (in other words, STR 13, and BAB +4). I Imagine you might see fewer fighters without Power Attack if this happens, because while it's good, it's not useful if the AC is past a certain point.

You are perhaps thinking of Great Cleave, its the one with the BAB +4 prereq. Otherwise, however, I agree with you. Most people in my group take Power Attack as a stepping stone in the Cleave feat tree, not for the feat itself.

Power Attack seems to have a very limited range of usefulness. At low levels you don't want the to hit penalty, and a strong fighter with a 2 Handed weapon doesn't really need the damage boost. At higher levels while the bonus to damage is great, you wind up with some high ACs and so the penalty isn't often worth it IMO. Mid level play seems to be what its geared for, and functions well there, but I still think that Cleave/Great Cleave is more useful over all, if not at least more often used in my experiance.

 

[Plane Sailing]

One observation made - two-handed wielders after the initial flush of 3.0 rarely took power attack except where cleave was desired, and even then rarely used it. Dual-weapon wielders, however, frequently took it because it benefitted them more than two-handers. WotC changed it because they wanted it to fit their intention - that big hulking warriors with the big guns took it instead of the little effete-rapier-wielders.

I despised their reasoning then, and despise it still. I chuff my feet at it (chuff!, chuff!). Considering all the benefits that 2HW got for free and the additional feats that already had to be spent for TWF over and above PA, I thought their reasoning was deeply flawed. The fact that it was proportionally "more effective" for smaller weapons was an irrelevant smokescreen since it was the same actual benefit whichever weapons were being used.

The 3.5 changes were nonsensical, boosting the already favoured (free) 2H style at the expense of other styles that had to be purchased with feats.

My secret suspicion was that a certain designers favourite character liked using 2H weapons so they wrote it into the rules

< /rant >

 

[atom crash]

Now that the PCs IMC are 6th to 8th level, the fighter is using Power Attack more. At lower levels he was afraid of missing.

In my experience Power Attack is often (almost always) taken by fighters -- who have plenty of feat slots -- but rarely if ever actually used.

 

[Crothian]

5 years oif gaming d20 and only half my fighters and melee specialists take the feat. Ansd I've never considered it to be overpowerful.

 

[mostholy2]

There are exceptions to the light weapon disqualification for PA though. Unarmed attacks, rapiers, and spiked chains I believe can all use both weapon finesse and PA. This makes a lower str (but still 13+)/high dex character using these weapons still get the attack benefit from his high dex, but then transfer some of the benefit to do extra damage with his attacks.

I've recently been turned onto the idea of the str. 13+ halfling monk with high dex then taking weapon finesse to hit and PA for extra damage.

 

[Wish]

In my experience, I've seen PA used in the following situations:

1) The player is at some odd to-hit bonus, and power attacks enough to make the primary attack a multiple of 5, to make his math easier to compute. (This is perhaps the second most common use of the feat, amusingly enough, after #5.)

2) The monster is invulnerable or nearly invulnerable to the damage the PC does without power attack.

3) You need a 20 to hit anyway. (Don't forget to fight defensively too, and use Combat Expertise if you've got it. If you need a 20 to hit, you need a 20 to hit.)

4) The monster's AC is so poor as to be laughable. (Gelatinous cubes get carved up right quick with a power attacker around.)

5) You only get one attack in the round, because you've moved or performed a MEA.

6) You're desperate to try to land enough damage to kill monster X before he gets a chance to do action Y, and hope to get lucky.

None of those seem like abuses to me.

 

[ken-ichi]

I am playing a straight fighter now lvl 13 in the Dungeon adventure path series. I have had Power Attack since about 3rd level and have been using it nearly every combat. I use a longsword usually in two hands now that I have an animated shield. Though I had been known to drop the skield and 2-Hand it when I needed to deal damage more than ignore attacks.
Whenever you have to move you can PA to deal a decent amount of damage, my to hit is fairly high enough that on mid to low AC creatures I can reliably PA for 3-5 and still have a decent chance of hitting with my third attack. Sure there are attacks that I missed due to the PA penalty, but there have also been times where we would have dies if I did not have PA. DR you can barely get though, need to kill the monster with your next attack or someone dies, etc.
I see few 2H wielders that don't take PA (especially with the 2 for 1 PA bonus) in our games.

 

[Khayman]

My only complaint with PA is with it having no upper ceiling save the character's BAB. Combat Expertise has that +5 cap, and the difference bugs me for some reason.

Mostly because we play a swashbuckly game and the big guy with PA seems too effective. That's probably just a relative thing, though --- dependent on campaign style.

 

[KarinsDad]

In my experience, I've seen PA used in the following situations:

1) The player is at some odd to-hit bonus, and power attacks enough to make the primary attack a multiple of 5, to make his math easier to compute. (This is perhaps the second most common use of the feat, amusingly enough, after #5.)

2) The monster is invulnerable or nearly invulnerable to the damage the PC does without power attack.

3) You need a 20 to hit anyway. (Don't forget to fight defensively too, and use Combat Expertise if you've got it. If you need a 20 to hit, you need a 20 to hit.)

4) The monster's AC is so poor as to be laughable. (Gelatinous cubes get carved up right quick with a power attacker around.)

5) You only get one attack in the round, because you've moved or performed a MEA.

6) You're desperate to try to land enough damage to kill monster X before he gets a chance to do action Y, and hope to get lucky.

None of those seem like abuses to me.

7) You want to break through a wooden door in one round or a stone wall in fewer rounds.