Power Attack too useful? When is it NOT taken?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I don't think Power Attack is an "uberfeat", simply b/c there are plenty of other character builds that need all the feats they can get. And don't forget that there are a lot of feats out there that require Power Attack as a pre-req, so it's not always a case of people taking the feat for its own benefits.

All that being said, I do think that two-handed weapon damage with Power Attack in 3.5 is a little overpowered and should be revised in future editions. But it's not enough of a problem to warrant changes now, IMO.

 

[drothgery]

Wow you really think that 16 of Str is not very high ? According to me one on 100 000 man have a str of 16 and higher in the world, and maybe one on 1 000 000 could have a 18 Str. If you take in consideration that global population is low in medieval era, this not that much. BTW maybe i'm simply wrong and more people have 16 of str ?

If normal humans get 3d6 in order, without rerolling, and they never age (and lose Str) or get past 3rd level (and put their stat increase into Str), then 16s are somewhat more common than that (and about .5% of the population will have an 18 Str).

By the book PCs either get 4d6 drop the lowest, arranged to taste or are built with point buys. Warrior types will usually put their highest stat in Str, and increase their Str as they level up. They'll have access to Str-boosting magic. So while a 16 Str is high for a commoner (though not absurdly so), for a mid-level or higher fighter or barbarian, it's probably below average.

 

[frisbeet]

Heh heh. Power attack is a good feat because it helps put the player in combat. One more parameter to think about.

For those not sure when to power attack, or for how much, check out the (free) Power Attack Calculator on my website. It's an Excel spreadsheet, very large, which determines optimum PA values for Full or Single melee attacks for non epic characters against a range of AC. You can even make your opponent have DR. The size comes from brute force calculation, sorry dial-ups.

 

[focallength]

It all depends on the character Im building I actually hardly ever take power attack. If Im building a dex based figther I dont take power attack or a thrower no power attack, TWF no power attack archer no power attack even if I build a straight up toe to toe fighter I usually dont take power attack, I only take it if its a pre-req for something else, I.E. I want to do all kinds of fancy bull rushes or over runs then Ill take it or I want to use cleave Ill take it. Personally getting a few more points of damage is not that great if you cant hit. So in response to uor question...I hardly ever use the feat and most people I play with dont rither it depends on the character. Now if you always try to min/max then yes always take the feat then you can have the best damage / hit percentage whenever you need it.

 

[MoonZar]

If normal humans get 3d6 in order, without rerolling, and they never age (and lose Str) or get past 3rd level (and put their stat increase into Str), then 16s are somewhat more common than that (and about .5% of the population will have an 18 Str).

By the book PCs either get 4d6 drop the lowest, arranged to taste or are built with point buys. Warrior types will usually put their highest stat in Str, and increase their Str as they level up. They'll have access to Str-boosting magic. So while a 16 Str is high for a commoner (though not absurdly so), for a mid-level or higher fighter or barbarian, it's probably below average.

Yeah of course with the stats you gain each 4 level this make a huge difference to the average Str. But if you compare only level 1 fighter i think the average would be around 14.

Anyway not all fighter are hero who use 4d6 discard lowest.

 

[Staffan]

Wow you really think that 16 of Str is not very high ? According to me one on 100 000 man have a str of 16 and higher in the world, and maybe one on 1 000 000 could have a 18 Str. If you take in consideration that global population is low in medieval era, this not that much. BTW maybe i'm simply wrong and more people have 16 of str ?

Using plain 3d6 rolling, the chance of rolling 16+ is 4.6% (source: GURPS), the chance of rolling 17+ is 1.9%, and the chance of an 18 is 0.5%. That means that one in 22 people have a Strength of 16 or more. Even if you don't allow rearranging stats to taste, you'd expect more than one fighter out of 22 to have Str 16+, since not very many weaklings would become fighters. So say that one fighter in 10 has Str 16+. That still makes it noteworthy, but pretty far from your "1 in 100,000".

 

[MoonZar]

Using plain 3d6 rolling, the chance of rolling 16+ is 4.6% (source: GURPS), the chance of rolling 17+ is 1.9%, and the chance of an 18 is 0.5%. That means that one in 22 people have a Strength of 16 or more. Even if you don't allow rearranging stats to taste, you'd expect more than one fighter out of 22 to have Str 16+, since not very many weaklings would become fighters. So say that one fighter in 10 has Str 16+. That still makes it noteworthy, but pretty far from your "1 in 100,000".

Your calculation are acurate only if u think that you have the same chance to get a 16 or a 15 or a 14 on a roll of dice as the rules say. But if we consider the physical reality you should have least people who have 16 of Str beside 10 of Str, but on a roll of dice the chance are even so this not logical at all, we all known that the average people have 10 of Str and 16 of Str is a minority. So i don't consider accurate to make some statistic according to the dice to see how many people have 16 of str.

16 of Str, mean you can lift over your head 460 lbs according to the book, personnaly i know no one around me who can do that, this one quarter of a ton, this very heavy !!! I don't think that many people in a society could do that. We should check how much people can lift over head in the olympic to have an idea.

 

[frisbeet]

Your calculation are acurate only if u think that you have the same chance to get a 16 or a 15 or a 14 on a roll of dice as the rules say. But if we consider the physical reality you should have least people who have 16 of Str beside 10 of Str, but on a roll of dice the chance are even so this not logical at all, we all known that the average people have 10 of Str and 16 of Str is a minority. So i don't consider accurate to make some statistic according to the dice to see how many people have 16 of str.

16 of Str, mean you can lift over your head 460 lbs according to the book, personnaly i know no one around me who can do that, this one quarter of a ton, this very heavy !!! I don't think that many people in a society could do that. We should check how much people can lift over head in the olympic to have an idea.

Uh Moonzar, to burst your bubble: Staffan is right. Straight from DMG 3.5, p 110, bottom right paragraph:

Elite characters (whether they are PCs or not) have above-average ability scores and automatically get maximum hit points from their first Hit Die. Average characters, on the other hand, have average abilities (rolled on 3d6) and don't get maxium hit points from their first Hit Die.

NPCs are Non-Player Characters, so that bit about "Average characters" applies to them too.

It's a 3d6 world you're playing in. Your extrapolation to the real world is not important and does not reflect the actual attribute distributions in the D&D 3.5 fantasy world.

 

[Kurotowa]

Power Attack is the main feat for my battle cleric. Since my DM uses a small number of big foes more than large mobs, I can count on one hand the number of times Cleave has come into play (and I've had it from 6th to 11th level now). OTOH, when I slap on a few combat buffs for the big fight I can usually PA for most or even all of my BAB. And a good thing that I can, if I wasn't using it to boost myattack damage to the 30-50 point range, my only purpose would be to play offensive lineman and run blocking while the sorcerer and druid blasted away.

Power Attack may not fit with all characters or games. If my DM used more high AC/low HP foes instead of the other way around (ie more humanoids and fewer frost worms), it would certain be far less vital than it has been. But even so, I agree that Power Attack is nearly required for a good fighter. I'm just not sure that's a bad thing. Every class gets a way for their damage output to scale up at higher levels. Casters have their damage spells increase with level and rogues get more sneak attack dice. Fighters get some milage out of more attacks from their better BAB, but their main class feature is lots of feats. So even if it isn't automatic like sneak attack is, built into the fighter class is the assumtion that you'll be taking combat feat trees to keep your combat viability going. And Power Attack is not just one of those feats, but the root feat for one of the main combat trees. So maybe it IS assumed that most serious fighters will be taking Power Attack, with justification.

 

[S'mon]

Did the Zeereshi try to kill your horse???

No, because every Zeereshi that came into my threat range I killed in 1 blow. Admittedly 2 of the 3 were wounded by other PCs before I hit them.

Like I said, this PC is ATT +10/2d6+7 before mods. Charging on horse 5 pt PA puts it to +8/2d6+17. I have been lucky to hit every time so far that I can recall.