D&D 4E The math behind power attack and why it needs to be redone in 4e
- Thread starter Najo
- Start date
Cadfan said:
That is an issue with #2. So it needs a cap then. How about this:
Power Attack
Pre: str 13+
benefit: You may make a power attack as a standard action. To use power attack, make a single melee attack as normal. If you hit, power attack deals a damage bonus equal to the amount your attack roll is greater than your opponent's armor class, but no greater than your base attack bonus. If you miss, your opponent may make an attack of opportunity against you. You may only make one power attack per round.
or:
Power Attack
Pre: str 13+
benefit: You may make a power attack as a standard action. To use power attack, make a single melee attack as normal. If you hit, power attack deals a damage bonus equal to half of your base attack bonus, rounded up. If you miss, your opponent may make an attack of opportunity against you. You may only make one power attack per round.
Najo said:
The first one looks too weak now. Who wants to gamble getting stabbed for a chance to do maybe four points of extra damage at level four? I don't think it really needed a cap at lower levels, I think it needed a higher ceiling at higher levels.
The second looks balanced, but it doesn't really satisfy the "grants a bonus for having extra BAB" criteria.
What about something like,
Feat: Power Attack
Prerequisite: Str 13+
Benefit: If you exceed your targets armor class by at least 5 with a strength based melee attack, you deal additional damage equal to your strength bonus.
This doesn't meet the "take a risk to deal extra damage" criteria, but it does convert excess BAB into useful damage, as well as reward players for having a high strength score.
And there's no reason the game can't have more than one power-attack-like feat.
Cadfan said:
The first one is actually very close to how power attack works now, without the penalty to hit reducing your odds of dealing damage.
Your option is interesting, but doesn't convert excess attack roll. It does reward good rolls though, but is a let down say if I hit by only 4 points more. It seems to me that if you are successful, you should get something. The first option of mine gives a scaling bonus based on level from +1 to +20 and keeps low levels from getting a lucky roll and a huge damage bonus.
Another option is this:
Power Attack
Pre: str 13+
benefit: You may make a power attack as a standard action. To use power attack, make a single melee attack as normal. If you hit, power attack deals double damage. If you miss, your opponent may make an attack of opportunity against you. You may only make one power attack per round.
You can do this one to, based on yours. I like how it feels your putting more strength behind the attack. It doesn't convert extra attack rolls, but it does feel like the feat name and serves a similar function, i.e. more damage for a risk:
Power Attack
Pre: str 13+
benefit: You may make a power attack as a standard action. To use power attack, make a single melee attack as normal. If you hit, power attack deals a damage bonus equal to your strength modifier. If you miss, your opponent may make an attack of opportunity against you. You may only make one power attack per round.
Najo said:Actually, here's your chart:
to hit %hit av (9.5) two hand
15 85% 8.075 8.075
14 80% 8.4 9.2
13 75% 8.625 10.125
12 70% 8.75 10.85
11 65% 8.775 11.375
10 60% 8.7 11.7
9 55% 8.525 11.825
8 50% 8.25 11.75
7 45% 7.875 10.575
6 40% 7.4 8.6
I was putting the fighter up against a strong melee challenge, but lets go with your hitting 85% of the time, although 75% is more likely.
The first thing I notice is there never really is a gain with one handing power attack still. Even though we placed the fighter against a much lower AC, all he gets for his troubles is more random hits and an avergae increase of .675 damage at best. Taking weapon specialition is a better choice, in fact that feat looks like:
to hit %hit av (11.5)
15 85% 9.775
That is with no minus either, it out performs power attack on every level, except the middle of the curve with two handed weapons.
Now, power attack is going to give more random swongs, and yes, it could get lucky. But we can't accurately analyize the math behind the feats by assuming chance is always going to be in our favor. We have to go off averages.
You call me insane. But here are my points:
1) power attack doesn't play the way it advertises, my chart and may version of your chart proves that. At best, you get +2 damage out of it in a blue moon.
2) Knowing how to use it well is broken. Crank up the to hit bonus, attack low AC creatures, use two hand weapons, have high strength and low average damage and then take a penalty that either keeps you hitting on a 2+ or doesn't turn your average damage against you. Once you do this, power attack throws out a sick amount of damage. Find a way to get true strike on you and you have a way to do a +40 bonus to damage too.
3) Those who are power attacking for very little every now and then ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING. Those who are doing it for a lot, ARE HURTING THEIR GROUP and missing all the time.
4) Power attack is a low level feat, attainable at first level. It is virutally useless for a first level character. It is virtually useless until your in the mid range of level 8 - 12. With that, it is confusing for a new player to understand.
5) Power attack's crunch doesn't fit its fluff. It feels more like a aimed strike of some sort. Not a hard hitting violent swing.
6) Power attack's purpose is to convert extra attack bonus into damage and help over come DR, hardness, or kill high hit point monsters quickly. It only does this if you min/max the character for it. It shouldn't be that hard to get the feat to work. It should just do what it says.
7) The designers have come out and denouced the feat for all the reasons I am saying. Doesn't that count for something?
You try to make me look like the insane one. But you are ONLY focusing on my table of 50%, and avoiding ALL of these other issues. You even went so far to assuming what my own DMing and playing experiences are. Well, we can use the new table from here. It doesn't change much, if anything. What do you have to say about the other points?
Lets keep this friendly. The personal attacks are unnecessary please. How do you know I wasn't in a mental hospital in my torrid past or having psychological issues I am heavily medicated for
That and the mods gave me your home addressand the doctors took me off the meds
Anyrate, lets play nice and have a mature discussion.
As someone who just happened across this thread and signed up on this forum the day before yesterday, I'm not familiar with the chart you're using. Feel free to explain away.
I was showing in my 'chart' that the average damage (multiplying average damage on a hit by percentage chance to hit) would give a total of 8.075 per swing without Power Attack, and 8.7 per swing with Power Attack. (on a lowly longsword)
8.7 is better than 8.075, is it not?
That means over an average 20 swings (rolling each number 1-20 exactly once) you would get a total of 161.5 without Power Attack, and 174 with Power Attack.
Maybe it's me that's insane, then, but 174 is better than 161.5 in my little edge of the world.
The difference switching to a two handed weapon is even greater.
229.5 vs 282 (using a great ax 1d12 + 7 vs 1d12 +17)
More importantly, adding in criticals increases the gap even more.
Just to illustrate what that difference between non PA and PA is, .625 is better than adding a pip to your weapon die... eg 1d8 becomes 1d9. And before you say that's not as good as Weap Spec, this is A) a 1st lvl feat vs a 4th lvl feat, and B) a demonstration on a longsword. When using a great ax, the difference per swing is 2.625.... which is better than WS.
And again, this is assuming you're leaving PA on all the time, from 1-20. If, like I've been saying, you're playing with a modicum of intelligence, you're limiting the range of when you use PA, which increases the difference in damage output between a fighter who has PA and one who doesn't... and your difference in damage just scales up even more.
So I guess I just really don't understand your argument (along with your chart
).As far as comparing Power Attack to Weapon Spec, or any other Feat, that's spurious logic at best. Any fighter worth talking about is going to have both PA and WS, and pretty much any other Feat you'd throw into the equation.
As far as PA being available at first level and confusing the newbs. Umm... ok. If that's the only thing confusing the newbs, they're in good shape.
Seriously, I've shown above that you actually DO do more damage with PA, so it's not misleading at all. Correct me if I'm wrong... it is, after all, after midnight, and sleep is near.
Sylrae
First Post
I know that this isnt exactly the response people are looking for, but I tried powerattack in 3.0 and in 3.5 a few times, found it too be too much work to be worth using, to make my odds too low without doing more math than I want to when I'm trying to enjoy myself, and have resigned it to "that annoying feat I have to burn to burn half a feat (cleave would be an ok feat if it had no prereq feat) to get great cleave - the only really useful one of the three."
OpusLich said:
My chart shows the to hit modifier, the percentage chance to hit the assumed armor class, the average damage with power attack with one hand and with two. The table scales downward as you increase the penalty to hit and add damage from power attack. As you can see, there is a bell curve effect where power attack reaches a sweet spot and then as your to hit roll gets too low, power attack's damage goes down.
Your values show up in my chart too. Yes, 8.7 is better than 8.075, by .625. But at what cost truely? You are using a feat, that by my table shows in most situations it does give more damage. There is even a point that you lose damage if you penalize yourself to much. The end result is your attacks become very random. Yes, there is a chance you can hit big. Yes you have a slight increase in damage if you watch the math properily. If you use the feat wrong though, it doesn't give you any damage. It takes a To hit vs AC with each level of used power attack table to use power attack "properily". That is the math occuring. I gave the math for just a sample of that table to save time. Now, what all of this means. Power attack isn't fun nor easy to use. It looks like it is. It sounds neat. But it really hurts your character. The main reason, it increases randomness for the promise of a big pay off. Using power attack is like gambling at a casino, and the big of a pay off you go for, the more likely you will fail. If you keep this up, over each round, you are actually hurting your party's resources by failing to contribute damage.
Does this make sense? You are sacrificing control of the dice and your attack roll for more damage. If the attack roll misses, you deal NO damage. So the attack roll is WAY more important.
Again, it makes the dice take control more. You want to avoid this. You want to tighten the odds into your favor. This is the idea behind action points, dice rerolls, etc. You can't damage or crit if you miss.
And again, this is assuming you're leaving PA on all the time, from 1-20. If, like I've been saying, you're playing with a modicum of intelligence, you're limiting the range of when you use PA, which increases the difference in damage output between a fighter who has PA and one who doesn't... and your difference in damage just scales up even more.
So I guess I just really don't understand your argument (along with your chart
Because the game involves dice and power attack is so variable, the only way to study its effects is to look at it over time and with average damage and to hit values. I realize this is not the way that the feat feels in game, nor it is the way people play with it. But this allows us to measure the effects of the feat by assuming your making one attack per round and using power attack at a given level. Then you can compare levels of power attack on and off to see when power attack benefits most. By studying the average we have a measurable, control for tweaking the feat and finding its problems.
Power attack's only value right now is as a prereq for cleave. We even proved that a build tweaked out at level 20 can't fight CL 20 mosters and use power attack on them. Power attack only works when your enemy has a much lower AC than you have attack roll. Power attack advertises it hits hard, it should do what it says it does and it doesn't. Johnathan Tweet, who works for WOTC, said all of this himself. So the game's designers and my points are in agreement.
As far as PA being available at first level and confusing the newbs. Umm... ok. If that's the only thing confusing the newbs, they're in good shape.
Correct me if I'm wrong... it is, after all, after midnight, and sleep is near.
Game mechanics should be easy to learn and intuitive. Why put power attack infront of a new player and then give them nothing to chew on.
There was an example from Dr. Akward early that pointed out how silly power attack is with a new player because it doesn't teach them anything. It requires hand holding from the DM. Basically, power attack makes you have to understand AC, to hit rolls, damage and the math behind the feat, it then requires you to guess with no point of reference how much to subtract and then add to your damage, and then it expects you to do it with a +1 BAB or a +0 depending on your class. Power attack doesn't even work for a character at 1st level and they can take it. That is poor game design that adds confusion to the game, and creates what is called a Barrier to Entry.
Now, Barriers to Entry does not mean something that makes the game fun and only stupid people can't understand it. A barrier to entry is a complicated block to fun. It is a place someone gets frustrated and has to stop using common sense and thinking in the abstract and illogical sense. Barriers to Entry hurt games. Here are some examples of Barriers to Entry in the current 3.5 D&D:
- Multiclassing
- touch and flat footed armor class
- grappling
- cross class skill points
- CL and ECL
- Adventure design and monster use
- stacking bonuses
- spell slots and spell preparation
- energy drain
These are all areas of the game that have sub sets of rules or complicated processes that could be streamlined, made more inituitive, removed, changed or simplified.
Fixing each of these areas creates a game that a new player can learn faster, easier and get to the fun parts sooner. This is important. It helps the game become viral and spread easier.
Veteran players see these things as hurdles they got over, or things that weren't difficult to learn and so not a Barrier to them. Thing is, many veteran players are used to RPGS, complicated rules and they benefit from what Monte Cook called mastery of the game. When you attempt to change or improve these things, a veteran player becomes defensive as it challenges their mastery of the ruleset.
What veterans are not seeing, is that streamlining these areas of the game saves them time, helps them share the game with new players, it lets them spend more time having fun and doing cool, D&D adventuring stuff instead of looking up the rules for grappling, or having to write down and plan out points spent into cross class skills, or subtracting levels from energy drain. Who really wants to spend 40 mins every day chosing new spells or to save time only changing a few and never getting to try all of the spells that area there.
Power Attack, sadly, is one of these troubled areas. It isn't quite a barrier to entry, but it causes frustration when the right (or wrong) mix of people are put together. It leaves exploits in the rules, and for most players it doesn't deliver what it promises. Players have been fooled by it for 7 years, because you only remember when it hits and deals alot of damage. That is when it is fun, when you had the slot machine went off! But most of the time, your wasting your nickels.
Particle_Man
Explorer
Is the PA optimization formula something like:
[21 + total Attack bonus - enemy AC - average damage (after DR)], all divided by 2
for one handed weapons, and
[21 + total attack bonus - enemy AC - (average damage (after DR) divided by 2)], all divided by 2
for two handed weapons?
[21 + total Attack bonus - enemy AC - average damage (after DR)], all divided by 2
for one handed weapons, and
[21 + total attack bonus - enemy AC - (average damage (after DR) divided by 2)], all divided by 2
for two handed weapons?
Particle_Man said:
No.
The power attack optimization formula requires calculus, actually. You write up the equation for expected damage per attack, with the amount by which you are power attacking as the X variable. You cap that equation properly to account for natural 1s and 20s, and you make sure to include critical hits. Then you take its derivative, and set the resulting equation equal to zero. If there is an optimal amount for power attacking, you will find it when you solve for X.
You will actually need several equations, one for each amount of iterative attacks you might have.
Dracorat
First Post
I use bell curve rolling in my games. Can someone calculate the use of power attack by bell curve rolling?
(Meaning you need to take in to account how often a specific result is rolled - you can roll a 17 three ways, but an 18 only one) (You might also need to review the bell curve variant (available at d20srd.org) because crit ranges get modified too)
Mad props to the mathemetician that can pull this one off, but I think it will actually show PA as being even better against mobs that are easily hit, but worse against those who are insanely hard to hit.
(Meaning you need to take in to account how often a specific result is rolled - you can roll a 17 three ways, but an 18 only one) (You might also need to review the bell curve variant (available at d20srd.org) because crit ranges get modified too)
Mad props to the mathemetician that can pull this one off, but I think it will actually show PA as being even better against mobs that are easily hit, but worse against those who are insanely hard to hit.
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