Vital Strike and Felling Smash are traps--I would never spend combat feats on anything that requires me not to take a full attack. Lunge and Improved Crit are both great, though.
With your Gm's rules, though, you'll get much more power out of crafting. I'd go that way.
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Crafting is very good, especially in a low-wealth game where you also can't rely on buying items.
Unfortunately, Master Craftsman only allows you to use one Craft skill to make items. For example, if you take Master Craftsman (weapons) and Craft Arms and Armour, you will be able to enchant your sword, but not a suit of armour or even a bow. If you take Master Craftsman (jewelry) and Craft Wondrous Items, you will be able to make an Amulet of Natural Armour, but not a Cloak of Resistance. This means the items you can create are much more limited than if you were a caster, even after spending an extra feat.
Normally I'd suggest that a Master Craftsman take (weapons) or (armour) and make these items for his fellow PCs (in turn receiving some Wondrous Items from casters who have more flexibility with that feat). But your GM's house rule that you can only craft for yourself would prevent that. This means you're likely to only be able make one or two items for your personal use. So the question is which craft skill lets you make the best items for you personally and whether that use is worth two feats.
The relevant skills are probably limited to weapons (not bows), armour (includes shields), leather (boots, belts, bracers), clothing (cloaks, robes, shirts, headbands, gloves), or jewelry (amulets, circlets, bracelets, not rings). Check these categories with your GM since the skills for Wondrous Items are up for interpretation.
Because of the advantages of crafting, especially in a low-wealth game, I would still probably recommend taking either (weapons) to enhance your greatsword, or (leather) to make yourself a Belt of Physical Plusses and some fun shoes/boots and bracers if you have extra gold (I like Boots of Speed). Maybe (clothing) instead if your GM will allow you to make a Belt with it.
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Normally Vital Strike isn't worth it, but if you have a 2d6 weapon, don't reliably get full attacks, and have a build that takes advantage of it (like having Felling Smash) it could work OK. I've seen a crossbow ranger deal some impressive damage with the feat chain (Gravity Bow and Named Bullet were involved).
For my fall game I'm houseruling it to automatically give you the dice increases for Improved and Greater Vital Strike at the higher BAB, though.
well... leather is a great idea...
circlet for the hair, clock, bracers, boots, belts collars are all made of leather....
If your GM will let you make yourself a good array of items with leather - not just boots and belts but a circlet/headband, cloak, etc - then that's probably your pick. Just check first, because the Wondrous Item descriptions don't individually specify what craft skills are applicable and you don't want to find out your GM won't let you make a leather Cloak of Resistance after you take the feat.
Can't help you with the last feat, though.
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Vital Strike doesn't work particularly well with Improved Crit:
These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.
There's also an FAQ that clarifies that Vital Strike doesn't work with any other abilities that let you make a single attack as a special action.
Vital Strike: Can I use this with Spring Attack, or on a charge?
No. Vital Strike can only be used as part of an attack action, which is a specific kind of standard action. Spring Attack is a special kind of full-round action that includes the ability to make one melee attack, not one attack action. Charging uses similar language and can also not be used in combination with Vital Strike.
This is why it only works well with a very small subset of builds, as opposed to being a go-to for characters who frequently use Spring Attack or charge. However I don't see why BBT says it wouldn't work with Lunge since Lunge doesn't specify any particular action.
It also should work with Felling Smash since they both use the "If you use the attack action" language.
Quick breakdown:
Greatsword Vital Strike Power Attack (assuming 20 Str at level 8, and a +1 weapon, no Weapon Focus/Spec since you say they're not worth it): One attack at +12, dealing 4d6+18 damage, an average of 32 damage. No chance of EVER getting extra attacks, merely adding extra 2d6's at 11 and 16. Have a roughly 40% chance of hitting that AC 24 (since you need a 12 or higher).
Greatsword Power Attack with Weapon Focus/Greater and Weapon Spec, Full attacking: +14/+9, damage at 2d6+20 on the first hit (average 27, a mere 5 points below the Vital Strike sequence), with a possible extra 2d6+20 on the second hit as well, for an average of 54 damage if both connect. Have a roughly 50% chance to hit on the first strike, and a 35% on the second one, meaning you're at a whopping 10% extra to-hit on the first strike, and only 5% behind on the second (which has the potential of doubling your damage output, which with a single hit is almost as much as the Vital Strike sequence). Need a 10 or higher on the first, and a 15 or higher on the second. Gain new attacks at higher BaB, meaning you potentially triple your damage output (compared to the first hit) in 2 levels.
The reward of the second strategy MORE than outweighs the risk, being that you're at most giving up 5 damage, with the potential of gaining another 22.
Vital Strike is a trap.
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Vital Strike is only a trap if you intend to use it to replace full attacks, or use some other tactic that uses up your standard action. Every martial character should have a plan of what to do on turns they must move to get at a foe...pounce, Spring attack, ranged attacks, etc are all viable answers. Vital Strike is also a viable answer - +7 damage when you have to use a move is not a bad consolation prize for missing out on your full attack.
Vital Strike as a replacement for a potential full attack, or as an "always-on" strategy, now that's a trap.
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Rynjin, that's a bit misleading, since in the second example the fighter has three feats (Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, and Weapon Specialization) compared to the first fighter's Vital Strike. You need to do a fair comparison.
If we're just talking about the basic Weapon Focus at this point, the full attack has a 45% and 30% chance to it on the first and second attacks, and deals an average of 25 damage per attack.
Expected Damage = sum of (chance of each result x damage of each result)
Expected Damage (Vital Striker) = chance to hit x damage of hit
ExD (Vital Strike) = .4 x 32 = 12.8
Expected Damage (WF) = (chance two hits x damage two hits) + (chance first hit x damage first hit) + (chance second hit x damage second hit)
ExD (WF) = (.45 x .3 x 25) + (.45 x .7 x 25) + (.3 x .55 x 25)
ExD (WF) = 3.375 + 7.875 + 4.125
ExD (WF) = 15.375
So yes, taking Weapon Focus will improve your expected damage per round by about 2.6 points compared to Vital Strike. This also ignores the fact that you have an extra chance to crit when you make a second attack, which will probably make the full attack (with Weapon Focus) even a little better. Also, since Weapon Focus applies to every attack, it gets better as you get more iteratives (and also improves your AoO). Compare with Vital Strike, which makes you spend more feats to scale the dice damage compensation to match the number of iterative attacks you give up.
Of course, that's assuming that you regularly are able to take a full attack rather than move + standard. It also ignores the fact that you already have and frequently use Felling Smash. If you find that lots of your turns are already spend making single attacks, Vital Strike starts looking much better.
Weapon Focus is still probably better than Vital Strike in terms of damage output, but it's not as overwhelming as Rynjin makes it appear.
It's not misleading, really. The thing in question was that the OP thought Weapon Focus + Specialization was insignificant as compared to Vital Strike.
My post was mostly to show how significant the bonuses get when you take them as opposed to the extra 2d6.
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It's not misleading, really. The thing in question was that the OP thought Weapon Focus + Specialization was insignificant as compared to Vital Strike.
My post was mostly to show how significant the bonuses get when you take them as opposed to the extra 2d6.
Then you should be comparing Weapon Focus/Greater and Weapon Specialization to having all three Vital Strike feats. Don't compare three feats to one feat.
As for the math above the math is wrong:
You need to add 2 things to the calculation :
1) about 15-20% of your attacks need a move action ( between opponents etc)
2) the single vital strike work, about 50% of the time with felling smash, cause about half are humans / large size opponents.
It's not wrong, I made the simplifying assumption that you always can make either a full attack or a vital strike (and left out felling smash because it's not directly damaging). I then explained underneath the calculation that these two things work in favour of Vital Strike (while conversely, AoO and crits, which I also didn't take into account, work in favour of Weapon Focus).
Then you should be comparing Weapon Focus/Greater and Weapon Specialization to having all three Vital Strike feats. Don't compare three feats to one feat.
I would but he's incapable of having all 3 Feats at the level I was talking about due to BaB requirements since for some reason Vital Strike comes at 6/11/16 whereas Weapon Focus/Greater and Weapon Spec come in at 1/4/8.
And I did make mention of higher levels.
Through the other two Vital Strike Feats he would have an extra 14 damage on a single hit, whereas even factoring out Str increases, Weapon Training bonuses, and the like (since they apply to both), the full attack would be significantly higher with its 4 hits, since 20x4 is still better than 20+21 (which is about half the damage). Even if you say "at a +1, the 4th attack never hits!" that's 3 attacks at full damage and higher attack bonus.
To put it in the same terms, the Vital Strike chain caps out at 8d6+X (where x is the bonuses) whereas the full attack caps out at 8d6+4x (or 6d6+3x with the previous caveat). The math is simply not in Vital Strike's favor the vast majority of the time.
This isn't even taking into account that where the Vital Strike, if it misses, deals no damage, a single hit in the full attack missing is merely a REDUCTION of damage (by 1/4, 1/2, or even 3/4 if 3 hits miss), not a negation.
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The damage from Weapon Specialization also applies to each attack, including AoO, meaning if you get hasted and get an AoO on someone you've tripped, you have three attacks at full BAB and one at BAB-5 all getting +2 damage - it just gets better the more attacks you make per turn. It's also generally the case as shown above that you deal more damage with a full attack than with a single Vital Strike attack. This means that Weapon Specialization generally makes your best attack option even better while Vital Strike makes your worst attack option less bad.
Vital Strike is good to have with Felling Smash, but note that the AoO you get on a foe you trip with Felling Smash also benefit from Weapon Specialization, so you're getting up to +6 from Weapon Specialization on a Felling Smash + 2 AoO (for Greater Trip and standing from prone). And like BBT said, that goes up with crits. So without doing the full math we can guess its adds about as much damage as Vital Strike to your build even on the single attack.
Static plusses to each attack might not be fun, but they are effective.
I would but he's incapable of having all 3 Feats at the level I was talking about due to BaB requirements since for some reason Vital Strike comes at 6/11/16 whereas Weapon Focus/Greater and Weapon Spec come in at 1/4/8.
Since the OP already has 1st and 4th level feats, they don't come in at 1/4/8 for him unless he re-builds (or skips the crafting feats at this juncture). So at the moment the feat the OP might take is Weapon Focus and just Weapon Focus. You can argue for Weapon Specialization being a great feat for later, but in that case you should be comparing single feat Weapon Specialization vs single feat Vital Strike (like I just did).
Through the other two Vital Strike Feats he would have an extra 14 damage on a single hit, whereas even factoring out Str increases, Weapon Training bonuses, and the like (since they apply to both), the full attack would be significantly higher with its 4 hits, since 20x4 is still better than 20+21 (which is about half the damage). Even if you say "at a +1, the 4th attack never hits!" that's 3 attacks at full damage and higher attack bonus.
To put it in the same terms, the Vital Strike chain caps out at 8d6+X (where x is the bonuses) whereas the full attack caps out at 8d6+4x (or 6d6+3x with the previous caveat). The math is simply not in Vital Strike's favor the vast majority of the time.
No, the math isn't in Vital Strike's favor - the calculations I did above with a fair one-to-one comparison gave the full attack an extra 2.6 damage per round over Vital Strike. And it gets worse as your full attack gets bigger, which I pointed out. But it's not as huge a difference as you make it out to be, especially since as a fighter he can retrain it anyway if he decides at 12th level he wants his full attack.
This isn't even taking into account that where the Vital Strike, if it misses, deals no damage, a single hit in the full attack missing is merely a REDUCTION of damage (by 1/4, 1/2, or even 3/4 if 3 hits miss), not a negation.
Did you read the "expected damage" calculation? That takes into account the average damage over rounds in which you hit and rounds in which you miss (either with your one vital strike attack or part or all of your full attack).