A stray thought about making Vital Strike cool again

[Ascalaphus]

What if VS doubled all variable damage? That would include additional damage from flaming blades and sneak attacks.

It would spice up rogues that move around a lot, or use Feint-like tactics to obtain sneak attack opportunities as a move action.

Thoughts?

[Malwing]

That might be too good. you wind up getting full attack damage with one standard.

[idilippy]

It'd probably be more reasonable, power-wise, to make a feat that gives full-attack as a standard action to give you a similar feel. Otherwise the penalty to attack for the iterative attacks never comes into play. If Vital Strike multiplied everything you'd essentially be getting all the damage of a full attack routine based on the result of only 1 roll at your highest attack bonus.

[GralphidB]

Note that OP said variable damage. So Sneak attack, or flame blade, but NOT strength, weapon training, etc.
It would scale up:
-rogues sneak attack
-a few spells
-the elemental, bane, and alignment weapon enhancements.

That's all that I can think of. I would suggest making it not work on spells, that could be probably be broken in some way if someone worked on it.
The other things tend to be a bit sub-par, so it wouldn't be a bad thing. The sneak attack in particular would probably go a long way to making rogues more viable on rounds where they need to tumble/move to get into flanking.

I can't think of anything else it would enhance, so I think it would be ok.

[Ascalaphus]

Like GralphidB said; I meant the variable damage only, not the static bonuses. So rogues would be the main beneficiaries of this increase. Personally I think that'd be nice; I imagine rogues as being highly mobile combatants, constantly moving to get a better position to attack from.

If rogues could use VS, they'd gain a significant damage bump, because they can move and make an attack that comes (for them!) close to the damage of a full attack, but without iterative BAB penalties. Since rogues tend to have trouble with BAB, I don't think that's bad.

@GralphidB: there's probably some way to break it with spells, yeah. The first thing I can think of is Eldritch Knight (for the BAB) and Scorching Ray. That would get pretty nasty. Also, maguses could probably do Shocking Grasp shenanigangs. I think a note forbidding spells is probably in order.

[idilippy]

Ah, misunderstood, I'd delete my prior post but it's too late to edit it. If you want this to be a rogue thing, maybe make it a rogue talent that lets them multiply their sneak attack if they use Vital Strike. Then it's an investment of 1 talent and whatever Vital Strike feats they take and you won't have to worry about possible abuses from other classes?

[rainzax]

Ascalaphus,

what if the Vital Strike feat allowed a standard action to grant +2d6 precision dice to a single attack (scaling to 4d6 at BAB 11, 6d6 at BAB 16), or allowed any sneak attack dice the user already has to be substituted instead?

that way it's useful for all classes and especially rogues.

[Tvarog]

Interestingly enough, the very name "Vital Strike" implies that it would work very well with Sneak Attack. Yet another case of flavor and mechanics not matching.

The only way Vital Strike is good (in this case, good = worth taking) right now is if you have Mythic Vital Strike and a multiple-die weapon (greatsword, etc), and even that is probably unintentional.

[Orich Starkhart]

Tvarog wrote:

Interestingly enough, the very name "Vital Strike" implies that it would work very well with Sneak Attack. Yet another case of flavor and mechanics not matching.

Agreed on the implication, and I expect the assertion that flavor and mechanics don't match is because Vital Strike affects only the weapon damage, not the Sneak attack damage?

Tvarog wrote:

The only way Vital Strike is good (in this case, good = worth taking) right now is if you have Mythic Vital Strike and a multiple-die weapon (greatsword, etc), and even that is probably unintentional.

What makes the feat not worth taking in all other circumstances? I suppose it's that in your view there is always another feat that is more valuable?

(N.B., you cannot take Mythic Vital Strike unless you also take/have taken Vital Strike; Vital Strike is prerequisite to Mythic Vital Strike.)