Question about TWF Power Attack and Double Slice


Rules Questions


Hey all,

Obviously new to the forums.

So the Pathfinder PA feat causes a 50% reduction on the damage from PA on an off hand weapon, which of course matches the reduction of strength on an off hand weapon (50%).

If you have the double slice feat, allowing you to apply your entire strength bonus to your off hand, do you apply the full power attack damage bonus to your off hand?

Apologize if this has been asked before.


Soltan wrote:

Hey all,

Obviously new to the forums.

So the Pathfinder PA feat causes a 50% reduction on the damage from PA on an off hand weapon, which of course matches the reduction of strength on an off hand weapon (50%).

If you have the double slice feat, allowing you to apply your entire strength bonus to your off hand, do you apply the full power attack damage bonus to your off hand?

Apologize if this has been asked before.

No


Oh! Well okay. Thats annoying, but fair enough.


For a little more thorough of an answer, the reason is that Power Attack specifies that off-hand attacks only gain a 1:1 increase. Double Slice does not modify the wording of power attack, or the wording of how the off-hand weapon is treated.

If Double Slice were to do what you wished, it would have to state that the off-hand weapon is treated as if it were a main-hand weapon for the purposes of feats, abilities and such. It could even have made a specific mention of how it interacts with Power Attack.

As is, Double Slice simply modifies how much of the Strength modifier is applied to damage with an odd-hand weapon.

It is, however, not an unreasonable houserule that you might consider discussing with your GM.


For what it matters, according to Hero Lab, Double Slice, does, in fact, add full damage in conjunction with Power Attack, at least with a double sword.

I don't know if they have any special input from Paizo, or whether it's just their (HeroLabs) interpretation (or just a glitch), but it certainly seems well within the intention of Double Slice and certainly makes the book keeping easier.


unrelated question for Soltan:
Do you LARP?

The Exchange

As for the RAW, double slice doesn't change power attack like the others have said, but in our group we houserule that it does. For what it's worth, we haven't seen anything particularly broken about allowing it to work this way


Interesting that herolab applies the full bonus.

And I do understand what' you're saying about the double slice feat not specifying it modifies power attack. Conceptually it seems to me to make sense because of how TWF fighting and off hand attack works but without a dev clarification or a house rule you're probably right.

No, I don't LARP.


Sorry, one of our players has a character with the name Soltan, wondered if there was a connection. It never seemed that common of a name.


Soltan wrote:

Interesting that herolab applies the full bonus.

And I do understand what' you're saying about the double slice feat not specifying it modifies power attack. Conceptually it seems to me to make sense because of how TWF fighting and off hand attack works but without a dev clarification or a house rule you're probably right.

No, I don't LARP.

I meant just that. The feat makes no mention of modifying any other specific rules aside from how much of the strength modifier is applied to off-hand weapons. It would have to modify a rule that Power Attack depends on (such as modifying the type of attack it is considered) or directly modifying the wording of Power Attack.

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