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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Enkhidu" data-source="post: 336364" data-attributes="member: 351">Just a few quick devil's advocate questions...Maybe I'm missing something, but since clerics max out at a BAB of 15 wouldn't the cleric's progression be 15, 10, 5, or 13, 13, 8, 3 with rapid shot? Please let me know if I'm missing something...May I ask why you chose to take all of the BAB for Power Attack? In my experience, Power Attack is useful only for situations where you are fairly sure that you'll be hitting with only the "Other" bonuses you may have - basically on low AC creatures. In other situations, you may only feel that you need to apply, oh, say, half of your BAB (which, if I remember correctly is completely in within the strictures of a Power Attack). The new progression would then be 8,8,3,-2,-7, with an additional +10 damage.Very much agreed, except for the fact that you are comparing a Figher/PA 10/10 vs an Archer Cleric 20, not an Archer Cleric 19/Templar 1.I assume you mean 21 here, as that's what you've used in further calculations.New progression using the figures for a different Power Attack modifier (above) give 29, 29, 24, 19, 14OK - here's the disclaimer that I'm not very good with statistics, but here goes. With the adjusted progression, you can see that even the 4th attack the Fighter/PA makes it going to hit 50% of the time (on the roll of an 11 or better). Rather than actually do the math again (which I'm not so sure I could do anyway), we'll use your convention of "% of damage based on likelyhood to hit" based on damage of 31. I come up with 29.5, 29.5, 23.25, 15.5, and 7.75. This comes out to a grand total of 105.5. The judicious use of Power Attack is the factor here.Actually Damage bonuses for the Cleric should be 21 (26, -10 from the Power Attack the PA did, -2 for no Specialization as above, +5 from Divine Favor, +2 from the extra arrow bonues from GMW vs the PA +3).OK, here's where it get's tricky - I have to rebuild where you got this # from...All attack bonuses from magic, ability scores, and feats are the same are the same except for the cleric's additional +2 from GMW (over the PA's +3), and Divine Favor. That's an additional +7 on top of the 21 we used above, for a total of 28. However, BAB for the cleric with Rapid Shot is 13, 13, 8, 3 (as shown above). This gives a progression of 41, 41, 36, 31. Each arrow still has a 95% chance to hit. New damage average per arrow is 26.6. Four hits = 106.4It looks like we've got equal damage capability when the Cleric is buffed, here.I would like to note that we did not account for crits here, and the Fighter/PA is much better suited to take advantage of the crits (in the example above, damage bonuses for the Archer Cleric become 23*3 or 69, rather than the Fighter/PA's 26*3 or 78. Considering that Fighter/PA's have the feats available to take Improved Crit without giving up any other Missles Feat makes them pretty nasty. The damage gap becomes sick if the Fighter/PA for some reason has a chance to use more BAB for his Power Attack (for example if the AC of the creature had been 20 rather than 30).For that matter, if the Creature AC had been 40, the Fighter/ PA has the flexibility to NOT power Attack. His average damage may go down, but he is still hitting. This flexibility can pay off in the long run.By the way, how long does Divine Favor last? That seems to be the only real edge that the cleric has in this fracas.Hey, what can I say, clerics are cool.Actually, if you take a look at the math, the Fighter/PA holds in own in this little contest. By the way, if you really want to make the contest interesting, I suggest you trick out an Archer Cleric and Stat block him. Then do the same with a really tricked out Fighter/PA. Then try this little contest. The only reason I say this is because your Cleric already seems pretty tricked out, but the Fighter/PA seems like it's not, really.And I'm spent...</blockquote>

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