#power attack

If there’s one feat that everyone who has ever played a strength-based melee character knows, its power attack. A simple feat, it allows the user to swing with even greater might when attacking at close range, trading accuracy for damage.

Though it is simple, it is also the cornerstone for many other feats that use it as a prerequisite start-off point, and while I probably won’t go over everything in that broad category, I will try to point out the most interesting of the lot.

 A classic branch of Power Attack is the Cleave line, which also includes Great Cleave, Cleaving Finish, and Greater Cleaving Finish, and revolves around hitting foes so hard your weapon goes right through them and your continued swing hits other foes.

Bloody Assault, Dazing Assault, and Stunning Assault, however, let you trade accuracy to strike to bleed, daze, or stun instead, presumably as you target arteries or the head to debilitate foes.

Another common thread is that most lines of feats revolving around non-sneaky combat maneuvers, such as sunder or bull rush, all have power attack as their baseline, which include not only the improved and greater versions of those feats, but also any feat that is derived from those for special techniques.

A commonly-taken feat that is associated with power attack is of course Furious Focus, which negates the penalties from power attack for the first attack they do on their turn, useful for both mobile attackers and full attackers alike.

From there you can find a handful of other such feats, like Smash, for those half-orcs wanting to break objects more easily, or shield of swings, to reduce their own damage to instead focus on batting away attacks with their weapon.

Behold the glory of Power Attack Chainsaw Batman.