D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 power attack: the designers' rationale

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

IIRC a natural attack is always a "light" weapon and is never two-handed (unlike a slam), so Power Attack should work normally for a dragon's tail attack.

I'm pretty sure this will be explained in the Monster Manual.

 

[Lotus]

Also, how do criticals interact with PA in 3.0 vs. 3.5? Let's say you have a +2 keen falchion, improved crit, 12 BAB and 22 STR, against AC 25.

You hit on rolls of 5, 10, 15 for 2d4+11 (16 damage average). You average 1.65 hits/round, so 26.4 damage. You crit .6975 times per round, so the average is 37.56 damage/round.

PA 1 point: hit on 6, 11, 16 for 2d4+13 (18 damage average). You average 1.5 hits/round, so 27 damage. You crit .625 times per round, so the average is 38.25 damage/round.

PA 2 points: hit on 7, 12, 17 for 2d4+15 (20 damage average). You average 1.35 hits/round, so 27 damage. You crit is .5565 times/round, so the average is 38.13 damage/round. We've already passed the optimum of 1.

Going slightly OT but just out of personal curiosity, changing keen to flaming with that optimum 1 point PA, but keeping the Improved Crit feat, we have:

Hit on 6, 11, 16 for 2d4+1d6+13 (21.5 damage average). 32.25 non-crit dmg per round, crit chance is .4375, so total average damage is 40.125. (EDIT: corrected to remove elemental die from crit damage)

With a +1 flaming shock falchion, making the optimum PA 0 -- kinda back to proving a point:

Hit on 6, 11, 16 for 2d4+2d6+11 (23 damage average). 41.5 per round with crits. (EDIT: corrected to remove elemental dice from crit damage)

Now of course if you drop the AC below 25 or raise it above 38, PA does help. In the best case for PA -- a disabled opponent or inanimate object -- this character can cause 72 more damage in a single round. Nothing to sneeze at, if that's something you need to do.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Okay, as promised, the Cleric-build analysis.

The spells that Celtavian proposed were Divine Favor, Righteous Might, Prayer, and Bless. As he later noted, Prayer doesn't stack with Divine Favor.

First thing to note: These are all short-term buffs. Righteous Might has a 1 round per level duration, Divine Favor has a 1 minute duration, and Bless has a 1 minute per level duration.

Righteous Might is a level 5 Cleric spell, so minimum Cleric levels for this combo are 9. Minimum Wisdom of 15.

Let's assume a character who started out with a 14 Wisdom and a 16 Strength, and then buffed Wisdom by 1 at level 4 or 8, and did Strength for the other, and ended up with some guantlets or whatever giving him a 19 Str.

Character uses a Greatsword +2.

Attack bonus after full buffing: +6 (BAB) +6 (Str w/ Righteous Might) +1 (Bless) +3 (Divine Favor) +2 (magic) +1 (Weapon focus) = +20/+15

Damage: 2d8 (size Huge greatsword) +8 (str) +2 (magic) +3 (Divine Favor) = 22 before crits, 24.2 after.


Against an AC 15 opponent:

• 
  For a partial attack, if the cleric PA's for the maximum he can (+/- 6), then he still hits on a 2+, so he just goes ahead and gets +12 to damage. That ends up being 37.4 damage, about 150% what he'd do without PA, and about 120% what he'd do with 3.0 PA (that is, 30.8 damage).
  
  For a full attack, the optimal PA is still max (6), for 63.58 expected damage. That's, again, about 150% of his un-PA'd damage (45.98), and about 120% of his 3.0 PA'd damage (52.36).

Against an AC 20 opponent:

• 
  For a partial attack, the optimal PA is 5 points, giving an average damage of 28.16. This compares to an un-PA'd average damage of 22.99, or a 3.0 PA (for 2) of 24.89.
  
  For a full attack, the optimal PA is 4 points, giving an average damage of 47.85. That's in comparison to no PA for 42.35.

Against an AC 25 opponent:

• 
  For a partial attack, the optimal PA is 2 or 3 (they're actually exactly the same average damage) for 20.02 expected. That's in comparison to 19.36 damage with no PA.
  
  For a full attack, the optimal PA is 1, for 33 damage, as compared to not PAing for 32.67.

In closing, I'd say that this is a pretty decent combo against lower-AC opponents, but hardly out-of-line with the kind of damage you'd expect to do with a three-temporary-buff combo.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

The point is that the first fighter has two feats that are unaccounted for, so we don't know if they'll have a direct effect on damage, single attacks, etc. That's why I'd classify it as unfair - you're giving the second guy two extra feats. Of course he's better! That's like claiming someone's a faster runner because he won a race from a 50 foot head start.

No, it's not. There are no other reasonably core feats that have that kind of direct effect on attack, damage, and number of attacks per round. Yes, there are feats which approach them in sneaky ways -- but in terms of "always there, always on" abilities, nothing compares to the feats I listed. That's one reason why people are so excited about the new GWF and GWS feats -- there really isn't anything like them in 3.0.

Take them both down 2-3 levels so they don't have those 2 extra feats, and then compare them. The gap will still be present, because of Ambidexterity, but it will be a lot smaller.

The levels they're at are important. There are prerequisites for most of those feats: Improved Critical requires an 8+ (?) BAB, GWF requires Fighter Level 8, GWS requires Fighter Level 12, ITWF requires a 6+ BAB, and GTWF requires an 11+ BAB.

Well, unless you're restricting to core books only, GTWF was in 3.0 as of Masters of the Wild.

Whatever. One fewer feat for somewhat better benefits instead of same number of feats for signficantly better benefits, then. Same song, different verse.

 

[Otterscrubber]

Can anyone tell me how 3.5 Power attack differs from 3.0 Power Attack?

 

[Dimwhit]

If you use your weapon two-handed, for every point you take off your to hit, you add two points to damage. I don't think it applies to light weapons.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Can anyone tell me how 3.5 Power attack differs from 3.0 Power Attack?

3.5 Power Attack, roughly paraphrased:

On your turn, you may choose to take a penalty to all attack rolls until your next turn. This penalty may not exceed your BAB. If you do so, you get a bonus to damage with all non-light attacks in that round. For one-handed, non-light weapons, you get a damage bonus equal to the value of the penalty you took. For two-handed weapons, you get a damage bonus equal to twice the penalty you took. Light weapons get no damage bonus, but still take the attack penalty.


So, for example:

If I'm using a greatsword, and I attack using a PA of 2, I take a -2 to hit, and get +4 to damage.

If I'm using a longsword, and I attack using a PA of 2, I take -2 to hit, and get +2 to damage.

If I'm using a shortsword, and I (stupidly) attack using a PA of 2, I take -2 to hit, and get +0 to damage.



EDIT: Grammar.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

If you're using a two-handed weapon, for every point of attack bonus you lose, you dish out +2 damage.

With monster ACs going up and DR being changed (eg not always ignored) it probably isn't as overpowering as these examples show.

(I really hope there won't be any CR 10 AC 15 creatures.)

 

[Mike Sullivan]

(I really hope there won't be any CR 10 AC 15 creatures.)

There probably will be some -- there are quite a lot in 3.0 -- but they're likely to also be kind of weird cases. For example, bigger versions of generally low CR monsters (zombies, animated objects), or monsters that are primarily intended for a support or spellcasting role (the Coatl, for example, has a terrible AC in 3.0 (14, I think), but I don't think that you're really supposed to be fighting coatls too much, and certainly it's not supposed to be a melee beast).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

http://pub36.ezboard.com/fgameschat19968frm10.showMessage?topicID=361.topic

I based my response on the above link.

In any event, all the character IMC carry ranged weapons, even if they're melee warriors. Their attack bonuses aren't quite as high, but they'll still skewer a couatl. In fact, getting to a mage who doesn't fly is quite easy - Tumble (rogue, monk!), summon monster, direct-damage, etc.

The couatl is a spellcaster, so it should cast mage armor, shield, mirror image and the like to defend itself in combat. There are 3.0 monsters that don't cast spells with wussy AC scores, however.

As Andy pointed some, if every monster had a high AC then a fighter could never use Combat Expertise or Power Attack. Still, I'd like to see some monsters get a better AC score.