Power Attack Question

[Black_Zawisza]

When you use Power Attack, isn't the attack penalty and damage bonus applied to every attack in a full attack?

[Spiryt]

World "all" in the description seems to indicate that pretty clearly.



On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from all melee attack rolls and add the same number to all melee damage rolls. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.

BTW, it seems like ideal question for "Simple Question D&D 3.5" thread in "Notable Threads".

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Yes.


On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from all melee attack rolls and add the same number to all melee damage rolls. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.
(emphasis mine).

[Black_Zawisza]

If one uses Shock Trooper and Leap Attack, do one of both of them stack on all attacks?

[Lateral]

I don't see why not, as long as you have Pounce.

[Black_Zawisza]

I don't see why not, as long as you have Pounce.
If you have Pounce, in general, do all attacks after charges count as individual charge attacks?

[kestrel404]

They count as a normal full attack. So they are attacks, made individually, but part of a single full attack action.

[Black_Zawisza]

They count as a normal full attack. So they are attacks, made individually, but part of a single full attack action.
Are they made at +2 attack, -2 AC, though? With all feats, spells, abilities, etc. applicable to them?

[kestrel404]

You got it.

[Lateral]

Are they made at +2 attack, -2 AC, though? With all feats, spells, abilities, etc. applicable to them?

Yes; if you take a charge action, your attacks are all made on the charge.

@V: Yeah, if it didn't then the -X to AC from Shock Trooper wouldn't matter.

[Godskook]

Also of note, power attacking on your turn also affects your AoOs between this turn and the next.

[randomhero00]

generally avoid shock trooper shenanigans though unless youre playing in a high powered game or your gm is really good at challenging you. I've played a power attacker without shocktrooper and still pretty much one shot most things (ala leap attack and pounce).

[Sir Swindle89]

your gm is really good at challenging you

multiple targets with longer reach hitting AC?

[Godskook]

generally avoid shock trooper shenanigans though unless youre playing in a high powered game or your gm is really good at challenging you. I've played a power attacker without shocktrooper and still pretty much one shot most things (ala leap attack and pounce).

Its not that hard to challenge a shocktrooper. Rough terrain, charge-blocking terrain(trees, large stones), archers behind cover with intervening troops. Flying foes against a land-bound charger. Readied grease. Invisible trippers or dungeoncrashers as vanguard. DFA with entangling exhalation versus a charger without Freedom of Movement. Abrupt Jaunt. Contingency. Jack B.Quick. Mob of low-HD undead lead by a powerful necromancer who's using them as ablative shielding. Setting Sun.

A DM who can't challenge a charger build is one that isn't looking at his options.

[Greenish]

Mob of low-HD undead lead by a powerful necromancer who's using them as ablative shielding.I am ablative armor! Life is boring, then briefly exiting, then over! I am ablative armor! Life is boring, then briefly exiting, then over!

:smallcool: (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2010-08-29)

[randomhero00]

Its not that hard to challenge a shocktrooper. Rough terrain, charge-blocking terrain(trees, large stones), archers behind cover with intervening troops. Flying foes against a land-bound charger. Readied grease. Invisible trippers or dungeoncrashers as vanguard. DFA with entangling exhalation versus a charger without Freedom of Movement. Abrupt Jaunt. Contingency. Jack B.Quick. Mob of low-HD undead lead by a powerful necromancer who's using them as ablative shielding. Setting Sun.

A DM who can't challenge a charger build is one that isn't looking at his options.

Its not hard, I agree. But most DMs I've come across are quite lazy and don't do such things. They just call "OVERPOWERED! Nerf your character or I will!"

[Lateral]

Plus, a Shock Trooper build can be perfectly balanced. Dealing ≈40 damage on a charge then getting hit next turn isn't 'OMG TEH CHAROP'. Where it gets cheesy is if you tack on massive to-hit, pounce, and things like Leap Attack to deal ≈100 damage three or four times a round.

Edit: I meant around level 6. Not level 20.

[randomhero00]

Plus, a Shock Trooper build can be perfectly balanced. Dealing ≈40 damage on a charge then getting hit next turn isn't 'OMG TEH CHAROP'. Where it gets cheesy is if you tack on massive to-hit, pounce, and things like Leap Attack to deal ≈100 damage three or four times a round.

Well usually that's kind of a given. But technically true.

[comicshorse]

What is Shocktropper in ? ( I presume its a Feat )

[Forever Curious]

What is Shocktropper in ? ( I presume its a Feat )

Complete Warrior I believe.

[Person_Man]

Optimizing Power Attack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129070)

Power Attack optimization basically requires Power Attack + Bull Rush -> Shock Trooper + Pounce (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103358) + Something to Mitigate Shock Trooper (Miss Chance, Vampiric healing, DR, Karmic combo, battlefield control, etc) + something that multiplies damage (outlined in the top link).

I've obviously spent a lot of time researching this particular aspect of D&D, and my opinion is that it's one of many ways to get respectably high damage for a moderate investment at ECL 6+. The poor AC from Shock Trooper is not that big of an issue, it just requires that you invest some resources in non-AC defense. The metagame concerns are an issue, and depend entirely on the power level of your gaming group. If someone is rocking out a Tier 1 caster and has spent 10 minutes reading about good spells online, then you should have no problem. If someone in your group thinks that the Monk is a strong class, then you should probably tone it down.

[Eldariel]

Optimizing Power Attack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129070)

Power Attack optimization basically requires Power Attack + Bull Rush -> Shock Trooper + Pounce (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103358) + Something to Mitigate Shock Trooper (Miss Chance, Vampiric healing, DR, Karmic combo, battlefield control, etc) + something that multiplies damage (outlined in the top link).

I've obviously spent a lot of time researching this particular aspect of D&D, and my opinion is that it's one of many ways to get respectably high damage for a moderate investment at ECL 6+. The poor AC from Shock Trooper is not that big of an issue, it just requires that you invest some resources in non-AC defense. The metagame concerns are an issue, and depend entirely on the power level of your gaming group. If someone is rocking out a Tier 1 caster and has spent 10 minutes reading about good spells online, then you should have no problem. If someone in your group thinks that the Monk is a strong class, then you should probably tone it down.

Shock Trooper is not really necessary. You just need some way to ensure you hit. For characters caring about their Touch AC and AC with various stacks, Shock Trooper can be highly unnecessary. Leap Attack I'd consider more important since it's a damage multiplier, something that's very rare and powerful.

Few ways to get good Power Attack returns without Shock Trooper include:
- Combat modifiers like Charging, Tripping, Flanking and High Ground. You can acquire many such quite easily in a charger chassis making this quite economical.
- Buff stacks; this is particularly good for warriors with casters in the party or Gishes. It's easy to stack 10 min/level and hour/level and persistent and quickened buffs to sufficient degree so as you only miss on -20. It's actually possible to reach a point in Core-only where you can afford to PA for -15 or so with a level 20 warrior-type not using Polymorph-effects against CR 20 challenges without impacting your chance to hit on your primary attack.
- Various To Hit boosting effects; Dervish (and in general, class-based To Hit boosts), Knowledge Devotion, Law Devotion, Arcane Strike, Melee Weapon Mastery, etc. A decent stack of these allows reaching a position where you can Power Attack safely without Shock Trooper quite easily.
- Various temporary binary boosts like Emerald Razor, Wraithstrike, Brilliant Blade, etc. that allow efficiently negating target AC. Temporary buffs like True Strike, Rabid Wolf Strike and such would fall here too, of course.

[Godskook]

Plus, a Shock Trooper build can be perfectly balanced. Dealing ≈40 damage on a charge then getting hit next turn isn't 'OMG TEH CHAROP'. Where it gets cheesy is if you tack on massive to-hit, pounce, and things like Leap Attack to deal ≈100 damage three or four times a round.

:smallconfused:

Those numbers are *REALLY* small.....I mean, power attacking with a 2-handed weapon alone gives +40 damage by level 20, and that's not counting Str, base weapon damage, or magic weapon properties. Personally, I think that single-target DPS should be hitting at *LEAST* 6*ECL to be considered respectable, and more-still to reach high-end optimization, especially in later levels. I mean, I can get a totem rager to squeeze past ~100 damage per attack on at least 7 different natural attacks. If I could get a way around the reach/non-reach issues, I have 2 more attacks waiting in the wing(wing buffet, specifically).

[Cerlis]

i dont really understand how power attack can even work. I havent played that much but except for mooks way lower level than you it seems really hard to hit them. (Kobalds have like..15 AC? at lvl 1 +1 BAB, +3 Str, +1 Weapon focus, +1 masterwork= +6. Fighter needs a 9 or higher so has a 1/3 chance of missing, even though Fighting is his specialty). Further arent higher level creatures tend to have steller ac? How can a fighter have an only +5 base attack on his fourth attack, take -5 to hit on power attack, and still hit?

Or is this all under the situation of something with a Low AC ?

[ericgrau]

Its not that hard to challenge a shocktrooper. Rough terrain, charge-blocking terrain(trees, large stones), archers behind cover with intervening troops. Flying foes against a land-bound charger. Readied grease. Invisible trippers or dungeoncrashers as vanguard. DFA with entangling exhalation versus a charger without Freedom of Movement. Abrupt Jaunt. Contingency. Jack B.Quick. Mob of low-HD undead lead by a powerful necromancer who's using them as ablative shielding. Setting Sun.

A DM who can't challenge a charger build is one that isn't looking at his options.

The earth itself shouldn't need to reform itself to create a suitable challenge. Plus all-or-nothing scenarios usually make games dull. i.e. either it gets 1 shotted or I'm far weaker or useless this fight. Which leans towards the latter once the DM starts responding to player tactics. Greaaaat.

Before they get any flak from this, I should say special terrain and tactics are awesome things to mix in. But when you need them in every fight or Mr. supposedly tough plot important monster gets easily stomped, your game just broke. Special terrain and tactics must also be defeatable (purge/dispel/listen for invisibility, jump over rough terrain, etc.) to be able to make the game fun and interesting. If the DM can't let that happen (i.e., he makes them unlikely or impossible to defeat) because he's afraid of the aforementioned brokenage appearing, you just sucked all of the awesome fun out of them.

You could instead make the encounter revolve around the special scenario, but PCs are notorious for not coming up with the same ideas as the DM and are more likely to either bypass it easily or fail utterly, possibly with a TPK.

It seems this is a "cure worse than the disease" type fallacy.

[Frosty]

i dont really understand how power attack can even work. I havent played that much but except for mooks way lower level than you it seems really hard to hit them. (Kobalds have like..15 AC? at lvl 1 +1 BAB, +3 Str, +1 Weapon focus, +1 masterwork= +6. Fighter needs a 9 or higher so has a 1/3 chance of missing, even though Fighting is his specialty). Further arent higher level creatures tend to have steller ac? How can a fighter have an only +5 base attack on his fourth attack, take -5 to hit on power attack, and still hit?

Or is this all under the situation of something with a Low AC ?

Here's what you need to understand. At higher levels, AC is de facto Damage Reduction. The less the enemy can Power Attack against you thanks to AC, the less damage you take.

Don't PA against things already hard to hit.

[Mando Knight]

Here's what you need to understand. At higher levels, AC is de facto Damage Reduction. The less the enemy can Power Attack against you thanks to AC, the less damage you take.

Don't PA against things already hard to hit.

That, and Shock Trooper helps solve the problem, IIRC: it lets you swap -Attack out for -AC, which means you open yourself up to almost sure hits next round if the enemy survives the full attack charge dealing 100+ damage per hit.

[Eldariel]

Here's what you need to understand. At higher levels, AC is de facto Damage Reduction. The less the enemy can Power Attack against you thanks to AC, the less damage you take.

Don't PA against things already hard to hit.

Also, polarizing your stats tends to be very useful here. In your example, Str is 16. If it's 18, you're an Orc (+4 racial Strength) and you play a Barbarian (no, no matter how much they'd like you believe, Fighters' shtick isn't really fighting; without lots of sources, only first few levels contribute meaningfully to their combat ability). We're looking at +9 to hit on level 1, +11 with Masterwork Weapon on level 2. All this obviously plays a bigger part on the lower levels.

And let's say you are a level 2 Wolf-Totem Barbarian gaining Improved Trip. You are able to Trip almost anyone you face on this level, making you work at effective +15 to hit. Maybe you can gain High Ground too, or maybe you Charge. You can easily be looking at +17-+18 to hit here; I wonder if I want extra 4 damage per hit or not?

For the record, Dire Wolf is a CR3 with AC 14, for example. Even without all that much work (here we admittedly went through quite an extreme scenario Str-wise), you're easily at +10 to hit. PAing for 3 easily gives you better expected damage than not PAing. To be precise, no PA means average 13.09 damage (account for to hit and damage; yes, the real numbers are more polarized but this is a good way to predict what would happen in a long fight) while PAing for 3 means average 15.40 damage. So an average of two damage extra, which isn't bad when it's like 12% of your composite damage. Difference between killing it in 3 vs. 4 turns too, btw. And that's without applying any of the combat modifiers; flat-footed wolf only has AC of 12, for example.

[ericgrau]

i dont really understand how power attack can even work. I havent played that much but except for mooks way lower level than you it seems really hard to hit them. (Kobalds have like..15 AC? at lvl 1 +1 BAB, +3 Str, +1 Weapon focus, +1 masterwork= +6. Fighter needs a 9 or higher so has a 1/3 chance of missing, even though Fighting is his specialty). Further arent higher level creatures tend to have steller ac? How can a fighter have an only +5 base attack on his fourth attack, take -5 to hit on power attack, and still hit?

Or is this all under the situation of something with a Low AC ?

Yes, generally you use it on mooks or big slow soft things with low AC. Otherwise at low to mid levels it's typically best to power attack for -2ish, maybe -4ish, AB and the net gain after all the misses you rack up is about 1 damage per attack... which might be lost to overkill anyway. At high levels may actually lose damage. Option B is to load up on half a dozen attack bonus buffs. Option C is to cheese it up with shock trooper or wraith-strike to hold on to your attack bonus.