Power Attack too useful? When is it NOT taken?

[Crothian]

How is 36 damage "horrifying?" Our completely combat-unoptimized artificer often deals 22 damage or so per hit at level 1. What level are your players?

how's he doing that, or is that like maximium only?

 

[moritheil]

how's he doing that, or is that like maximium only?

A certain one-minute infusion

 

[Staffan]

the only issue i see with PA is that it lowers the hit chance by X% and ups the damage by a higher %

with a one-handed longsword and 13 str,
a PA lowers the hit chance by 5% per point
but i raises the damage by 18% per point
average damage at 13 str : 1d8+1 = avg 5.5
with 1 point power attack : 1d8+2 = avg 6.5 (+18%)
with 4 point power attack : 1d8+5 = avg 9.5 (+72%)

Combat Expertise lowers/raises by the same %

You are confusing percent with percentiles. The actual percent penalty of power attack depends on what you need to roll to hit normally. If you need to roll a 15 to hit (probability 0.3) and power attack for 2, you have reduced your chance by 10 percentiles, but also by 33% - before you would hit 6 out of 20 hits, now you hit 4 out of 20.

 

[Saeviomagy]

A certain one-minute infusion

If he can pull that off with any regularity then
1) he's burning XP for damage
2) he's munchkined out for combat. Artificer-style combat, sure, but still combat.

 

[pbd]

How is 36 damage "horrifying?" Our completely combat-unoptimized artificer often deals 22 damage or so per hit at level 1. What level are your players?

Holy crap, how does that work, and how many times per day he do it?

 

[Felnar]

You are confusing percent with percentiles. The actual percent penalty of power attack depends on what you need to roll to hit normally. If you need to roll a 15 to hit (probability 0.3) and power attack for 2, you have reduced your chance by 10 percentiles, but also by 33% - before you would hit 6 out of 20 hits, now you hit 4 out of 20.

good point, my mistake.
but this raises another question...
wouldnt this also apply to damage?
since all you want to do is hit (doesnt matter by how much)
all you'd want to do is kill the victim (doesnt matter by how much)
continuing your example of needing a 15 to hit. say your enemy has 8 hps, if you need a 7+ on the 1d8 damage to do the 8 damage to kill (probability .25) and power attack for 2, you have increased your chance by 25 percentiles, but also by +100% - before you would kill on 2 out of the 8, now you kill on 4 out of the 8.
so in this SPECIFIC case you trade -1/3rd chance to hit for double the chance to kill
(although, if you hit and dont kill, its easier to kill on the next attack)

here's where you catch something else i've missed, heh
- Felnar

 

[shilsen]

A certain one-minute infusion

Which one? I'm guessing it's Spell-Storing Item, but since he can only use a first level spell with it, I don't see how he can pull off 22 hp per hit with it. The other option would be Personal Weapon Augmentation for a bane weapon, but that one would be hard to pull off 22 hp damage with.

 

[drothgery]

If you're using Power Attack a lot in combat, and do a lot of damage (average more than 15 or so, which isn't all that hard to do) without Power Attacking, then one of the following is true...

• you run into a lot of things that are incredibly easy to hit (only miss on a 1)
• you run into a lot of desperate situations (need a 20 hit/have to kill the BBEG this round)
• the player doesn't understand the math of the situation (when you do a lot of damage without PA, but have a realistic chance of both hitting and missing, anything that reduces your chance to hit at all is going to knock down the expected damage more than PA pushes it back up)
• the player doesn't care about the math of the situation; he's using PA to make the math easier or because doing more damage per attack is fun.

 

[Hypersmurf]

the player doesn't care about the math of the situation; he's using PA to make the math easier or because doing more damage per attack is fun.

Graargh!

I'm 6th level at the moment. My rules for Power Attack:

1. If it's tough to hit, don't Power Attack.
2. If it's not tough to hit, Power Attack for 3.
3. If I'm Raging, forget rules 1 and 2. FPAATT!

-Hyp.

 

[Staffan]

so in this SPECIFIC case you trade -1/3rd chance to hit for double the chance to kill
(although, if you hit and dont kill, its easier to kill on the next attack)

Sounds about right. In most cases, however, you (a) have a better idea of the opponent's AC than its remaining hp (you can figure it out by what hits and what misses, but you generally don't know hp until they're no longer an issue), and (b) at least at higher levels, it's not that often you're fighting things that are so easily killed.

Another minor thing that helps in calculating "optimal" power attack for a single attack (assuming there's no tactical considerations, as in "I need to kill him now or he'll eat my pal's brain" - just going for max damage over time): If you're using normal PA (1 for 1), you want the average damage and the number of d20 rolls that hit to be as close as possible, and if you're using two-handed PA, you want the average damage to be twice as large as the number of d20 rolls that hit. This doesn't account for crits, and if you're getting iterative attacks you should calculate it for the average of your attacks, but it should put you in the ballpark.