(Improved) Vital Strike? Got a problem.

[Dyfnahk]

Well, i´m new in posting so if that´s not the place I ask apologizes previously.

There are 2 feats I got a problem with, Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike. There are simple feats but we had a problem using them with a dual wield warrior.

Pathfinder wrote:

Vital Strike (Combat)

By taking one less attack, you can focus your remaining
attacks to deal more damage.
Prerequisites: base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: When performing a full-attack action, you get
one fewer attack (usually the one at your lowest bonus).
Any other attacks that hit as part of this full-attack action
deal additional damage. Roll the damage dice for all such
attacks twice, but do not multiply damage bonuses from
Strength, weapon abilities, such as f laming, or precisionbased
damage, such as sneak attack. This bonus damage is
not multiplied on a critical hit.

Pathfinder wrote:

Improved Vital Strike (Combat)

By taking two less attacks, you can deal a great deal of
additional damage.
Prerequisites: Vital Strike, base attack bonus +16.
Benefit: When performing a full-attack action, you get
two fewer attacks (usually the two at your lowest bonus).
Any other attacks that hit as part of this full-attack action
deal additional damage. Roll the damage dice for all such
attacks three times, but do not multiply damage bonuses
from Strength, weapon abilities, such as f laming, or
precision-based damage, such as sneak attack. This bonus damage is
not multiplied on a critical hit.

To get the +2D8 to a one handed sword (for a +3D8 total), the warrior has to take the two fewer attacks (wich means the lowest with main hand and the lowest with off-hand) or has to take off the 2 fewest atack of each hand ¿?.

the different are: 3 attacks with MH // 2 attacks with OH - 3d8 dmg
2 attacks with MH // 1 attack with OH - 3d8 dmg

Please help! ^^!

[Majuba]

It simply says one (or two) fewer attacks, not per hand.

It is exceptionally good for a dual wielding character in my opinion.

The most interesting part of these feats is that you typically lose the attacks that you may not even have made - if for instance you roll a natural 1 on one of your earlier attacks and don't complete the rest of the attacks [this may be considered an optional rule by the way].

Also, a duel-wielding character who has one really good weapon and one bad weapon could drop just the off hand attacks (4 primary, 1 secondary in your above example). Even completely annul the off-hand attacks if he only has Improved Two-Weapon Fighting - but the -2 penalty on the primary hand attacks would remain. There are trade-offs of course.

[Skeld]

Majuba wrote:

Also, a duel-wielding character who has one really good weapon and one bad weapon could drop just the off hand attacks (4 primary, 1 secondary in your above example). Even completely annul the off-hand attacks if he only has Improved Two-Weapon Fighting - but the -2 penalty on the primary hand attacks would remain. There are trade-offs of course.

I would thik that you wouldn't be able to drop off-hand attacks to gain on-hand damage. It makes more sense to me to drop extra on-hand attacks to gain on-hand damage.

I mean, if your on-hand is a dagger and your off-hand is a short sword (for whatever reason), you could forgo an off-hand attack to add 1d6 to your dagger (which is 1d4)? That doesn't seem right.

-Skeld

[Dyfnahk]

Skeld wrote:

I would thik that you wouldn't be able to drop off-hand attacks to gain on-hand damage. It makes more sense to me to drop extra on-hand attacks to gain on-hand damage.

I mean, if your on-hand is a dagger and your off-hand is a short sword (for whatever reason), you could forgo an off-hand attack to add 1d6 to your dagger (which is 1d4)? That doesn't seem right.

-Skeld

As long as I interpretate the feat, you have 1 round to do 7 attacs (4+3, if u decided to use this combat feat u get 2 fewer attacks, u use all the time of the round in fewer attacks so you have more time-per-attack ratio using this time in improving your accuracy in focus in the vital strike.

That´s mi explanation, I think is more apropiate a racional interpretation than a "magic user" interpretation... is a warrior combat feat, after all.

[Hal Maclean]

Good feats. You can do extra damage with the "money attack" by sacrificing the ones that probably won't hit the target anyway. Also great for players who hate rolling all those dice... :)

As mentioned above though, I think the intent is that you must give up attacks with the weapon whose damage you seek to augment. Otherwise I'd look for a way to do an unarmed attack as part of a full-round attack and then sacrifice that to boost my weapon damage.

If there isn't a feat that lets you do that already (and something about the idea rings a bell) it would only take about five minutes to create one.

[Dyfnahk]

Hal Maclean wrote:

Otherwise I'd look for a way to do an unarmed attack as part of a full-round attack and then sacrifice that to boost my weapon damage.

If u loose near 5 feats in improving your secondary attacks and losing accuracy in your main hand, and having a +FUE instead of 1.5FUE Bonus... really don´t worth it.

[Majuba]

Some saying it's overly powerful, some saying it's not worth it.. sounds like we have a balanced feat :)

Seriously - there is nothing in the feat to preclude dropping off-hand attacks to add to primary hand damage. There are detriments to that, and to the other methods described, and I think overall things balance out. We are talking about a cap of 11 average damage more per hit (bastard sword with improved vital strike) - barring size changes.

Not nothing of course, but that's at least 4 feats used, and the loss (as noted above) 1.5X strength mod + 2xpower attack potential.