Why Power Attack was never errated / fixed? Math suggests it should.

Yeah, power attack can be very good against an enemy with high relative AC to your to hit value, where a 2nd or more attack has very little chance to hit. Power Attack increases the damage you can get out of one attack.

...(nor does 2e's design goals permit) a general bread-and-butter attack that you try to do as much as possible. The only exception to this general design principle is the Flurry Ranger.

Well, if you're an off-hand free fighter, then snagging strike makes your normal/basic strike completely obsolete. It's just a strict upgrade over your basic strike.

Helmic wrote:

...(nor does 2e's design goals permit) a general bread-and-butter attack that you try to do as much as possible. The only exception to this general design principle is the Flurry Ranger.

Well, if you're an off-hand free fighter, then snagging strike makes your normal/basic strike completely obsolete. It's just a strict upgrade over your basic strike.

True, but we have to keep in mind that you have to deliberately leave a hand empty. No shield, no second weapon, no two handed weapon. By leaving that hand open, you're leaving a lot on the table, you need something to make it worthwhile. And at least for snagging strike specifically, there are a lot of ways that an enemy can be flat-footed. Meaning sometimes it wont do anything at all.

Like alternatively you could have d10 reach or d12 weapon, instead of a d8 weapon.

I'm pretty sure the devs set "uses two handed weapon" as the baseline and that's why it feels like two handed weapons don't get much unique to them because it's the bar that other fighting styles are trying to get up to.

Sword and shield? You need some feat support to make not using a two handed weapon worthwhile. Is the added defense worth it? Maybe, if that's what you want your character to be.

Dual weapon? Number of attacks doesn't depend on the number of weapons you hold like it did in PF1. Without feats you're going to swing a weaker weapon the same number of times as anyone else. Double slice lets you make two attacks as two actions (which anyone could do) without MAP (not everyone can do) on the second attack. So while your weapons deal less damage, you have a higher chance to hit with your two attacks.

This thread got me interested so I did some calculations comparing Power Attack with Furious Focus and Exacting Strike.

I think some people are underestimating Power Attack with Furious Focus. Looks like a solid choice from level 10 and up. But it is easy to get the calculations wrong, so maybe I'm missing something.

Also, as resistances increase, Power Attack becomes even better.

The big downside is having to spend two feats.

Assumptions:
- Max strength boosts (+4 Level 1, +5 Level 10 , +6 Level 20)
- Fighter proficiency (Expert Level 1, Master Level 5, Legendary Level 13) - Fighter critical specialization (Level 5)
- Fighter (greater) weapon specialization
- Fundamental weapon runes on their respective levels
- Greatpick (1d10, Fatal 1d12)
- Power Attack (Level 1) and Furious Focus (Level 6)
- Exacting Strike (Level 1)
- MAP -5
- AC (Moderate for level, Table 2–5: Armor Class)

Damage comparison graphs:
No Resistance
Minimum Resistance, Table 2–8: Resistances and Weaknesses
Maximum Resistance, Table 2–8: Resistances and Weaknesses

I'd be curious to see a No Resistance (High AC) graph as well.

Probably high AC is more advantage to Power Attack due the lower change of hit your second Strike.

Looking back at the feat list from the Fighter screenshot back at GenCon, pretty sure Power Attack has been renamed to Vicious Swing. Furious Focus is still the same name in the Remaster.

Damage comparison graphs:

No Resistance
Minimum Resistance, Table 2–8: Resistances and Weaknesses
Maximum Resistance, Table 2–8: Resistances and Weaknesses

Those are averages. To really geek out, you should build distribution graphs for a fixed difficulty. :)

It's interesting. Two swings 'averages more' simply because the chance of missing both times is less than the chance of missing once out of once with power strike. Thus you are more likely to do *some* damage if you swing twice. It also has that higher damage but much lower probability tail for double crit (nobody should really be considering that when difficulty is around attack, but long low-probability tails do inordinately affect averages. So if you don't look at the distribution, you will be surprised to find that when you track your two strike damage, you "on average" don't hit the average damage amount).

*When* power strike hits, it averages higher damage than two strike attacks. Which should not be surprising to anyone who gives it a thought, but it's an interesting trade-off.

Anyway, this is not to take a position about whether it needs to be 'fixed' or not. Just a note to the math geeks out there that the distribution curves are, frankly, more interesting and insightful than the average curves.

Raiztt wrote:

Helmic wrote:

...(nor does 2e's design goals permit) a general bread-and-butter attack that you try to do as much as possible. The only exception to this general design principle is the Flurry Ranger.

Well, if you're an off-hand free fighter, then snagging strike makes your normal/basic strike completely obsolete. It's just a strict upgrade over your basic strike.

True

You said that "The only exception to this general design principle is the Flurry Ranger" - that is false. For an open hand fighter, snagging strike completely replaces your basic strike. Everything else you said was addressing a completely different point.

If you're an open hand fighter, then using snagging strike is either the same as, or better than, your basic strike depending on the situation. But the basic strike is never better than snagging strike.

The insightful reveal here is that attacking with a 1 handed weapon is worse than attacking with a two handed weapon. Attacking with a two handed weapon is the power ceiling of PF2. If you attack with a one hander, you are trading damage for something inherently.

Claxon wrote:

Raiztt wrote:

Helmic wrote:

...(nor does 2e's design goals permit) a general bread-and-butter attack that you try to do as much as possible. The only exception to this general design principle is the Flurry Ranger.

Well, if you're an off-hand free fighter, then snagging strike makes your normal/basic strike completely obsolete. It's just a strict upgrade over your basic strike.

True

You said that "The only exception to this general design principle is the Flurry Ranger" - that is false. For an open hand fighter, snagging strike completely replaces your basic strike. Everything else you said was addressing a completely different point.

If you're an open hand fighter, then using snagging strike is either the same as, or better than, your basic strike depending on the situation. But the basic strike is never better than snagging strike.

You're quoting me, but the original quote is from another person. I think you might have a little confusion happening here.

The point I was trying to make with my previous point is why it's okay that free hand fighter get a permanent "upgrade" to a basic strike in the form of Snagging Strike.

The insightful reveal here is that attacking with a 1 handed weapon is worse than attacking with a two handed weapon. Attacking with a two handed weapon is the power ceiling of PF2. If you attack with a one hander, you are trading damage for something inherently.

Exactly what I was attempting to point out. Dual wielding or free hand fighting styles need some sort of innate boost to make them roughly comparable to wielding a two handed weapon.