Hi. Sorry, this seems like something someone else has probably asked before, but for the life of me my search didn't find the answer.
Very basic question, looking for the strictest RAW possible:
Imagine a fighter with a +1 striking bastard sword does a power attack with two hands, do they cause 4d12 damage(ignoring modifiers) or do they cause 3d12? I used to think so, but then I realized that power attack scales with level, and if that's true, the tendency is for the numbers to get completely ridiculous, because a level 10 fighter with the same sword would deal 6d12 on one strike(with a level 4 magic item) and a level 18 would deal 8d12. The problem gets more bizarre if you add the higher level striking runes.
The logic that defends this argument for adding the striking runes is in page 279, where it says:
Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.
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That would make sense for power attack if it didn't scale with level, but since it does, I'm hard pressed to believe that the intent is for a level 18 fighter with the right rune to deal 12d12 damage every turn with two actions. I am aware the fighter is meant to be a beast but this seems a bit overboard.
Power Attack reads:
You unleash a particularly powerful attack that clobbers your foe but leaves you a bit unsteady. Make a melee Strike. This counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty. If this Strike hits, you deal an extra die of weapon damage. If you’re at least 10th level, increase this to two extra dice, and if you’re at least 18th level, increase it to three extra dice.
It can easily be read to only add 1d12 instead of adding more, and then that scaling with level would lead a level 18 to deal 7d12 damage with two actions, which makes it strategically sound. Just confirm I'm not going insane hahaha. Thanks and sorry for the long post.
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No. Power attack adds the listed number of dice, not multiples of the weapon's normal number of dice.
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Don't agree , after reading Page 279 core rules
Counting Damage Dice
Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.Effect being Power Attack..
So , +1 Striking Greatsword at 1st level would do 4D12..
Which seems fare since you took 2 Actions to attack and MAP is -10 on your second swing
Well, you'd be wrong. Nothing implies the two multiply each other-- both the striking rune and power attack add one dice.
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Don't agree , after reading Page 279 core rules
Counting Damage Dice
Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.Effect being Power Attack..
So , +1 Striking Greatsword at 1st level would do 4D12..
Which seems fare since you took 2 Actions to attack and MAP is -10 on your second swing
First of all, that's not how the balance of PF2 works. 2 actions typically doesn't do essentially double the damage of 1 action with no penalty to your to-hit for that attack, moreover it becomes legit broken at higher levels if you keep multiplying the values together (capping out at 16d12 + modifiers). This is definitely too good to be true territory. At first level it does, in fact, double the 1 damage die you have, but at that stage your STR modifier is often a pretty big factor as well. That being said, double is close to what it does, generally scaling a little slower than runes, but always falling a little behind (Also who tf has a +1 striking greatsword at level 1!?)
Secondly, and more importantly: Power attack isn't based on the number of weapon damage dice. That is just talking about how you count weapon damage dice for things that mention the number of weapon damage dice. Gravity weapon, for example, reads: "On your first weapon Strike each round, you gain a status bonus to damage equal to twice the number of weapon damage dice.". The category quoted is literally called "counting damage dice".
Power attack says nothing of the sort. It isn't related to the number of dice or counting the dice at all. The only way it interacts with the quoted sentence is in specifically not counting as an increase in the number of weapon damage dice for abilities that actually do reference how many weapon damage dice you have, because it's "extra dice from abilities..."
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Don't agree , after reading Page 279 core rules
Counting Damage Dice
Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.Effect being Power Attack..
So , +1 Striking Greatsword at 1st level would do 4D12..
Which seems fare since you took 2 Actions to attack and MAP is -10 on your second swing
This is completely incorrect.
The quoted rule does not apply here, because Power Attack is not an effect based on the weapon's number of dice. That rule is for things like Forceful (quoted below), where the effect is determined by the weapon's number of dice. Power Attack adds a fixed number of dice, and how many dice the weapon had beforehand doesn't matter. So, with a Forceful weapon, using a normal Strike or a Power Attack after your first attack would gain the same circumstance bonus to damage
Forceful
This weapon becomes more dangerous as you build momentum. When you attack with it more than once on your turn, the second attack gains a circumstance bonus to damage equal to the number of weapon damage dice, and each subsequent attack gains a circumstance bonus to damage equal to double the number of weapon damage dice.
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For those wondering, if it did scale in the way described, then the wording would be something like this to make it consistent with PF2 rules:
"You unleash a particularly powerful attack that clobbers your foe but leaves you a bit unsteady. Make a melee Strike. This counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty. If this Strike hits, you deal an extra die of weapon damage for each weapon damage die. If you’re at least 10th level, increase this to two extra dice for each weapon damage die, and if you’re at least 18th level, increase it to three extra dice."
Or, alternatively:
"You unleash a particularly powerful attack that clobbers your foe but leaves you a bit unsteady. Make a melee Strike. This counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty. If this Strike hits, you deal extra dice of weapon damage equal to the number of weapon damage dice on the strike. If you’re at least 10th level, increase this to twice the number of damage dice, and if you’re at least 18th level, increase it to three times the number of damage dice."
P.S.
Also, btw, this is a level 1 feat... it shouldn't better than literally every other feat in the game when you get to level 10-12 and have a greater striking rune, doing a whopping 9d12 + modifiers for two actions using absolutely zero expendable resources and having a ton of other class feats to back it up, not to mention the highest to-hit in the game.
Every single martial character would be forced to multiclass to get it, and casters would all be left in the dust at higher levels, which is the last thing we want considering that higher levels are supposed to be where they shine.
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So Basicly from whatever one is saying is the Two-handed Fighter build has been written out of the game..
Duoble Slice/Parry etc. - Two Weapon
Sword + Shield - tones of featsTwo-weapon fighter - Just go a Barb, is why I am looking more and more to 5E.
oh well off subject cheers all..
Nope it works fine. It does a lot of damage, often multiples of d12 for a two handed fighter, and that damage scales up with feats and reaction attacks. Just not as well as a few people would have liked in this case.
Fighter is still the best.
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Yeah, no one remotely said that two-handed fighter doesn't work. It works great. It just doesn't massively outscale every other martial option from every class, because that wouldn't make any kind of sense.
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In fact, Two Handed weapons work great without feat support because they do the best damage out the box. Other builds require things like Dual Slice to catch up at all. Meanwhile, the Two Handed build gets a lot more freedom to take things like Sudden Charge which enhance theit flexibility and options. There are also still a few feats that require two handing a weapon, like Brutish Shove.
The Feat is super circumstantial until you reach lv 6 a get a feat that let you use it for a single multy action penalty instead of two.
For the first 6 lvs yes is peaty bad.
Don't agree , after reading Page 279 core rules
Counting Damage Dice
Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.Effect being Power Attack..
So , +1 Striking Greatsword at 1st level would do 4D12..
Which seems fare since you took 2 Actions to attack and MAP is -10 on your second swing
This has to be probably the first, if not one of the first, rules discussion of PF2e. Way, way back then in the playtest. It has been solidly clarified and there is zero room for doubt:
Power Attack only ads the listed dice and nothing more. You weapon die is "1dX", the fundamental runes multiple that, Power attack adds the listed dice 1->2->3, regardless of your fundamental runes.