How I Became a Min-Maxing, Number Crunching Point Whore

[Neal Litherland]

Improved Initiative is back with another Table Talk feature. This week we talk about that "Ah ha!" moment that a lot of gamers have where the rules stop being obstacles to your creativity and start being the building blocks of your concept. My moment came back in the days of 3.5. It also came while I happened to be at the controls of a frenzied berserker.

The DM hasn't let me run a barbarian since.

[Vincent Takeda]

I'm just glad you had a gm that let you roll with it, unafraid.
And happy he has the same first name as me.
Its a shame he's since changed his mind about barbarians.
You're doing it right.

[Neal Litherland]

That's what I thought.

To be fair, it was more of a playful ban, but when you've pulled a trick like that on your own, it's time to move on to a different class.

[Pupsocket]

I think the retarded interpretation of the poorly worded Leap Attack has destroyed many campaigns.

[Taow]

I like it.

Given this wasn't among the smartest group of guys, and the meatiest meathead of them all decided to run a one shot level 13 game (we'd never been past 8 or so). I created a wizard, and missed the first half of the session at work. Proceeded to show up as they're clearing the last minions to get to the big bad (who was apparently specifically built to kill us all), the DM graciously allowed me to blow my teleport spell to join the party. At this point the boss comes out, and while they're finishing the last round of combat, I said, "This one's mine." No idea why they actually let me go it alone, but it made just as much sense as the DM allowing me several rounds to cast all my personal buffs. Through poor DM planning and good vs bad rolling, I ended single combat with this party killing beast with more health than I started and one spell remaining. The party felt the need to point out that it was only possible because they killed off his huge group of minions. One look back at that last remaining spell, oops Chain Lightning.

I never got to play a primary caster in that group again.

[Neal Litherland]

Pupsocket, not to live in the past (I'm a pathfinder player now, since most groups I know don't run 3.5 anymore), what was poorly worded about Leap Attack? It seems pretty straightforward. If you charge and make a leap of 10 feet or more, landing in a place where you threaten your enemy you double the amount of damage done by power attack. Triple if using a two-handed weapon.

I admit that in a world where you can combine that with Supreme Power Attack, getting essentially 7 times the power attack damage in a single charge is over-powered, but I don't see anything open to interpretation about it. Neither ability states it cannot be stacked, and since one is a feat and the other a prestige class ability, it seems pretty cut and dry.

If I missed something though (I don't have access to all the data, so I am sometimes wrong), I'd like to know what.