Power Lunge

[Piratecat]

Kreynolds, I'm power lunging right now, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

In any case, the argumentative posts are gone, and believe me when I say that I just spent 15 minutes of my life that I'll never get back again. So keep it friendly and polite, please.

 

[Corwin]

In any case, the argumentative posts are gone...

Ack! I lost a few of my post on this one?! Shoot, now that's going to negatively impact my post count.



Hehe.

 

[kreynolds]

Kreynolds, I'm power lunging right now...

Stay the heck away from me when you do that. Clear?

 

[AGGEMAM]

In any case, the argumentative posts are gone,

And we just lost a whole page

Actually I'm surprised there is anything left.

 

[FrankTrollman]

No I really did mean 3 x str and 3.5 x str ... for 2 x str or 2.5 x str the feat would not be used at all ... ever ... in our campaigns ... and thats usually a good way to find out what's the right interpretation for your campaign.

How many times it is balanced in your campaign to add your strength together really depends upon how much people are power gaming their strength scores. If people are running around with "normal" strength scores of 14-23, then tripling like the text says really isn't going to hurt anything.

However, if people start really power lunging into the rules in order to get strength points, it can become unbalancing quickly. At high level, for instance, if you can get your Fighter's Intelligence up to 21 (even temporarily - which you can), then you can transform your Fighter into a Titan, permanently. You just slap a Polymorph Any Object (which can change his intelligence, so you can actually cast it twice in order to make the Titan transformation permanent). Once he has Titan strength (43), you can start adding additional bonuses (such as levels, wishes, raging, enhancement, and enlargement), and just for fun you can make him a ring of Alter Self which will allow him to stay in his original form and keep the higher physical statistics.

So without too much sweat (and less than 20,000 gp worth of equipment), a 15th level Fighter can have a strength in excess of 50. Now, when people start having a strength bonus of +22, then suddenly tripling it just doesn't sound like all that great of an idea. That and a Spirited Charge will take a Pit Fiend from full health into unconciousness right through its DR in one hit.

So "what's balanced" is going to be determined by what else your DM allows. If you play to high levels, and allow Polymorph Any Object as written (Transmute Water to Dust and all!), you're going to have problems playing Power Lunge as written (which gives you 3.0x and 3.5x strength damage with a one or two handed weapon).

Now, I personally cannot see the game balance justification for making the bonus to two handed weapons half as big as the bonus to one handed weapons. Two handed weapon fighting is already a kind of sketchy combat style - I'm just not seeing why the fighting style whose whole purpose is doing more dmaage should get less damage from a feat that also just adds damage.

So if you powerlunge with a long spear you should be doing 2.5 or 3.5 strength damage, depending upon what else you are allowing in your campaign.

-Frank

 

[Winternight]

I believe Winternight's original question has been answered in context of the Feat and the errata.

No it isn`t.
What is clear here, is that it is more than unclear.
From the wording it is like I said in my starting example.

A successful attack roll during a charge allows you to inflict double your normal Strength modifier in addition to the attack's damage regardless of whether you’re using one- or two-handed weapons.

In addition to the attack [insert]normal[/insert] damage.
So dis would make +14.
I lost track who, but SO talked about specialisation.

Like some of you argue if I powerlunge i just add twice my str mod. If i understood all correct. But it is late now and i am tired, so i might be misjudging you.


I think the most reasonables access to the problem is either piratecats or Franks.
I`ll use piratecats way.
NNIMC!.

Thanx for answering anyway.

P.S.
kreynolds can u explain me your post, even if you have to fear piratecat. Especially BoEF. Thanx.
Edit: minor spelling

 

[Caliban]

Every official explanation ruling I've seen put's it at x2.0 strength bonus with two-handed weapon, not x2.5 strength bonus.

That's the way Skip ruled when I asked him, that's the way the LG campaign ruled when they clarified it recently.

That's the one I use.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Every official explanation ruling I've seen put's it at x2.0 strength bonus with two-handed weapon, not x2.5 strength bonus.

That's the way Skip ruled when I asked him, that's the way the LG campaign ruled when they clarified it recently.

That's the one I use.

Skip? That guy who ruled that blind barbarians are immune to sneak attack?

 

[Brekki]

The feat has only been taken once so far, and that was by a druid / bearlord that also casted lion's pounce before combat ... and that was a str 40'ish character.

Somehow the AoO really seems to hurt ... being tripped, grappled, large and in charge'd, disarmed, quickened spelled, poisoned all are not so very nice ...

We have never had any DM allow the polymorph act as you just described it, or seen a fighter with Int 15+ in our campaigns.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think you can't stack bonuses from the same source: if you get two features which say "add your Wis bonus to AC" or "apply your Cha bonus to AC", you only get to add it once, and the other overlaps. To get double the ability bonus you need a feature which specifically says "add double your Str bonus to damage". If you have a feature which "adds one and a half your Str bonus to damage" (attacking with a 2-handed weapon) and another feature which "adds twice your Str bonus to damage", they overlap. After all they are the same type of bonus.

The multiplier rule is used when multiplying, not when adding. If I get a +2 armor bonus from an armor, and another +2 armor bonus from a spell, it totals +2; if they were of different types, it would total +4. It never totals +3.