Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both, Continued

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

I just hate the name. The Power Attack feat should have something to do with--I dunno--attacking not damaging.

I've always thought it should be a bonus to hit in exchange for a penalty to Armor Class, sacrificing defense for offense. Then you could combine it with the Expertise feat and even things out.

[Voss]

Eh. Even before D&D 3.x, a 'Power Attack', regardless of whether it was in a game, movie or whatever, has pretty much meant an attack thats more powerful, more damaging.

[Fwib]

1195515632[/unixtime]]Eh. Even before D&D 3.x, a 'Power Attack', regardless of whether it was in a game, movie or whatever, has pretty much meant an attack thats more powerful, more damaging.

Agreed.

If you wanted some ability that made your attack more accurate, maybe something like Accurate Attack would be the sort of name to go with?

[RandomCasualty]

1195515057[/unixtime]]Yes, he decided he hates it... because sometimes other people don't play the game the way he thinks it should be played.

Yeah, it's basically that he's pissed people are using math to deconstruct his mechanics. I swear half the designers at WotC are still stuck in the prior age of RPGs design where you'd make a system so complex that nobody really understands the math (including you) and therefore you can hide imbalances.

Scroll down the Enworld thread. The 'under-performing' stuff starts with some guy going by 'Moniker'. And then 'Lord Xtheth', for whom it so weak its just a prereq for *cleave* of all things.

Yeah, Lord Xtheth is a fucking moron. Wtf is that guy smoking? It's like he's never played a D&D fighter before, ever.

[Leress]

That makes no sense what so ever. I thought Jon Tweet was alright until this...I didn't hear crap about power attack being "broken" until I saw this. The things presented on that thread are just beyond stupid. Power attack turned into 5 shitty feats...no, just no.

[Draco_Argentum]

1195516703[/unixtime]]Yeah, it's basically that he's pissed people are using math to deconstruct his mechanics.

I agree with him really. The correct amount to power attack for maximum damage takes too long to calculate on the fly. However the feat can only be balanced by assuming people always use the correct amount. Its crappy mechanically.

[Voss]

1195516703[/unixtime]]
Yeah, it's basically that he's pissed people are using math to deconstruct his mechanics. I swear half the designers at WotC are still stuck in the prior age of RPGs design where you'd make a system so complex that nobody really understands the math (including you) and therefore you can hide imbalances.

What really bothers me about it is the way he puts it. Its only a feat for a wild barbarian, and you should never, ever be putting actual thought into such a character's actions. Not only does he want to hide the math (though that never works, anyway), but he wants the mechanics to be dictating character behavior. Or alternately, character role should be limiting beneficial mechanical choices. (Like the folks on the ENworld thread that can't even conceptualize power attacking with a rapier. A wild, hard stab is somehow beyond the realm of belief).


Draco- that could be true... if you were calculating it on the fly every time. But there is a limited range of ACs you will be facing every level. It may take someone a little while to get used to what bonuses are best at a given level, but it isn't that complex to jot down on the corner of a character sheet once they get used to how combat works. (Of course, this does presume that they have to expend at least a little effort learning how the game works, but there isn't much you can do with someone who isn't).

But you don't have to be perfectly on target with your numbers. The d20 pretty much takes that capability out of your hands to begin with, but being off a couple points one way or the other won't make or break your character.

Granted, the feat isn't balanced. Thanks to the way the basic aspects of the game works, it kinda sucks. It essentially is required to make melee classes not be *completely* irrelevant at mid to high levels. A static damage bonus is never going to cut it. HPs scale far too wildly in comparison to level and CR for a small bonus to ever matter past level 2.

[Koumei]

How unbalanced would Power Attack be if, instead of being a trade-off, it simply dealt +1 damage (multiplied or negated as normal) per point you beat their AC by? In effect, simply applying the maximum possible amount to still hit after the attack was resolved.

[Voss]

Its something of a weird, fundamental change. Power Attack is exploiting the random nature of the attack roll, gambling on more damage. That change makes every attack optimized in terms of chance to hit *and* amount of damage, with out any real risk to the character- a poor die roll is the only thing that matters, and tactics kind of go out the window as unnecessary.

It is a touch unbalanced, thinking about it. Power attack has a BAB cap. This change would allow all those bonuses from various spells, bard songs, circumstances, etc to go way out of control. True strike alone... almost certain hit for gobs of damage. Maybe if its capped at BAB, but even then, I think the no risk aspect changes the game significantly.

[Crissa]

Why can't he have a point?

You could be facing wildly different ACs from the mook at the back of the bar to the barbarian who was getting his drink.

And your rolls are wildly different. If you roll a 5, you'd want to have paid far less than if you rolled a 15.

The original point was that it was a great feat, which gave a wide amount of choice - but that choice was so wide that it could make or break an encounter, at the same time heavily slowing down the game.

He didn't say anything about math being hard. Just that it slowed the game.

And that seems a respectable point; the whole underperforming and math is hard is unrelated to that.

-Crissa

[Voss]

You need to read his post again. He never says anything about it ever being great. Or even balanced, or useful, (under performance comes from the later posters), or making or breaking encounters (odd, what the filter on this board picks up. Fun with typos). The whole thing is about math and speed of game play.

Lets parse this, shall we.

Power Attack, I disown thee! Foul deceiver! False friend! Vile tempter! You promised fun and flavor, but you brought only arithmetic and delay.

Gibberish. Followed by math! And slow!

You offered wild, barbaric swings, but you bogged us down with attempts to maximize average damage. Begone! Thou art no rule of mine.

bogged- slow! maximize average damage- math again! Followed by- this isn't my fault!

Power Attack is one of my regrets. It seems innocent enough, but it puts complication where one wants excitement.

Ok, admission of guilt. Sorta. Followed by complication. Hey, they hearkens back to slow and math again, doesn't it?

The ability to mciromanage one's attack and damage rolls has some appeal, but it runs counter to the spirit of Power Attack. Power Attack simulates a reckless, mighty swing in melee, but at the table it turns into a picky exercise in sliding numbers.

I will control your flavor! Picky- slow. Sliding numbers, math again!

It sounds like a slick feat for the mighty chopping barbarian, but it works better the less damage you normally deal. A better feat that would fit the flavor would give you a fixed attack penalty and damage bonus, so that using it becomes a simple either/or toggle rather than a sliding numeric effect.

Feat must have specific flavor! Simple toggle rather than math!

Even simpler and faster would be a feat that makes the power-attack effect always on. That way the reckless barbarian could make attack rolls just as quickly as any other character rather than having to pause and assess the odds with every swing

Simpler! Less math. Faster! So it isn't slow. Assess the odds! Can't have players thinking.

Sure, he can have a point. And anyone who says something theoretically has a point. But his is bad- math is hard, so needs to be taken out. Hell, lets take all the choice out of it and just make Power attack always function! The height of speed and simplicity! Assessing your chances is a wrongbadfun way to play!

Look, this isn't a complicated feat. Fighting a low AC brute with lots of hit points? Power attack for a lot. High AC nimble thing? Don't power attack. Adjust the numbers slightly for less extreme cases. It doesn't require complex math. It doesn't require flavor specific requirements because the designer doesn't like the way people play D&D, and it certainly doesn't need to be taken out just because a small percentage of the gaming community can't handle simple numbers on the fly. And can't, for some reason, take simple notes.

Though, actually, after reading the ENworld thread, I doubt that last conclusion. I'm rather concerned that the community as a whole consists largely of barely functional, brain-dead morons. This surprisingly makes me sad, as I had thought I was too cynical to be shocked at the depths of human stupidity.

[Crissa]

So, instead of being a sliding scale, it should be just an option 'You take half your BAB and instead apply it to damage instead of hit'.

Then it's a yes/no question instead of a slider.

He says it's delaying the game to micromanage instead of merely being an option.

And why do we want to sit around and think instead of play? There's a reason they bring clocks to chess games.

-Crissa

[Voss]

Because choosing a number between 1 and 20 (and probably not that, in all honesty, unless you're playing at level 20 all the time) isn't micromanaging. Its picking a damn number based on previous experience in a very small range, to go against another number in a very small range (ACs per CR don't really vary that much. I'd be surprised if it was as much as 10 points). And if its below a certain threshold, it doesn't fucking matter at all. (If AC < 15, you might as well go all out, regardless of level).

Simple answer is, I don't want an feat to restrict my combat options rather than provide me with options. And thats what changing PA to do X does. Instead of making an informed decision, I'm suddenly forced to not use the feat (if that is even an option), or fight in a way thats quite likely to be suboptimal. And that is quite stupid.

And why the flying fuck would I not think? Thought is part of process, part of the game. Not thinking is reserved for idiots that wander out and play in traffic.

[Manxome]

It's a lot easier for a player to self-limit his choices as desired than for a player to extrapolate from a given set of options and then convince the other players (in particular the DM) to go along with it. A player can choose to only use power attack at a specific level even if he's allowed to use it as a slider. And the amount of math (and choice) involved with using it as a slider is pretty darn small in the first place.


Also, chess clocks usually aren't used to prevent players from spending a long time thinking about their moves--games can still take hours, even with chess clocks. They're used to guarantee the game won't last more than a certain length of time, to prevent players from taking completely crazy amounts of time thinking about a single move, and in competitions so that one player can't effectively force a stalemate by simply refusing to make a move. And against computers because the time allowed to the computer is the only practical limit to how well it plays.

Players who care more about goofing off and having fun rather than playing a deeply contemplative game usually don't use chess clocks, because they don't need to. Chess clocks are for the hard core.

[Yahzi]

I read the 4chan post. Now I think my brain is broken.

[Leress]

Umm, not to belittle your feelings, but that sounds like a bug to me. Power attacking with a rapier just seems wrong...

I just read this...wow, just wow. Wrong, dumbass, it's called sending the pointy end all the way through the enemy, you unimaginative ass. I may not be the smartest person but I watch movies and read books, that happens in them.

[Jacob_Orlove]

You can actually up the flavor ante on Power Attack/Rapier even higher. Power Attack represents a sacrifice of accuracy for power, right? Not quite. That's how most people think of it, but really it's just giving you the option of trying for a more difficult attack that does more damage. You can easily visualize that as an attack that needs *more* accuracy to succeed. Kind of like stabbing someone in the eye with a Rapier. Yes, "called shot to the eye" really is just Power Attacking for 5.

Edit: I just found this thread.. I could only manage to skim through it, but it's quite something. Be sure to at least check out the later pages.

[Crissa]

Yes, picking a number from 1-20 is micro managing when the option otherwise is not so complex.

You're making the same head-hurty argument you were making fun of: 'The math isn't that difficult!' Duh, but that's twenty more options to consider instead of one. It's going to slow the game down.

And when playing the game, it's going to slow the game down much more when choosing the wrong number will mean success or failure of the encounter.

-Crissa

[Manxome]

Every choice you introduce to the game slows it down. The reason people still play games that involve choice, rather than passively experiencing non-interactive narratives, is that the choices and interaction are fun.

Certainly some choices add little to the game and cost a lot in terms of slowdown, while others cost relatively little for their benefit. But merely saying "it's going to slow the game down" doesn't (by itself) say anything at all about whether it's a good idea or not--especially if you can't even add "by a lot" with a straight face.

In terms of tactical and flavorful options, trading reliability for power is a fairly basic and visceral choice, and the implementation is quite lightweight. Technically you have twenty more options to consider, but they're closely-related and totally ordered options; a computer AI might consider them all independently, but a human is more likely to use intuition, heuristics, or maybe binary search at the absolute slowest. It's not as if you were offering twenty qualitatively different options; from the standpoint of game flow, you're offering one additional option with an "intensity" parameter, which is totally different.

Realistically, it's probably not going to cause the same degree of slowdown as, say, giving a monk half a dozen different fighting styles to choose between.

For some players, it might be preferable to do without that particular mechanic. But I seriously doubt it's anywhere close to the worst benefit-to-slowdown ratio in the game, nor does it seem so ponderous in its own right that it ought to be a particular target, and it's not remotely difficult to imagine players for whom it's hugely worth having a parametrized power attack.

Yes, picking a number from 1-20 is micro managing when the option otherwise is not so complex.

Well, since every part of the game always has the "option otherwise" of "don't play the game," I guess the entire game consists entirely of micromanagement.

[ckafrica]

It seems we just need to change the name to deadly strike and it works. These guys get too bent out of shape over percieved flavor of the mechanics.

[Username17]

You know, Wulf Ratbane has a point. That's the most coherent argument I've seen involving Power Attack ever. All Power Attack, All the Time. Classic.

---

Did anyone else notice that Tweet was getting bent out of shape because the feat sounded like it was for barbarians with giant axes but required thought and was better for characters who did less damage per hit? On the face of it, that's a stupid fucking argument. A Cleric sounds like someone who sits in a mosque and debates ancient scriptures rather than someone who runs around a battlefield in plate armor - that means precisely jack shit as far as D&D is concerned.

But consider his actual solutions:

• better feat that would fit the flavor would give you a fixed attack penalty and damage bonus, so that using it becomes a simple either/or toggle rather than a sliding numeric effect.
  
  This still benefits people with tiny weapons more than big weapons you fucking moron! A penalty to attack rolls costs more the more base damage you do. A bonus to damage is a bigger relative bonus the less damage you do. Arrgh.
  
  
• Even simpler and faster would be a feat that makes the power-attack effect always on. That way the reckless barbarian could make attack rolls just as quickly as any other character rather than having to pause and assess the odds with every swing.
  
  And it would still be a stupid feat for a great axer to use because it would still be giving a better marginal benefit to low damage output characters.

The flavor he wants would best be represented by a penalty to Armor Class in exchange for a bonus to damage. That way high-damage, high hit point characters like Barbarians would be encouraged to use it to the fullest extent possible in order to minimize the amount of time it takes for them to defeat opponents.

Penalties to hit in exchange for bonuses to damage always offer the greatest marginal benefit to small attacks. It is always going to be a feat which appeals to the Halfling or the Pixie rather than the Orc or the Giant. If you already do a lot of damage, you want to maximize your chances of hitting. If you already have a good chance of hitting you want to maximize damage. This is not rocket science.

Penalty to Hit / Bonus to Damage is a must-have for Finesse Fighters. And it always will be. And if that pisses you off for whatever reason, then messing around with the damage exchange rate or the number of possible exchange values available to characters won't actually change anything.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1195550705[/unixtime]]
The flavor he wants would best be represented by a penalty to Armor Class in exchange for a bonus to damage. That way high-damage, high hit point characters like Barbarians would be encouraged to use it to the fullest extent possible in order to minimize the amount of time it takes for them to defeat opponents.

What he actually probably wants is flurry of blows or some kind of damage multiplier. Take a penalty to hit and get an extra attack. That really benefits people who do a lot of damage, because your getting more out of an extra attack.

A static bonus to damage will always favor low damage people, but multiplying your damage or getting extra attacks favors people with a high base damage.

[Draco_Argentum]

1195550705[/unixtime]]Did anyone else notice that Tweet was getting bent out of shape because the feat sounded like it was for barbarians with giant axes but required thought and was better for characters who did less damage per hit?

Yes but I ignored that because I felt like giving the guy a break. Also thats the same stupid argument that people make about cleave not working with rapiers. I've seen Three Musketeers, yeah it works with rapiers.

[Draco_Argentum]

1) Its not my fault that you have been viewing the world through a straw.

2) if these guys were real D'n'D players then they would understand what I'm trying to pull off with my character.

3) Drizz't sucks, my Character is no meer clone of Cloud, its an infusion of both I and cloud, but it seems to lean towards cloud because of his appearance.

4) if there was a room full of weapons and I could weild any one of them succesfully (i.e. lifting it and killing all enemies before the can get to me.), I would pick the Buster Sword, because I could.

5) my friend hasnt made many good characters, his current character is a anti-social Hippie for gods-sakes! He is only planting trees out of his own greed to out live everone else (if you think that is good than you are crazy, its dumb, a joke that he made up. D'n'D is not about jokes!).

6) ???

7) PROFIT!

Holy fucking shit thats hilarious.

[tzor]

1195518626[/unixtime]](Like the folks on the ENworld thread that can't even conceptualize power attacking with a rapier. A wild, hard stab is somehow beyond the realm of belief).

To be fair most folks wouldn't know what a rapier was and probably have never seen a real one. Most "rapiers" used in classical movies are actually modified epees with basket hilt handles. Few people realize hoe sturdy the real rapiers actually were. (And how relatively large they were compared to that thing Zorro is swinging in the movies.)