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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 3246957" data-attributes="member: 9053">That's the theory that most of my players used, and one that I used briefly with a fighting character myself. The problem is, once you bring iterative attacks into place, you virtually guarantee that one or even more of your attacks will miss because of your power attack. Now if power attack is the largest part of your damage, you're not losing much. The thing is, most characters who use power attack have HUGE base damage to base from. Let's take an example from my game.There was a character who was (basically) a fighter 11. He used a +2 two handed sword that had shocking burst on it, and was typically enlarged for the battle. He operated typically with a 20 str, and had weapon specialization. Without power attack, he did 4d6+d6(electricty)+11 damage. Now if he did a five point power attack, even if he was fighting a monster which he could hit on a 2+, he reduced the odds on his second and third attack hitting by 25% each. The thing was, it most often ended up he would hit with one less attack by power attacking, so he'd actually end up doing less damage on average, since power attack only gave him +10 to damage, and average damage with his normal attack was 28.I guess to me it seems like power attack is something that's ideal when:You only have one attackYou have a feat that mitigates the loss to hitYou have a spell or other ability that targets your opponent's touch ACBeyond that, I have to say, "meh."Now the thing is, power attack tends to be the corner stone of the argument that two-handed weapon fighting beats all other weapon types. So ultimately is it:- Power attack requires other feats or abilities to work (which means it's those abilities and not power attack itself that's making the two-handed fighter better).- Power attack is actually great, but only in special circumstances (like a charging, raging barbarian).- Power attack really isn't so hot, and (like most discussions on the Internet) it's a lot of hot air.- There's something I'm just missin'.So what does everyone think?EDIT:Of course, it goes without sayin' that the "All Power Attack All the Time" character is a lot of fun, too...in the right circumstances.--Steve</blockquote>

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