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One of my players is test driving the Pugilist class from 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming, and while this guy is normally the type to build a tank at every opportunity, actually wondered if the Vital Strike feat is really unlimited in the number of times it can be used (once a round, of course, but round after round). The one of the class features gives the Pugilist 1d8 unarmed damage + STR Bonus. So every round this character can dish out 2d8+4 points of round. He's fifth level, by the way. We houseruled that he's subject to AoO every time he uses it, just to give it a small drawback, at least.
So, in this case, which is the villain; Vital Strike or the class itself? Here's a link to the class if no one's familiar with it.
The issue with Vital Strike is that it requires a hefty amount of feats spent in both the chain itself, as well as its supporting correlatory feats (Devastating Strike, its upgrade, and Furious Focus, I'm looking at you).
In addition, a Full Attack option is generally superior to Vital Strike due that a Full Attack allows your static bonuses to stack cumulatively, whereas Vital Strike has a cost for implementing extra damage dice (i.e. the Feat Chain), does not allow your static bonuses to be implemented multiple times (which would probably make it a much better feat if it did), and is really only powerful when used with Natural Weapons.
The class itself is pretty solid, and is more like a Monk than a Fighter. Regardless of this, it only goes to show you that Vital Strike needs a fix.
I'm not sure why 2d8+4 on a single attack is such a big deal when your average Twohanded weapon wielding guy can deal 2d6 + 2x Str on each hit before anything like Vital Strike.
I'm not sure why 2d8+4 on a single attack is such a big deal when your average Twohanded weapon wielding guy can deal 2d6 + 2x Str on each hit before anything like Vital Strike.
2D6 only applies for Greatswords. Others may use Axes (1D12 X3), or Falchions (2D4 18-20 X2), etc. Which may be the better weapon of choice.
Oh, and 2x Strength only works for a specific Fighter archetype, and only applies to some attacks. It's generally only 1.5X Strength.
In addition, remember that the 1D8 damage works as a single hand, meaning they can make 2 hits as TWF, amounting to 2D8 + 1.5X Strength (or 2X Strength with the Double Slice feat for TWF), which is significantly higher than any given Two-Handed weapon.
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Actually, it seems that pugilist's receive no benefit from TWF, as per their Iron Fist ability. If both have a strength modifier of 4 than the average damage would be the same between the fist and a greatsword, but that's without taking into account how crits interact with the two, nor the increased critical range of the GS.
Really, it would be no different than wielding a heavy mace (besides the inability to TWF presented by the pugilist).
All this being said, if you wouldn’t penalize a player wielding a greatsword doing his 2d6+6 round after round, there is no reason to penalize the player who had to take the feat to do equal damage (and who will be quickly outpaced by the two handed weapon wielder anyways)
2d8 + 1.5x Str compared to 2d6 + 1.5x Str + Double Damage Power Attack in that case. You can get two attacks with that too (iteratives are wonderful things).
If you really want to be that way you can take any Two-Handed weapon of choice (Be it Greatsword, Greataxe, Falchion, or what have you) and apply 4d6, 2d12, or 4d4 + 1.5x Str.
Vital Strike does that with every weapon. It's supposed to add a good bit of damage to your attack.
There's no "villain" here, any melee class can take the Feat and double their damage on a single hit.
Even with just a Longsword, using the Pugilist's strength (assuming Str 18), a martial character could be getting 1d8+6, and that's just first level, not including anything like Power Attack, Weapon Training, Favored Enemy, Rage etc.
Using Power Attack, you could be getting 1d8+9 just at first level. Vital Strike can't be used until a BAB of 6+; for your Pugilist that means he's 8th level. A martial character could easily be sporting a 1d8+15 from just a longsword, an 18th strength and power attack.
Houseruling Vital Strike to provoke an AoO every time its used is an unnecessary nerf that makes the feat practically worthless. As Darksol said, Vital Strike is best used with natural attacks, or the Monk class, because you can get lots of dice that almost make up for the lack of static bonuses. For instance, a properly built Monk can get a 16d8 Unarmed Strike, and Greater Vital Strike that for 64d8 points of damage.
Since the Pugilist doesn't ever increase the damage dice of his unarmed strikes, and since he can't 'two-hand' an unarmed strike he's not getting the %50 bonus from his strength or Power Attack, that means he's not going to be getting terribly good damage from his attacks.
2d8+4 is nothing to be worried about when it comes to damage at 8th level.
Well DungeonmasterCal i think the problem is neither with the class(as shown in your link) or the feat, but with the player. According to the link on the class, a Pugilist at 5th level(as you mentioned for your player) has a BAB of +3 and the feat Vital Strike (a least from what ive seen on the Pathfinder SRD has a prereq of a BAB of +6, so by that reason alone that character would not even have access to that feat till 8th level.
Actually, although OP didn't say so, assuming his player chose the brawler style for his pugilist, he would have gotten vital strike as a bonus feat at second level. He'll also be receiving improved vital strike at 7th, and greater at 13th. Now, is getting vital strike at 2, and improved vital strike a level later than a full BaB would be getting vital strike, overpowered? I don’t really think so, but YMMV.
2d8 + 1.5x Str compared to 2d6 + 1.5x Str + Double Damage Power Attack in that case. You can get two attacks with that too (iteratives are wonderful things).
If you really want to be that way you can take any Two-Handed weapon of choice (Be it Greatsword, Greataxe, Falchion, or what have you) and apply 4d6, 2d12, or 4d4 + 1.5x Str.
Vital Strike does that with every weapon. It's supposed to add a good bit of damage to your attack.
There's no "villain" here, any melee class can take the Feat and double their damage on a single hit.
Power Attack doesn't add Double Damage, it follows the same rules as standard Two-Handing (1.5X); again, you need the proper Archetype for the 2X Power Attack, and that feature doesn't come until late in the game.
He still gets a lot better damage from static bonuses with iteratives than Vital Strike. 2D8 + Statics hardly amounts to 2(1D8 + Statics). After all, if I'm getting a +20 on each hit (+5 Enhancement, +5 Strength, +10 Power Attack), no 1D8 is going to even amount anywhere near that much, and that's only including the basics...
Vital Strike is only good for large damage dice builds, and also for those who only have a single Natural attack. Since almost all PCs have Manufactured weapons (or weapons that can attack multiple times), Vital Strike doesn't really do much, since it only affects the Damage Dice, meaning unless we're pulling some 12D8 dice out of our arse, we're best off using iteratives, since our static bonuses are going to generally be superior (and overshadow our damage dice; unfortunately, Vital Strike doesn't scale static bonuses).
Instead of a feat spent for Vital Strike, he should instead spend it for Medium Armor Proficiency and equip a Mithril Breastplate for that extra Max Dex and Armor.
A 1.5x weapon with Power attack does an extra 1.5 Power Attack damage on top of the 1.5x Str bonus. It's pretty much effectively the same thing stop nitpicking.
The point is any class can do one better with pretty much any other weapon.
As Indrajit said, I forgot to post that he was using the Brawler archetype, which gives him Vital Strike without meeting any of the prerequisites.
Thanks for everyone's input. I'll remove the nerf and let him pummel the snot outta everything in sight! :)
I also want to apologize to the class's creators at Wordcasting Entertainment for accidentally giving 4 Winds the credit. 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming makes a lot of great stuff for the Pathfinder game, but I shouldn't have attributed the Pugilist to them.
Thanks, Liz!!