Vital Strike/Improved Vital Strike are good ideas. Unfortunately, there are two problems.
1. They require two feats to use them. This is bad. They should be merged so that characters who don't have a million feats aren't boned.
2. They use base weapon damage instead of a flat value. Now, why is this so bad (and why is it the more important issue)? The feat's benefits are too lopsided: players with a large amount of base weapon damage are like, "Yay, Vital Strike" while players using short swords or daggers are like, "Wow, what a junk feat." For instance, suppose that one were to use a greatsword (2d6) and then get larger via enlarge person (improving damage to 3d6). Well, with Improved Vital Strike, you just got a bonus +18d6 damage, assuming that both your attacks hit. Unfortunately, the poor fellow stuck using a short sword (1d6) gets a whopping +6d6 if both his attacks hit.
Now, for monks, this gets into ridiculous territory. Let's take a monk with a base unarmed damage of 2d8. Since he probably has Improved Natural Attack (since that's kind of assumed for monks), his attacks do a base of 3d8 damage. At that level, he can use Vital Strike (assuming he hasn't multiclassed to get better BAB). Each attack that he does is going to do +6d8 damage. For the sake of argument, let's assume that his three attacks at +11 damage hit. Well, he just did +18d8 damage. That's okay, considering the power of the greatsword fighter. However, if the monk decides to get a +16 BAB by level 20--advisable--or do the TWF thing, his damage is going to skyrocket. If he gets Improved Vital Strike, his attacks are going to do +9d8 damage each. If he uses TWF, he's going to be getting a lot of attacks, each that does +6d8 damage each.
Oh, and at level 20 (assuming all monk levels)? +8d8 damage per attack.
We clearly have a problem. Very much so. This is what is known as a "bad thing."
Personally, I think that the effects of Vital Strike/Improved Vital Strike should be a median between the two extremes: dagger users don't get boned and big characters don't do infinite damage. I'd say something like a flat +2d8 to +3d8 damage per attack would work better.
Thoughts?
Bump.
It's definately a problem, particularly for the greatsword, and natural weapons. Throwing vital strike on, say, a Large or bigger dragon, yields a whole bunch of pain for sacrificing a single wing attack. Maybe it should be more binary, and shouldn't scale with the weapon die type.
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It's definately a problem, particularly for the greatsword, and natural weapons. Throwing vital strike on, say, a Large or bigger dragon, yields a whole bunch of pain for sacrificing a single wing attack. Maybe it should be more binary, and shouldn't scale with the weapon die type.
It would be easy to edit the feat to only apply when you sacrifice an iterative attack, thus ruling out the dragon or other multi-natural attack option.
Even if one would have to sacrifice an iterative attack, monk/fighters can still break the feat and greatsword users will still bend it quite a bit.
Even if one would have to sacrifice an iterative attack, monk/fighters can still break the feat and greatsword users will still bend it quite a bit.
A Scottish claymore used to be known for cleaving an enemy in two, literally.
That said, I could see a cap on this, say d10?
This would still benefit larger weapons and not let dagger wielders get the same benefit.
I agree that it should be an iterative attack that is given up.
Again, why not just make it a set amount so that characters with short swords don't get screwed?
Again, why not just make it a set amount so that characters with short swords don't get screwed?
Larger weapons should do more damage, as they have other penalties.
You can't even swing a two-handed sword in small tunnels, but you can still use that short sword.
You can hide a short sword under your tunic/cloak. I have yet to see a 2-handed sword so hidden.
I agree with Psychic Robot on this one.
Higher damage weapons' higher damage is multiplied on Crits, while Vital Strike bonus damage currently isn't.
They will still be doing more damage no matter what.
Note the similarity in terminology between Vital Strike and the Rogue's Sneak Attack (& Precison Damage overall)
Sneak Attack doesn't use larger dice if you're using a Bastard Sword.
I think this ability could actually use an UPGRADE (particularly Imp. VS, see here),
but that's easier to do without completely unbalancing it, if the bonus damage isn't variant on the weapon.
Vital Strike/ IVS seem like the model for "high level Melee Feats" in Pathfinder (the damage-increasing kind),
which they only seem to only need a bit of tweaking to pull off very well. These are the equivalent of how 5th or 7th level Spells increase a Caster's power, for comparison's sake, so the bar should be raised beyond what we expect from something like Power Attack or even Spring Attack, for example.
Looking at the proposed new Feats like "Step Up", I see more "non-Damage" abilities that let the Melee Combatant get around the normal rules that most characters are subject to, and I sense a trend to more Swift and Immediate Action type Abilities which have in 3.5 mostly been the domain of Casters, and which I think is a good direction to develop for Melee Combatants.