[3.5] Why is Sword & Board bad, and what can be done to fix/improve it? [Archive]

Reddish Mage

2014-04-06, 11:15 AM

I recently had a fellow player who adamantly insists on playing a sword-and-board combatant; while I am aware that it's a suboptimal fighting style (and thus suggested the player play a Warblade who Martial Studies the shield maneuvers from Devoted Spirit), I'm also curious as to why (I imagine it's because of a lack of support for the style, both in feats and class features) sword & board is considered a poor choice of fighting styles.

I'm also curious what can be done to improve and/or fix this inequality.

I wonder if the premise of your question is appropriate. You want to know why the style is suboptimal and can it be fixed? Why not ask if you want optimality? Going by RAW, even a Warblade isn't as powerful as a optimal Druid/Cleric-build even assuming the same melee focused-role. I've never been in a group that actually used RAW and a group of players focused on optimal builds, the games in my circle that contained a significant number of powerful characters would either use extreme temp gimps for adventures or ridiculously powerful challenges.

But to answer the original question, a DM can always fix things on the fly with magical items and a little homebrew. Getting the balance right is a bit of a headache but I would suggest giving the character the same 1.5 strength bonus as two-handed would be an easy way to remove the loss. The resulting character still won't be OP.

Piggy Knowles

2014-04-06, 11:49 AM

As has been mentioned, S&B sacrifices too much damage for the minor boosts you gain.

That said, ToB makes sword and board a lot better. Its maneuvers are largely not contingent on two-handing a weapon in order to get reliable damage from them, so while you'll certainly be somewhat worse off than a two-handed fighter in the damage department, you'll do alright. On the plus side for you, in addition to an AC boost, you'll have more slots for weapon/armor enhancements and wand chambers, and you can use the two shield-focused crusader maneuvers, both of which are pretty cool. Also, Shield Charge and Shield Slam are fun (although they kind of need to be built around to get the most out of them).

But honestly, just about any ToB build can swap out their greatsword for a longsword and shield, and still do alright. It's a less optimal choice, but it's still doable.

EDIT: I missed the bit about what can be done to fix it. Off the cuff, I'd recommend adding the following feat:

SHIELD EXPERT [Fighter]
Prerequisites: Shield proficiency, Power Attack

Choose a type of shield. When you perform a shield bash with the chosen shield type, you retain your shield bonus to AC. Also, while holding that shield type in your offhand, you are considered to be wielding your primary weapon two-handed for purposes of Power Attack.

SPECIAL: Shield Expert can be used in place of Improved Shield Bash to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

Being able to get 2:1 Power Attack returns would go a long way toward making shields suck less, and by allowing it to qualify for feats as though you had Improved Shield Bash, it means that a feat-heavy Shield Slam build isn't getting penalized by having yet another required feat.

Flickerdart

2014-04-06, 12:06 PM

Basically, non-Tome of Battle melee goes like this: you either grab a big stick with both hands and Power Attack for loads, or grab a long stick (which are basically all two-handed weapons) and knock people over with Improved Trip and friends. Using a hand on a shield means that you can't wield your big or long stick. And what do you get for it?

You're probably using a heavy shield, so +2 to AC. Later maybe you'll have the cash to spare on some cool enchantments for it, but most of the shield-only stuff is terrible, so all you're doing is saving money by distributing enchantments between your armour and shield.

The thing is, there's no reason not to have sword & board guys in the campaign world. A level 1 warrior (as in, most of the soldiers in all of our history) benefits greatly from a heavy shield. He's probably wearing medium armour and has a handful of Dexterity, so his AC is around 15. A guy exactly like himself probably has about +4 to hit (+1 BAB, +2 Strength, +1 Weapon Focus), so he'll hit him half the time. A heavy shield drops that chance to 40%. On the flip side, they're swinging weapons for 1d8+2. If they dropped their shield and grabbed the weapon in two hands, they'd get...1d8+3. It's not like they're going to get a different weapon from their quartermaster just because they decided to be uppity about it.

Part of what makes a warrior look heroic is ditching their shield for a bigger stick. Why do you think so few main characters who are part of a uniformed army actually wear helmets? Because it makes them look like badasses who tank damage with muscles.

Eldonauran

2014-04-06, 12:10 PM

Azoth

2014-04-06, 12:25 PM

While not sword and board there is a feat in a dragon mag (forgot the number) called Shield and Pike Style. It lets you use a light shield and a polearm without penalty and you are still considered to be two handing the polearm.

Not the worst feat you can nab for a character so he gets his shield and can still lay a beatdown. Probably on par with Improved Buckler Defense unless you ever end up disarmed and needing to bash someone's face in.

Blackhawk748

2014-04-06, 12:31 PM

I agree with Eldonauran, ive played a Sword and Board Fighter and i had a lot of fun, this is pretty much how combat went.

1. Charge biggest opponent and hit with shield, trip, hit with axe.
2. Trip when it tries to get up, hit with axe again.
3. Kick'em while he's down!!

Now im sure there is some way to mix the Shield Charge/Slam, with Dungeon Crasher to get you some pretty nice damage as well as tripping.

Optimator

2014-04-06, 12:31 PM

Here's a custom feat I and my DM allow:

Shield Parry
Requirements: Shield Specialization
When wielding a non-animated shield, you get your strength bonus as a shield bonus to armor class in addition to your shield's regular bonus to AC.

Also, these two builds are really cool (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1532.0), especially the first one.

Eldariel

2014-04-06, 12:39 PM

Just my, two copper:

Sword And Board is not bad. It is merely not optimal. It is a perfectly viable way to play a character at any level. There is nothing to fix though you can improve it. Just be sure not to step on any other niche's toes when you do.

Well, that's not entirely true. "It's suboptimal" in the sense that it just contributes less to a party than a two-hander; which might not be nice for your friends since you're already playing a low-contribution archetype. Sword'n'Board is really thoroughly obsolete by the time Animated shields enter play. That way you can have two-handed damage and a shield instead of just one or the other (and the damage difference is massive). Not to mention that's around the time when AC begins to not be worth the effort doesn't really help either.

Even worse, sword&board is a worse teamplay setup than two-handed fighting. Sword'n'Board gives up reach weapons/battlefield control (aside from Kusari-Gama, which is an exotic weapon), and your best damage bonuses in exchange for personal protection. In other words, you give up two ways to help teammates:
- Reach weapon attacks of opportunity preventing hostile melees from getting to your squishies.
- High damage alpha strike attacks enabling you to kill hostiles before they can get to your squishies.

And get AC from that. AC doesn't protect you against spells, breath weapons, tripping, grappling, etc. (basically everything most high CR monsters and high level NPCs do) but more importantly, it doesn't protect your allies in any way. So if you go Sword'n'Board, you pray enemies attack you. If they don't, you're basically condemning your teammates to death with your inability to protect them. You give up two ways to restrict enemy's actions for a protection that only works for a small subset of enemy actions (physical attacks targeting the turtle).

@OP:
- Active block is nice. Shield allowing an immediate action block attempt within your natural reach; allows you to protect adjacent allies. Resolve as an attack roll using the shield's armor bonus as bonus instead of your weapon enhancement bonus.
- Either make Shield Ward [PHBII] more easily available or automatically extend Shield benefits to Touch AC and Reflex-saves. In addition, enable blocking Rays and spells with the active shield block when wielding a magic shield (see above).

With these two changes, a sword'n'board warrior can be a defensive steroid for the whole team (though still restricted to once per turn, but you could give warriors extra immediate actions anyways), while also enjoying defense against a wider array of attacks he might practically expect to face.

One bigger change would be the way combat turns work; non-reach melee is really messed up by the fact that enemies can just walk past them. It makes no sense and it really hurts. Some way to cover a bit larger area passively out of turn order would be nice. Perhaps allow the warrior to intercept movement within a 15' area or something so the enemy practically can only walk past him. Or just increase warrior (warrior = any full BAB class, plus specific inclusions like Swordsage/Monk-types) threatened area overall out of turn order when they gain levels so you don't need reach weapons to cover ground and make acting near you fast. Fluff that as the warrior getting better reflexes and becoming faster thus enabling him to react in a wider area (with the accompanying movement, of course).

ericgrau

2014-04-06, 12:40 PM

Shocktrooper.

Also means all of the half dozen fighting styles a fighter might use that don't involve shocktrooper are bad. Rather than making a half dozen questionable fixes, the simplest solution is to ditch the editing oversight which is heedless charge.

In core sacrificing only ~10% of damage to stop ~40% of enemy physical damage is a no brainer in all but the most special ability monster heavy campaigns. Or at high levels you can get an animated shield and get both styles. And a foe sacrificing the first of his 1-3 actions in his brief life to go around you is down syndrome level retarded. So as a prime target your life really is in danger.

EDIT: This is speaking in general. There are corner cases and special strategies & counter-strategies which are what make D&D fun. So depending on the case you might get a different style since they're all pretty close together in core. And that's why shocktrooper greatly reduces fun and should not be used: since it makes only 1 style the best no matter what and then there's no planning and counter-planning.

VoxRationis

2014-04-06, 12:47 PM

What about tower shields? The ability to take total cover anywhere is good.

Nerd-o-rama

2014-04-06, 12:49 PM

Basically, the optimal way to fight in D&D is to end combat as quickly as possible. For melee characters, this means throwing all resources into damage and mobility, rather than defense. If you're going to defend, the optimal way to go about it is to prevent attacks in the first place, which means the reach weapon and trip method of battlefield control (or, again, killing them in one quadruple-digit-damage charge on your first round).

Shields help with neither of these things, so they're not optimal. However, they aren't unusable, either, which is a distinction the internet seldom makes. There's good feat support for shields in the PHB2 (well, mostly Shield Ward), as well as the Devoted Spirit maneuvers you're aware of. You shouldn't really need to houserule things unless all your enemies are optimized Wizards or slavishly devoted to eating the guy in the robes first. Basically, give him his share of dumb melee monsters to fight and he should be happy.

Oh, and as a very specific case, Lance+Mount+Shield is one of the more viable ways to do tanking in D&D. Feat intensive and unless you're a halfling/gnome you have to deal with DMs applying realistic logistical problems to Large mounts rather than anything else in the game, but it does give you mobility, reach, and AC better than just about anything else with the same cost, at least until the enemy starts focus-firing on your horse (which should be a Hippogryph or something by the time that becomes a problem).

TheIronGolem

2014-04-06, 12:59 PM

What about tower shields? The ability to take total cover anywhere is good.

You have to give up your attacks to take cover with a tower shield, which is rarely a worthwhile trade. Plus there's the -2 attack penalty for wielding a tower shield to begin with. It's a similar problem to what the Monk faces; sure, you can make yourself very hard to hurt, but at the cost of negating yourself as a threat as well.

VoxRationis

2014-04-06, 01:01 PM

-2 is pretty minimal when you think about how much people favor massive Power Attack penalties to hit anyway.

Pinkie Pyro

2014-04-06, 01:05 PM

I've always had a home brew feat that solved the problems with sword and board, at least defensively.

Shield parry:
prerequisites: shield proficiency
bonus: may make as many parry attempts with a shield as attacks they could make with their primary weapon per round.

this feat allows you to deflect an incoming blow by parrying with your shield, you roll an attack, and use it in place of your AC.

special: a fighter may take this as a bonus feat.

georgie_leech

2014-04-06, 01:16 PM

What about tower shields? The ability to take total cover anywhere is good.

At the cost of not attacking anything, and even then people can still cast spells on you without hindrance. There's also the -2 penalty to attack, so it directly weakens your offensive abilities rather than just preventing you from gaining Two Handed bonuses.

EDIT: People don't mind the -2 to attack from Power Attack because it increases your damage by a significant amount, so it can still increase your expected damage per round. Even then, Shock Trooper is popular because it mitigates said penalty.

To the OP, Sword and Board tends to be bad because what you gain in defenses doesn't make up for the loss of offensive power. You can address it either by improving the defenses, or by adding offensive capability, or by adding utility that other styles don't get. Defensively, I usually allow shield bonuses to apply to touch AC and Reflex saves, either directly or with a feat depending on the campaign, have feats for improving said bonuses if the Fighter wants them, and have ways of making shield provide miss chance that also applies to spells. Offensively, a simple way to improve it is to allow a shield bash when then wielder makes an attack (I usually make a feat Greater Shield Bash that does just that), sort of like a non-unarmed Snap Kick, except the other attacks aren't penalised and it applies your full strength bonus. You could also make feats to let that extra attack start to work similar to Two Weapon Fighting, gaining additional shield bashes on the extra attacks in a full attack. Finally, aside from increasing the defenses of the wielder, you could also make ways of providing defenses to allies, like being able to interrupt attacks or increase their saves or otherwise actually tank hits of your side. One of my former players appreciated a feat that lets him force nearby opponents to include him in their attacks or spells, sort of like Goad but with a better save, affecting more creatures, and applying to more than just melee attacks.

ericgrau

2014-04-06, 01:29 PM

Tower shields tend to favor the victor, which is usually the PCs, or else campaigns would be very brief. As in the attacker who is getting a lot of hits and taking few can switch to still getting a decent number of hits and taking almost none. Against a BBEG who is better at melee than you it's not so hot. Against foes who don't attack physically it's not so hot. And it's better when you're down to mid hp or expect a full attack from something nasty. When you have plenty of hp you still want to quickly slay and get in good attacks of opportunity against anything that tries to push past you. And since a good bonus minus (effectively) a smaller penalty is only a marginal benefit, any special cases that negates it can quickly make it not worth it. That makes combat expertise much better for melee than a tower shield, because you can switch it on and off. Fight until you start to get in danger (either medium hp or impending troll full attack), then max it out. With a good base AC the foe will need a 20 to hit, while you continue to contribute. For a tower shield to work you better be in a 300 type scenario where you expect nothing but slashing and more slashing from melee foes who are weaker than you. Or in a scenario where a portable wall helps.

VoxRationis

2014-04-06, 01:45 PM

HunterOfJello

2014-04-06, 01:54 PM

1. A shield doesn't always boost AC enough to make a difference in the Attack vs. AC arms race. AC is also an all-or-nothing play in the game. You either get hit or you don't and shields don't provide any sort of damage reduction so using them can be a waste at times.

2. AC isn't a great way to mitigate the hp damage that you take. Being out of arms reach, gaining concealment, or being invisible are more effective.

3. Shields don't provide Touch AC which becomes an extremely important AC later in the game.

4. It is more effective to mitigate hp damage to yourself by killing a monster faster with a two-handed weapon than by having an increased AC to avoid its attacks. The added damage of about 1d6+(1/2 your strength)+your power attack bonus added in again can be very significant.

~~~~~~~~~

Playing sword and board style isn't always a bad option in the game and can be very effective. It isn't an idea that should be immediately shot down or heavily warned against like two-weapon fighting (without precision damage). If a person isn't interested in FIGHTER SMASH! and doing tons of damage, then they're probably interested in doing other things anyway. The majority of things you can do with a 2hander you can do with a 1handed weapon.

He should check out the shield feats from various books that can let him add his shield bonus to a touch AC and let him do things like take defensive actions without taking penalties. If he combines it with other forms of damage like you can find in ToB, through effective weapon enchants, or Dungeoncrasher Fighter then he can make up some lost ground of not using a 2hander.

Averis Vol

2014-04-06, 02:04 PM

I'm gonna go ahead and say shields make for better two weapon fighting than two normal weapons.

Why? because blood soaked charger is awesome. Do something like fighter 2/Crusader 18 with maybe replacing some levels in crusader with warblade to pick up the save maneuvers. Take shield specialization, agile shield fighter and the blood soaked charger line, then go about picking up shield ward, commetary collision and some of the other defensive feats or charging feats, depending on what you want to do, and you'll have yourself a pretty damn solid character. Those two levels of fighter are, of course, for dungeon crasher.

If you need more inspiration, here is a great guide to help with shields. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?123630-3-X-Person-Man-s-Guide-to-Shields

ericgrau

2014-04-06, 02:09 PM

But when you're in danger, as from a troll's full attack, being able to completely prevent ANY of those attacks from hitting you is surely better than +5 to AC, especially as everyone keeps talking about how useless AC is.
That's not true though, that's only the internet speaking in hyperbole. You can negate all his secondary attacks and most if not all of his primaries. Reserve hp for a hit or two in case of bad luck. It's always worth it to get at least some AC, because the cost is a sliding scale and hyperbole doesn't match practical play. Reliably negating 1 hit OTOH is only 1 hit... and often expensive. While it plays better to hyperbole's love of absolute certainty, it stops far fewer hits on average.

Or in other words play to the generalities and averages not to the 1% "what-if's". Just because someone can bring something up in discussion with 10 seconds of typing and remembering when 100 other people did the same, doesn't mean it's the most common or biggest concern.

kellbyb

2014-04-06, 02:15 PM

How about these?

Vigilance
Requirements: shield specialization, combat reflexes
Benefit: When you use defensive fighting of total defense, enemies that attack your allies provoke attacks of opportunity from you.

Intercept
Requirements: shield specialization
Benefit: when you declare defensive fighting, you may select one of your allies. Until your next turn, if an enemy attacks that ally, you may move to them and cause the attack to target you instead.

Tar Palantir

2014-04-06, 02:31 PM

That's not true though, that's only the internet speaking in hyperbole. You can negate all his secondary attacks and most if not all of his primaries. Reserve hp for a hit or two in case of bad luck. It's always worth it to get at least some AC, because the cost is a sliding scale and hyperbole doesn't match practical play. Reliably negating 1 hit OTOH is only 1 hit... and often expensive. While it plays better to hyperbole's love of absolute certainty, it stops far fewer hits on average.

Or in other words play to the generalities and averages not to the 1% "what-if's". Just because someone can bring something up in discussion with 10 seconds of typing and remembering when 100 other people did the same, doesn't mean it's the most common or biggest concern.

What you need to compare is how many attacks will that extra AC negate versus how many attacks will be prevented by killing the enemy that much more quickly. Unless you're fighting a large number of scrubby archers or something, usually the latter choice comes out ahead. Best case scenario (your enemy has neither overwhelmingly high nor overwhelmingly low attack bonus, even on their lowest iteratives), a tower shield removes four pips out of twenty that could hit you, meaning every attack there's a 20% chance of a result that the tower shield makes the difference on. If, by ditching the shield, you can end the fight one round faster, you negate one full round's worth of attacks. That means, at best, the tower shield only comes into it's own in fights that last longer than five rounds. At higher levels, it gets worse, because the gap between primary attacks and lowest iteratives increases so much that the tower shield will almost certainly be irrelevant versus one or the other, and high level fights aren't usually 6+ round affairs.

Prime32

2014-04-06, 02:40 PM

You could try adapting Power Attack and some of its related feats...

Guarded Attack [General]
Prerequisite: Str 13.
Benefit: On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from all attack rolls and gain an equal number of temporary hit points whenever you attack. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus, but hit points granted from multiple attacks stack. The temporary hp and penalty on attacks apply until your next turn.
Special: If you attack while wielding a shield, you instead gain temporary hit points equal to twice the number subtracted from your attack rolls. You don't gain any remporary hit points for attacking with a two-handed weapon, or with a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands, though the penalty on attack rolls still applies.
Special: A fighter may select Guarded Attack as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Steady Attack [General]
Prerequisite: Balance 8 ranks, Guarded Attack.
Benefit: In any round where you do not move from your space, or move a total distance equal to your base speed or lower, you can double the temporary hit points granted by your use of the Guarded Attack feat. If you use this tactic with a shield, you instead triple the temporary hit points from Guarded Attack.

Socratov

2014-04-06, 03:06 PM

What about tower shields? The ability to take total cover anywhere is good.
And from a conceptual standpoint it is (see the Romans and hopw they conquered europe, parts of Asia and parts of Africa. That is, Until huge rocks are being hurled with an accuracy of about 5 m sway...

good points
Part of what makes a warrior look heroic is ditching their shield for a bigger stick. Why do you think so few main characters who are part of a uniformed army actually wear helmets? Because it makes them look like badasses who tank damage with muscles.

Well, consider that main characters (at least in mythology and history) often were in some form of position where overview and orders are their main concern (on account of being speshul). Well, in that case a fully protective helmet is actually detrimental to one's ability to lead (very limited vision, encumbering weight, muffling voice).

Haldir

2014-04-06, 03:21 PM

Lethal (Ex): A Veteran Soldier understands the role a particular weapon has on the battlefield, and is able to use them to maximum effect. Depending on the type of damage the weapon does, a Veteran Soldier can apply additional effects as follows when he critically strikes::

Bludgeoning- Knocked prone. Reflex negates, Save DC = 10 + ½ Character Level + STR Mod.

Piercing- Deals 1D4 Con damage

Slashing- Deals 1D4 Dex damage

But to be truly lethal, you cannot just focus on the weapon in your hand. The limbs are but the vehicle of body force. The position of a foot, the tilt of the hip or shoulder, or even the slight orientation of an attacks’ vector can determine the outcome of a fight. Setting up these body motions correctly is essential. Rather than ignore defense and pose recklessly for offense, the Veteran uses a defensive item to safely position for the best possible strikes. If the Veteran is wielding a shield, the critical strike chance of his main-hand weapon is increased equal to the shield bonus. An off-hand weapon that generates a shield or defense bonus will also benefit from Lethality.

There are two exceptions- A buckler attached to a hand swinging a weapon does not grant this bonus, neither does a tower shield which is being used to provide cover, as it also provides cover to the person on the other side of the shield.

(This ability is strong, but essential. It provides a save-or-die and debuff elements to melee combat. Weapons are crazy lethal, but the defense scaling in the D20 system includes health, the only way to deal with this is multipliers or attacking other stats, this ability gives the mundane classes both.)

Here's an ability for a class I created to help my mundanes keep up with casters in my games.

Flickerdart

2014-04-06, 03:27 PM

Well, consider that main characters (at least in mythology and history) often were in some form of position where overview and orders are their main concern (on account of being speshul). Well, in that case a fully protective helmet is actually detrimental to one's ability to lead (very limited vision, encumbering weight, muffling voice).
Open-faced helmets are a thing, and you can put a metric crapton of feathers or whatever on it to show how important you are.

Cloud

2014-04-06, 03:29 PM

It's bad for a few reasons. Firstly because you can just use an animated shield, killing the style. Secondly because a dead enemy isn't hurting you, it's just more effect to kill an enemy outright in the rocket tag nature of D&D. Thirdly because AC matters less and less as a defense as you level up.

So if I was going to fix sword and board...firstly I'd just make the animate property not exist. Aside from that I'd probably make light shields give +2 AC, heavy +3 AC, and make shields apply to your touch AC by default, making them actually matter a bit more. Aside from that it's just homebrewing some additional feat support/making the existing support not suck, perhaps something to give mischance or deal more damage with a one-handed weapon.

ericgrau

2014-04-06, 03:31 PM

If, by ditching the shield, you can end the fight one round faster, you negate one full round's worth of attacks.
That won't happen without shocktrooper...

sleepyphoenixx

2014-04-06, 03:39 PM

Animated Shields become affordable relatively early and are core. There's also spells, rings and other items that grant a shield bonus to AC.

You don't need to wear a shield for AC, only for using special shield feats. And those are inferior to just investing your feats into more damage (Power Attack, Leap Attack, Shock Trooper etc.) or stuff like Improved Trip, Knockdown and the Mage Slayer line.
Shield fighting feats just don't give enough to make missing out on other combat feats worth it, so the only reason to wear a shield after low level is flavor.

Edit: This is of course from an optimization viewpoint. That doesn't mean a shield user is unplayable, it's just inferior on a similar level of optimization.

Spiryt

2014-04-06, 03:48 PM

Part of what makes a warrior look heroic is ditching their shield for a bigger stick. .

Depends on setting and 'heroic' I guess, but often it's not really true...

Shield is in fact quite synonymous with heroic in classical 'heroic' stuff from Homer to sagas and other legends, and 'resulting' tales.

Greek heroes were getting back with their shields, or on them.

Perseus wouldn't have slain Medusa without shield he had received from Athena.

There's whole poem about Heracles shield I believe?

"poet Einar a shield that was carved with scenes from legends, overlaid with gold, and set with jewels."

Theoden golden shield shines brightly when he charges trough Pelennor Fields, but then it's shine is dimmed when the Nazgul and his beasts struck the king down.

Then Eowin's shield is shattered along with her arm while she defends her king. Also symbolic like hell.

King Arthur's shield also was supposed to have a lot of weird powers in some myths, I believe. Either way, it usually had a name, so had his knights shields.

And so on.

Shield definitely has immense heroic symbolism.

Rubik

2014-04-06, 06:38 PM

If you can get them to use the pathfinder version (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter) which probably puts the fighter more on par with TOB classes (in terms of combat power, if not versatility)Um... I looked at Pathfinder's feats, and all of the ones for mundanes suck horribly. Except Improved Initiative. It's always great.

Seerow

2014-04-06, 06:41 PM

Um... I looked at Pathfinder's feats, and all of the ones for mundanes suck horribly. Except Improved Initiative. It's always great.

It's great because casters can use it better.

Anlashok

2014-04-06, 06:51 PM

Simply put, you can do two things with a shield:
Traditional sword for offense and shield for defense. This sucks because Wizards decided that AC both wasn't very good and didn't even scale properly for the stuff it's supposed to be good for. AC optimization really isn't a thing in 3.5. So uh.. might be good in E6 I guess.

Secondly, you can TWF with a shield as your offhand weapon. This is slightly better, but really obnoxious at the same time because by themselves shields aren't a very good TWF weapon... luckily there's feat support to make them less awful. Unluckily that means you need to take your normal melee fighter package of fights, then your normal TWF feat package, then your shield feat package on top of that. Unsurprisingly that doesn't leave much room for anything else. You're pretty much forced to be a fighter for the bonus feats and even then with every single feat you have built towards optimizing this one fighting style... the barbarian with a greatsword and power attack and nothing else is still going to be doing better than you.

The short version here is that WotC are *******s when it comes to mundane classes and think it's a great idea to make you spend 8 or 9 feats to do what a good class can do at baseline.

Um... I looked at Pathfinder's feats, and all of the ones for mundanes suck horribly. Except Improved Initiative. It's always great.

Naw dude, Pathfinder mundanes have amazing stuff like being able to give their enemy power attack.

Just to Browse

2014-04-06, 08:08 PM

What if shields gave you the ability to provide cover / block line of effect? Like a passive benefit unless you're flanked, or something you can activate if you don't move for a round.

Nerd-o-rama

2014-04-06, 08:11 PM

And from a conceptual standpoint it is (see the Romans and hopw they conquered europe, parts of Asia and parts of Africa. That is, Until huge rocks are being hurled with an accuracy of about 5 m sway...

That's one reason I'm okay with tower shields being super-situational in D&D - even if you assume it's supposed to work like the Middle Ages (instead of modern warfare with wizards and clerics and their insane force multipliers), it's still well past the heyday of the tower shield.

I still don't know why there's not a single damn feat or class feature that lets you use a polearm with a shield on foot, though.

Azoth

2014-04-06, 10:25 PM

I still don't know why there's not a single damn feat or class feature that lets you use a polearm with a shield on foot, though.

Shield and Pike Style it is a Dragon Mag feat. Lets you use a light shield and a polearm with no attack penalty while retaining shield AC.

VoxRationis

2014-04-06, 10:31 PM

That's one reason I'm okay with tower shields being super-situational in D&D - even if you assume it's supposed to work like the Middle Ages (instead of modern warfare with wizards and clerics and their insane force multipliers), it's still well past the heyday of the tower shield.

I still don't know why there's not a single damn feat or class feature that lets you use a polearm with a shield on foot, though.

I think the Middle Ages were past the heyday of the tower shield because of a) the proliferation of heavily armored cavalry, which simply plow through infantry formations unless the latter is thoroughly pointy, and b) the societal change favoring hereditary knights and peasant militias instead of professional infantry armies. The equipment wasn't any worse in comparison to medieval weapons, I don't think.

Nerd-o-rama

2014-04-06, 10:55 PM

I think the Middle Ages were past the heyday of the tower shield because of a) the proliferation of heavily armored cavalry, which simply plow through infantry formations unless the latter is thoroughly pointy, and b) the societal change favoring hereditary knights and peasant militias instead of professional infantry armies. The equipment wasn't any worse in comparison to medieval weapons, I don't think.

Well yeah it was an era thoroughly dominated by heavy cavalry. I guess the true D&D equivalent of that is the Ubercharger.

bekeleven

2014-04-06, 11:17 PM

Animated Shield, Guisarme, Armor Spikes.

There. Now you're sword-and-boarding, two-weapon-fighting, and two-handed-fighting.

Windstorm

2014-04-06, 11:43 PM

one very oft-overlooked feat that is a great reason to use a shield (especially early-mid levels) is parrying shield from lords of madness. it allows you to add your shield AC and enhancement bonus to your touch AC, which given that touch is one of the things a caster will be targeting, along with one of your weakest areas makes it very worth it under the right conditions.

granted, the other problems that have been brought up here don't go away, which is why I normally put it on a battlefield control ToB class chassis (thicket of blades and friends). extra AC is usually a good thing until much higher levels, by which point you have other options available and can ditch it and retrain or use it as a base for fun shield-only enchant effects.

TuggyNE

2014-04-07, 12:50 AM

EDIT: People don't mind the -2 to attack from Power Attack because it increases your damage by a significant amount, so it can still increase your expected damage per round. Even then, Shock Trooper is popular because it mitigates said penalty.

It's difficult to overstate this. Without Heedless Charge, Power Attack's +2 damage/level comes at the cost of reduced chance to hit, which usually makes it worse than Weapon Specialization; its primary use is against enemies that are either nigh-impossible or entirely trivial to hit: i.e., those with ACs so low or so high that the penalty doesn't affect chance-to-hit at all.

And yes, I did say "worse than Weapon Specialization".

bekeleven

2014-04-07, 01:22 AM

It's difficult to overstate this. Without Heedless Charge, Power Attack's +2 damage/level comes at the cost of reduced chance to hit, which usually makes it worse than Weapon Specialization; its primary use is against enemies that are either nigh-impossible or entirely trivial to hit: i.e., those with ACs so low or so high that the penalty doesn't affect chance-to-hit at all.

And yes, I did say "worse than Weapon Specialization".

Except for the fact that AC doesn't scale with level at all? Enemy AC goes up around +1 per CR, so every strength bonuses or weapons enhancement is another BAB you can trade away without changing your changes of hitting.

TuggyNE

2014-04-07, 04:50 AM

Except for the fact that AC doesn't scale with level at all? Enemy AC goes up around +1 per CR, so every strength bonuses or weapons enhancement is another BAB you can trade away without changing your changes of hitting.

It's not that simple. Inspire Courage, Str bonuses, and weapon enhancements all also add damage at at least the same rate they add attack. And guess what? Trading away that extra attack bonus means you don't gain as much from the extra damage as you would if you hit more often. Usually when I've run the numbers, at-level Power Attack with any significant source of bonus damage (Str, flaming weapons, IC, etc) should only be 1-3 points, and sometimes none at all. At that amount, you're getting about as much expected damage increase as WS, at best, at the cost of having to guess at the enemy's AC and being swingier.

And, of course, some of the best IC optimization adds nothing but damage (DFI). Similarly, special abilities like Collision or the various energy damage ones militate against dropping attack bonus too much, or at all.

Techwarrior

2014-04-07, 05:03 AM

We went a completely different direction than making Power Attack work better with a Shield. There's already support for that feat-wise.

Instead, we house-ruled that Combat Expertise's bonus AC is doubled if you are using a shield, and uncapped the penalty to hit. The feat Shield Ward had a line added to it stating that if you use Combat Expertise, you also gain half the AC bonus gained as a bonus to all saves.

A_S

2014-04-07, 05:07 AM

Usually when I've run the numbers, at-level Power Attack with any significant source of bonus damage (Str, flaming weapons, IC, etc) should only be 1-3 points, and sometimes none at all. At that amount, you're getting about as much expected damage increase as WS, at best, at the cost of having to guess at the enemy's AC and being swingier.

Worth noting that it becomes a lot better if you can reliably deny dex bonus to AC, make touch attacks, cast True Strike before you swing, etc. Which a lot of builds can at high-ish levels. But if you're just standing toe-to-toe and swinging your big stick, yes, Power Attack does not give you numbers to write home about in terms of expected value.

Eldariel

2014-04-07, 05:08 AM

It's difficult to overstate this. Without Heedless Charge, Power Attack's +2 damage/level comes at the cost of reduced chance to hit, which usually makes it worse than Weapon Specialization; its primary use is against enemies that are either nigh-impossible or entirely trivial to hit: i.e., those with ACs so low or so high that the penalty doesn't affect chance-to-hit at all.

And yes, I did say "worse than Weapon Specialization".

Depends on how much you pour resources into improving your To Hit. I found even Core-only there exist enough ways to improve your To Hit that Power Attack becomes quite a bit better than WS with time against all but the most defense-stacked opponents. Basically, every point of To Hit you have in excess of opponent's AC on your primary attack can trivially be poured into two-handed Power Attack for net gain of damage, god forbid you actually have a Wizard buffer or something available.

Gwendol

2014-04-07, 06:08 AM

You need to build for S&B since the style is so very badly supported. It should increase touch AC (but doesn't), it should protect differently than passive defence (armor) since you actively wield the thing, and it should give you additional perks (some cover, bonus to ref saves, etc).

That said, pick a class like crusader or knight, that actually gives you something for wearing a shield, and look up the various shield related feats. Shield slam is good.

But to make it attractive the rules need to be changed, radically. AC to touch, the ability to negate attacks, grant partial cover (based on size), shield others, all need to be considered.

TuggyNE

2014-04-07, 06:14 AM

Basically, every point of To Hit you have in excess of opponent's AC on your primary attack can trivially be poured into two-handed Power Attack for net gain of damage, god forbid you actually have a Wizard buffer or something available.

Well, obviously. The trick is getting all of those attack bonuses stacked up, and I personally haven't seen good ways to do that in Core. Maybe start a new thread with a breakdown?

Gwendol

2014-04-07, 06:24 AM

Well, obviously. The trick is getting all of those attack bonuses stacked up, and I personally haven't seen good ways to do that in Core. Maybe start a new thread with a breakdown?

I thought that was kind of trivial: charge (+2), flank (+2), bless or inspire courage (+1 or more), +STR (from spell, potion, item), higher ground (+1), debuff the target (tanglefoot bag, or whatever) (+ ? varies).

Garonak

2014-04-07, 07:10 AM

For the rest of this post you should note that our group are not very fond of animated shield and tend to ban it, mostly for sillyness - An animated heavy mithral shield has no ACP and no ASF, meaning that everyone except druids and similar can use it without any penalty. Alos, it looks stupid when you think about it.

By just skimming most of the posts here the main issues that are brought up seem to be:
1. AC doesn't scale that well
2. Damage ouput for one-handed fighting

I would like to add that getting enemies to attack you can also be quite difficult at higher levels. My best survival character was a shifter fighter 4/ranger 2/warshaper 4/some shifter prc X/some other shifter prc X/cleric 1 (we didn't use the silly multi-class XP-penalty). He could heal himself fully twice per day by the combination of racial traits, feats and magic items (per day powers, in addition to consumables). His AC was something like 37 (ff35, touch 29), plus buffs. He had two problems: mobility, 30ft in full plate and actually getting enemies to attack him, at that point in the campaign we met a lot of flying creatures, and they just ignored him and focused on the party members.
When that character died (due to overexposure to enervation) I made a "glass cannon". Neraph scout 6/ranger 12/barbarian 1/swordsage 1 as an opposite of the survivor - low ac high damage. Though he had pounce the we, as a group, decided that charge bonuses only applied to the first attack (same rule applied to npcs and monsters). With that in mind I did in the area of 20d6+250 against favored enemies (evil outsiders for the most parts) on the first attack and around 15d6+180 on secondary attacks. +30 to hit (touch), but after a charge like that my AC was down to 17 - and an enemy that could withstand that amount of damage could usually bring med down to negative hp in a single round.

Personally I am a big fan of the Sword and Board style, on a coolness level. Mechanical they are difficult to pull off in a good way. The martial adepts can function as good substitutes, but they don't actually utilize the shield, it's just there.

What would be optimal would be for the shield user to not only be able to use the shield on the offence, get enemies to focus on the shield bearer and have the AC be of use. The best example I have of this is the Sword and Board warrior in Dragon Age: Origins. Good HP, battle controllers and good defense - though low damage output.
Thus I devised a PRC with that in mind. I don't have it on this computer, but in the short:
- Threaten aura - make enemies within aura attack
- Goad ability - make enemy attack him - similar to Knight
- Able to stun enemies with shield (as stunning fist) - also made this a feat, but the prc gets additional benefits
- Increased Shield AC (shield block from Knight, but increased bonus)
- d12 HP, DR 5/-
- Most class abilities are con-based or Intimidate-bassed
- At the moment it also gets two or three bonus feats (over 10 levels), from a very limited, shield based list - I am considering making this a choice for the player to either get a bonus feat or +1 initiator level, for the purpose of gaining new stances and maneuvers.
Preq: Shield bash, intimidate
I don't have it on this computer, but I'll post it somewhere later this afternoon (Norwegian time)

Hyena

2014-04-07, 07:20 AM

-2 is pretty minimal when you think about how much people favor massive Power Attack penalties to hit anyway.
Power attack penalties? The hell are you talking about? (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-warrior--61/shock-trooper--2614/)

TuggyNE

2014-04-07, 07:49 AM

I thought that was kind of trivial: charge (+2), flank (+2), bless or inspire courage (+1 or more), +STR (from spell, potion, item), higher ground (+1), debuff the target (tanglefoot bag, or whatever) (+ ? varies).

Give me a little credit; if it was trivial, I would already have done it. :smallconfused: Charging and flanking do not combine well at all, I assumed Str bonuses already, higher ground is unreliable in most cases, debuffs require actions beforehand to set up, and finding enough small bonuses from haste, bless, and so on to actually make the difference between "hits on a 6" and "hits on a 2 even after a -2 penalty" is difficult.

Gwendol

2014-04-07, 09:22 AM

Give me a little credit; if it was trivial, I would already have done it. :smallconfused: Charging and flanking do not combine well at all, I assumed Str bonuses already, higher ground is unreliable in most cases, debuffs require actions beforehand to set up, and finding enough small bonuses from haste, bless, and so on to actually make the difference between "hits on a 6" and "hits on a 2 even after a -2 penalty" is difficult.

Why doesn't flanking and charging not combine well? My experience is that this is more the norm than the exception (tumble/summon a flanker behind the enemy, then the bruiser charges). Higher ground is also fairly common, unless all fights happen on featureless planes.

Why do you have to hit on a two to make it worthwhile to PA? Check a PA calculator to find the sweet spot (highest average damage/round) and recalibrate expectations is my advice.

Friv

2014-04-07, 09:24 AM

Well, obviously. The trick is getting all of those attack bonuses stacked up, and I personally haven't seen good ways to do that in Core. Maybe start a new thread with a breakdown?

Well, taking a quick look at the D&D wiki, most CR 15 enemies have ACs of about 30. So for a random Level 15 character:

Base Attack Bonus 15 + Strength 7 (Base 19 + Item 6) + Barbarian Rage 3 + Weapon Bonus 4 + Charge 2 = +31 to hit, with no feats or spells in play. At that point, your first two points of Power Attack are free on auto-hitting attacks.

bekeleven

2014-04-07, 09:34 AM

It's not that simple. Inspire Courage, Str bonuses, and weapon enhancements all also add damage at at least the same rate they add attack. And guess what? Trading away that extra attack bonus means you don't gain as much from the extra damage as you would if you hit more often. Usually when I've run the numbers, at-level Power Attack with any significant source of bonus damage (Str, flaming weapons, IC, etc) should only be 1-3 points, and sometimes none at all. At that amount, you're getting about as much expected damage increase as WS, at best, at the cost of having to guess at the enemy's AC and being swingier.

And, of course, some of the best IC optimization adds nothing but damage (DFI). Similarly, special abilities like Collision or the various energy damage ones militate against dropping attack bonus too much, or at all.

I mean granted, a bonus for free has better cost:benefit when compared to a bonus that trades off since it has no cost. The problem is that WS isn't a bonus for free, it's a bonus that locks you into a weapon, plus levels of fighter, plus multiple feats. Whereas power attack is a single feat that has costs to use but a sliding scale of benefits.

Gwendol

2014-04-07, 09:59 AM

Also, it adapts to circumstances: given the right setup, you can PA for full, whereas being locked into the WS and above feats is a static to-hit with a chosen weapon.

Person_Man

2014-04-07, 10:40 AM

Sword and board is a perfectly acceptable alternative to two handed fighting. It just won't yield the same damage output. instead, you have better defense and access to other combos. (Although it's worth noting that you can use a shield as a two handed weapon, so you can still use a shield effectively with Shock Trooper. You're basically just giving up the reach you might get from a polearm or spiked chain in exchange for greater protection). Here's a long Guide to Shields (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?123630-3-X-Person-Man-s-Guide-to-Shields) your player may wish to read through. Biggest takeaways:

Tower Shield: You can hide behind this to gain total cover. This is especially useful if you have something to do with your actions that don't involve attacks, such as summoning, healing, buffing, Demoralize, etc. Note that Fighters get proficiency for free at first level, which they can also trade away for various Exotic Shield proficiencies.
Divine Shield Feat: Burn a turn/rebuke undead to add your Cha bonus to your shield bonus for a number of rounds. Amazing defensive buff for high level Cha based builds. Comp Warrior.
Inlindl School Feat: You can sacrifice your shield bonus to AC to gain 1/2 that bonus To-Hit with any light or Weapon Finesse-able weapon. While this may not sound like much, keep in mind that with enhancements, Shield Specialization, Divine Shield, Knight bonuses, etc, it's not that hard to get a +10 or higher shield bonus, which means that you can easily get a +5 or higher untyped bonus to hit for a moderate investment. Also note that you could use a heavy shield and a Gnome Battle Cloak (or just a heavy shield in each hand, or one or two animated shields, etc) and only sacrifice the shield bonus from one, while keeping the bonuses from the second shield. Requires Combat Expertise, Shield Proficiency, and Weapon Finesse. Drow of the Underdark pg 56.
Shield Slam Feat: When you charge an enemy and attack with your Shield, you get a free Trip attack (from the Shield Charge pre-req) and your enemy must Save or be Dazed for 1 round. Almost nothing is immune to Daze, which makes this a good mid level combo. A nice DM might let you use it with Pounce, making it far more effective. Otherwise it loses it’s usefulness by ECL 11+. Requires Shield Bash and Shield Charge. Complete Warrior pg 105.
Greater Mighty Wallop (Wiz 3) Increases the damage of a bludgeoning melee weapon by one size category per 4 caster levels (max Colossal) without increasing the actual size. Your shield without spikes is a blunt weapon. A reasonable DM should allow a shield with spikes to be a bludgeoning and piercing weapon. Races of the Dragon pg 115.
Magic Vestment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicVestment.htm) (Cler 3): Basically the Greater Magic Weapon for Shields. Lasts for hours per level, and scales well. So as long as you have a Cleric in the party, your Shield's enhancement bonus need not be above +1, letting you dump the other +9 into other enchantments. PHB.

Story

2014-04-07, 11:06 AM

How to make Sword and Board viable

* Go Incantrix
* Persist Draconic Polymorph into a War Troll
* Persist Bite of the Wearbear
* Persist Alter Self back into a human
* Add other buffs to taste (Wraithstrike, GMW, etc.)
* Grab sword and shield.
* Pretend to be a human fighter. Since you have 55+str, you don't really care how inefficient you're being

Piggy Knowles

2014-04-07, 11:44 AM

As an aside, I'm building an incarnate/crusader/ironsoul forgemaster as we speak, who is most definitely a sword and board (or incarnate weapon and board, I guess) fighter. Incarnate Weapon + crusader maneuvers mean that he deals solid damage (including debuff) regardless of whether or not he two-hands his weapon, and his shield means an excellent touch AC, another spot for enhancements and armor crystals, and swift action energy resistance to all elements thanks to Shield Bond.

Shining Wrath

2014-04-07, 01:33 PM

First: the fighter blocking a dragon's breath attack with his shield is an enormously common artistic theme, so I agree that S&B is iconic.

Secondly: looking at history, there's been some pretty damn big empires built around Pointy Thing and Shield: Alexander's phalanx, the Roman Legion, Shaka Zulu's high-mobility amabutho, et cetera. Although D&D has very little to do with historical reality, there is a certain Rule Of Cool with being able to emulate these warriors.

To make S&B more effective:
1) First, increase the AC bonus from the shield. This isn't a real fix, but it is a start toward a little more historical verisimilitude.
2) Borrow from 4e and let the shield help your Reflex save. If you're trying to get out of the way of something, being able to combine moving yourself out of the way with deflecting the something with your shield makes sense
3) Provide ways to use a shield as an offensive weapon or a hindrance to enemy mobility.
a) Shield attacks using two-handed fighting rules
b) If someone tries to move past you, allow a Bull Rush behind your shield as an attack of opportunity which does not provoke an attack. A successful Bull Rush means the shield bearer has stopped the enemy's move, and the shield bearer may chose whether the motion ends in the square where the Bull Rush was initiated, or one square away along the line formed by the shield bearer's square and the enemy's square. If the move ends one square away, the shield wielder may make a free 5' step into the vacated square where the Bull Rush was initiated. A Tower Shield gives +4 to the Bull Rush check roll
4) Some shield-specific armor enhancements.

Gwendol

2014-04-07, 03:08 PM

Good suggestions. I would add the ability to deflect attacks, on oneself or against an adjacent target. This will automatically make shield formations more difficult to break.

Shining Wrath

2014-04-07, 04:09 PM

Some of the ToB stuff allows you to use your shield to protect your neighbor.

Another idea that occurred to me is allowing you to "get closer" to your foe without penalty; if you are using a large or tower shield, you can attempt to initiate a grapple or a bull rush without provoking attack of opportunity. To grapple, you still have to drop the shield, but you can enter their square still holding it. Basically, using a shield gives you part of two feats (Improved Grapple, Improved Bull Rush).

For a nominal amount of gold (and this is not historical, but fantasy) add a "slot" on the side of the shield that can function as a sword catcher. Make a to-hit with the shield as a counter to an attack; if your to-hit beats their to-hit, you can initiate a free disarm attempt. Only works on a weapon that the DM rules would fit into a "slot"; e.g., not gonna disarm a giant's club.

Rubik

2014-04-07, 04:18 PM

As a houserule, have shields grant a stackable 5% miss chance for every point of shield bonus they grant (including enhancement bonus), along with the standard shield bonus to AC (which, as mentioned already, should be added to touch AC). Miss chances remain relevant no matter how high an enemy's attack bonus is, meaning that even an unenhanced buckler will be useful against archfiends and such. 5% isn't much, but it's always, always relevant.

Just to Browse

2014-04-07, 06:34 PM

Rubik

2014-04-07, 06:43 PM

Please do not force people to roll double the number of dice on every attack, each especially when the miss chance is generally 10% only.

Also please do not allow level 1 characters to gain 20% miss chance.I can't think of any other way to give shields usefulness on par with a basic greatsword/Power Attack combo without something as potent as cover-based miss chances.

Story

2014-04-07, 08:21 PM

You want everyone walking around with a 35% miss chance animated shield?

georgie_leech

2014-04-07, 08:27 PM

You want everyone walking around with a 35% miss chance animated shield?

Perhaps the miss chance only applies if the shield is wielded and not just Animated?

Rubik

2014-04-07, 08:33 PM

You want everyone walking around with a 35% miss chance animated shield?Specify that animated shields gain a penalty to their miss chance because you can't wield them effectively, maybe? Or remove animated shields altogether.

There needs to be a hefty reason to go S&B, when Power Attacking Two-Handed Barbarians can do enough damage to ubercharge and slaughter epic things at relatively low levels in a single hit.

Flickerdart

2014-04-07, 08:36 PM

The reason PA is good is because it adds much more damage than the base weapon does, and scales nicely. To compete, shields need something that does way more shieldy stuff than just the base AC bonus, and that scales too. At the moment, shields are way too front-loaded.

Vogonjeltz

2014-04-07, 08:47 PM

Melee Evasion (PHB 2), has combat expertise and dodge as prerequisites, good picks for a character who is focusing on significant defense. It also allows the character to have a very high touch AC against things like rays.

Taking power attack doesn't work with the character design, and seems to be a waste, especially for a character who will not be wielding a 2h weapon.

Rubik

2014-04-07, 08:56 PM

Melee Evasion (PHB 2), has combat expertise and dodge as prerequisites, good picks for a character who is focusing on significant defense. It also allows the character to have a very high touch AC against things like rays.Dodge is a "good pick"? It's one of the worst feats in the game! And I've never heard of anyone taking either of them as anything but prereqs, since neither is anything resembling a decent feat.

Taking power attack doesn't work with the character design, and seems to be a waste, especially for a character who will not be wielding a 2h weapon.One-handing Power Attack is still better than Dodge and Combat Expertise, even if you got both of them for a single feat. Requiring both for a third feat means that third one needs to be absolutely insanely good to make up for wasting two very precious feats on prereqs.

We're talking Pathfinder-level feats here. Suckness incarnate.

Vogonjeltz

2014-04-07, 09:09 PM

Dodge is a "good pick"? It's one of the worst feats in the game! And I've never heard of anyone taking either of them as anything but prereqs, since neither is anything resembling a decent feat.

It's an extra point of AC. Yes, that's good, it also has synergy with a number of other feats that a defensive character might want (many of which it is a prereq for). Power attack is not useful when one is throwing the BAB into defense with combat expertise.

One-handing Power Attack is still better than Dodge and Combat Expertise, even if you got both of them for a single feat. Requiring both for a third feat means that third one needs to be absolutely insanely good to make up for wasting two very precious feats on prereqs.

Power attack is entirely negated by Elusive Target. There is no feat negating Combat Expertise.

TuggyNE

2014-04-07, 09:19 PM

Why do you have to hit on a two to make it worthwhile to PA? Check a PA calculator to find the sweet spot (highest average damage/round) and recalibrate expectations is my advice.

Uh-huh. I didn't say you have to hit on a two to make PA useful; I said you have to hit on a two after penalty to make PA better than WS. Other than that, the bonus to damage is mostly offset by the penalty to hit, so expected damage goes up by only a small amount. (See breakdown later)

Well, taking a quick look at the D&D wiki, most CR 15 enemies have ACs of about 30. So for a random Level 15 character:

Base Attack Bonus 15 + Strength 7 (Base 19 + Item 6) + Barbarian Rage 3 + Weapon Bonus 4 + Charge 2 = +31 to hit, with no feats or spells in play. At that point, your first two points of Power Attack are free on auto-hitting attacks.

I'm seeing a range from 27 to 35 for CR 14-16 foes in the SRD. That looks more like an average of 31 or 32, which means you don't necessarily get much if any free power attack. Let's pick the Cornugon as an example, and go to level 16 just to be safe; that's another two points of attack bonus (one from Str level-up, the other from BAB). The donjon PA calculator indicates that power attacking for three points gives us +0.79 expected damage. A good-aligned Barb would be facing the +2 deflection from constant magic circle against good, so would PA for two points and +0.32 expected damage. Contrast with a Fighter 4/Barb 12 with WF, and you get +1.99 or +1.89 expected damage (depending on alignment) from Weapon Specialization. (No, I don't know why those numbers are so weird. Maybe donjon has a subtle bug.)

To be honest, I'm surprised it's as close as it is; I guess PA comes closer to being useful in the high levels, while it's relatively worse at low-mid levels. To some extent that may be offset by having intelligent foes that buff themselves properly (and of course maxing out PC buff capacity as well), but that would likely require a lot of extra work to test.

I mean granted, a bonus for free has better cost:benefit when compared to a bonus that trades off since it has no cost. The problem is that WS isn't a bonus for free, it's a bonus that locks you into a weapon, plus levels of fighter, plus multiple feats. Whereas power attack is a single feat that has costs to use but a sliding scale of benefits.

Well, sure. Neither is free, and they're specialized in different ways, but WS is actually seriously competitive. And that's a real surprise, since conventional wisdom (shaped almost entirely, without fully realizing it, by Shock Trooper's early advent on the 3.5 scene) says that WS is junk and PA is the most best thing since bread slicers were turned into swords.

Also, it adapts to circumstances: given the right setup, you can PA for full, whereas being locked into the WS and above feats is a static to-hit with a chosen weapon.

That's great, which is why I already mentioned it. Without Shock Trooper, wraithstrike, or Deep Impact (i.e., the entire premise here), PAing for full is so rare as to be a chimera. With any of those methods for trivializing AC, of course PA becomes very powerful, but that's because they're so effective. PA itself, without a lot of work, is no more than a slightly-above-average feat. And the work you have to do can reasonably be considered the actual source of effectiveness. Not PA itself.

TL/DR: Shock Trooper is stupidly OP; PA is kind of average; details really really matter.

georgie_leech

2014-04-07, 09:26 PM

It's an extra point of AC.

An extra point of AC against a single target. No, that isn't good. At least take Midnight Dodge, which gives you an extra essential point and you can pump the dodge bonus if you want, or if you can manage the move speed, Expeditious Dodge, which is +2 to AC whenever you move at least 40 feet in a round.

Just to Browse

2014-04-07, 09:57 PM

I can't think of any other way to give shields usefulness on par with a basic greatsword/Power Attack combo without something as potent as cover-based miss chances.
Well then let's keep thinking about it.

TuggyNE, Power Attack is not meant to compared to Weapon Specialization by using CR 15 enemies with high natural armor (and exceptions to the normal AC curve). Power Attack is for fighting any kind of minion, like CR 11 monsters whose average AC is ~25 and your hit bonus is effectively wasted. That benefit scales to level (PA more against weaker targets), is exceptionally strong against humanoids and even more against caster types, and allows round-to-round flexibility so you can optimize your damage against different targets.

Sure, in a 1v1 against an equal-CR monster, you're slightly worse off by not choosing weapon specialization, but that's something in the range of 5% more damage on all attacks; you probably won't even notice it over the course of a campaign. It is a laughable feat, and rightly so, and has absolutely no place next to power attack.

Rubik

2014-04-07, 10:15 PM

Well then let's keep thinking about it.If shields applied to touch AC, and gave a scaling bonus depending on your BAB? Bucklers give half-BAB (min 1), light shields give 3/4 BAB (min 1), heavy shields give full-BAB (min 2), and tower shields give double-BAB (min 4) AND they all give an equal bonus to your Ref save (without the stupid to-hit penalty), then they'd be a heck of a lot more useful all the way around, and they'd work far better for those with martial training than they would for caster types.

And maybe look through the shield feats and apply some of those bonuses as stock options. Giving AC and save bonuses to allies for a round as a swift action should definitely be an option, for sure.

Also, make full cover from the tower shield work against spells. It's stupid that spells get exceptions for pretty much everything. Awesome if you're a caster, but they're not the ones who desperately need a revamp to remain competitive.

Reddish Mage

2014-04-07, 10:44 PM

Specify that animated shields gain a penalty to their miss chance because you can't wield them effectively, maybe? Or remove animated shields altogether.

There needs to be a hefty reason to go S&B, when Power Attacking Two-Handed Barbarians can do enough damage to ubercharge and slaughter epic things at relatively low levels in a single hit.

I don't think its the lack of ubercharging that is the biggest challenge to S&B mechanics. Ubercharging is one of the weakest of one-trick pony powers, and uberchargers don't clear Tier 4. The reason is that there are far more efficient ways to take out threats then to run down their hp's to zero, and every DM will be warned well in advance (this is the by far the most obvious of powergaming strategies) and, unless they are satisfied to let you cheese their game, have a variety of easy ways to depress or nullify ubercharging against their threats.

The best mundane fighting classes would have a variety of ways of nullifying their opponents, The problem with S&B is that your not getting much of anything in exchange for giving up all the extra damage (which is something). If there was some uberfeat out there (that can't be replicated on a two-hander) or super-magical shield goodness, then it could be worthwhile, there just isn't in RAW, apparently. I like the idea of home-brewed saving-throw bonuses, as a highly survivable fighter along multiple fronts could be the foundation for something truly awesome.

TuggyNE

2014-04-08, 12:27 AM

Well then let's keep thinking about it.

TuggyNE, Power Attack is not meant to compared to Weapon Specialization by using CR 15 enemies with high natural armor (and exceptions to the normal AC curve). Power Attack is for fighting any kind of minion, like CR 11 monsters whose average AC is ~25 and your hit bonus is effectively wasted. That benefit scales to level (PA more against weaker targets), is exceptionally strong against humanoids and even more against caster types, and allows round-to-round flexibility so you can optimize your damage against different targets.

Sure, in a 1v1 against an equal-CR monster, you're slightly worse off by not choosing weapon specialization, but that's something in the range of 5% more damage on all attacks; you probably won't even notice it over the course of a campaign. It is a laughable feat, and rightly so, and has absolutely no place next to power attack.

So, Power Attack is great stuff because it gives you moderately higher damage totals against hordes of mooks (Donjon says a full attack with +31 against AC 25 should PA for 6, giving an 18% increase overall, vs a 7.5% increase overall for WS), but WS is terribad because it's only better than PA against the more dangerous foes? How about Whirlwind Attack? That's also great against hordes of mooks. Contrariwise, how about a higher-than-CR encounter, where AC is likely to be high enough PA is almost useless?

I won't deny you probably won't notice it, of course; unlike PA, it's very unobtrusive. That just means PA is better at getting attention, and that those who are not paying attention to the statistics are going to underrate WS. But optimizers should pay attention to this sort of subtlety, and a feat that is most useful when you least need it (i.e., when fighting lots of very weak opponents, and after several rounds of "casting Detect AC") is not my first choice for the MVF award.

(It should probably also be noted that choosing any weapon enhancements other than straight numeric ones tends to weaken PA by that much more. A +1 flaming shocking corrosive greatsword instead of a +4 greatsword, for example, or a +1 keen collision greatsword, or whatever else.)

Attempting to bring this back onto S&B, PA is much less potent also when used on a one-handed weapon, but without Shock Trooper I think it makes less of a difference, and (for higher-op games) opponents will have to pay attention to AC slightly more, both of which tend to improve S&B by comparison. Not enough, of course, but every little bit helps.

Garonak

2014-04-08, 03:25 AM

Though I might be angering a few people now, I would like to state that without a few specific builds it is very difficullt for an S&B to match a two-handers damage output, I think most here will agree on that. Yes it is possible to make some characters that might match, but as a general rule, no.

With that in mind, wouldn't it be more productive to finde other roles in the party for the S&B, other than damage dealer. Tank and controller springs to mind. Though the Knight class as a whole isn't perhaps the best out there it does have a few nice abilities when it comes to both tanking and controlling. If the S&B can either soak attack and damage so that the other party members can take them out or immobilize or otherwise tie the enemies up for the same reason it will be a valuable asset to the group, even with low damage output.

Not to tut my own horn, but tut tut (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?340003-Defender-%28PrC-homebrew%29).

Gwendol

2014-04-08, 04:21 AM

So, Power Attack is great stuff because it gives you moderately higher damage totals against hordes of mooks (Donjon says a full attack with +31 against AC 25 should PA for 6, giving an 18% increase overall, vs a 7.5% increase overall for WS), but WS is terribad because it's only better than PA against the more dangerous foes? How about Whirlwind Attack? That's also great against hordes of mooks. Contrariwise, how about a higher-than-CR encounter, where AC is likely to be high enough PA is almost useless?

Attempting to bring this back onto S&B, PA is much less potent also when used on a one-handed weapon, but without Shock Trooper I think it makes less of a difference, and (for higher-op games) opponents will have to pay attention to AC slightly more, both of which tend to improve S&B by comparison. Not enough, of course, but every little bit helps.

Well, the thing is that WS gives you the same bonus no matter what, while with PA you have a choice and can adapt to the situation. I notice you have completely avoided to bring up charging, flanking, IC, etc bonuses to attack after our last exchange on the matter. It is the situational bonuses that makes PA worthwhile, and more so when 2-handing. For S&B PA is only valid because of shock trooper.
With PA the player is encouraged to find tactical advantages, and to teamwork. Not so with WS.

TuggyNE

2014-04-08, 05:38 AM

Well, the thing is that WS gives you the same bonus no matter what, while with PA you have a choice and can adapt to the situation.

Aye. One gives you a small static bonus, the other gives you a potentially somewhat larger, potentially zero variable bonus. That's not much of a win, especially since you can guess wrong and actually reduce damage or fail to gain the full benefits.

It would be more significant, except that PA under nearly ideal (non-trivialized, non-Leap Attack/Battle Jump) circumstances can only get you, at most, maybe three times as much as WS can all the time, and those circumstances are at least matched by those in which it gets you nothing at all.

I notice you have completely avoided to bring up charging, flanking, IC, etc bonuses to attack after our last exchange on the matter.

I've answered that well enough, as far as I can tell: IC is only partially effective (since it increases damage as well, making every miss more costly), charging and flanking still seem to me to be difficult to combine, high ground is unreliable, most buffs cannot be kept up continually, debuffs take time to set up, numeric enhancements are not the only (or usually the best) weapon abilities, and not all foes are minions. That's a pretty long list of "well maybe if you get enough this other investment will be worth it", which is kind of sad. WS? Bad as it is, if you pick a good weapon you will be able to use it almost all of the time.

SiuiS

2014-04-08, 05:54 AM

From what I've heard the increase in AC from using a shield doesn't make up for the loss in damage from two-handing enough. In the long run, you would take less damage by just killing your enemies faster. The other problem is that, even though your AC is higher, you can't really do anything to force enemies to attack you or lock them down so they can't get past you. The damage loss from strength and power attack is just too high.

Lack of feats doesn't help either though.

I personally don't think it's awful. At low levels it's a pretty cheap way to increase AC, and at higher levels it's another slot to enchant with more armor properties, some of which are pretty good. It's certainly not as amazing as going to town with 1.5x str and power attacking.

There was a build from awhile back that focused S&B, but it was pretty much all about the board and shield slam/shield charge.

There are some neat things out there if you look.

Second party supplements for L5R fix some of the issue; coming from a specific school gives you two handed bonuses if you one-hand the school's weapon. It comes with some reputation and some NPC hooks such as teacher and fellow students and such, which is basically taking a flaw for a bonus ability instead of a bonus feat – or like an alternate class feature since the NPCs aren't a given.

I had some luck using the sizing rules from DMG on weapons, monkey grip (yes, I know, I know) this school and a great sword in one hand and a tower shield in the other. Which I bashed with because it wasn't always a tower shield, it was also a Huge sized regular shield which I was proficient with due to vague wording in Jotunbrud.
And if a DM says "you can't two feats to dual wield huge weapons" you can usually point out that the alternative is two-handing one weapon for much more damage, so you're gimping yourself for flavor by comparison~

After all, several attacks at 2d6+1.5*str is only as broken as a level one whirling frenzy spirit lion barbarian, and nowhere near as bad as the same with chaos monk levels and two weapon fighting rapid strike.

Then you go looking for the things that make shields actually useful, such as applying your shield to some saves, getting a miss chance etc., and you come out pretty posh for a melee chick.

E: high ground (and eventually flanking) is just a jump check away, isn't it?

Gwendol

2014-04-08, 06:58 AM

Aye. One gives you a small static bonus, the other gives you a potentially somewhat larger, potentially zero variable bonus. That's not much of a win, especially since you can guess wrong and actually reduce damage or fail to gain the full benefits.

It would be more significant, except that PA under nearly ideal (non-trivialized, non-Leap Attack/Battle Jump) circumstances can only get you, at most, maybe three times as much as WS can all the time, and those circumstances are at least matched by those in which it gets you nothing at all.
I've answered that well enough, as far as I can tell: IC is only partially effective (since it increases damage as well, making every miss more costly), charging and flanking still seem to me to be difficult to combine, high ground is unreliable, most buffs cannot be kept up continually, debuffs take time to set up, numeric enhancements are not the only (or usually the best) weapon abilities, and not all foes are minions. That's a pretty long list of "well maybe if you get enough this other investment will be worth it", which is kind of sad. WS? Bad as it is, if you pick a good weapon you will be able to use it almost all of the time.

"At most"? You can PA for full, and that means getting way more than WS can deliver past level three. And while you may be right about things evening out in the end, practically speaking that isn't very interesting or relevant. In D&D whittling down your opponent +2 HP a hit isn't advised. Instead the game rewards those that work together in order to completely incapacitate or neuter the opposition, before annihilating them. In that context PA is much more valuable than WS (and at a smaller cost due to the WF pre-req).
You don't seem to have much experience with tactical combat using PA based on your comments regarding adding situational bonuses, or maybe your DM never leaves an opening. However, finding and combining bonuses should be second nature to the melee combatant, especially when using PA.

And in the end, if you can't get your buffs, debuffs, situational bonuses, etc lined up, then you don't have to PA. I would think those situations would not be too common among the seasoned veterans.

TuggyNE

2014-04-08, 08:23 AM

"At most"? You can PA for full, and that means getting way more than WS can deliver past level three.

Barring Shock Trooper-ish situations, that doesn't really happen often enough to factor in; it's kind of like rolling max damage on a fireball: sure, it's great when it happens, but you don't make build decisions or spell comparisons based on that. You go with the averages, figure out what happens when there's fire resistance, and so on. Pessimistic, not optimistic.

And while you may be right about things evening out in the end, practically speaking that isn't very interesting or relevant.

Averages don't matter, because what matters is impressive spike damage? :smallconfused:

In D&D whittling down your opponent +2 HP a hit isn't advised. Instead the game rewards those that work together in order to completely incapacitate or neuter the opposition, before annihilating them. In that context PA is much more valuable than WS (and at a smaller cost due to the WF pre-req).

Incremental damage increase is worthless, but slightly different incremental damage increase is great? They're both just damage. Enough damage kills, and too much damage kills inefficiently. Without knowing the details of a particular monster in a particular combat, it's impossible to know whether PA would be overkill, underkill, or what compared to WS. All that matters is how many hits it takes, but since that can't be calculated except for a given monster, you have to go with what gives the best expected value (and, generally speaking, what has the least statistical deviation). If PA and WS are approximately equal in overall expected value, then WS wins by being easier to use and more reliable.

Which, of course, is strongly counter-intuitive, because WS shouldn't win anything ever, right?

You don't seem to have much experience with tactical combat using PA based on your comments regarding adding situational bonuses, or maybe your DM never leaves an opening. However, finding and combining bonuses should be second nature to the melee combatant, especially when using PA.

And in the end, if you can't get your buffs, debuffs, situational bonuses, etc lined up, then you don't have to PA. I would think those situations would not be too common among the seasoned veterans.

If we're down to personal "who's the more experienced and can vaguely summarize general trends in a qualitative fashion", well, I don't think there's much point to continuing. On the other hand, specific details about, say, how many encounters in the last three sessions have had full-on buff/debuff/situational stacking available vs how many have been lacking — that would be useful. But if it's just "well, I think experienced players would know that these circumstances are doable often enough" — nah.

Shining Wrath

2014-04-08, 08:33 AM

It's an extra point of AC. Yes, that's good, it also has synergy with a number of other feats that a defensive character might want (many of which it is a prereq for). Power attack is not useful when one is throwing the BAB into defense with combat expertise.

Power attack is entirely negated by Elusive Target. There is no feat negating Combat Expertise.

I'd rather have Toughness than Dodge.

HaikenEdge

2014-04-08, 08:45 AM

I'd rather have Toughness than Dodge.

I'd rather have Combat Casting than Dodge.

Seerow

2014-04-08, 09:01 AM

I'd rather have Combat Casting than Dodge.

I'd rather have Toughness than Dodge.

Hope these are both sarcastic. All three of the feats are useless, but dodge is at least prerequisite for a bunch of pretty decent feats. Neither toughness or combat casting has any good feats that require them. On that basis alone, if forced to choose one of the three, I'll take Dodge every time.

HaikenEdge

2014-04-08, 09:10 AM

Hope these are both sarcastic. All three of the feats are useless, but dodge is at least prerequisite for a bunch of pretty decent feats. Neither toughness or combat casting has any good feats that require them. On that basis alone, if forced to choose one of the three, I'll take Dodge every time.

There are a couple reasonably useable caster PrCs that require Combat Casting to get into; Abjurant Champion, Sacred Fist, and Raumathari Battlemage come to mind.

Story

2014-04-08, 09:12 AM

Hope these are both sarcastic. All three of the feats are useless, but dodge is at least prerequisite for a bunch of pretty decent feats. Neither toughness or combat casting has any good feats that require them. On that basis alone, if forced to choose one of the three, I'll take Dodge every time.

Not quite. Troll-blooded requires Toughness and Abjurant Champion requires Combat Casting.

Seerow

2014-04-08, 09:18 AM

I wasn't aware Abjurant Champion was a feat.

Troll-Blooded is so niche I had to google it to find out what it even was. It is a Dragon Magazine feat restricted to first level human ice barbarians at first level. It's a worthwhile feat, but not exactly something you can slot onto any character once you realize "Oh hey, I got toughness for free"

Gwendol

2014-04-08, 09:26 AM

Barring Shock Trooper-ish situations, that doesn't really happen often enough to factor in; it's kind of like rolling max damage on a fireball: sure, it's great when it happens, but you don't make build decisions or spell comparisons based on that. You go with the averages, figure out what happens when there's fire resistance, and so on. Pessimistic, not optimistic.

Averages don't matter, because what matters is impressive spike damage? :smallconfused:

Incremental damage increase is worthless, but slightly different incremental damage increase is great? They're both just damage. Enough damage kills, and too much damage kills inefficiently. Without knowing the details of a particular monster in a particular combat, it's impossible to know whether PA would be overkill, underkill, or what compared to WS. All that matters is how many hits it takes, but since that can't be calculated except for a given monster, you have to go with what gives the best expected value (and, generally speaking, what has the least statistical deviation). If PA and WS are approximately equal in overall expected value, then WS wins by being easier to use and more reliable.

Which, of course, is strongly counter-intuitive, because WS shouldn't win anything ever, right?

If we're down to personal "who's the more experienced and can vaguely summarize general trends in a qualitative fashion", well, I don't think there's much point to continuing. On the other hand, specific details about, say, how many encounters in the last three sessions have had full-on buff/debuff/situational stacking available vs how many have been lacking — that would be useful. But if it's just "well, I think experienced players would know that these circumstances are doable often enough" — nah.

Ok, so PA, which any character can pick up with enough strength, is less applicable than WS, which require Weapon Focus *and* four (4) levels of fighter, not to mention locking you into the use of one weapon? Please.

For a two-weapon wielding fighter, WS has a place, but for a vast majority of the melee-oriented characters out there WS is more of a foot-note or a curiosity.
As for spike damage vs average, ask the barbarian: they're all about spike damage (and can't qualify for WS, by the way) or the CoDZilla.

Specifics: I don't pick up PA for all my characters, but my Bardsader has it and uses it to good effect. In the last fights he's had +3 from IC, +2 from charging, +2 from flanking, +1 from higher ground (flying, actually), and x2 from diving charge. Not all attacks mind you, but regular enough for it to be a factor.
I also have a goliath with knockback: there I PA almost always because flinging enemies is a lot of fun.

HaikenEdge

2014-04-08, 09:33 AM

I wasn't aware Abjurant Champion was a feat.

That seems a little narrow-sighted, don't you think? Sure, Abjurant Champion might be a Prestige Class, rather than a feat, but it's still something qualified for using feats (amongst other limited resources), so why is it less a valid thing to qualify for than, say, Mobility?

Seerow

2014-04-08, 09:40 AM

That seems a little narrow-sighted, don't you think? Sure, Abjurant Champion might be a Prestige Class, rather than a feat, but it's still something qualified for using feats (amongst other limited resources), so why is it less a valid thing to qualify for than, say, Mobility?

Mostly because you're more likely to be able to slot in an extra feat into a build than an extra class. Picking up Abjurant Champion is a much bigger investment for most builds than picking up Karmic Strike. If you gave a choice between those three feats as a bonus feat to 100 characters, probably 95 would find Dodge more useful than either Toughness or Combat Casting. The others also have their niche uses as pointed out, but the stuff Dodge qualifies you for can be useful for a wider range of characters.

That said, looking through the feats again, it seems that very few of the feats I had in mind actually require just dodge. Almost all of them also require Mobility or Combat Expertise, which pretty much negates my point since Dodge isn't acting as a good prerequisite, it's acting as a prerequisite to your prerequisite to a good feat. It always astounds me to realize over and over again just how much the designers hate martial characters.

HaikenEdge

2014-04-08, 11:14 AM

Mostly because you're more likely to be able to slot in an extra feat into a build than an extra class. Picking up Abjurant Champion is a much bigger investment for most builds than picking up Karmic Strike.

That said, looking through the feats again, it seems that very few of the feats I had in mind actually require just dodge. Almost all of them also require Mobility or Combat Expertise, which pretty much negates my point since Dodge isn't acting as a good prerequisite, it's acting as a prerequisite to your prerequisite to a good feat. It always astounds me to realize over and over again just how much the designers hate martial characters.

Given that a character has a grand total of 7 feats before counting the feats granted by class (Fighter, Wizard, etc) and race (Human, Strongheart halfling), that's still a pretty big investment (1/7) in my opinion.

Friv

2014-04-08, 11:41 AM

I'm seeing a range from 27 to 35 for CR 14-16 foes in the SRD. That looks more like an average of 31 or 32, which means you don't necessarily get much if any free power attack.

Ah, I was only looking at the CR 14-15 characters, and they were running AC 26 to 31 with a single outlier (the Mummy Lord) sitting at 34. (Although I was also using the D&D wiki list by CR; if you have a larger one I'm happy to recalculate).

Flickerdart

2014-04-08, 01:04 PM

There's a handy dandy table for AC averages by level:
http://www.dandwiki.com/w/images/1/16/TorchvsNormalAC.jpg

The touch AC category is important, because it's not that hard to get touch attacks (wraithstrike, deep impact, the various spells that create touch-attack weapons) and then you can PA for full with impunity, but that's mostly a side note.

At level 15, we can see an average AC of 26. 15 BAB, around +9 from Strength, and a +3 or so weapon (GMW helps here) means that your first attack is nearly guaranteed, and the second is still very likely. Assuming two idiots with greatswords and no other modifiers, we're looking at attack routines of 2d6+16 (Power Attack guy) and 2d6+18 (WS guy). For the sake of making things as even as possible, both of them took Weapon Focus, so their attack routines are +28/+23/+18.

Taking critical hits out of the equation for now, the Weapon Specialization guy has 95%/90%/65% chance of hitting. Multiplied by his average damage of 25, that's 23.75, 22.5, and 16.25, a sum of 62.5 damage.
The Power Attack calculator recommends that in this situation, we PA for 4, which produces 65.09 damage on average. Power Attack is ahead, albeit not by that much. When we factor in critical hits, that number goes up to 71.61 damage for Power Attack, and 68.75 for Weapon Specialization. PA is ever so slightly ahead.

Conditional modifiers like flanking, charging, a prone opponent, and so forth all push the benefits of PA higher and higher - if our two big guys were flanking an opponent, the PA guy would do 80.85 damage on average since he can now PA for -6, whereas the WS guy only does 72.87 on average. For WS to pull ahead, the target needs to have an AC of 30, 4 points higher than the average. In that case, the PA guy is advised to PA for 1, which puts him at 53.62, vs 55.13 of the WS guy.

Consider also the benefits of the other feats at a character's disposal - it's not hard to get something which boosts PA returns, but nothing is going to make your Weapon Specialization better. You're also not forced to take Weapon Focus as a PA guy, which our example character has been doing. There are many better feats he could take instead which boost his effectiveness (and also better classes he could be than a fighter) and any bonus to attack rolls from feats you pick up makes Power Attack that much more attractive.

At level 20, attack bonuses probably look like +35 or so (+20 BAB, +10 STR, +5 weapon from GMW), with an average enemy AC of 31. Assuming the same feat arrangement as before, we have 100.1 for the PA guy (still PAing for 4) and 95.55 for the WS guy.

TuggyNE

2014-04-08, 08:40 PM

As for spike damage vs average, ask the barbarian: they're all about spike damage (and can't qualify for WS, by the way) or the CoDZilla.

Barbarians are not merely about spike damage; in fact, by mid-late levels, or with Extra Rage, they're not about spike damage at all. In any case, they and CoDzillas can focus their most potent efforts on fights where it means the most, which is approximately the opposite of PA's behavior here. The difference between "to-hit bonus and extra damage on every hit against a single high-AC foe with lots of HP" and "extra damage on every hit against low-AC foes with few HP" is pretty significant.

Specifics: I don't pick up PA for all my characters, but my Bardsader has it and uses it to good effect. In the last fights he's had +3 from IC, +2 from charging, +2 from flanking, +1 from higher ground (flying, actually), and x2 from diving charge. Not all attacks mind you, but regular enough for it to be a factor.

Now we're getting somewhere. The IC makes it roughly equivalent to the Barb's rage, flying and charging is a handy trick, and the flanking is ... odd, but whatever. Not as familiar with ToB, so can't really say how painful it would be to take Warblade instead of Crusader for WS, but eh; PA here might be adding 4-6 per hit under good circumstances.

I also have a goliath with knockback: there I PA almost always because flinging enemies is a lot of fun.

That would be the impressiveness factor, yes. PA is certainly much more dramatic.

At level 15, we can see an average AC of 26. 15 BAB, around +9 from Strength, and a +3 or so weapon (GMW helps here) means that your first attack is nearly guaranteed, and the second is still very likely. Assuming two idiots with greatswords and no other modifiers, we're looking at attack routines of 2d6+16 (Power Attack guy) and 2d6+18 (WS guy). For the sake of making things as even as possible, both of them took Weapon Focus, so their attack routines are +28/+23/+18.

Taking critical hits out of the equation for now, the Weapon Specialization guy has 95%/90%/65% chance of hitting. Multiplied by his average damage of 25, that's 23.75, 22.5, and 16.25, a sum of 62.5 damage.
The Power Attack calculator recommends that in this situation, we PA for 4, which produces 65.09 damage on average. Power Attack is ahead, albeit not by that much. When we factor in critical hits, that number goes up to 71.61 damage for Power Attack, and 68.75 for Weapon Specialization. PA is ever so slightly ahead.

Conditional modifiers like flanking, charging, a prone opponent, and so forth all push the benefits of PA higher and higher - if our two big guys were flanking an opponent, the PA guy would do 80.85 damage on average since he can now PA for -6, whereas the WS guy only does 72.87 on average. For WS to pull ahead, the target needs to have an AC of 30, 4 points higher than the average. In that case, the PA guy is advised to PA for 1, which puts him at 53.62, vs 55.13 of the WS guy.

Consider also the benefits of the other feats at a character's disposal - it's not hard to get something which boosts PA returns, but nothing is going to make your Weapon Specialization better. You're also not forced to take Weapon Focus as a PA guy, which our example character has been doing. There are many better feats he could take instead which boost his effectiveness (and also better classes he could be than a fighter) and any bonus to attack rolls from feats you pick up makes Power Attack that much more attractive.

At level 20, attack bonuses probably look like +35 or so (+20 BAB, +10 STR, +5 weapon from GMW), with an average enemy AC of 31. Assuming the same feat arrangement as before, we have 100.1 for the PA guy (still PAing for 4) and 95.55 for the WS guy.

That's a much better analysis, thanks. I'm dubious about the sources for AC averages, since it's dandwiki and they don't agree with Optimization by the Numbers (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3472.msg44888#msg44888), but otherwise everything seems to fall out from that assumption. However, if you assume the aforementioned MMB source, average AC is more like 30 at CR 15, which pushes things back into WS territory. (+0.49 for PA vs. +4.62 for WS over a full attack.)

All that said, obviously, actual average enemy AC is somewhat campaign-dependent, and thus the relative merits of WS and PA depend on the game. I think I have shown, however, that WS can be better overall than PA in at least some significant number of cases, barring abilities that trivialize attack rolls or PA penalties or that multiply PA's returns. Even in cases where it isn't, the advantage is not nearly so overwhelming as is commonly presented; it's often down to single-digit percentage increases in damage.

Gwendol

2014-04-09, 06:24 AM

Tuggyne,
I get what you are saying, but because WS isn't generally as easily obtained as PA, it is of less use for players. It is demonstrated that it doesn't give a significant advantage vs PA, and due to the pre-reqs we can therefore delegate it to niche builds.
That is the reason why PA is generally recommended while WS is not. Furthermore, players usually don't operate in a vacuum, which means that occasional boosts from spells etc will happen, and the PA guy is more likely to be able to capitalize on them.

Eldariel

2014-04-09, 07:04 AM

It is worth noting that tripping is often quite possible for primary martial types, and if you ever trip an opponent it's almost certainly going to net you a lot of Power Attack bonuses (not to mention Higher Ground bonus for even more). Flanking should likewise be fairly commonplace given a full party; solo adventurer is of course a different matter. Further, primary combatant classes get some To Hit bonuses (Barbarian has Rage, Fighter gets the, if ****ty, Greater Weapon Focus, Paladin gets Smite, etc.) which buffs Power Attack from the continuum of evenness. Furthermore, if a party contains casters, long duration buffs such as Heroism, Polymorph Any Object, etc. can further buff to hit fairly effortlessly. Even further, it's possible to push those base To Hit numbers ahead of the given values here with Strength bonus races, item-based roll bonuses (in Core you get Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone, Boots of Speed and few others), making Power Attack even better. God forbid you get to attack a flat-footed opponent (or one who doesn't see invisibility while you're under said spell, Blink or whatever), a lightly armored opponent or some such.

I don't have the time (nor, frankly, interest - I've done it a couple of times) dig it up right now but last I ran the numbers on a level 20 Core warrior (Barb X/Sorc 2/Fighter 2/Dragon Disciple 4) beating up Balors and Pit Fiends and Red Dragons, he was regularly Power Attacking for 5+ in the optimal case scenario without spell-based buffs, which would further propel him into the "Power Attack for lots damnit!"-territory. Outside Core you of course get an innumerable count of ways to buff attack rolls with Devotion-feats, further item-based buffs, spells and feats for touch attacks, etc. which further improve Power Attack. But it's true, you need to get good offense to make Power Attack good - but most of the tools you want anyways, such as tripping, charging, flight, haste, etc. are all tailor-made to accomplish just that.