Reduce Person + Power Attack

[ZanThrax]

If my Str 14 fighter gets Reduced, does he lose the ability to power attack?

[Kolyarut]

Quoting the Prerequisite section in Feats (pg 112): "Some feats have prerequisites. Your character must have the indicated ability score...in order to select or use that feat....A character can't use a feat if he loses a prerequisite, but he does not lose the feat itself. If, at a later time, he regains the lost prerequisite, he immediately regains full use of the feat that prerequisite enables."

Since Reduce Person changes your Strength to 12, you would lose access to Power Attack until you get it back up to at least 13 again.

[Lord Pendragon]

Yes.

[ZanThrax]

What makes me ask the question though, is the way ability penalties (and damage) are worded.

Ability Score Penalties wrote:

Some spells and abilities cause you to take an ability penalty for a limited amount of time. While in effect, these penalties function just like ability damage

Ability Score Damage wrote:

Diseases, poisons, spells, and other abilities can all deal damage directly to your ability scores. This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability.

These two paragraphs make me think that my Str 13 character still has a Str of 13 when reduced, just with a -1 penalty to Strength skill checks, non-finesse melee attacks, damage rolls (if they rely on Strength), CMB (if you are Small or larger) and CMD.

And since the character that I'd be wanting to do this with is Dex-focused halfling with Finesse (and hopefully Agile weapons ASAP), being reduced is only going to give him a -1 to a couple of skills and to his CMD.

[Caius]

If you're going finesse you don't want power attack you want piranha strike

[ZanThrax]

It'll do the job, but I like to have Power Attack so that if I wind up using a two handed weapon temporarily for whatever reason, I'm still getting the full benefit. Also, PA is a prerequisite to many things.

[Kazaan]

If you suffer stat damage, it doesn't prevent you from qualifying for feats since it only affects the "result" of what that stat is used for. For example, Str damage doesn't affect your carrying capacity and Con damage doesn't affect your Rage rounds in the same way that temporary bonuses to those stats don't increase those things. On the other hand, if you suffered stat drain, you'd lose actual points in the stat and, in turn, re-calculate everything involved; including whether you still qualify for feats reliant on those stats. So, it depends on what kind of "reduction" your strength is experiencing; damage or drain.

[Gauss]

No, you do not lose the ability to use feats since penalties do not actually change your score.

- Gauss