The Gaming Den

Okay, so here was my idea for a power attack revision. Pretend that we're in the Saga Edition world where you get a damage bonus equal to half your level and you don't get multiple attacks, okay?

Power Attack: On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to take a -5 penalty on your attack roll. If your attack hits, you do double damage, although extra dice of damage—such as those from sneak attack or skirmishing—are not multiplied. Your bonus damage from having a high base attack bonus is multiplied, however.

The only attacks that are multiplied are those made with your primary hand. Off-hand attacks do not receive double damage.

Once you have a +10 base attack bonus, you do triple damage when using this feat. Once you have a +15 base attack bonus, you do quadruple damage with this feat.

Prerequisites: Strength 12, base attack bonus +5.

Now, my purpose for redoing this feat was several-fold:

1. A single penalty makes the feat faster to use.
2. Many times, simpler is better.
3. It seems a good way to keep melee characters competent in combat.

Of course, my concern is the flat, non-scaling penalty. When you first can use the feat, you effectively have a +0 BAB when using it. When you have +20 BAB, the penalty isn't such a big deal.

Anyway, you guys are better with the system mechanics than I am, so let's hear your input.

A -5 penalty always means exactly the same thing. If you hit on 11+, a -5 always equals -50% accuracy, and thus is always a fair trade for double damage. If you hit on more numbers, a -5 equals a lesser-than-50% accuracy reduction, and thus is when you should PA. At any level this is true. Therefore, at no point should the multiplier grow (if you're on a one-attack-per-round system, which's the assumption) - except perhaps a higher BAB giving you the option of accepting a bigger penalty for a bigger multiplier.

And what makes physical classes incompetent isn't a fvcking lack of numbers - they don't actually suffer from one. It's the lack of tactical depth. Go solve that if you want - of course, several solutions have been proposed already, some better than others. Have you read the Tomes?

Don't do numbers.

Numbers are boring.

Look at monsters of a set CR and look at what they can do, special ability wise.

Judging__Eagle wrote:Don't do numbers.

Numbers are boring.

Look at monsters of a set CR and look at what they can do, special ability wise.

Let's not go too far. Power at expense of accuracy's a fvcking iconic option, it should definitely be represented. Doesn't change the fact that everyone should get more meaningful choices than that, of course.

Rofl, you only get 1 attack per round in Saga Edition?

That's such a dumbed down method.

In any case, I use the Tome method for PA, -1 to hit (up to your BaB), +2 damage, applicable and selectable for each seperate attack.

Judging__Eagle wrote:Rofl, you only get 1 attack per round in Saga Edition?

That's such a dumbed down method.

What's the problem? If the single attack matters as much as other standard actions, I mean.

Judging__Eagle wrote:In any case, I use the Tome method for PA, -1 to hit (up to your BaB), +2 damage, applicable and selectable for each seperate attack.

You forget the most important part: it doesn't cost a feat.

The point between attacks coming in more than once a round (but disallowing movement) means that people have to make tactical decisions as to whether they want to be in combat, or simply attack and move back or move to a new target and attack.

Also, does the single attack equal the standard action of an other character in this system?

As for the feat... I dunno, it's straightforward, but it just seems boring. The big numbers are nice, but if there's nothing else, you'll be doing one thing all the time.

The mechanic of the -5 to hit for x2, x3 and eventually x4 damage is... sort of annoying.

People will pick up anything that increases raw average damage, and will do what they can to increase to-hit, in order to mitigate the penalty.

The penalty will be noticeable most of the time, as monsters AC scales.

I could see this feat turning into a mook-killer feat and being used with cleave and/or great cleave. I don't know if I want fighters to be restricted to that role alone. Not all adventures, let alone all fights, have a noticeable amount of mooks; potentially making this feat more than useless.