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Looking at similar abilities, it should be half your base damage. For example, Advantageous Assault does an additional 1-4 damage on a fail at level 6, depending on the weapon type and if you have a striking rune. At level 6 a Swashbuckler can get Precise Finisher which adds your full precise strike damage, which would be 3 at level 6.
Basically, doing 6 damage at level 1 on a miss is too powerful.
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The answer is that it's a finisher, so uses finisher damage. If it intended otherwise, it would specify otherwise.
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You only have around 3% chance of actually rolling two sixes on your 2d6 finisher to get that 6 damage on a miss, though.
I'd be inclined to agree with Cyouni that it adds your whole finisher damage because otherwise it seems almost completely irrevelevant. You'd get to deal 3 damage at level 17. The feat that Cordell mentioned would basically be a trap option with how little it actually gave you.
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As OP specified, it explicitly calls out your Precise Strike damage, not your Precise Strike Finisher damage. They are separate things. And again refer to my point of missing and still dealing up to 6 damage at level 1, which is pretty insane.
It has the same chance of doing that as it does of dealing 1 damage at level 1. And I don't think anyone's ever called an alchemist bomb splash hitting three people overpowered, especially given they can throw more than one in a turn and don't require panache to do.
Also, there is 0 difference between the precise strike damage and the precise strike finisher damage in this case. The only reason why Bleeding Finisher's is relevant is that the finisher status isn't persistent, and thus an argument could be made that it drops down to normal strike damage.
Confident Finisher is not so unclear.
If the strike is part of a finisher, the additional damage is 2d6 precision damage instead.
The Failure effect of Confident Finisher is part of a finisher, thus the precise strike damage is 2d6.
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You are all ignoring that this is damage added on a miss. Meaning you are getting something when you would originally get nothing.
On the level 17 example, if you were using a Confident Finisher and had Precise Finisher, you would do 6 damage on a miss. That's not a lot, sure, but doing 6d6 damage is fine? Again, when you should be doing no damage. In comparison, a fighter at level 19 using Advantageous Assault with a 2 handed weapon would do 6 damage on a miss. Why would a finisher do significantly more damage than a similar ability?
On the bomb example, you only do splash damage to everyone adjacent to the target if you hit. If you miss, it's only on the original target. At level 6, bombs only do 2 splash damage (4 for Crystal Shards) and if you have Calculated Splash it would be 4 for any bomb you throw, which is still on par with similar abilities.
See the theme here? On a MISS, you do significantly less damage than a hit, but it's still something rather than nothing at all.
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You are all ignoring that this is damage added on a miss. Meaning you are getting something when you would originally get nothing.
Yes, that is... literally the point of the ability.
This whole post is just describing how the activity functions. That's not really an argument one way or another on anything, it's just... what the ability does.
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especially when comparing it to similar abilities that add damage on a missed attack.
Well, let's do that:
A level 6 fighter does 21 average damage on a hit and 4 on a miss, or about 20% of their base damage with Advantageous Assault and a greatsword (the percentages get higher if you're using a d10 or d8 two-hander instead).
A level 6 swashbuckler using confident finisher does 20.5 average damage on a hit and 1 on a miss (about 5%) if you use the 'basic' precise strike, and about 28% if you use the finisher die (drops to 4% and 23% if you use a d8 weapon and maximize strength).
So using the feat you picked at the level it comes online, the numbers are actually closer to correct if you use the full precise strike damage.
And that's ignoring that precise strike/confident finisher is literally the Swashbuckler's core combat mechanic and this example intentionally ignores the Fighter's (and also the fundamentally different attack routines fighters and swashbucklers have). It should be noticeably stronger than a feat because a feat is an addendum to the core class and this is their primary class feature.
On the bomb example
Also just for completeness' sake.
Bottled Lightning does ~22% of its base damage on a miss. Crystal Shards do 38-44% depending on level.
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I'm just trying to remind them that the additional damage is on a missed attack, so gaining 3 damage on a missed attack is pretty good, especially when comparing it to similar abilities that add damage on a missed attack. You should not be able to add full d6s on a missed attack.
It's guaranteed damage on a miss for your best, last - and quite possible ONLY - attack of a turn. And it requires some set up to even try (gaining Penache).
For that effort, it would basically do nearly nothing at all if it was based on half the non-Finisher dmage of Precise Strike.
If you attack before using the finisher, you're giving up your best chance to deal high damage and make it more likely to CritFail on the attack, which results in no damage at all.
So yeah, I totally think that it's based on the Precise Strike finisher damage.
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What Cyouni said. There is no generic finisher rule describing what the amount of persistent bleed damage done by Bleeding Finisher does, since it is not damage done by a Strike that is part of a finisher. Which is why the feat itself says that it uses the precise strike finisher damage.
When the strike is part of a finisher (including Confident finisher), the generic rule explicitly states that it deals the precise strike finisher damage.
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Squiggit provided math and it doesn't seem to have changed your perception.
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Squiggit provided math and it doesn't seem to have changed your perception.
That was percents, that doesn't really mean anything. Press actions do a flat amount of damage that rarely changes, and you're comparing it to a variable. You also need to account for variables like the enemy's AC and your proficiency to get the whole picture. Press Actions and Confident Finisher get better (in relation to standard stikes) against higher level enemies, when you're more likely to miss.
For example, a Fighter with a greatsword using Certain Strike at level 17 does a flat 14 damage on a fail. You could say "This action does 42% of the strike's average damage!" which is correct, but it's not when using a Dagger. Daggers still do 14 on a miss, but only an average of 21.5, meaning the miss does 65% of the strike's average damage.
Average damage is a much better metric. Against AC 40, the average damage you can expect from Certain Strike with a Greatsword at MAP-5 is 24.725 damage. Compared to a Strike at -0, which is 23.45, it's actually higher average damage with Certain Strike than the standard strike before it.
This takes into account the chances of all results of the attack, multiplied by the average damage of each result, and gives a clearer picture of what kind of damage to expect from the actions. Percents do not show any of this info, so it didn't really prove anything.
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As for Confident Finisher, at level 6 it's more effective to use the Strike on the Second Strike of your turn, until you get Combination Finisher, or have an agile weapon. Once you have one of those two, it's better to use it on the third Strike.
The average damage of a turn at level 6, with a Rapier, and using the finisher on the second Strike is 18.475 for Flat damage, and 22.225 with Variable damage. At 17 using it on the third strike, it's 46.425 F/53.925 V. In comparison, a the Fighter in my last post does 65.225 average DPT, and a giant Barbarian would do 71.775. Both of these are using a d12 weapon, and all examples have max Strength to keep flat damage the same.
So my conclusion is that the single strike is insanely powerful, but looking at the big picture it's not as bad as I initially thought, and in the end is underwhelming. It's much better to use other finishers, like Perfect Finisher or Bleeding Finisher.
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My original argument was based on the comparison of similar abilities, and when taken at face value it is extremely overpowered, with the second highest damage possible on a missed attack being 14. I never said anything about math until I ran my own numbers.
In response to my contrary opinion we had someone saying I am 100% wrong, without explaining anything about the difference in wording mentioned by OP, then completely dismissing that point later.
I then try to explain that even a small amount of damage on a missed attack is really good, and yes I got the bombs thing wrong but that has already been pointed out.
Then Squiggit made their example using percents, which I found to be lacking so I ran my own calculations. I hadn't replied at all until I came back and said I changed my mind. Then you call my actions deeply irresponsible? Someone posted math, I wasn't totally on board so I did my own math and then came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter in the end.
I was mostly criticizing the posts that simply say "This is the rule, deal with it" without any examples or explanations. Even a similar ability for precedent would be better than that. We can't have discussions if people aren't willing to discuss, and look at things from different perspectives. Yes I said "no one" when one person did, but that's just hyperbole. I am mostly frustrated by how common on this board it is to post responses to questions without providing sources, and expect OP to just accept your replies, or go find the source on their own.