Power Attack when needing natural 20

[FreeTheSlaves]

Ime, if the frontline warrior is needing to roll >15 then alarm bells should definitely be ringing. Needing a 20 to hit should be triggering thoughts of flight rather than full power attack - I'd imagine the full power attack warrior is about to fight their last battle.

Basically it is fine by the rules but sheer folly under most circumstances.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Ime, if the frontline warrior is needing to roll >15 then alarm bells should definitely be ringing. Needing a 20 to hit should be triggering thoughts of flight rather than full power attack - I'd imagine the full power attack warrior is about to fight their last battle.

What, you've never seen a fighting retreat in D&D? Where the melee character spends a round or two going all out while the rest of the party hoofs it? Lots of good drama and RP in such moments, especially if the melee PC is lucky/smart enough to have a helmet of teleportation.

 

[Menexenus]

In answer to the OP's question: yes, I would allow it.

How long did it take the party to determine the nasty's AC? They probably spent a few rounds swinging at it in futility before they decided that they needed a 20. So they've already "paid" for the information. Now they should have a chance to use it. (Basically, the fighter is swinging for the cheap seats and just praying that he connects.)

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

What, you've never seen a fighting retreat in D&D? Where the melee character spends a round or two going all out while the rest of the party hoofs it?

That's not a fighting retreat, that's just getting more damaged for basically nothing.

A retreat in d&ds turn based system usually requires retreating one turn earlier than you have to, otherwise the AoOs & pursuing charges have a good chance of cutting down some of those retreating and turn the situation into a full blown rout.

A fighting retreat uses the fight defensive/full defense/combat expertise. You use these because the extra durability buys time. Full power attack is the final gambit once the option to retreat has been lost.

All ime, of course.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

That happened to me in Age of Worms once. At the end. My swordsage couldn't hit Kyuss except on a 20, and only then because of the auto-hit rule. So, I switched to Full Power Attack All The Time, and used everything I could to gain as many attacks as possible.

At the end of the fight, I had hit exactly 0 times. I must've dumped 35 attacks at him during the fight, and couldn't roll a 20. Meanwhile, the wizard was Power Attacking for 10, Arcane Striking, had something like 19 attacks per round (claw, claw, hasted claw, rend, bite, 14 tentacles), and missed maybe twice the whole time. :\
Stupid Shapechange.

 

[Herzog]

I was indeed thinking about houseruling otherwise. Since, to me, it's clear what the RAW says about this, I placed the question in house rules.

In response to some of the answers:

I'm not specifically against automatic hits on a natural 20. However, I do think it's stretching if you intentionally swap attack for damage because you know you are not actually reducing your chance to hit.

However, other comments here make me see the situation different:

If you're not going to hit very often, make sure you hit hard.

herzog

 

[Nifft]

I could see a decent reason to do this (in character), even. Basically, to make yourself a credible threat. Yelling "Full Power Attack, punk!" and swinging wildly is going to make a foe concentrate on killing you before you get lucky, rather than ignoring you while he kills the Wizard.

It's tough to fulfill your tank role without being a credible threat.

Cheers, -- N

PS: IMHO, the "only hit on a 20" thing benefits NPC hordes more than PC fighters. "Think of the kobolds..."

 

[Jeremy]

Full power attack while fighting defensively using two medium weapons without two weapon fighting....

"What? It's not like my chances could get any worse, would you guys just hurry up and kill him so we can move on to something I feel useful against please?"

 

[Herzog]

you should add your combat expertise too.

wait. is that allowed? both PA and CE?

 

[Rystil Arden]

you should add your combat expertise too.

wait. is that allowed? both PA and CE?

Yes it is allowed. Like several posters above, I strongly dislike the autohit rule, so I use telescoping dice (each 20 lets you roll again and add together until you stop getting 20. Also, 1 is not an auto-miss: Roll again and subtract 20). This makes a whole lot more sense to me--why can the doddering dying old peasant with -5 to hit successfully hit the AC 35 monster just as often as my Fighter with +15 to hit?