Well, the animal companion cannot qualify for Improved Vital Strike until 18th level.
The Druid cannot cast Animal Growth until 10th level.
Other than that, it looks legal to me.
True. Because the Druid can shift into another one and apply all the same spells and feats and then you would have a duo that could dish out well over 1K damage per round.
It seems to me that this "doubling clause" is the culprit. I haven't heard of it. 2d8->4d6 isn't a double, for example.
Going up the table from 2d8 makes it 4d6.
.....
so I'll just start using the doubling clause. Up to gargantuan for 8d6.
Strong jaw to act 2 sizes bigger... 8d6 -> 16d6 -> 32d6.
Thats not how I read the table. since the table does:
1d6 - 1d8 - 2d6 - 2d8 - 4d6 - 4d8
I would continue in the same format:
4d8 - 6d6 - 6d8 - 8d6 - 8d8
So when you move to Gargantuan it would be 4d8 not 8d6, add two more sizes and you would get 4d8 - 6d6 - 6d8.
Vital for 12d8
EDIT:Distant Scholar beat me to it, but i put more an explanation.
The arsenioquarium and hippopotamus behemoth are also good for wild shape shenanigans.
Viz., the "Druid Math" thread.
Strong Jaw explicitly says if the creature is already gargantuan double it's damage as you go up.
Ok so I just read it the spell. It does say that if your Gargantuan you Double the amount of damage. Not that the table keeps doubling. So your still at 16d6 not the 32d6 you had.
EDIT:
You go into Mammoth rider. Your AC is now huge upgrading his damage to 4d6.
With Strong Jaw our damage is increased two steps from 4d6 - 4d8 - 6d6. This is how I would run it, I could be argued that it goes to 8d6.
If you cast Animal Growth(your druid level would have to be adleast 10, thus delaying your progress into the prestige class) this increases his size catagory by 1. Our damage first moves to 4d8 for the move to Garg. Then I would let the Strong Jaw effect go doubling the dmg to 16d8.
Natural weapons are an odd ball when it comes to size scaling.
Here is the rule
1) If damage is initially xd6, then convert to Xd8.
2) If damage is xd8, then convert to 2xd6.
Done.
So..2d8(large) becomes 4d6(huge).
Then animal growth makes it 4d8(gargantuan).
Strong Jaw makes that 8d8 (Gargantuan size damage gets doubled)
Vital Strike makes it 16d8
Improved vital strike makes it 24d8
Issue solved. Avg 448 damage becomes Avg 108 damage. We have successfully cut the players cheese by 4.
Natural weapons are an odd ball when it comes to size scaling.
Here is the rule
1) If damage is initially xd6, then convert to Xd8.
2) If damage is xd8, then convert to 2xd6.Done.
Where did you find this rule?
There is a rule in the core rulebook that when you double something twice, the result is 3x the original, not 4x since each 'doubling' doubles the original value, not the doubled value.
This is how I tend to rule on these things to keep the cheese down.
I agree with you, Adamantine Dragon.
But this isnt doubling something twice we are talking about. Its a scaling chart. Nothing that mentions doubling has the effect twice. Strong Jaw mentions doubling damage for creatures Garg. and Col. Instead of the scaling.
Only if done in that order. If size is done first then strong jaw doubles accordingly. Making a character cast in the least beneficial way is no less cheesy.Natural weapons are an odd ball when it comes to size scaling.
Here is the rule
1) If damage is initially xd6, then convert to Xd8.
2) If damage is xd8, then convert to 2xd6.Done.
So..2d8(large) becomes 4d6(huge).
Then animal growth makes it 4d8(gargantuan).
Strong Jaw makes that 8d8 (Gargantuan size damage gets doubled)
Vital Strike makes it 16d8
Improved vital strike makes it 24d8Issue solved. Avg 448 damage becomes Avg 108 damage. We have successfully cut the players cheese by 4.
He did the size first....
I did the order according to the OP's order. If you do strong jaw first then it is:
2d8->4d6
strong jaw ->4d8 ->8d6
Animal growth -> 8d8
Vital strike -> 16d8
Improved Vital Strike -> 24d8
Oh wait....its the same. Yay math!
Natural weapons are an odd ball when it comes to size scaling.
Here is the rule
1) If damage is initially xd6, then convert to Xd8.
2) If damage is xd8, then convert to 2xd6.Done.
I'm not sure that this is correct... Comparing to the text of Improved Natural Attack (emphasis mine):
Improved Natural Attack (Monster)
Attacks made by one of this creature's natural attacks leave vicious wounds.Prerequisite: Natural weapon, base attack bonus +4.
Benefit: Choose one of the creature's natural attack forms (not an unarmed strike). The damage for this natural attack increases by one step on the following list, as if the creature's size had increased by one category. Damage dice increase as follows: 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, 6d6, 8d6, 12d6.
A weapon or attack that deals 1d10 points of damage increases as follows: 1d10, 2d8, 3d8, 4d8, 6d8, 8d8, 12d8.
Special: This feat can be taken multiple times. Each time it is taken, it applies to a different natural attack.
So, based on the the text, the feat is the same as increasing the attack by one size category. On this list, 4d6 would increase to 6d6, rather than the 4d8 you propose.
On the other hand, this listing doesn't match up with the Natural Attacks by Size table, which does appear to follow your rule.
Another oddity I'm noticing is that the Arsinoitherium animal companion doesn't seem to follow the rules at all. At medium size, its Gore does 1d8, while the table says 1d6. The table marks large as 1d8, so we could just assume that the Arsinoitherium counts as one size category larger... But when the animal companion advances to large, Gore goes up to 2d8, which is equivalent to a Colossal animal's Gore according to the table, so we're now two size categories larger. Based on Improved Natural Attack, the 1d8 should have advanced to 2d6 instead. So this companion doesn't follow either.
I am basing my rules off of the table for Natural attacks in the Universal Moster rules of the Bestiary. It is an extrapolation since the table stops at 4d6. However, if you look at the damage steps it obviously goes 1->1d2->1d3->1d4->1d6->1d8->2d6->2d8->4d6->??
This progression does not match the Improved natural attack feat since the 2d6->? progression is not the same. Don't know what to tell you.
If you use that feat as the basis for progression you get:
2d8(large)->3d8(huge)
Strong jaw ->4d8 ->6d8
Animal growth ->8d8
Vital strike -> 16d8
Improved vital strike -> 24d8
Same flipping damage!
The only thing I have against this is that the feat is not the actual progression of natural attacks and may be a specific rule that breaks the general natural attack damage table rule.
Edit:Math fixed!
So, is this actually legal? It seems absurd.
Druid who goes into mammoth rider. Switches animal companion to a Arsinoitherium at this point.
Mount becomes huge naturally at mammoth rider 1. Large Arsinoitherium has a 2d8 gore. I'm not totally sure how the advancement works because we started higher on the dice than normal (in the strong jaw table) so I'm just going to walk up the table. Going up the table from 2d8 makes it 4d6.
We haven't used a magical size boost (I assume there is a way to do that for animals but didn't bother looking it up) and we are already off the table so I'll just start using the doubling clause. Up to gargantuan for 8d6.
Strong jaw to act 2 sizes bigger... 8d6 -> 16d6 -> 32d6.
Vital strike, 64d6
Improved vital strike, 96d6
If you just want to be a jerk, pour in alchemist infusions to give transformation and paragon surge for greater vital strike, 128d6.
Does this really work? I mean, 128d6? Avg damage 448 before adding static damage pluses?
It looks like strong jaw has been misread here.
It a creature is gargantuan or colossal double the base damage INSTEAD of increasing it two categories (because there are not two categories to increase to). You don't double per size category increase. What we see here is that for every two size increases the damage should double, and if we check this with the strong jaw table that is EXACTLY what happens.
So 8d6 doesn't become 32d6 but only 16d6, making VS 32d6 and improved VS 64d6. That will cut that average damage of 448 in half to 224 I presume.