Two hander style gets the axe shaft!

[Crothian]

Re: Why not?

Why is it that you can't trip an opponent with a 2H? Because it says make a melee touch attack?

When is it a good idea to attempt to trip an opponent? Or not to try and trip an opponent for that matter.

Because only certain weapons can be used in a trip attack. Look under the flail, it says "You can also use this weapon to make trip attacks." Unless the weapon spefically says it can trip, it cannot.

The best time is the first attack in the round. With a successful trip, ther rest of your attacks are at an additional +4. Then you use power attack, take that +4 to hit, and make it damage.

Don't trip creatures with more then 2 legs or that are bigger then you. They get nice bonuses to resist, makes it really hard to do so.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Power Critical is a bit limited, especially since it is limited to one weapon AND once per day. My friend, however, would say it is far from useless. Take a raging barbarian/sorcerer/dragon desciple with bull's strength, a true struck +4 great sword, and a full power attack, (all of this with no help from the resident full spellcasters, mind you), and most things drop in that one hit.

It falls in line with his breath weapon and rages, or any spellcaster's highest level spell slot. You use it when the time is right, to devestating effect. It also opens up some epic feat possabilities, like forcing a save vs. death on every crit. I think it's worth it.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Re: Re: Why not?

Because only certain weapons can be used in a trip attack. Look under the flail, it says "You can also use this weapon to make trip attacks." Unless the weapon spefically says it can trip, it cannot.

This is a misconception. The description of the trip attack on PHB page 139 does not restrict it to characters who are unarmed or using trip weapons.

Weapons that can be used to trip grant special bonusses (usually the ability to drop the weapon if the trip attempt fails rather than be subject to a counter-trip and sometimes a bonus to the opposed roll). That does not mean that only people armed with such weapons can choose the trip attack--quite the contrary, the fact that they are specific exceptions from the normal counter-trip mechanic implies that most trip actions will not be done using "trip weapons."

The best time is the first attack in the round. With a successful trip, ther rest of your attacks are at an additional +4. Then you use power attack, take that +4 to hit, and make it damage.

Actually, the best time to trip is with your last iterative attack. Trip attacks are touch attacks so even a low bonus attack stands a good chance of hitting. Furthermore, the mechanic for tripping is an opposed strength check which is just as likely to succeed on your last iterative attack as on your first. If you succeed in tripping your opponent, you can force him to either take -4 on his attacks for being prone and give you +4 on all of your attacks next round or forgoe all of his iterative attacks by spending an MEA to stand up.

Don't trip creatures with more then 2 legs or that are bigger then you. They get nice bonuses to resist, makes it really hard to do so.

Very true. Don't try to trip raging barbarians either--they're usually as strong as you or stronger.

 

[Darklone]

Not to bug too much... but IME THF is better than TWF since most guys with big weapons take Power Attack and Cleave instead all those TWF feats and the additional attack is worth it even without the charges and spring attacks and AoOs...

Kreynolds: Too bad humans only can take two feats at lvl1 .... Must be the reason why so many freaks are out there!

 

[CRGreathouse]

Kreynolds: Too bad humans only can take two feats at lvl1 .... Must be the reason why so many freaks are out there!

Yeah, unless they went and did something crazy... like taking a level of fighter. This would givre them 2 feats at first level (3 if human).

 

[SpikeyFreak]

if anyone really wants to do the math, check out my sig

--Lazy Spikey

 

[ashockney]

Calc's rule

Thanks for the offer Spikey! I'm a regular user of your calculator as well.

Did you update your calc to include Epic and/or OA (Rokugan) feats? I'll have to re-download it if you did!

-Andy

 

[Macbrea]

Hmm, as I play with that excel sheet, I keep coming to the conclusion that the 10th level guy with a strength of 22 should be using a +3 keen scythe, no more then 2 points of power attack, and use Power critical. Odd. it might just be me.

Power Critical may seem a useless feat until you play with a weapon that does huge crit numbers at a very small crit range.

And how many times in a day does this fellow need to deal out that much damage.


The feat becomes abusive if you actually get your hands on a vorpal weapon.

 

[kreynolds]

The feat becomes abusive if you actually get your hands on a vorpal weapon.

One of the reasons I fixed vorpal.

 

[Tharkun]

Vorpal only is effective for the original crit range or does it apply to your current crit range?