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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elric" data-source="post: 4881283" data-attributes="member: 1139">As mentioned already, that Power Attack increases average damage per round is a necessary condition for it to be worth using, not a sufficient condition for it to be "optimal."  Then you have to pay the cost to acquire the feat, so to be "optimal" Power Attack has to be more valuable than the next best feat you could acquire.  There are times when you'll have much higher than usual chances to hit, and if you get that consistently (Righteous Brand Cleric, for example), you should rate Power Attack more highly accordingly.Rider effects from hitting aside, it's still not the case that average damage dealt is all that counts.  Having that damage come from a higher chance to hit/more damage on a miss means that the variance of your damage is lower, which means that you'll tend to kill monsters more quickly in terms of average rounds if you deal the same average damage per round.  Furthermore, since the PCs are at an advantage in almost every fight, variance in general goes against them, and PCs should care not just about minimizing average rounds to kill enemies but also minimizing the variance of that number, which is again accomplished by having more consistent damage.  I say "variance" here though in theory one should care about the entire distribution of results, but variance is relatively easy to calculate and the variance plus mean should give a good summary of the distribution.  See more discussion of these issues in a different context <a href="http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=18603567&postcount=76" target="_blank">here</a>.Lastly, no one has yet mentioned that characters who deal damage on a miss benefit more from Power Attack.  So Reaping Strike, Scimitar Dance, and Hammer Rhythm character will be more likely to want Power Attack.</blockquote>

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