Can someone please give a few examples of how this works?
I've been playing 3.5 for a bit... and have been looking at the new books (GREAT ART!). After scanning them for the little things... both of these things, especially Power Attack... seem wonky. Clearly Furious Focus was not meant to transfer directly to 3.5... you must make use of the PF Power Attack, right?
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Can someone please give a few examples of how this works?
I've been playing 3.5 for a bit... and have been looking at the new books (GREAT ART!). After scanning them for the little things... both of these things, especially Power Attack... seem wonky. Clearly Furious Focus was not meant to transfer directly to 3.5... you must make use of the PF Power Attack, right?
Right, this definitely would only work with the Pathfinder mechanic for Power attack. In practice It works like this. Fen is an 11th level Paladin with power attack.
His normal attack is +19/+14/+9. When he power attacks (a -3 penalty at 11th level), the attack would be +16/+11/+6. Unless Fen the Paladin also had Furious Focus. This allows him to forgo the penalty on that first attack. Thus, his attacks are +19/+11/+6.
Does that help?
what are the prerequisites for furious focus?
Power Atack now have an ON/OFF button. You just want to use it or not, do not have to choose how much to swap for damage. When ON, you decrease your attack by 1 plus 1 for every 4 BAB, and increase your damage by 2 plus 2 for every 4 BAB (if you're weilding a 2-handed weapon, the increases are by 3, if off-hand, by 1).
So we have:
BAB___penalty to hit_______________increase in damage
_______________________one handed___two handed___off-handed
1-3________-1______________+2___________+3__________+1
4-7________-2______________+4___________+6__________+2
8-11_______-3______________+6___________+9__________+3
12-15______-4______________+8___________+12_________+4
16-19______-5______________+10__________+15_________+5
20_________-6______________+12__________+18_________+6
Furious Focus let you skip the penalty on the first attack in the turn (like the first attack in a full-attack or when you just move and attack, or charge) when using a weapon 2-handed. Very nice feat, specially for mobile fighters.
And yes, it was not meant to be used in 3.5. The penalties here are way low than 3.5 PA. The feat gets somewhat unbalanced with it...
what are the prerequisites for furious focus?
Str 13, Power Atack, BAB +1
I, for one, hate the Pathfinder Power Attack due to lack of optimization. I have players who really do want to take a -1, or -2, or -3, -5 or whatever no matter what level they are. The flat penalty and bonus is HORRID.
Therefore, I'm going to use it for the 3.5 Power Attack but have it where it decreases the penalty by half, rounded up. Simple fix.
This feat works with 3.5 but you have to tweak it to balance things. There's not way you want someone taking a -20 to hit with furious Focus as is. The simple fix is to have Furious Focus limit power attack as per Pathfinder Power attack. You can still choose the negative but you can only negate up to certain amount. So at 10th in PF you'd have a power attack of -3 so Furious Focus give you negates 3 off you power attack for the first hit. You can still take -20 and it would -17 instead.
As for power attack I use the PF power attack and allow players to pick the level of negative. So at 10th the can -1, -2, or -3. That's my house rule on it.
The flat penalty and bonus is HORRID.
No, it isn't, it's balanced, easier to track and it stops the 3.5 nonsense.
is there anything stopping you from using this on a charge attck?
is there anything stopping you from using this on a charge attck?
Nope.
Frankly, this feat is awesome for anyone with a 3/4th BAB or anyone who wants to, say, trip as their first attack, but doesn't want to suffer the -4 on the trip and potentially waste it.
Very cool, just not quite that amazing for fighters, who will likely always hit with their first attack anyways.
The flat penalty and bonus is HORRID.No, it isn't, it's balanced, easier to track and it stops the 3.5 nonsense.
Explain this, because we've been using Power Attack for years and it's always been a much better, tactical, and beneficial feat when you can adjust it using BAB than a flat penalty/damage bonus as Pathfinder has it.
How is it unbalanced the old way? If a PC knew an enemy's AC was 24, and so he decides to just offset his PA by -2 or -3 for a little extra damage, that doesn't make things unbalanced at all. The penalty is still there.
Whereas the flat penalty, the PCs at higher level are forced to take a -3 or -4 penalty, and it maxes out, which sucks. If a PC wants to take a -15 penalty for +15 or +30 damage, go for it! Or if he's 18th-level and only wants to take a -1 or -2 for a little extra damage, fine. There is not many abilities that allow for attacks to be touch attacks and deal damage. Wraithstrike, Amulet of Heart Seeking, and the psionic feat Deep Impact? All them require using spell slots, magic items, and for the psionic feat, 1 attack only. So there's no unbalance there.
We've always pictured PA as 3E's version of a "called shot". You're giving up accuracy to strike precisely where it'll deal more damage. How much and how little SHOULD be a PC choice.
Shock Trooper. That's mainly the reason 3.5 PA was crazy - you could sacrifice your AC instead of your to hit, and in all likelihood turn whatever you're attacking into a fine red mist in that one round so the penalty never even came up.
If a PC knew an enemy's AC was 24
See, you already lost me when you said that.
A PC has never heard of AC. A PC is a "Player Character". That means the PC is Seoni the Sorceress, not Fred Smith who happens to have a character named Seoni.
So the PC has no idea what an AC is, or that an AC is 24 or 240 or whatever. No idea at all. All the PC knows is tha that the thing he's trying to hit has no armor, some armor, or lots of armor. It's either easy to hit or hard to hit, or somewhere in between. That's what the PC knows.
Now, if you're OK with metagaming at your table, and you allow the players to know the monsters' AC, that's your choice. And if they metagame by saying "well, the monster's AC is 24 so my PC will optimize his Power Attack in the following way..." that's your choice too.
But most of us don't play that way. In fact, I've met a few dozen DMs and I haven't met one yet who plays that way.
Sure, sometimes the players figure it out. Joe's PC hit on a 24 but Mary's PC missed on a 23, so I guess the monster has a 24 AC. Some of those players use that knowledge to optimize their game. We call this "metagaming" because the player is using knowledge that his PC, his character, could not possibly have.
Most DMs frown on this. Most (all?) role-players frown on this. But if it's cool for you and your players, then go for it. You're just not likely to get much sympathy online for it.
DM Blake has said it all. When a character power attacks, that means he puts all he's got into beating the crap out of something. He's not... giving a toggling percentage of his strenght into an attack.
The scaling penalty to hit represents, for example, that a high-level fighter has a good technique developed to hit, but he must sacrifice more and more proficiency to hit hard. Then again, his experience give him the ability to deal more damage as he hits. Hence, scaled penalties and damage makes perfect sense.
i don't disagree in theory but i have always been the type of player that when i use power attack i go all in, i either hit or miss but if i hit then what ever i hit dies
PF PA plays a lot better with multiple attacks. Since we've all sort of agreed that level 20 is a corner case, let's examine level 10.
3.5 PA you could take 10 off to get +10 or +20 for a 2h weapon. Taking 10 off your attack roll, when your total attack bonus is not likely to be more than +20, cuts your chances to hit in half. For each attack.
PF PA you take 3 off of your attack (15% less chance to hit) to add 6 or 9 to your damage. 1/3 the penalty to hit for 1/2 the amount of damage (very roughly) but you have a much better chance of hitting on iterative attacks.
With 3.5 PA the problems were manifold. One you would almost never hit on iterative attacks when you PA for full (save nat 20s), you had all the crazy shock trooper nonsense, and the metagame aspect (well if I only power attack for 6 I can only miss on a nat 2, yeah I'll do that). I much MUCH prefer PF power attack, in actual arithmetic, in simplicity and quickness to the combat, and just elegance of design.
3.5 PA you could take 10 off to get +10 or +20 for a 2h weapon. Taking 10 off your attack roll, when your total attack bonus is not likely to be more than +20, cuts your chances to hit in half. For each attack.
"cuts your chances" is not quite so simple to figure out.
Let's say the target you're swinging at is a purple worm that has an AC of 26. You are +20/+15. You need to roll a 6 and an 11 to hit. That's a 75% chance and a 50% chance respectively.
Now take -10 off of that, and you need to roll a 16 and a 21 to hit. That's 25% chance and 5% chance respectively. Your first attack is now exactly 1/3 as likely to hit (that's -66.6% rather than -50%) and your second attack is now only 1/10th as likely to hit (that's -90% rather than only -50%).
So your chances of hitting are way worse than "cut in half".
3.5 PA you could take 10 off to get +10 or +20 for a 2h weapon. Taking 10 off your attack roll, when your total attack bonus is not likely to be more than +20, cuts your chances to hit in half. For each attack."cuts your chances" is not quite so simple to figure out.
Let's say the target you're swinging at is a purple worm that has an AC of 26. You are +20/+15. You need to roll a 6 and an 11 to hit. That's a 75% chance and a 50% chance respectively.
Now take -10 off of that, and you need to roll a 16 and a 21 to hit. That's 25% chance and 5% chance respectively. Your first attack is now exactly 1/3 as likely to hit (that's -66.6% rather than -50%) and your second attack is now only 1/10th as likely to hit (that's -90% rather than only -50%).
So your chances of hitting are way worse than "cut in half".
What I meant to say is reduces your chances of hitting by 50%. Brain fart, okay? Do you at least agree in sentiment that new PA is statistically BETTER?
The new PA may be less powerful. But think of it this way.
The monsters? Are less powerful too.
I recently had a 3.5 adventure adapted to pathfinder.
If the main thing had the 3.5 power attack. It would of TPKed the party. Easily.
The old PA worked properly only with optimization. And with optimization (4 feats), just made enemies explode.
The current one is an alternative "stance" for the warrior. It works greatly, doesn't need game mastery to work, and avoids metagame.
The new PA may be less powerful.
I actually think it is MORE powerful if you are just comparing the two feats. The only thing that made the old power attack really powerful were the supplements.