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Careful Attack makes itself seem like the At-Will you should take when you really need to hit something. This is rarely true, and extremely situational. Twin Strike is nearly always better. For example:

Assuming an 18 in your main stat (for a +4 bonus), and taking a Goblin Blackblade as a sample lv 1 creature (AC 16) you hit on a 10 or higher (because of +2 proficiency) or 9 or higher with prime shot or a +3 proficiency bonus weapon. Ignoring Prime shot since you shouldn’t be that close you do an average damage of:

Longbow/Battleaxe/1d10 weapon with a +2prof:

Twin Strike
20.25% = 0 AD
49.5% = 5.5 AD
30.25% = 11 AD
Total = 6.05 ADPR

Careful Attack
35% = 0
65% = 5.5 AD
Total = 3.575 ADPR

With two Longswords

Twin Strike
16% = 0 AD
48% = 4.5 AD
36% = 9 AD
Total = 5.4 ADPR

Careful Attack
30% = 0 AD
70% = 4.5 AD
Total = 3.15 ADPR

What do you notice here? Careful attack is always worse in this situation. It has worse average damage per round, and while it has a 70% chance of connecting for an average of 4.5 damage, twin strike has an average of connecting for at least 4.5 damage 84% of the time.

So when does careful attack become better than twin strike? If you only hit on a nat 20 and do 1d10 damage

Careful Attack
85% = 0 AD
15% = 5.5 AD
Total = .825 ADPR

Twin Strike
90.25% = 0 AD
9.5% = 5.5 AD
.25% = 11 AD
Total = .55 ADPR

Even if you only hit on a 19 or 20 and do 1d10 damage the math works out as follows:

Careful Attack
80% = 0 AD
20% = 5.5 AD
Total = 1.1 ADPR

Twin Strike
81% = 0 AD
18% = 5.5 AD .99
1% = 11 AD
Total = 2.09 ADPR


Honestly now, if you're only hitting on a nat 20, you need to get some buffs on yourself or some debilitating status effects on the monster before you attack it. Careful attack isn't useful when you need to do at least some damage, because Twin Strike is still better at that, while cranking out a higher average damage.

tl;dr version: Careful Attack is a terrible at will that Twin Strike will cover for you, then just take hit and run or nimble strike depending on your path choice.

You are absolutely right.

Though this type of "sounds good but is mathematically craptastic" option isn;t exactly unprecedented.

Sometimes I wonder if too many game designers have math SAT scroes under 500.

Careful Attack is useful against Minions, since you just have to hit them in order to kill them, rather than do any actual damage.

Does anyone ever use the "additional chance to hit" attack in an rpg? Seriously, it seems to be craptastic everywhere. The fact that Twin Strike hits more is pretty funny.

Stardock wrote:

Well the thing about 4th edition is that it should be good, since +hit is so hard to come by. From what I've heard, before release it was a lot better. For some reason the developers brought it down for release.

Inside joke on people bad at math maybe?

It was originally roll twice, keep the better result.

Then it got changed to a flat +4.

And now it's this crappy version (flat +2).