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** spoiler omitted **
Can I use vital strike as part of a full round attack?
Can I use Vital strike whenever I make a standard attack?
Can I use Vital strike when making attack of opportunities?
What exactly counts as an attack action? Is it simply any time I declare an attack?
No.
Yes.No.
The attack action is a specific standard action that lets you attack once.
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Can I use vital strike as part of a full round attack?
Can I use Vital strike whenever I make a standard attack?
Can I use Vital strike when making attack of opportunities?
What exactly counts as an attack action? Is it simply any time I declare an attack?
No
No
No
When you take a Standard Action to do an attack action in the form of Vital Strike.
No, it's nowhere near a crit. Remember you are only adding in the damage die, not the static damage (no increase of strength bonus, power attack, enhancement, etc.) Unless you have a really large damage die on the weapon, the increase is pretty small. About as big as it will get on a PC is +7 (average of extra 2d6 on a greatsword). That's not overly impressive for something extremely situational.
By mid level(when you can get Vital Strike) the damage from the dice should be less than the static damage modifiers. At high level the vital strike bonus pales into insignificance (though you can squander more feats to try and keep up, though it doesn't really).
The benefit is getting that extra damage while still retaining your move action. That's extremely useful unless your GM only throws tactically inept fools at you. I'm a major fan of that feat chain.
Hmm. I did some looking around, and a lot of people are saying Vital strike isn't that good. Personally however being able to roll almost a crit on a basic attack whenever I spend a move action to engage, move through, or away from combat(or any action that takes a move now that I think about it) seems like a pretty dang good deal to me. Thanks guys.
The reason people say it isnt very good is because for some insane reason they feel the need to compare it to a full attack as if the feat was ever designed for that.
As you get up in levels you will find that monsters alot of the time do not stand still and you will have to move to engage them. Or you will want to ready an attack or do any number of things with a standard action.
Thats when Vital strike is useful.
for everything else there is full attack likely.
Vital Strike is a great feat IF you have some way of rolling a lot of damage dice to begin with, say 4d6 or 6d8. It's also a good option when facing a creature with damage resistance and your average damage without vital strike is close enough to the damage resistance.
Druids that are in wildshape can select various creatures with very high damage dice but only have one attack. For them, vital strike is ideal. With vital strike, improved natural attacks and the strong jaw spell, you can start rolling some very insane damage dice. Throw in a furious finish feat from 1 level of barbarian and you have an extremely powerful melee character, all probably before level 10.
Vital Strike is a great feat IF you have some way of rolling a lot of damage dice to begin with, say 4d6 or 6d8. It's also a good option when facing a creature with damage resistance and your average damage without vital strike is close enough to the damage resistance.
Druids that are in wildshape can select various creatures with very high damage dice but only have one attack. For them, vital strike is ideal. With vital strike, improved natural attacks and the strong jaw spell, you can start rolling some very insane damage dice. Throw in a furious finish feat from 1 level of barbarian and you have an extremely powerful melee character, all probably before level 10.
A level 15 example, provided by the board's very own Ravingdork.
Hmm. I did some looking around, and a lot of people are saying Vital strike isn't that good. Personally however being able to roll almost a crit on a basic attack whenever I spend a move action to engage, move through, or away from combat(or any action that takes a move now that I think about it) seems like a pretty dang good deal to me. Thanks guys.
Depends on your fighting style
If you keep following the Vital Strike chain you keep pace with your Full Attack action, while retaining the ability to move.
Full Attack advantage is that it has slightly higher potential damage because you get the flat bonuses on each hit.
Vital strike advantage is that you get almost as much damage without the ever decreasing BAB and you still get your move action.
Personally I prefer Vital Strike cause I like the mobility and my dice rolls suck. Those last few attacks in a Full Attack aren't going to hit so I'd rather have the extra dice on the attack that is happening upfront with all my bonuses, instead of tossing them away with crap rolls near the end
Full Attack advantage is that it has slightly higher potential damage because you get the flat bonuses on each hit.Vital strike advantage is that you get almost as much damage without the ever decreasing BAB and you still get your move action.
Vital strike starts out fairly close, but the gap between it and a full attack grows with level. At 6th the difference is about 2 points vs. a full attack, which is quite good. By 16th when you have the whole chain, you are doing around half the damage of a full attack (this is assuming a +3 CR critter, so the AC is rather high, on lower ACs full attacks will be favored more).
Now it's certainly not the worst feat out there, but it's not really something I bother to take since I can generally find something I prefer. Heck in my home campaign I changed it so that you get the whole feat tree for one feat, and nobody has taken it (admittedly I probably would at that cost, though it is possible the fighter still might do so eventually).
Your players wouldn't take the entire feat chain for one feat? O_o
My gunslinger would murder for that.
Just to toss out another benefit of Vital Strike: It can be useful against creatures that have DR\-. A single attack that does 20 damage against a creature that has DR 10\- does 10 damage; two attacks that each do 10 damage results in no damage taken.
Mythic Vital Strike is ridiculously powerful, though. Especially since every mythic character gets Amazing Initiative. You get to multiply all static bonuses to Vital Strike making it the actual near-equivalent of a full-attack - and you can do it twice per round if you burn mythic power.
Yeah, mythic vital strike is plenty of justification for taking that whole chain. It is amazing.