Vult's page

So this is one of those feats that you are not going to see used near as much as characters rise in level...correct? When you get 2 3 or 4 attacks around why are you going to give all of those up to cleave?

I still always saw PA as a way for melee'ers to scale their damage with casters. Now I am not saying that it made the damage equal, nor should it be equal...but at higher levels it is obvious that melee damage caps out MUCH MUCH lower than spell damage. This is not balanced and with this new PA it is still not balanced. Casters will always do more damage, but let us melee guys stay in the running a little. I dont want to watch the caster get the glory in every game because he can dish out over 60+ points a round to more than one enemy!

This is the essence of the problem with the PF change, it takes away the sword swingers ability to keep up.

jasin wrote:

BrokenShade wrote:

Well, it's not hard to get up to a Strength bonus of +9 by about level 8, and +11 by level 16. So I wouldn't say it tops out too low.

Not hard? I suppose it can be done: Str 18, +2 from race, +2 from level-based increases, +6 item will get you a +9 bonus. But that seems pretty extreme. Am I missing some other obvious way to get you Str up so high?

Raging. Enlarge Person.

Robert

yea barbarians with their rage ability would get a better benefit from PA than most...but then again I play in a campaign where barbarian is the only disallowed class *shrug*

Oooh, I don't like this... this pretty much castrates my barbarians and swashbuckler-types. In order to get that +5 max bonus that Combat Expertise used to be able to provide I now need to have a 20 Intelligence Fighter? Huh? If I was that smart, I would have played a Wizard... and being higher level won't help since the feat specifies that your bonus is limited to your Int bonus or your base attack bonus "whichever is LOWER." Ugh... this means that a swashbuckler character concept now needs an exceptionally high score in Intelligence, as well as my normal tall-orders for above average scores in Dex, Str, Con, and Charisma. (Poor Wisdom, once again being relegated to the status of "dump stat.") I just don't see this new feat description being at all useful in the long run... at best, it will give an average of +1 or maybe a generous +2 to your average fighter or rogue type, unless you revert to the crutch of having magic items that boost your Intelligence, which have their own problems since they are really only good for boosting Wizard's spell DCs and some Skill checks, and now this. Plus, if you think the party Wizard is going to stand by while the Fighter snakes the gloves of Fox's Cunning, you may have a lightning bolt spell coming your way sometime soon.

Power Attack looks like it's less limiting because of the natural attraction for Fighters to have strength boosting magic items, but only slightly. What about campaigns which prefer to use low magic thresholds, where wands and magic quarterstaves don't grow on trees, and Ye Olde Magic Item Shoppes are still less common than a medieval 7-11? What about those Fighters and Paladins who prefer to show that they can still kick some Epic Fantasy butt while still sporting only a slightly higher than norm Strength score?

Either way, regarding both feats... the old application was fine, balanced by losing to hit bonuses (although I do appreciate the clarification of when Combat Expertise could be used). You balanced sacrificing accuracy for either...

QFT!!

Vult wrote:

lastknightleft wrote:

Personally I'm a fan of the change to power attack, there's no real power modulation in exchange for accuracy in melee the way PA worked, The new version nails the way a power attack would actually occur where strength is traded for accuracy. PA in 3.5 was supposed to represent one thing and instead became something completely different.

I think you have it all wrong...If I am giving up my accuracy to do more damage then it is not my brute strength that is helping me hit harder, but my ability with my weapon that is why the bonus should come from BAB, not your Str score. Your skill is doing the damage here, not your muscles.

And I think that it doesn't change the fact that warriors don't trade up minor differences in accuracy for slightly more damage. A warrior doing damage with weapon skill can do it without loosing accuracy. Unless you are regarding the to hit loss as an increase in AC due to targeting a smaller area, in which case it is a targeted strike, not a power attack. A power attack implies (and the designers have stated it was their intention to represent) going all out and throwing your strength behind an attack which does result in a loss of accuracy. But the feat was represented something else. And the arguments I have heard for power attack are usually arguments that would make more sense when applied to an accurate weapon like a rapier. Which weapon gains more from the 3.5 version of PA a rapier or a great axe?

Ok, then the question is...how is it now possible with PF to get anything near the damage output that you could in 3.5 with Power attack. It was a great skill that if you did not balance properly it worked against you (give up to much to hit and actually end up missing). Now it is severely weakened and I see no other feat that compares.

Thank you :)

Personally I'm a fan of the change to power attack, there's no real power modulation in exchange for accuracy in melee the way PA worked, The new version nails the way a power attack would actually occur where strength is traded for accuracy. PA in 3.5 was supposed to represent one thing and instead became something completely different.

I think you have it all wrong...If I am giving up my accuracy to do more damage then it is not my brute strength that is helping me hit harder, but my ability with my weapon that is why the bonus should come from BAB, not your Str score. Your skill is doing the damage here, not your muscles.

BrokenShade wrote:

Well, it's not hard to get up to a Strength bonus of +9 by about level 8, and +11 by level 16. So I wouldn't say it tops out too low.

Not hard? I suppose it can be done: Str 18, +2 from race, +2 from level-based increases, +6 item will get you a +9 bonus. But that seems pretty extreme. Am I missing some other obvious way to get you Str up so high?

This particularly is rough for me in my campaign. As we do not play a game where magic items are dropping off trees and 18's were not even allowed at character gen, getting a bonus of more than 3 or 4 is going to be very very hard :(

Shameless bump...

Not a bad suggestion for a solution there...but it would be simpler just to leave it the way it was...IMHO.

I think Jess Door is on the right track her. I think that is the perfect solution.

I have read this on quite a few magic items but I do not fully understand. Can anyone reference a page number for me that spells it out, or give me some clue as to what it means?

I have thought about it, and it can not possibly mean that the item ceases to give you the bonus after 24 hours of use (to much gold). Then on the other hand I can not see it becoming a permanent effect after said time either.

Any help would be appreciated.

Has there been any recent discussion over the obvious nerf to these two feats?

I was hoping that they would revert back to the old form with the Beta but that was not the case.

Power attack now tops out very low, and Combat expertise is useless unless you are a pure caster who has a very high INT.

I play a paladin right now in 3.5 and my two starting feats were Power attack and Combat expertise. I did this because I like the control it gives me over my character for a given combat. With these new rules for these two feats my character is going to see some drastic changes. I am not saying that it ruins me, but it will completely change the way he runs...and honestly I liked the way it was.