Using Power Weapon to overcome DR

[Kuu Lightwing]

So, there's Psychic Warrior's power called "Power Weapon" in CPsi. It converts your weapon strike into Force damage, but it doesn't convert all the damage.

It works similar to Power Claws which reads "Only the base natural weapon damage, magical enhancement bonuses, bonus damage from Strength, and other bonuses on the natural weapon itself are changed to force damage." It says that all the bonus damage dice such as flaming property or Sneak Attack "deals their normal type of damage," but what is "normal type of damage" for Sneak Attack?

Does it convert Power Attack damage? Is it bonus on the weapon itself or not? What about this homebrew feat?

Precision Strike [General]
Prerequisites: BAB +2, DEX 15, Weapon Finesse

Benefit: When fighting with a weapon to which Weapon Finesse feat can be applied in one hand and no shield or weapon in the other hand, on your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to take a penalty on attack rolls no greater than your Base Attack Bonus. For each 2 points of penalty taken this way, you can add 1d6 to all melee damage rolls for this round. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.

A fighter may select Precision Strike as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[Fizban]

Sneak attack is the same damage type as the attack delivering it. The homebrew feat does not specify so it's up the the author/DM to figure it out how it interacts. Power Attack is an increase to the weapon damage, but the power is quite specific in what is converted and it does not list Power Attack.

Also, that homebrew feat is eerily similar to some of my own tweaks and feat, though not nearly as eerie when I realized pathfinder's Vital Strike was basically the same thing as one of my earlier brews (aside from ignoring half the design principles).

[Mutazoia]

So, there's Psychic Warrior's power called "Power Weapon" in CPsi. It converts your weapon strike into Force damage, but it doesn't convert all the damage.

It works similar to Power Claws which reads "Only the base natural weapon damage, magical enhancement bonuses, bonus damage from Strength, and other bonuses on the natural weapon itself are changed to force damage." It says that all the bonus damage dice such as flaming property or Sneak Attack "deals their normal type of damage," but what is "normal type of damage" for Sneak Attack?

Does it convert Power Attack damage? Is it bonus on the weapon itself or not? What about this homebrew feat?

Precision Strike [General]
Prerequisites: BAB +2, DEX 15, Weapon Finesse

Benefit: When fighting with a weapon to which Weapon Finesse feat can be applied in one hand and no shield or weapon in the other hand, on your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to take a penalty on attack rolls no greater than your Base Attack Bonus. For each 2 points of penalty taken this way, you can add 1d6 to all melee damage rolls for this round. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.

A fighter may select Precision Strike as one of his fighter bonus feats.

"normal" damage type for, say sneak attack, depends on the weapon type: It is either piercing, slashing, etc. Naturally the damage from a "flaming" effect would be fire damage, and so on.

As for converting the bonus damage from Power Attack, I would think so, since "Bonus damga from Strength" is listed as being converted, and Power Attack is basically putting everything you have into the strength of your blow (should it land)....basically it's a "haymaker" swing with a weapon.

[Zombimode]

So, there's Psychic Warrior's power called "Power Weapon" in CPsi. It converts your weapon strike into Force damage, but it doesn't convert all the damage.

It works similar to Power Claws which reads "Only the base natural weapon damage, magical enhancement bonuses, bonus damage from Strength, and other bonuses on the natural weapon itself are changed to force damage." It says that all the bonus damage dice such as flaming property or Sneak Attack "deals their normal type of damage," but what is "normal type of damage" for Sneak Attack?

The normal damage type of the attack, in this case the damage type of the weapon. There are some exceptions to that when the attack doesn't deal damage, but those are corner cases.


Does it convert Power Attack damage? Is it bonus on the weapon itself or not?

Yes, Power Attack modifies the normal weapon damage roll.


What about this homebrew feat?

No idea. Personally I would probably not convert it to force damage on the grounds of being bonus damage dice. Just to keep it consistent with the preclude of SA (and consequently Sudden Strike and Skirmish).
If I would write the feat, I would let SA dice convert to force damage since SA is part of the weapon damage roll, not something tacked on like a flaming enchantment.

For an actual rules example check out the feat Deadly Defense which adds 1d6 to your melee damage (non SA) under certain circumstances. Or, for a more popular example, Iron Heart's Punishing Stance which isn't even precision damage.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Sneak attack is the same damage type as the attack delivering it. The homebrew feat does not specify so it's up the the author/DM to figure it out how it interacts. Power Attack is an increase to the weapon damage, but the power is quite specific in what is converted and it does not list Power Attack.
But it's not specific - it says "and other bonuses on the (natural) weapon itself", and I don't think many bonuses explicitly say do they apply to the weapon itself or not. The only specific is about "bonus damage dice" which would actually exclude Precision Strike because it's bonus damage dice instead of flat damage.



Also, that homebrew feat is eerily similar to some of my own tweaks and feat, though not nearly as eerie when I realized pathfinder's Vital Strike was basically the same thing as one of my earlier brews (aside from ignoring half the design principles).

Well, I kinda like to play DEX-based characters that use Einhander combat style, so I designed the feat after Power Attack to give a roughly the same ratio as two-handed PA (a bit less and is not multiplied on crit, so, it's worse actually) to make this style suck a bit less.

[Necroticplague]

For that feat, Sneak Attack, Power Attack, STR modifier, and all similar, they have no 'type'. They simply make the weapon's base larger. So in this case, any flat modifiers would be force damage, but any dice-based damage would be of the weapon's normal type. So that feat would give normal damage, Power Attack would give force damage, ect.

[Kuu Lightwing]

So, as I see, the common idea is to resolve it based on whether extra damage is extra dice or flat damage. Which probably makes sense based on RAW, but I really don't like the resulting fluff (well, and because I did intend to use it with "Precision Strike" to overcome DR :))

I honestly don't see why did they exclude SA damage. It makes sense with Flaming and other type of elemental damage since it would still burn/shock/freeze/whatever probably, but with SA and Precision Strike it's weird.

[Necroticplague]

So, as I see, the common idea is to resolve it based on whether extra damage is extra dice or flat damage. Which probably makes sense based on RAW, but I really don't like the resulting fluff (well, and because I did intend to use it with "Precision Strike" to overcome DR :))

I honestly don't see why did they exclude SA damage. It makes sense with Flaming and other type of elemental damage since it would still burn/shock/freeze/whatever probably, but with SA and Precision Strike it's weird.
To be fair, it's not alone in that aspect. Crits work the same way.

[Kuu Lightwing]

To be fair, it's not alone in that aspect. Crits work the same way.

Crits don't change damage type, so that doesn't make much problems with fluff. However, one of the problems with crits not affecting extra dice is probably that it makes a rapier a badly designed weapon, since it has several features which don't work together.

[Mutazoia]

I honestly don't see why did they exclude SA damage. It makes sense with Flaming and other type of elemental damage since it would still burn/shock/freeze/whatever probably, but with SA and Precision Strike it's weird.

Sneak Attack damage is basically extra damage resulting in the target not being aware of the attack, so not being able to dodge/deflect or roll with the blow. Just think of it like punching someone in the stomach when they can see you are going to do it, and tighten their stomach muscles, vs. sucker punching them when they are not ready.

So Sneak Attack damag is not something that can be converted, because it's not the primary damage. The same with the flaming effect...it's extra damage from the heat of the flame, not the primary damage from a sharp hunk of steel.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Sneak Attack damage is basically extra damage resulting in the target not being aware of the attack, so not being able to dodge/deflect or roll with the blow. Just think of it like punching someone in the stomach when they can see you are going to do it, and tighten their stomach muscles, vs. sucker punching them when they are not ready.

So Sneak Attack damag is not something that can be converted, because it's not the primary damage. The same with the flaming effect...it's extra damage from the heat of the flame, not the primary damage from a sharp hunk of steel.

But then why Sneak Attack would still be a subject to damage reduction? Say a Psychic Rogue sneak attacks a Babau with a steel rapier. But since she uses Power Weapon, that would mean that her weapon now harms the demon normally, but for some reason, SA is still considered just piercing damage and would be a subject to DR.

[Mutazoia]

But then why Sneak Attack would still be a subject to damage reduction? Say a Psychic Rogue sneak attacks a Babau with a steel rapier. But since she uses Power Weapon, that would mean that her weapon now harms the demon normally, but for some reason, SA is still considered just piercing damage and would be a subject to DR.

Because DR can basically be thought of as thicker skin. Once damage gets past the skin DR can't help ((very) basically)

[Kuu Lightwing]

Because DR can basically be thought of as thicker skin. Once damage gets past the skin DR can't help ((very) basically)

That's how I would prefer it to work. But unfortunately it doesn't with current wording of Power Weapon power (as in SA specifically excluded). So, PsyRogue manifests Power Weapon and sneakily stabs Babau with her rapier. Rolls 1d6 = say 4 force damage and, 3d6 = 10 SA damage. 4 damage from the rapier applies, because it's force damage that pierced the skin of the demon. But SA is still just regular piercing damage, which gets reduced by 10 (to 0 in our example) because it doesn't come from Cold Iron weapon.

Also, other standard way to describe DR is wounds that close automatically or something like that. Fluff could vary in this case.

[Mutazoia]

That's how I would prefer it to work. But unfortunately it doesn't with current wording of Power Weapon power (as in SA specifically excluded). So, PsyRogue manifests Power Weapon and sneakily stabs Babau with her rapier. Rolls 1d6 = say 4 force damage and, 3d6 = 10 SA damage. 4 damage from the rapier applies, because it's force damage that pierced the skin of the demon. But SA is still just regular piercing damage, which gets reduced by 10 (to 0 in our example) because it doesn't come from Cold Iron weapon.

Also, other standard way to describe DR is wounds that close automatically or something like that. Fluff could vary in this case.

Well, if you want the mechanical answer, I suppose they had to draw the line somewhere, and SA and thing like flaming, damage drew the short straw. Otherwise Power Weapon would be more broken than the Berlin Wall.

And if you combined Power Weapon, with a Brilliant Energy weapon ....ouch

[Necroticplague]

Well, if you want the mechanical answer, I suppose they had to draw the line somewhere, and SA and thing like flaming, damage drew the short straw. Otherwise Power Weapon would be more broken than the Berlin Wall.

And if you combined Power Weapon, with a Brilliant Energy weapon ....ouch

Better analogy might be that they wanted to keep flaming out, and sneak attack got caught in the crossfire. Sadly, those two are the same category of bonus (dice-based damage boost), so there isn't really a way to cut out one without the other.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Better analogy might be that they wanted to keep flaming out, and sneak attack got caught in the crossfire. Sadly, those two are the same category of bonus (dice-based damage boost), so there isn't really a way to cut out one without the other.

Well, keeping flaming and stuff out makes sense, but I think that might be worded more accurately... dunno. DM actually decided to houserule SA and most importantly for me, Precision Strike to get converted too, so it's good :)