Penetrating Strike... huh?

[Midnight_Angel]

PRD wrote:

Penetrating Strike (Combat)

Your attacks are capable of penetrating the defenses of some creatures.

Prerequisites: Weapon Focus, base attack bonus +1, 12th-level fighter, proficiency with weapon.

Benefit: Your attacks with weapons selected with Weapon Focus ignore up to 5 points of damage reduction. This feat does not apply to damage reduction without a type (such as DR 10/—).

Umm... is it just me, or is the BAB+1 prerequisite somewhat... odd? Last time I checked, a 12th-level fighter had a BAB of more than +1 hard-wired into his class features...

Second question: Do I assume correctly that, according to the feat text, a DR xx/epic can be penetrated quite nicely?

[Fozbek]

DR/epic has specific rules. It cannot be overcome by anything except an epic weapon.

[Drejk]

This is bit complex as this is specific rule as well. In fact it could be ruled that, as a feat, it is more specific rule than rather generic rule about epic damage reduction.

[Fozbek]

Considering that every Fighter ever will take Penetrating Strike as soon as they qualify while there are a grand total of like 5 creatures with DR/epic, and that the intent is obviously for DR/epic to ONLY be overcome by epic weapons and characters, I think it's pretty safe to say that the DR/epic rules are more specific. 95% or more of characters will never, ever encounter DR/epic. No Pathfinder Society character will ever encounter it. Yet pretty much every Fighter over level 11 (as well as several other classes and archetypes that can access Fighter feats and Penetrating Strike in specific) will take it. It's that good. It doesn't need to be any better, and a pre-Epic feat should never overcome any Epic threat.

[Midnight_Angel]

I must admit, I'd not allow the Feat to penetrate DR/epic (in my opinion, they kind of forgot to state it in the Feat)

This having been said, the lowest level when one of my characters encountered a BBEG with a DR/epic was at level four.

Yup, you read that right. And no, that was no homebrew adventure.

Spoiler:

Age of worms - need I say more?

[leo1925]

I also think that penetrating strike can ignore DR/epic, paladins can do it against evil things.

[KaeYoss]

The +1 is in there because Weapon Focus has that prerequisite. Standard procedure for feats with other feats as prerequisites is to include the prerequisite feats' prerequisites.

I'm not sure whether they always do it (wouldn't be surprised if it was forgotten a few times) and yes, in some cases it's redundant.

And by RAW, it indeed bypasses DR/Epic. I'm not sure about RAI, but I can see good arguments for either side.

[Drejk]

KaeYoss wrote:

And by RAW, it indeed bypasses DR/Epic. I'm not sure about RAI, but I can see good arguments for either side.

It is the problem with specific rules trumping generic rules. Rules are not marked as generic, specifc, more specific, even more specifc, ultra specific, as specific as can only be. While some rules can be determined to be generic, degrees of specifity are vague.

[Bob_Loblaw]

Would it be bad if it could penetrate DR/epic? How many epic weapons are in the game? How easy is it for other classes to boost their effectiveness and save money in the process? Will all fighters take these feats? Does the feat also penetrate DR/vorpal? How many creatures have unusual damge reductions? Does this make the fighter a more reliable combatant?

[Fozbek]

There are zero epic weapons in the Core Rulebook or any of the other core books. They are adventure-specific only so far in Pathfinder. In fact, the rules expressly forbid making an epic weapon by any means (including Paladins' Divine Bond ability's temporary enhancement bonuses).

Fighters are already the general combat kings (ie, most reliable combatant). Penetrating Strike is already pretty much an auto-include for any character that qualifies for it.

And yes, it would penetrate DR/vorpal; demiliches beware! DR/vorpal doesn't have any special rules associated with it.

In other words, there's no need for Penetrating Strike to overcome DR/epic. It clearly violates the intent of DR/epic (both stated in its original 3.5 incarnation and implicit in the fact that NOTHING else in the rules can overcome it in Pathfinder) to allow Penetrating Strike to bypass it. There's at least one viable RAW reading that prevents it. When there are multiple RAW interpretations, it's usually best to take the one where the RAW intersects the RAI.

[Drejk]

I think that I will houserule that Penetrating strike cannot reduce exotic forms of DR, like vorpal.

And when it comes to DR x/epic. Are there any rules about it beyond single paragraph in Damage Reduction part of Universal Monster Rules section?

[leo1925]

Fozbek wrote:

There are zero epic weapons in the Core Rulebook or any of the other core books. They are adventure-specific only so far in Pathfinder. In fact, the rules expressly forbid making an epic weapon by any means (including Paladins' Divine Bond ability's temporary enhancement bonuses).

Just to be clear.

When i talked about paladins i meant smite evil and not divine bond.

[StabbittyDoom]

I'm going to go with the literal wording of the feat on this one and say it bypasses all DRs that can be bypassed, including DR/epic, DR/vorpal, etc.

Also, it IS possible to bypass DR/epic by RAW, but it takes a +4 or +5 bane weapon of the appropriate type. This works because it isn't granting the item a new property when it increases the enhancement bonus. The weapon isn't *actually* +6, it's just treated as such.

[Ross Byers]

Midnight_Angel wrote:

Umm... is it just me, or is the BAB+1 prerequisite somewhat... odd? Last time I checked, a 12th-level fighter had a BAB of more than +1 hard-wired into his class features...

IIRC, the +1 is there because it's a prerequisite for Weapon Focus.

[j b 200]

the reason they keep all the lower level pre-reqs is because some classes will get a mid chain feat for free or w/o pre-reqs.

A good example is the Monk, he can take Improved Disarm and Improved Trip as bonus feats, if Greater Disarm/Trip only required Improved then the monk would be able to take Greater as soon as he qualifies w/ BAB, but because Greater includes the reqs for Improved, the monk in question has to take combat expertise first.