The Mathematics of Power Attack

Iainuki
January 4, 2014

Abstract
Using basic calculus to find the maximum of damage as a func-
tion of the Power Attack penalty, I derive equations for how much
damage Power Attack adds. I also show that the case with multiple
attacks at the same attack bonus with a two-handed manufactured
weapon is the best possible case for Power Attack and that with
BAB-based iteratives, TWF, or natural weapons, Power Attack adds
less damage. In the best possible case, once you have more than 20
damage from other sources, your hit chance needs to be off the RNG,
at the maximum of 95%, to get more damage from Power Attack
than you would from Weapon Specialization. With some reasonable
assumptions about damage from magic items and Strength, anything
that adds damage without attack bonus makes Power Attack useless.
Power Attack can add damage when you’re below a certain level and
have certain abilities or effects that add attack bonus and damage,
though only with weapons with small enough damage dice; with
abilities, effects, or circumstantial modifiers that increase hit chance
but not damage; against enemies with unusually low AC; and in
combinations that increase its multiplier, remove the attack penalty,
or both.

I begin with the assumption that all your highest-bonus attacks have
the same attack bonus, an assumption which is rarely violated: almost all
effects that give you extra attacks, like haste, monk’s flurry of blows, TWF,
and so on give an additional attack at your highest attack bonus with
some bonus or penalty to all your attacks. If h is 21 plus your attack bonus
minus your target’s AC with all modifiers included except Power Attack,
p is the penalty from Power Attack, s is the number of full-attack-bonus

1
attacks you get, and n is the number of iteratives you get, your expected
number of attacks is,
!
n
1
s(h − p) + ∑ (h − 5i − p) (1)
20 i =1
The second term accounts for the decline in the hit probability for
each successive iterative. Pulling the terms that don’t include I out of the
sum and replacing the sum with an equivalent expression (the one for
triangular numbers),

!
n
1
s(h − p) + n(h − p) − ∑ 5i
20 i =1
n2
 
1 +n
s(h − p) + n(h − p) − 5
20 2
 
1 5 2
(s + n)(h − p) − (n + n) . (2)
20 2
If a is your total number of attacks, s + n, D is your total damage, b is
your damage from weapon dice and other non-dice sources including Str
and enhancement bonus, M is the multiplier on all your damage including
criticals, d is all damage that comes from dice and is thus not multiplied
by M, and m is the multiplier on Power Attack damage, then the basic
expected damage equation is approximately,
 
1 5 2
D= a (h − p) − (n + n) ( M (b + mp) + d) (3)
20 2
I’ve made two significant simplifying assumptions in deriving Equation
3. First, for any weapon that only threatens on a 20, every potential threat
is automatically a hit and thus M is 1 plus .05 times the weapon’s critical
multiplier1 , neglecting any bonuses to confirm rolls, which will have a
1
1 For a first attack, you have a 20 chance of rolling a critical, a (h − p) /20 chance of
1
confirming a critical, and a critical adds term that’s exactly 20 (h − p) (b + mp) times the
critical multiplier to your total damage. For iteratives, there’s an analogous contribution
to total damage. If I also neglect the chance that a 19 can miss, with Improved Critical or
the keen weapon property, m becomes 1.1 for a weapon with 20/ × 2 threat range. You
should never have either of those abilities in the first place, though.

2
very small impact on damage. I also ignored the RNG cut-offs that prevent
a hit chance higher than .95 or lower than .05.
Before maximizing Power Attack, I want to redefine as many variables
as possible to simplify the coming algebra. If I hold the number of attacks
constant then a and 52 (n2 + n) are also constants. Let x = ah − 25 (n2 + n)
and y = Mb + d. Then Equation 3 reduces to,
1
D ( p) = ( x − ap) ( Mmp + y) (4)
20
As per standard procedure, damage is maximized when the first deriva-
tive of D with respect to p is zero and the second derivative negative.
Taking the first and second derivatives,

dD 1
= (( x − ap) Mm − a( Mmp + y)) (5)
dp 20
d2 D 1
2
= (− aMm − aMm) (6)
dp 20
Since a, M, and m are always positive, the second derivative is always
negative and damage is maximized when dD dp = 0, though p may not fall
between zero and BAB, in which case damage is maximized when p = 0
or p equals your BAB. Setting Equation 5 equal to zero and solving for p,

1
0 = (( x − ap) Mm − a( Mmp + y))
20
0 = xMm − apMm − aMmp − ay
2aMmp = xMm − ay
xMm − ay
p = (7)
2aMm
When p > 0, then xMm > ay, the optimal Power Attack value is greater
than zero, and Power Attack will increase your damage. Substituting in
the definitions of x and y,
5Mm 2
aMmh > (n + n) + a( Mb + d). (8)
2
Substituting Equation 7 back into Equation 4 yields the damage with
optimal Power Attack, assuming that 0 < p < BAB.

3
 1
D ( p) = ( x − ap) ( Mmp + y)
20 
xMm − ay xMm − ay
 
1
= x−a Mm +y
20 2aMm 2aMm
xMm − ay xMm − ay
  
1
= x− +y
20 2Mm 2a
 
1 x ay  xMm y
= + +
20 2 2Mm 2a 2
 2
ay2

1 x Mm xy axyMm
= + + +
20 4a 4 4Mma 4Mm
1 x M m + a2 y2 xy
 2 2 2 
= + (9)
20 4aMm 2
The difference between having and not having Power Attack is the
difference between the last equation and Equation 3 with p = 0, which is
just xy/20.

1 x2 M2 m2 + a2 y2 xy
 
xy
∆D = + −
20 4aMm 2 20
 2 2 2 2 2 
1 x M m +a y xy
= − (10)
20 4aMm 2
Up to this point I’ve treated p as if it was a continuous variable, which
is isn’t. In Section 1 I present a more formal proof, due to Loren Davis,
that the optimal penalty for Power Attack is 0, your BAB, or p rounded up
or down. The geometry underlying the proof is easier to appreciate. The
graph of a quadratic is a parabola, which is symmetric about its maximum,
so whichever discrete value is closer to the maximum will be the larger
one. If the maximizing value of p falls halfway between two integers, the
symmetry means both integral choices for p will give the same damage.
Now, I want to consider a special case, with no iterative attacks, because
the no-iteratives case is an upper bound on the usefulness of Power Attack.
This should be intuitively plausible because if you have the same number
of attacks at your highest attack bonus you’ll do more damage than you
would if you had the same number of attacks and some of them were

4
iteratives with a lower chance to hit. To see this formally, notice that the
only variable that changes in Equation 10 when there are no iteratives,
n = 0, is x. Let x 0 = (s + n)h when x = (s + n)h − 52 (n2 + n). If there
are iteratives, x 0 > x because − 52 (n2 + n) is always negative. As long as
x > 1, x 02 − x 0 > x2 − x. Is x > 1? s ≥ 1 because you always have at
least one main attack, h ≥ 1 because 1 < h < 19 by the assumption that
h is on the RNG, and nh − 52 (n2 + n) ≥ 1 by the assumption that all the
iteratives are also on the RNG, because h has to be at least 6, 11, or 16 if
n is 1, 2, or 3, respectively. Since the factors that multiply to make up x
are all greater than one, so is x itself. This implies that in Equation 10,
x 02 Mm x0 y x2 Mm xy
4a − 2 ≥ 4a − 2 , because M ≥ 1, m ≥ 1 , and a = s + n ≥ 1.
2

Thus, you gain more damage from Power Attack where you have some
attacks and none of them are iteratives than when you have the same
number of attacks and some of them are iteratives, and the former case is
an upper bound.
In fact, this case is an upper bound more generally. When deriving
Equation 3, I assumed BAB-based attacks with a single manufactured
weapon that crits only on a natural 20. Most weapons that you should
actually use, including all core reach weapons, unarmed strikes, and
most natural weapons, only crit on a natural 20. Weapons with an ex-
panded threat range have much more complicated mathematics because
it’s possible for a critical threat to miss. However, criticals are a marginal
contribution to damage under most circumstances, and if you approxi-
mate an expanded threat by adding .05 to m for each point of expanded
threat range, as you would for an increased critical multiplier, this will
overestimate how much damage criticals add. In other words, Equation
3 and thus Equation 11 are upper bounds for weapons with expanded
threat ranges. The latter equation is also an upper bound for natural
weapons and TWF. For natural weapons, −5n, or −2n with Multiattack,
replaces − 52 (n2 + n), and for TWF with Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting
(CAd 111) the expression becomes −5(n2 + n) for the case with one or
two iteratives—the third iterative involves a more complicated expression
because no pre-epic feat lets you make an off-hand third iterative. Off-
hand attacks and secondary natural weapons usually deal less damage
than on-hand attacks or primary natural weapons because they only get
2 Ifm = 0 as for light weapons, we know Power Attack is useless and this whole
analysis is irrelevant.

5
one-half Str bonus to damage. Thus, nothing in the derivation leading to
Equation 11 changes for natural weapons or TWF and as long as off-hand
attacks and secondary natural weapons deal less damage, Equation 11
without iteratives is still an upper bound. The same holds for arbitrarily
complicated combinations of manufactured weapons, TWF, and natural
weapons as while the expression replacing − 52 (n2 + n) becomes more
complicated, and in the case of two-handed weapon and natural or off-
hand attacks has to be split into two expressions with different values
of m, nothing essential changes about the logic. The central point is that
Equation 11 is a best case for Power Attack, and if Power Attack falls short
there, it will fall short in other situations too.
Without iteratives, x = ah. Substituting into Equation 10,

1 a2 h2 M2 m2 + a2 y2 ahy
 
∆D = −
20 4aMm 2
 2
y2

a h Mm hy
= + −− . (11)
20 4 4Mm 2

Observe that a factors out. A similar substitution into Equation 8 gives,

Mmh > Mb + d. (12)

a divides out of the inequality. For any two-handed weapon with a
20/ × 2 threat range, m = 2 and M = 1.05. With these two equations
and those values, I constructed the following table of how much damage
Power Attack adds for different values of a character’s total damage per
attack and their highest-attack-bonus attack’s hit chance.

6
 h/20 Mb + d
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36
95% 5.3 4.6 4.0 3.4 2.9 2.4 1.9 1.5 1.2 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.1
90% 4.6 4.0 3.4 2.8 2.3 1.9 1.5 1.1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.0
85% 3.9 3.3 2.8 2.3 1.9 1.5 1.1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0
80% 3.3 2.8 2.3 1.8 1.4 1.1 0.8 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0
75% 2.8 2.3 1.8 1.4 1.1 0.8 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
70% 2.2 1.8 1.4 1.1 0.8 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
65% 1.8 1.4 1.1 0.8 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
60% 1.4 1.0 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
55% 1.0 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
50% 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
45% 0.5 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
40% 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
35% 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
30% 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
25% 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
20% 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
15% 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
10% 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
5% 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
At Mb + d ≥ 38 damage, your hit chance has to be off the RNG before
Power Attack adds any damage. While it’s clear that for many possible
values of hit chance and damage Power Attack doesn’t add any damage
at all, for even more values Power Attack doesn’t add more damage than
Weapon Specialization, the definition of a not-worth-taking feat. The
line—it is a line, as the subsequent paragraph and equations show—above
which Power Attack adds more damage than Weapon Specialization starts
at 70% hit chance and 10 damage and ends at 95% hit chance and 20
damage. For comparison, a 1st-level raging barbarian with 16 starting
Str wielding a two-handed weapon has a 65% chance to hit average CR
1 monster AC, does between 11.5 and 14 expected damage, and gets less
damage from Power Attack than Weapon Specialization. A 1st-level rogue
with the same Str and a weapon proficiency feat has a 50% chance to hit,
does between 12 and 14.5 expected damage, and gains even less damage
than the barbarian. When iteratives are involved, Power Attack looks even
worse because the table above represents an upper bound on its damage.
For Power Attack to be worth taking requires a combination of low base

7
damage, high hit chance, and a lack of iteratives.
If f is a lower bound on how much damage Power Attack has to
add before it’s worth taking, using the fact that the case with multiple
non-iteratives is an upper bound on the case with iteratives and Equation
11, a linear relationship between Mb + d and h can be derived using the
quadratic formula. Because this is damage per attack, a = 1.

Mm 2 1 1
20 f = h + y2 − hy
4 4Mm  2 
Mm 2 1 1 2
0 = h − yh + y − 20 f
4 2 4Mm
r  
1 1 2 Mm 1 2 − 20 f
2 y ± 4 y − 4 4 4Mm y
h =
2 Mm
4
q
1 1 2
2y ± 4y − 14 y2 + 20Mm f
h = Mm
2
1 2 p
h = y± 20Mm f
Mm Mm
The required hit rate should increase with f rather than decreasing, so
the positive root is the applicable one, leading to,
√
1 2 20 p
h= y+ √ f. (13)
Mm Mm
Equation 13 proves that the cutoffs in the preceding table are lines and
provides a tool for calculating, given that you know your damage, how
high a hit rate you need to make Power Attack “worth it,” for whatever
value of “worth it” you choose.
Another way of looking at when Power Attack is useful is to consider
how class features modify attack and damage. Class features that only
add damage, like favored enemy, the monk’s unarmed damage bonus,
and sneak attack, obviously make using Power Attack less worthwhile.
Inspire courage, rage, and smite evil assuming no Cha items can all be
represented by adding v0 l + v to h and w0 l + w to Mb + d, where v, v0 , w,
and w0 are constants for each feature and l is level. Whether a feature is
multiplied by criticals can be folded into the constants w0 and w. Inspire

8
courage and rage aren’t quite linear but a linear approximation isn’t that
bad. BAB differences between classes are also linear with level and can be
folded into v0 and w0 . Taking the no-iteratives case as usual, calculating
the per-attack damage so a = 1, and substituting into Equation 12 shows
that Power Attack is useful when,

Mm(h + v0 l + v) > Mb + d + w0 l + w
All scaling features that add damage or attack have v0 ≤ w0 , except
for a few that only increase attack bonus like binder’s (ToM 9–11) pact
augmentation or lawful incarnate’s (MoI 20–22) incarnum radiance and the
incarnate avatar soulmeld (MoI 71–72), so rearranging to avoid switching
the direction of the inequality,

Mmh + Mmv − Mb − d − w > (w0 − v0 )l

Mmh + Mmv − Mb − d − w
> l. (14)
w0 − v0
The MM suggests that DMs should aim for AC equal to 13 + CR (298)
for new monsters, and it turns out that over CRs 3–15 in the core and
CRs 3–20 outside the core, monsters have about that much AC3 . A typical
character starts with 16 Str and over levels 1–11 and perhaps a bit later,
depending on their exact spending priorities, gets +2 Str from levels and
+2 from an enhancement item. With a masterwork or +1 weapon, this is
about .25/level. Thus, a character with 3/4 BAB has about the same hit
chance over this entire range of level and CR, 50%, while characters with
full BAB and 1/2 BAB hit correspondingly more and less. m = 2 in most
circumstances. Most optimal two-handed weapons have M = 1.1 or the
near-equivalent 19–20 threat range with a ×2 multiplier. Mb + d equals
the average value of a weapon’s damage dice and starting Str, multiplied
by the critical multiplier 1.1. Weapons with higher weapon damage dice
are more unfavorable for Power Attack. I add 1.1 ∗ 4/12 to w0 for the +1
damage from weapon enhancement and +3 damage from improved Str
over 12 levels and .25 to v0 for features attached to full BAB classes, rage
and smite, and subtract −.25 for the only feature attached to 1/2 BAB
classes, arcane spells with Arcane Strike (CW 96). For Arcane Strike, I
3 Linear regressions over those ranges give .953CR + 12.5 for core monsters and
.967CR + 12.2 for non-core monsters.

9
assume a progression of one spell level every two character levels. For
smite evil, I assume a generous 14 starting Cha. The various l columns are
the levels below which Power Attack is worthwhile for various values of
weapon dice.
Class feature v’ v w’ w l, 1d8 l, 2d4 l, 1d10 l, 2d6
Arcane Strike 0.25 0 1.62 0 1.21 0.80 0.40 -0.80
Inspire courage 0.17 1 0.55 1.1 6.91 5.48 4.04 -0.26
Rage 0.35 2 0.53 3.3 14.04 11.01 7.98 -1.10
Smite evil 0.25 2 1.37 0 5.24 4.75 4.25 2.78
From this table, it’s clear that Power Attack’s usefulness depends
sensitively on the damage a weapon’s dice deal. For a greatsword and all
features but smite evil, one observes that all the upper bounds for l are
negative, meaning that there is no level at which Power Attack adds any
damage at all with any of these class features while attacking monsters
with average or better AC and without other modifiers increasing hit
chance. For Arcane Strike and smite, Power Attack is almost useless across
the board as it only adds damage at 1st level with a 1d8 weapon. For
other features and weapon dice values, Power Attack is useful over some
range of levels, though sometimes a rather small one. Features that add
damage without attack bonus will almost universally render Power Attack
pointless soon after 1st level.
The two other variables I haven’t considered yet are M and m. From
Equation 12, it’s clear that increasing M can only make Power Attack
add damage if it wasn’t already when mh > b. This sometimes but not
always holds since m = 2 for two-handed weapons, 1 < h < 19, and
for a character with decent Str b is at least 5 but may range up higher
than 10. While an increased critical multiplier does increase M, major
changes in M usually come from abilities associated with charges like
Spirited Charge and dive attacks. Increasing m, the multiplier for Power
Attack itself, obviously makes Power Attack better, but all the abilities that
increase the Power Attack multiplier, Leap Attack (CAde 110), Combat
Brute (CW 110), and frenzied berserker (CWe 34–36), require Power Attack
as a prerequisite anyways.

10
1 Formal proof of the optimal penalty for Power
Attack
By Loren Davis
The benefit a character gets from Power Attack is the increase in
expected damage when power attacking optimally, compared to not power
attacking at all. If D ( p) is the expected damage when power attacking at
− p to hit, and b the BAB, we can write this increase in damage ∆D more
formally as
∆D = max { D ( p)} − D (0) (15)
0≤ p ≤ b

We will now show that the value of p that optimizes D ( p) is either 0,

b p0 c, d p0 e or b, where
Mmx − ay
p0 = (16)
2aMm
First, for any integer p, equation 4 gives us:

D ( p + 1) − D ( p )
1 1
= [ x − a( p + 1)] [ Mm( p + 1) + y] − ( x − ap)( Mmp + y)
20 20
1
= [( x − ap − a)( Mmp + y + Mm) − ( x − ap)( Mmp + y)]
20
1
[ ( x − ap)( Mmp + y) + Mm( x − ap) − a( Mmp + y) − aMm
= 20
− ( x − ap)( Mmp + y)]
1
= [ Mm( x − ap) − a( Mmp + y) − aMm]
20
1
= (−2aMmp − aMm − ay + Mmx ) (17)
20
Let p < b p0 c. We can now substitute in equations (16) and (17) to

11
deduce the following inequality:

p ≤ p0 − 1
 

1   1 1
p < p + ≤ p0 − ≤ p0 −
2 2 2
Mmx − ay − aMm
p<
2aMm
aMm + ay − Mmx
−p >
2aMm
−2aMmp > aMm + ay − Mmx
1
(−2aMmp − aMm − ay + Mmx ) > 0
20
D ( p + 1) − D ( p ) > 0
D ( p + 1) > D ( p )

Therefore, whenever we are power attacking for an amount less than

b p 0 c,
we can always improve our expected damage by increasing our
power attack value. It follows that no power attack value below this is ever
optimal unless it is the upper bound, b, and we cannot increase it further.
A similar argument, but with certain signs reversed, tells us that, for
any integer p,

D ( p − 1) − D ( p )
1 1
= [ x − a( p − 1)] [ Mm( p − 1) + y] − ( x − ap)( Mmp + y)
20 20
1
= [( x − ap + a)( Mmp + y − Mm) − ( x − ap)( Mmp + y)]
20
1
[ ( x − ap)( Mmp + y) − Mm( x − ap) + a( Mmp + y) − aMm
= 20
− ( x − ap)( Mmp + y)]
1
= (2aMmp − Mmx + ay − aMm) (18)
20
This time, let p > d p0 e. As before, we can derive the following inequal-
ity:

12
 p ≥ p0 + 1
 

1   1 1
p > p − ≥ p0 + ≥ p0 +
2 2 2
Mmx − ay + aMm
p>
2aMm
2aMmp > Mmx − ay + aMm
1
(2aMmp − Mmx + ay − aMm) > 0
20
D ( p − 1) − D ( p ) > 0
D ( p − 1) > D ( p )

Therefore, whenever we are power attacking for an amount greater

than d p0 e, we can always increase our damage by reducing the amount by
which we power attack and no such value can be optimal unless it is the
lower bound of zero.
As there are no integers between b p0 c and d p0 e, one of these (possibly
equal) values is optimal, except when p0 is outside the interval 0 ≤ p0 ≤ b,
in which case the optimal value is the closest endpoint.

13