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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FrankTrollman" data-source="post: 1144626" data-attributes="member: 14225">Power Attack was never for high-AC opponents. It was for low AC opponents - and it was awesome. If you were using against BBEGs in plate you were severely handicapping yourself - but no more so than trying to use Sunder on an enemy's thrown weapons. Using a feat when it is at a disadvantage doesn't prove anything. Power Attack at high level translates to about +5 damage against Zombies and Oozes - not to mention the fact that it simply allows you to add your BAB to all coup de grace or door bashing manuvers.Power Attack has its element - it is a situational bonus to damage against low-AC enemies. It's a really big damage bonus, and well-worth the feat.3.5 Power Attack breaks even or pulls ahead against High AC Opponents - the people against whom Power Attack is supposed to suck. It is comparitively more powerful against the low AC opponents that PA already shined against.3rd ed PA was something that you used when appropriate - like Sunder or Improved Disarm. 3.5 Power Attack is so good you might as well use it all the time - and did you notice that you can chop down castles as a pre-epic character with the new PA and Adamantine rules? Seriously - we are talking going through about ten feet of stone per minute. You might just be able to beat the steam drill at that point.---So far, the only thing I've been really happy with is the squeezing rules (which I had house ruled anyway in 3rd ed), and the crawling rules (which again, I had house ruled in 3rd ed).The Improved Sunder feat giving a +4 bonus to opposed rolls is a nice touch, but the Improved Grapple feat doing the same thing is overpowered. So I can't really say that I've accepted that whole rule.Shadow Magic no longer being able to mimic calling spells is a step towards making sense, but allowing them to mimic 8th level spells is overpowered - I don't agree with that change either.Having form changing magic change your type is horrible - and allowing Shapechange to snag (Su) abilities is obscene. Meanwhile, limiting forms by hit dice is still a stupid way to do it because the correlation between power and hit dice is nearly nonexistent (compare the hit dice and power of a Leopard and a Bison, for example). The new form changing rules are more broken and more confusing than the old broken and confusing rules.Endurance at 1 minute a level may as well not exist. Why you would spend a 2nd level spell during a battle to have extra hit points until the end of the battle (at which point you would either have never needed them, or die) I just cannot fathom. The others are better - but now really only useful for the attackers in a teleport ambush - a tactic I hate and don't want to encourage. Having no less than six spells in one school at one level which are all exclusively for that tactic is exactly the kind of thing I don't want to happen.The new Nerf-Tastic TWF rules are a kick in the crotch. TWF was already a marginal fighting style, justified only by static damage bonuses. By limiting its access to static damage bonuses they rendered it less than useless. At this point I would happliy pay a feat to not have to dual-wield.Savage Species was a crappy book - and adopting its Level Adjustment mentality into the Core Rules was a bad idea. If you are going to charge people 3 levels to play a CR 1 Gnoll - you may as well just not let them play. Similarly, the Epic Level Rules have a number of conceptual problems and are not balanced (and encourage really weird builds as it creates a whole new paradigms of ways in which two characters with exactly the same class make-up can be at radically different power levels). Including those in the Core books was dumb - especially as they only included the basic Epic Level Advancement system (that didn't work) and left all the cool Epic monsters out.The changes to the Action rules have almost universally been terrible. Making "standing up from prone" provoke attacks of opportunity has overpowered trip to a degree that is difficult to comprehend. The "only on your turn" restriction for Free actions has left Feather Fall out in the cold with no meaningful gain.-Frank</blockquote>

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