Power Attack + Weapon Finesse

[jayaint]

New feat to scrutinize (for 3.5), please:

Finesse Attack (General, Fighter)

You are skilled enough with a Light Weapon to place strikes that do more damage than normal.

Prerequisites: Power Attack, Weapon Finesse, Dex 13+

Benefit: Allows you to use the power attack options with a light weapon. (Not allowed normally, by Power Attack v3.5) Also adds a +1 to your Critical Damage multiplier. (Up to a maximum of +4) (Note: This feat does not affect the Critical Threat range of ANY wielded weapon)



This is for char's in the mold of a rogue or a single-light-weapon fighter. (Knife-fighter, etc)

The player in question, and I (the DM), came up with this together... too unbalancing, or about right?

 

[Staffan]

Too powerful. Drop adding 1 to the crit multiplier, and it's fine.

Adding 1 to the crit multiplier creates weirdness along the same lines of adding fixed numbers to the threat range - it helps some weapons MUCH more than others.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

The "+1 crit damage multiplier" thing deserves its own feat, in my opinion. In many ways, it's better than the Improved Critical feat:

Rapier with, say, a total of +3 damage, no add'l feats:

1d6 + 3 = 3.5 + 3 = 6.5, 18-20/x2 = 7.475 damage expected per hit.

Same rapier with imp. critical feat:

1d6 + 3 = 3.5 + 3 = 6.5, 15-20/x2 = 8.45 damage expected per hit.

Same rapier with "+1 crit multipler" feat:

1d6 + 3 = 3.5 + 3 = 6.5, 18-20/x3 = 8.45 damage expected per hit.


And now, the biggie:

Same rapier with both imp. critical and "+1 crit multiplier":

1d6 + 3 = 3.5 + 3 = 6.5, 15-20/x3 = 10.4 damage expected per hit.

It gets even more relevent if the damage bonus to the rapier is higher (which is not unreasonable).

So, yeah, the feat's overpowered with the +1 crit multiplier. I think it might be a little weak if it were just the "allows you to use power attack with light weapon." (I assume you mean "allows you to use power attack with a light weapon and get a 1:1 tradeoff between to hit and damage," since you can technically use a light weapon with PA right now -- there's just never any advantage to it).

 

[jayaint]

So, yeah, the feat's overpowered with the +1 crit multiplier. I think it might be a little weak if it were just the "allows you to use power attack with light weapon." (I assume you mean "allows you to use power attack with a light weapon and get a 1:1 tradeoff between to hit and damage," since you can technically use a light weapon with PA right now -- there's just never any advantage to it).

Is there a middle ground between the two? (And, IIRC, the 3.5 version of Power Attack is not able to be used with light weapons.) Would it be over-powering the feat to drop the +1 to crit multiplier, AND drop the Power Attack prereq? I want this to be sort-of a character BUILDING feat, something to take pretty early on; not a mod that someone makes later on, necessarily.

Is Weapon Finesse enough? In 3.5 WF is no longer specific, IIRC, it affects all light weapons. So this would, I now see, affect every light weapon this character wielded. Should this feat be weapon specific?

Thanks for the input (and the damage math... i can never figure that stuff out on my own)!!