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Power Attack and Double Slice issue

J

JolarEQ

Well-known member
I currently have a level 5 fighter, used a sword and shield, and does two-weapon fighting. I took Double Slice, to get the full str bonus with my offhand damage on shield bash. At level 5, I took Power Attack. The issue I'm running into is this: Power Attack only gives half the damage bonus on offhand attacks, and at level 5, it would only be +2 bonus (+4 normally, half for offhand) but it is currently showing as +4. Now, if I remove the Double Slice feat, Power Attack correctly shows me at +2 damage bonus on offhand.

Is this a potential bug in Hero Lab (and as such, should I put it in the bug thread?) Or is there something else I can do to show the correct damage bonus for offhand?
 
I'm not sure how this would work. It seems to me that an argument could be made that since you are getting full dam for the off hand attack, you should get the full Power attack damage bonus as well. Is there an official ruling you could point me to? If there is such a ruling, this is a bug we'd need to fix.

Either way, you can compensate for the time being by adding a Weapon damage adjustment for that weapon on the Adjust tab, then turn it on and off as appropriate.
 
No official ruling, unfortunately, but they have argued it on the Paizo forums about it. Mostly, the general consensus is, while Double Slice lets you take the full strength bonus on the damage with offhand weapons, Power Attack isn't a strength bonus based damage bonus, it's a flat damage bonus, and so on offhand is always half (at least in this case. Monks would be different with Flurry of Blows unarmed, obviously.)

It seems the common consensus is, the half penalty on the offhand is to make it more inline if someone was using 1 2-handed weapon at 1-1/2 the strength bonus, and not make it more powerful than that.

The thread on Paizo's forum is here, if you wanted to look at it. It's old, but still relevant.

Thanks for the response!
 
RAW(rules as written):
Power Attack only cares about if a weapon is 2-handed, 1-handed, or an offhand weapon.

For natural weapons it cares if the primary weapon is the only attack, one of several primary attacks, or a secondary attacks.

The amount of damage a weapon gets from the str mod is a non factor. If it were power attack would have to account for Overhand Chop, and other similar abilities.

Power attack never once references weapon damage. It only referencs how the weapon is being used. Double slice does not change an off-hand weapon into a one-handed weapon. If it did that then TWF would incur penalties.
 
No need JolarEQ, my apologies for putting you in an awkward position as a go-between. It seems the interaction isn't ambiguous as I first believed, so I have made the change. It should be reflected with our next release, towards the end of the month.
 
Aaron said:
No need JolarEQ, my apologies for putting you in an awkward position as a go-between. It seems the interaction isn't ambiguous as I first believed, so I have made the change. It should be reflected with our next release, towards the end of the month.
Click to expand...

No worries, Aaron! Not an awkward position at all! It felt good to be part of the "process," so to speak. ;) I love Hero Lab, it makes my life SO much easier, so anything to help!
 
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