hammer the gap feat

[kui_trans_girl]

so i was reading thru the feats and saw hammer the gap and it sounds soooo fun. im thinkin when the game finishes downloading ima try a rogue with hammer the gap first thing.

what feats and rogue talents do yall think would make hammer the gap more useful?

[InEffect]

if it's in google docs - just press share in top-right corner. If not - import it in doogle docs and press share

[Dixon Sider]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11yv32S8-yHefBHYwVVCML0HIrBlMi_oDJ3MrQPteMi0/edit?usp=sharing

There is no crit calculated, but thats all in favor of power attack the way I did this. Nothing else should change the distribution

On the left is average damage value and on the top is AC -Tohit, above the AC-to hit is just some trick I did to not have the 21 to hit screw up the values (20 always hits)

in each cell is the difference in damage per round between power attack and non power attack assuming 1 hit per round. It can be improved but this is a good foundation I think.

Its not exact for the 2 reasons above but it should give you a pretty good baseline of where your cut-off should be. Added attacks lower Power attacks effectiveness and crits raise it according to the way I calculated it. So they should balance each other a bit in terms of error

[InEffect]

So it's totally in the negatives from 35 damage and up, eh? Probably a bit less grim for a 2HF, but still.
It also probably doesn't take into account that 1.5 damage from two-handing does apply to power attack. Still gonna be ♥♥♥♥♥.

[Takkik]

everything depend of the AC of your target. Some enemies have low AC but more HP and you can stack some bonus like outflank or spell bonus.

The problem of the cRPG, is that monsters have already some inflated AC and if you increase the difficulty they get more bonus to AC (with some double dip like DEX bonus + flat AC bonus). So yeah, it become more important to hit than increase your dmg bonus.

Perhaps a feat that reduce your AC for a dmg boost would make more sense in the cRPG?

[Dixon Sider]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย InEffect:

So it's totally in the negatives from 35 damage and up, eh? Probably a bit less grim for a 2HF, but still.
It also probably doesn't take into account that 1.5 damage from two-handing does apply to power attack. Still gonna be ♥♥♥♥♥.

35 average, yes. This is before you consider power attack mind you.

[InEffect]

To fix power attack while keeping some of it's design you'd need a feat that cuts the penalty in half. Then it would be a consideration.

[Dixon Sider]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย InEffect:

To fix power attack while keeping some of it's design you'd need a feat that cuts the penalty in half. Then it would be a consideration.

accuracy is always king

[InEffect]

eh... -3 for a +18 damage is kinda ok. I would consider it, at least.

[Dixon Sider]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย InEffect:

eh... -3 for a +18 damage is kinda ok. I would consider it, at least.

It would just change the graph. Its a certain amount where you would want it. But a weapon that hits for 35 on average before Power attack is going to go ham if your hitting so I wouldnt want it on anyways. I would just want to always hit.

I suppose I should be looking at AC, but you clear enemies so fast if you have a 5 to hit without power attack

[InEffect]

+18 for a crit-fishing build that ramps it to x4 would add 72 damage on crits. That's pretty dope. I'd take -3 for that. To put it into perspective, 72 extra damage is like having 20d6 sneak attack.

[Notabot187]

I power attack when I only hit on 20s, or when I'm hitting on 2s and don't have a full attack option available.

[Shadenuat]

Good way to fix PA would be how it was in some previous games, say IWD2.

There you could actually choose the bonus from PA. With that, you could say choose -1 for +2 damage and also pick Cornugon Smash. Or you could choose maximum damage when you use Charge, True Strike or Vital Strike.

Still I find PA pretty useful against enemies with DR/-. That's the DR which cannot be canceled. I think PA is even more important for just using weapon and tower shield. Hitting for 10-20 damage due to DR is not fun. I recently tested banal Fighter with a flail (TSS+SD) on level 20 on Unfair Elder Elementals in rogue dungeon. Reasonable survivability (at least with helmet with immunity to crits) but without PA damage just doesn't happen.

(Elementals are a neat way of testing what you actually do without sneak and crits and against real DR which can't be negated - and you don't do much, heh)

The thing is, most monsters in the game and d20 seem to be universally designed with AB > AC philosophy. Not a lot of them are designed with Damage > HP.

If there were some monsters with tons of HP and low AC, stuff like PA would make more sense.

[Notabot187]

There are, they are oozes.

[haplok]

I'd basically never use Power Attack with Vital Strike (unless maybe combined with Quickened True Strike). If I trade iteratives for 1 strong attack, I better be damn sure it lands.

[Shadenuat]

You can easily calculate if chances are good or not. And I had 14 Mass True Strikes per day from Sensei at that point anyway. Had to use them on something.

I would like to have granularity with PA & Combat Expertise when it comes to choosing the bonus.

Maybe I am a micro psycho tho, since I did do this in Icewind Dale 2.