first I'd like to say I just downloaded the beta test and have shown it to some of my players and are exited to test it. But I have a question about the Channel negative energy. If an evil cleric uses this is he unaffected by it or is he also harmed by his own ability. Also One of my player wants to know why you have both Great cleave and whirlwind. I figure its cause whirlwind is slightly better and takes more to get to, but they do almost seem redundant.
Thanks for your time.
Channel: As far as I know, the channeler can choose whether or not he's included in his channel. So your average evil cleric will not harm himself (undead clerics, or maybe clerics who managed to let themselves be healed by negative energy, will of course choose differently).
As for cleave/whirlwind: Beats me. I guess that great cleave will be different in the finished game.
my next question is with power attack. So the way its writen a first level fighter with a 18 str will get -4 to hit and +8 damage with a two-handed weapon.
so at low level this will be much stronger but at higher lvl it won't be so strong.
first I'd like to say I just downloaded the beta test and have shown it to some of my players and are exited to test it. But I have a question about the Channel negative energy. If an evil cleric uses this is he unaffected by it or is he also harmed by his own ability.
By way of answer, I give you the text from the PF Beta. Note the last line (emphasis mine).
Channel Negative Energy
When you channel negative energy, you unleash a wave of negative energy in a 30-foot burst. All living creatures in this radius take 1d6 points of negative energy damage plus 1d6 points of negative energy damage for every two cleric levels you have attained beyond 1st (1d6 at 1st level, 2d6 at 3rd, 3d6 at 5th, and so on). Living creatures in this radius are allowed a Will save that results in half damage. The DC of this save is equal to 10 + 1/2 your cleric level + your Charisma modifier. You can choose whether or not to include yourself in this effect.
Also One of my player wants to know why you have both Great cleave and whirlwind. I figure its cause whirlwind is slightly better and takes more to get to, but they do almost seem redundant.
Great Cleave requires you to keep hitting. First time you miss, your great cleave ends. If you have 4 opponents, and miss the first one, you're done. You can't make the other three attacks.
Also, Great Cleave requires your enemies to be adjacent to each other, so you cannot use it against a foe in front of you and a foe behind you, or against a foe in front diagonally to the left and another foe in front diagonally to the right, etc.
Whirlwind Attack lets you attack everyone with your best attack bonus, regardless of whether you hit or miss, and regardless of whether they are adjacent to each other. This can get fairly impressive with a reach weapon, hitting anyone within a 25'x25' square except the middle 15'x15'.
However, Whirlwind Attack says "When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities."
I read this to mean Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Training, True Strike, etc., will all give you no bonus to your attack rolls with Whirlwind Attack. Reading more into it, they also don't help your damage rolls (most of that list doesn't anyway, but this restriction also applies to feats like Weapon Specialization).
That's a huge penalty to Whirlwind Attack. I haven't playtested it, but my gut feeling is that there are precious few situations where I would rather make a Whirlwind Attack without most of my bonuses to hit and damage than simply make my iterative attacks and rely on Cleave and Great Cleave, which makes me very reluctant to try to even get this feat, or to worry about putting that 13 into a fighter's INT so he can qualify for this feat line.
Thanks somehow I missed that in the negative energy part.
my next question is with power attack. So the way its writen a first level fighter with a 18 str will get -4 to hit and +8 damage with a two-handed weapon.
Power Attack is limited by either your strength or your BAB, whichever is lower. Said fighter, having a BAB of only 1, will only get -1/+2. At level 20, the same fighter (with the same strength score) will get -4/+8.
However, Whirlwind Attack says "When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities."
I read this to mean Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Training, True Strike, etc., will all give you no bonus to your attack rolls with Whirlwind Attack.
You know what, you're right.
I guess they changed that again. Fighters should be encouraged to use that feat.
my next question is with power attack. So the way its writen a first level fighter with a 18 str will get -4 to hit and +8 damage with a two-handed weapon.
so at low level this will be much stronger but at higher lvl it won't be so strong.
No, a first level fighter with an 18 STR will get -1 to hit and +2 damage with a two-handed weapon.
Add an amount equal to your Strength modifier (or your base attack bonus, whichever is lower) to your melee damage rolls for 1 round
Since his BAB is only 1, it is lower than his STR modifier, so the bonus is capped at the BAB, not at the STR mod.
At 4th level, his BAB is 4 and his STR mod is 4, so he will be -4 to hit and +8 damage with a two-handed weapon, as you said.
At higher levels, it's reasonable to assume a fighter will increase his STR. A 10th level fighter should have at least a 22 or maybe a 24, so he would be -6/+12 or -7/+14.
Yes, it's true that +8 damage hurts most CR 4 monsters more than +14 damage will hurt a CR 10 monster. So by that definition, you're right, Power Attack is weaker at higher level when compared to the HP of the enemies your fighter will likely be fighting.
But don't forget that at lower levels, takig a -4 to hit can easily mean getting lots of misses. What if you need a 16 to hit the monster? Taking a -4 now means you need a natural 20, and you've reduced your chance of hitting by 75%.
At higher levels, the loss of -6 or -7 (staying with my level 10 example) is usually not as significant.
This means Power Attack is likely to cause more misses at lower levels and fewer misses at higher levels, which offsets some of the lost damage efficiency by letting you damage your enemies more often.
And finally, remember Power Attack affects you for your whole round. At higher levels your fighter will make more attacks in a round, meaning he gets more chances to hit his enemies and therefore more chances to use his increased damage modifier from this feat. That offsets a little more of the lost damage efficiency by letting you damage your enemies more often.
All in all, it's still one of the best feats around, especially for anyone wielding a two-handed weapon.
Comparison at 4th level, assuming a +1 weapon and Weapon Focus and Weapon Sepcialization, with an 18 STR:
Fighter with a longsword: +6 to hit, d8+11 damage (average 15.5 damage)
Fighter with a greatsword: +6 to hit, 2d6+17 damage (average 24 damage)
Not a bad price to pay for the loss of a shield.
However, Whirlwind Attack says "When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities."
I read this to mean Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Training, True Strike, etc., will all give you no bonus to your attack rolls with Whirlwind Attack.
You know what, you're right.
I guess they changed that again. Fighters should be encouraged to use that feat.
Which feat are you encouraging fighters to use?
I myself am not sure I'm imprssed with WWA, I might encourage fighters to playtest it, but I probably would not encourage them to create a build specifically around it.
On the other hand, PA is still a great feat and I would always encourage fighters to consider PA as a standard, almost "must have" feat.
Ok that makes more sense, guess the idea was to power down power attack alittle. Thanks for the help everyone. Otherwise everyone I've shown this has liked the changes especially to the classes.
Wait new question- it says "Add an amount equal to your Strength
modifier (or your base attack bonus, whichever is lower)
to your melee damage rolls for 1 round"
So this means if your 5th lvl with an 18 str you must add +4. You cant choose a lower number like the old power attack.
Wait new question- it says "Add an amount equal to your Strength
modifier (or your base attack bonus, whichever is lower)
to your melee damage rolls for 1 round"
So this means if your 5th lvl with an 18 str you must add +4. You cant choose a lower number like the old power attack.
Right-e-o.
They deliberately toned it down. It was too powerful. At the 3.5 version, Power Attack was absolutely a "must have" feat for any melee class.
Further, those players who are math geniuses could quickly figure out the exact sweet spot where the -hit penalty compared to the +damage bonus gave them the maximum net effect.
In other words, they metagamed and powergamed at the same time.
And, for many of them, figuring it out took some time. Slowed down the combat. Wasted everyone's time at the table.
While some folks don't believe that was bad, the guys at Paizo decided to tone down the Power Attack.
First, they limited it to the user's STR, which wasn't the case in 3.5. In 3.5, a level 20 fighter could go -20/+20 if he wanted to. In Pathfinder, he would need a 50 STR to do that.
Second, the limited it to the maximum value, so there's no more looking for that mathematical sweet spot.
Now nobody has to do any math on the fly. When you gain the feat, or when your STR or BAB changes, you change the Power Attack numbers and write them down, then use those same numbers in every combat until the next time your STR or BAB changes.
Easy peasy.
Which feat are you encouraging fighters to use?
I'd like to encourage fighters to use whirlwind attack, but if they lose all their feat bonuses and so on, they won't really be happy with the feat.
I still don't buy the new Power Attack.
The old one could also be used without any on the fly changes - just write down your preferred amount of PA.
If you do it on the fly, it can actually help: Instead of having to add +12/+7 to the attack roll, use power attack for two and have a nice round +10/+5.
My take on people taking too long for this was to whack them with the Stick of Pain.
I had no one who would run the stochastics in his head within a second and get the most use out of it, though. Maybe that really was bad.
However, Whirlwind Attack says "When you use the Whirlwind Attack feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats, spells, or abilities."
I read this to mean Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Training, True Strike, etc., will all give you no bonus to your attack rolls with Whirlwind Attack.
You know what, you're right.
I guess they changed that again. Fighters should be encouraged to use that feat.
You should check this thread to answer your questions.
This is a direct reply from Jason Bulmahn himself (also the last post of the thread):
I will get this clarified. Whirlwind will now state that you lose any additional attacks, but you should be able to use other feats, such as Weapon Finesse.Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
I've got a question too.
Power attack with an OverHand Chop feat is good but I don't see the point of the BackSwing feat as it appears to do the same thing except it's only usuable in full attack action on the first swing. Now OverHand Chop is a standard action and full attack actions can start with a standard action so what's the point of BackSwing then? That's stated in a round about way under "Deciding to Attack or Full Attack". Basically it say you can make an attack which is a standard action and decide if you want to use you move action to make a full attack or use it for something else. So Overhand chop is a standard action and an attack so you can use it then use your move action to to continue attacking as full attack.
So they buy Backswing which requires +6 BAC and overhand chop. It is only usuable in full attack where you get the exact same bonus as overhand chop only on the 1st attack. That's doesn't make any sense. If anything backswing is worse than overhand chop until you have BAC of +11. Shouldn't this feat be that it applies to all attacks in a full attack, that would make more sense.
I've got a question too.
Power attack with an OverHand Chop feat is good but I don't see the point of the BackSwing feat as it appears to do the same thing except it's only usuable in full attack action on the first swing. Now OverHand Chop is a standard action and full attack actions can start with a standard action so what's the point of BackSwing then? That's stated in a round about way under "Deciding to Attack or Full Attack". Basically it say you can make an attack which is a standard action and decide if you want to use you move action to make a full attack or use it for something else. So Overhand chop is a standard action and an attack so you can use it then use your move action to to continue attacking as full attack.
So they buy Backswing which requires +6 BAC and overhand chop. It is only usuable in full attack where you get the exact same bonus as overhand chop only on the 1st attack. That's doesn't make any sense. If anything backswing is worse than overhand chop until you have BAC of +11. Shouldn't this feat be that it applies to all attacks in a full attack, that would make more sense.
Overhand Chop, page 92:
"As a standard action, make a single attack with a two-handed melee weapon. If you hit, roll damage normally but add double your Strength bonus to the damage roll."Backswing, page 82:
"Benefit: When making a full-attack action with a two-handed
melee weapon, add double your Strength bonus to the damage roll of your first attack. If your base attack bonus is +11 or higher, add triple your Strength bonus to the damage roll of your first attack."
Basically, Backswing 'kicks-in' every time you make a full-attack action; Overhand Chop is a special standard action that allows you to make a single attack with a greater bonus - you are not merely taking a standard attack, the action is more similar to a Charge attack (except that a Charge is a full-round action, but you get my point).
For example, you cannot 'Overhand Chop' a Devastating Blow:
"As a standard action, make a single melee attack with a two-handed melee weapon at a –5 penalty. If you hit, you score a critical hit." (page 85).
Devastating Blow is another special standard action that cannot be combined with a Full-Attack action, since (by its own definition) allows a single melee attack - again, similar in concept to a Charge action.
As a side note, you said "So Overhand chop is a standard action and an attack so you can use it then use your move action to to continue attacking as full attack.", but by the rules you do not 'trade off' your move action to complete a full-round action... I think you are referring to this rule (page 139):
"Deciding Between an Attack or a Full Attack: After your first attack, you can decide to take a move action instead of making your remaining attacks, depending on how the first attack turns out."
The fact is, this says (more or less) that you can 'convert on the fly' (I know, this is not a good expression...) your Full-Attack action into a Standard Attack+ Move Action, not the reverse, and only after you have taken just your first attack. Plus, you can only do this when this particular first attack is made during a plain, basic Full-Attack action, not in a Full-round action that allows you to make some particular attacks (Whirlwind Attack, for example - if you activate Whirlwind Attack, you make a special single attack during your full-attack action; you cannot, however, change your mind after hitting your first target and convert it into a Standard Attack+Move action, because in this round you do not have other multiple attacks, since you have traded them all for the special Whirlwind Attack).
Thanx Wraith,
That was one of the ways we read it too but weren't sure if that's how it worked for sure which way it worked exactly. I think we actually had 3 different interpretations at one point.
Still a nice combo with Power Attack though.