NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Najo" data-source="post: 3908304" data-attributes="member: 9959">A feat like cleave, mentioned earlier, says attack the next guy. Feats like improved trip make it so you don't give an attack of opportunity to your foe. Feats like improved initiative increase your initiative. Good game mechanics clearly state what they are doing. In a RPG, they should encourage role playing along with the tactical elements of the game. Even feats like weapon focus and weapon specialization increase to hit and damage respectfully, without spending to much time up with the raw mechanics. Simple, one way bonuses.Power attack is intriguing, and it appears to say: "hey you, me. swanky gamer guy, you can do neat, elegant controlled hits with me." Power attack teases you with a sliding scale and the illusion of choice. It seems harmless enough: subtract from to hit, add to damage. But that is where the metagaming begins. The minute you start working the numbers, and crunching that math (which is likely for most gamers to do as they are often above average intelligence), power attack turns into a pause the game type effect and focus on the math problem. It wouldn't do this if it was a simple -2 to hit +2 to damage choice. Even better, if it was a gain damage at another cost other than a penalty to hit. See, it is meta gaming because we go out of the game and above it into the mechanics and ignore the actions of the character. The barbarian wouldn't adjust his wild, brutal swing with exact prescision, figuring out exactly how much of a risk he would take. He would go for it, and hit with all he has. Likewise, each degree of increasing the amount of damage should be a benefit. If I want to do a -1/+1 or a -2/ +2 or a -3/ +3 then they should scale the risk/ reward smoothly, but they don't. It fluctuates. The real proof Power Attack needs to be fixed is simple though. In the midst of the action, my character stepping up and taking a wild swing that nails my enemy hard if I hit him should be exciting, and put us on edge. It should be from declaration to dice roll and result, a moment of tension and fast paced action. The rest of the players should hold their breath because I declared a power attack and they know its risky. Not because they are waiting for me to do the math on it. I realize this is why the players who do not do the math on it like it. It gives them that. But the feat isn't really giving those  players much back in return. As for those who abuse it, I am sure that those groups hate the feat. It makes things to easy and takes alot of the spotlight away from the other characters. The last few who are playing with the feat properly and benefiting but not abusing it, well they are doing it with boring math forumlas and tables, which is meta gaming and hurts the flow of the game.Power attack needs to evolve and be fun. It is possible, it can keep the basic feel without to much overhaul and it would get rid of the all of these issues plus keep the action flowing.</blockquote>

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