Gizmo Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 A few of us were discussing this in chat and wanted to get a referee ruling on it. Do the following feats allow Attack to exceed PL caps in the way that Power Attack or Defensive Attack do? Improved Block Improved Disarm Improved Sunder ... and so forth. For instance, Jack of all Blades has an attack bonus of +15 and two ranks of Improved Block; does he make his attack roll to block at +19 or not?
Master_Pelle Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 I think that Disarm and Sunder can exceed the power cap. I have heard that Improved Block are capped.
Ecalsneerg Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 It's an odd situation. See, Steve Kenson has said Improved Block is capped. Thus, since 99% of people meet caps, most people can't take it. I highly doubt any of the refs'd object to 1-2 ranks though. I mean, it's far from gamebreaking, and capping it is a bit silly.
quotemyname Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 StB and I have talked about this on numerous occasions. All of those feats are capped. So if you meet caps regularly, you can't take any of them. EDIT: Also, just a personal opinion, these are three of the WORST feats in the game. I highly considered taking them all for Colt... Until I actually read them. They. Are. God. Awful.
Gizmo Posted October 20, 2009 Author Posted October 20, 2009 If they can't exceed caps, why do they even exist? I have a hard time imagining a character build which wouldn't be better served by putting the points into Attack Focus or Specialization or simply the basic attack bonus.
quotemyname Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 Exactly, Gizmo. My conversation with StB basically boiled down to, "What they hell were they smoking when they wrote these feats?!"
angrydurf Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 PL caps make alot of feats that make good sense in a normal d20 game (Which is what most feas were raided from) awful. Those three are amazing examples of just that. The other reason is that alot of the design of M&M actaully foolishly assumes that you will not build to caps in which case those feats can become good but only in comparison with someone who also built well below caps. Look at the pre gen archetypes particularly in the main book. They are routinely under caps. However no one with any sense builds below caps (OUtside of very specific concepts that are basically Lower PL but with more PP.)
N/A Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 A case could be made that Improved Sunder ignores caps, because the +4 attack bonus is probably intended to offset the size bonus most held objects will have to their Defense score. Improved Block and Improved Disarm are indeed counted for PL caps, and are thus not worth the ink it took to print them in the book. Throwing Mastery is also PL capped, which makes it of questionable usefulness. Rage is PL capped, but you get your money's worth out of it.
Gizmo Posted October 21, 2009 Author Posted October 21, 2009 Yuck. Well, the upside is that Jack'll have a lot more points to move around come next edit than I thought!
N/A Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 You can feel free to submit that edit request now. You don't have to wait until next month.
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