Monster Slayer

Calvertfan

Mongoose
Hello

hope this is the right forum for a rules question:-

We have a Cimmerian Barbarian who's lethal in melee with his two handed greatsword in our party. He made the fatal mistake of not coming to the game this week - so I got to play his character alongside mine and inspect all his bonuses (yes I couldn't resist)

Reading the Monster Slayer feat (p.172 of pocket edition), it suggests that the maximum bonus to damage you receive with a 2 handed weapon should only be your base attack bonus. He's 9th level, and previoualy he's been +18 dmg with full Power Attack, or +27 dmg for Monster Slayer. But this reads like he should be +9 on monster slayer (presumably he only takes -3 to his attack roll).

Should power attack be the same? (i.e. +9 damage maximum for a -4.5 to his attack roll?)

Have we always been doing power attack wrong? how do others do it?
 
Hi, well we try to help each other out, there are some people that are could really explain that to you.
Well i´m just a player and sometimes GM, but i´ll try to help you, in my understanding, with power attack and monster slaying you can add at maximum your Base attack bonus to damage, the thing that changes is the number you subtract from your attack roll.
So yes, the max damage bonus would be 9.
Just one question, to use mosterslayer you need to attack large creatures, what kind of monsters are you fighting?
 
This was answered in the FAQ (though the answer itself was a little confusing). You take a penalty to attack which may not excede your BAB. Monster Slayer adds an ammount of damage equal to your penalty in addition to whatever damage that Power Attack adds. If you are using a one-handed weapon then you total is 2*penalty while if you use a two-handed weapon the total is 3*penalty.

So your friend was doing it right: max Power Attack/Monster Slayer is +27 dmg for a -9 penalty with a two-handed weapon.

Hope that helps.
 
the faq specifically states that the damage bonus from power attack and monster slayer cannot exceed the attackers bab. the character in your example cannot get a bonus of higher than +9.
 
Because the example in the FAQ was very confusing, I posed this as a question to the Rulesmasters awhile back. Here's the answer I got:

Question: I'm unsure of how the feats Power Attack (PA) and Monster Slayer (MS) are supposed to work in conjunction with two-handed weapons. I've seen the entry about this in the Conan FAQ, but I'm still a bit unclear on it.

So, to the question; is the BAB-restriction of these feats on the attack roll or on the damage bonus?
In other words, what's the maximum usage I can get if I have both feats and a two-handed weapon?

I can see three scenarios, and I'm not sure of which is the right one:

1) It is only the attack penalty that is restricted by BAB. Therefore, if I for example have BAB +6, I could take a -6 attack penalty to get a +18 damage bonus (+12 from PA, +6 from MS).

2) It is the damage bonus that is restricted by BAB. With BAB +6, I could at a maximum go for a -2 attack penalty, giving me a +6 damage bonus (+4 from PA, +2 from MS).

3) The two feats (PA and MS) are different in regards to this. For PA, number 1 above is true (attack penalty is restricted), while for MS it is number 2 (damage bonus is restricted). This is actually the conclusion I would come to from a strict reading of the feat descriptions, but it seems very strange to me...

Answer: Option 2 is the correct option. Monster Slayer is not supposed to allow PCs to strike for mind-blowing amounts of damage against Large creatures - it is just supposed to increase a PCs effectiveness when using PA against these creatures.

For instance: A 6th-level soldier wielding a two-handed sword with PA and MS faces off against a Large ape. If he just uses a full PA, he can get a +12 damage bonus at the price of a -6 penalty to attack. Or, he can employ his MS feat and get only a +6 damage bonus - but suffer only a -2 penalty to attack.
So, based on this, that barbarian dude could, when fighting Large beasts with his two-handed greatsword choose to:

1) Use Power Attack alone. The maximum use he could get out of it would be +18 damage, with a -9 penalty to the attack roll (this is the way it is in D&D also).
or,
2) Use Power Attack + Monster Slayer. The maximum use he could get out of it would be +9 damage (because its restricted by BAB), with a -3 penalty to the attack roll.

I think its a bit counterintuitive that Power Attack and Monster Slayer should be different like this, but there you have it...
 
the damage bonus from power attack cannot exceed the character's bab. even when just using power attack, the max damage bonus is +9, not +18.
 
squidyak said:
the damage bonus from power attack cannot exceed the character's bab. even when just using power attack, the max damage bonus is +9, not +18.

Not true if the character is using a two handed weapon, which is the scenario described. Two handed weapons cause double the normal bonus.
 
Just one question, with Two weapon strike does PA work like two handed weapons, you add only one time the number subtracted or twice?
I´m beginnig to see that my next character will definitly be a Twohanded sword figther.
Doesn´t it make Twohanded weapons over powered?
 
squidyak said:
the faq specifically states that the damage bonus from power attack and monster slayer cannot exceed the attackers bab. the character in your example cannot get a bonus of higher than +9.
The faq also specifically stated that the "second example", wherein the character with a +10 BAB and Monste Slayer does +30 damage, was correct.

As I said the faq answer was poorly worded. I play the way I described above. I really don't see it as being a very good feat otherwise.

Later.
 
Castel said:
Doesn´t it make Twohanded weapons over powered?
Two-handed weapons are good because they can do large damage with a single hit and generally have better AP than smaller weapons. This helps with provoking massive damage saves, cracking armor and works best for single big attacks (good with fighting on the run and charging).

Sword 'n Board style is good because it gives you a significant boost to your defense. By raising your DV not only do you negate more hits but it forces your opponent to not PA for as much damage meaning he is less likely to force a massive damage save (this effect is increased by wearing armor).

Two-weapon fighting is good because you get to make more attacks per round. This lets you exploit bonus damage from sources like sneak attack, weapon speclization and improved crit. It also is more usefull for dealing with hordes of mooks and with the right combination of feats you will have the option to jack your DV nearly as high as the sword 'n board fighter or go for all-out offense on a round by round basis.

Furthermore, sheilds and light weapons (for two weapon fighters) should be more readily available, less likely to attract attention and easier to conceal than a big two-handed weapon like a bardiche or greatsword.

Lastly, if either the sword 'n board or two-weapon fighter has PA (sword 'n board guys commonly do, two-weapon fighters less so) then they always have the option to drop whatever they are holding in their off hand and take their primary weapon in two hands. The dedicated two-handed fighter lacks that flexibility.

And as we all know, Conan is all about exploiting flexibility


In the final analysis two-handed weapons do beat out the other two styles but it is not massevly overpowered.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone - nice to see I'm not the only one who was confused about this.

As I'm not the GM I'll leave the final decision to him (naturally) but he asked me to post and we'll see what he thinks.....
 
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