True Strike as a Swift Action

[mrtauntaun]

I don't see how Power Attack and True Strike is all that broken. You can not exceed your Base Attack Bonus when using Power Attack, so by the time you are a high enough level to do a lot of damage with it, that damage will be on par with or beneath other types of damage you can dish out.
Barring the use of magic items of course, if you can cast a 5th level arcane spell as others have indicated it would be, your BAB wouldn't even be that high anyway.
Even wielding a weapon with two hands, at 20th level, assuming you could get to 20 BAB, that's only +40 damage for ONE ATTACK. Think of all the other spells that could put this one attack to shame.

 

[frankthedm]

+80 when mounted and using spirited charge. Possibly +120 with lance depending on rule semantics.

 

[AuraSeer]

Even wielding a weapon with two hands, at 20th level, assuming you could get to 20 BAB, that's only +40 damage for ONE ATTACK. Think of all the other spells that could put this one attack to shame.

Ah, of course, there are plenty of other first-level spells that do >20 damage at caster level 1. I can't think of any at the moment, but I'm sure they are very common.

 

[Deset Gled]

Even wielding a weapon with two hands, at 20th level, assuming you could get to 20 BAB, that's only +40 damage for ONE ATTACK. Think of all the other spells that could put this one attack to shame.

Lots. But how many of those spells are 1st level, requiring no increase in caster level to be effect, with no xp cost, expensive materials, or somantic components?

 

[ForceUser]

Quickened true strike is balanced. True strike, swift would not be, because you're not giving anything up--the "swift" line of spells offers "right now" alternatives to spells with significant durations. True strike as written only lasts one round, which does not make it a good candidate for the "swift" line of spells, which are supposed to give up duration for immediacy. If it were allowable, well hell, my next character idea would be a fighter/sorcerer/dragon disciple with Power Attack, Improved Critical, and a falchion. My new true strike delivery system would be casting it 10+ times per day, which is essentially the same as all day long. What glorious munchkin fun that would be!

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Quickened anything is a swift action, if you are using swift and immediate actions which are an optional rule.


glass.

Swift and Immediate actions aren't really optional rules. It's more like, "you know all that garbage under Quicken Spell about free actions you can only use once per round? Well, we cleaned up the language and now it's Swift Actions. And Feather Fall? Immediate Action."

Nothing's changed as far as the rules are concerned. They just packaged some text into a glossary word...something they should have done in the first place.

 

[FireLance]

I don't see how Power Attack and True Strike is all that broken. You can not exceed your Base Attack Bonus when using Power Attack, so by the time you are a high enough level to do a lot of damage with it, that damage will be on par with or beneath other types of damage you can dish out.
Barring the use of magic items of course, if you can cast a 5th level arcane spell as others have indicated it would be, your BAB wouldn't even be that high anyway.
Even wielding a weapon with two hands, at 20th level, assuming you could get to 20 BAB, that's only +40 damage for ONE ATTACK. Think of all the other spells that could put this one attack to shame.

I had alluded to this combo in my earlier post, but I guess I should spell it out.

Start with a BAB of +20.

Power Attack gives 2 for 1 when used with a two-handed weapon, or a one-handed weapon used in two hands. It doesn't matter which side you fall on in the old argument about whether a lance gives 2 for 1 Power Attack when used in one hand when mounted - just do whatever is necessary in your view to give the lance 2 for 1 Power Attack. This coverts the BAB of +20 to a damage bonus of +40.

Add in Leap Attack from Complete Adventurer. I can't find anything in the feat which would suggest that it cannot be used when mounted, and if a Medium sized humanoid jumping down on you at the end of a charge is going to make you hurt extra, a Medium sized humanoid mounted on a Large mount jumping down on you at the end of a charge is likely to make you hurt double extra. Leap Attack has been errata'ed to state that when you make a Leap Attack, "you deal +100% of the normal bonus damage from your use of the Power Attack feat." Note that it's not a doubling. It's +100%, which in this case makes the bonus damage from Power Attack +80.

Now, throw in ten levels of Cavalier from Complete Warrior. The Unstoppable Charge ability allows a Cavalier to deal quintuple (5x) damage with a lance. The damage from this combo is +400 from the conversion of BAB to damage alone. That's enough damage to kill practically everything in the Monster Manual apart from the largest dragons and the Tarrasque.

 

[ForceUser]

That's enough damage to kill practically everything in the Monster Manual apart from the largest dragons and the Tarrasque.

As long as you don't roll the 1.

 

[Dimwhit]

Now, throw in ten levels of Cavalier from Complete Warrior. The Unstoppable Charge ability allows a Cavalier to deal quintuple (5x) damage with a lance. The damage from this combo is +400 from the conversion of BAB to damage alone. That's enough damage to kill practically everything in the Monster Manual apart from the largest dragons and the Tarrasque.

What they need to do is errata the lance as a weapon that you can't use with Power Attack. Seems silly that you can.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

What they need to do is errata the lance as a weapon that you can't use with Power Attack. Seems silly that you can.

One person's "silly" is another person's "perfectly sensible." Myself, I think Power Attack with a lance is imminently sensible. It's a good way to represent a rider who has learned to use the added force provided by his charging mount.