Can we please get an FAQ posted for damage dice increases?


Rules Questions

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thorin001 wrote:
The basic pattern is supposed to be @50% increase in damage for each size increase.

If it was a 50% increase for one size step, it would be a 125% increase for two, due to compound interest. If it's supposed to be 100% for two size steps, then it's a 41% increase for one size increase. (i.e. multiply the damage by the square root of 2.)


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prototype00 wrote:

As I mentioned before as to which part of this conversation held my interest, *and mostly because I'm not understanding the exchange between the two of you, never was great at mathematic progression* are you guys saying that a colossal 20th level monk won't get 12d8 damage on his unarmed strikes?

prototype00

Yes, he will.

2(1d10) medium becomes 2(2d8) at large, which is 4d8 on the progression. The next three stages along that track are 6d8, 8d8, & 12d8, which brings us to colossal size.

I think I'd better put in The Warning, though:

I believe that I have managed to construct a (relatively) simple single progression which can be used to calculate the damage expression from virtually any combination of size-shifts (there is an issue with natural attacks decreasing in size and passing through the 1d10 point, and then increasing again, which looks impossible to solve to me) for any weapon.

I believe that it covers every rules example of weapons at various sizes which are present in the game (with the exception of Monk 20) and thus offers an excellent chance of being "the answer".

But until PDT manage to come up with "the answer", it is only a theory.


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And now to add another side order of "curse you, natural attacks!"

Whereas weapons follow some (apparently) predictable rules, natural weapons are a bit out there. I've noted already that weapons jump steps in the progression once the dice gets up to a d8 and you are increasing size above medium.

Natural attacks, however, have jumps based solely on the current dice expression.

If you look at all of the examples given under Natural Attacks in the Universal Monster Rules, the pattern (which has been linear to the progression before this point) from 1d8 goes:

1d8>2d6>2d8>4d6

Which is 2, 1, 3 steps in the progression.

Given that none of the natural attacks that terminate with a lower dice expression than 4d6 have an "extra step" for colossal size, we can deduce that it is not a feature of being colossal that causes this, which means it must follow a logical mathematical progression to reach this point.

I can see two possible patterns, only one of which is actually reasonable.

Pattern 1: 2, 1, 3, repeat. This is the reasonable one. In the bulk (over 3 or more size increases), it averages out to 2 steps per size increase, which approximately matches the changes we see with manufactured weapons, and vastly reduces the variance from the effects of Improved Natural Attack.

Pattern 2: 2, 1, 3, 4, 7, (sum of previous 2 terms). This is the really whacked out option, since the dice expressions would get crazy very quickly. It is presented here solely for completeness.

Personally, I would say "neither", and progress 2 steps upwards for every increase above 4d6, which at least has the virtue of consistency with manufactured weapons.

I do note that this progression differs from that presented by Improved Natural Attack (which follows a lovely 2-step increase above 1d8).

I'm still working through Strong Jaw and Improved Natural Attack, but so far it's looking pretty nice.


Chemlak wrote:

And now to add another side order of "curse you, natural attacks!"

Whereas weapons follow some (apparently) predictable rules, natural weapons are a bit out there. I've noted already that weapons jump steps in the progression once the dice gets up to a d8 and you are increasing size above medium.

Natural attacks, however, have jumps based solely on the current dice expression.

If you look at all of the examples given under Natural Attacks in the Universal Monster Rules, the pattern (which has been linear to the progression before this point) from 1d8 goes:

1d8>2d6>2d8>4d6

Which is 2, 1, 3 steps in the progression.

Given that none of the natural attacks that terminate with a lower dice expression than 4d6 have an "extra step" for colossal size, we can deduce that it is not a feature of being colossal that causes this, which means it must follow a logical mathematical progression to reach this point.

I can see two possible patterns, only one of which is actually reasonable.

Pattern 1: 2, 1, 3, repeat. This is the reasonable one. In the bulk (over 3 or more size increases), it averages out to 2 steps per size increase, which approximately matches the changes we see with manufactured weapons, and vastly reduces the variance from the effects of Improved Natural Attack.

Pattern 2: 2, 1, 3, 4, 7, (sum of previous 2 terms). This is the really whacked out option, since the dice expressions would get crazy very quickly. It is presented here solely for completeness.

Personally, I would say "neither", and progress 2 steps upwards for every increase above 4d6, which at least has the virtue of consistency with manufactured weapons.

I do note that this progression differs from that presented by Improved Natural Attack (which follows a lovely 2-step increase above 1d8).

I'm still working through Strong Jaw and Improved Natural Attack, but so far it's looking pretty nice.

Wouldn't the pattern simply be double the previous entry?

1d6 > 1d8 here, the previous entry is 1d6, so you double it for 2d6
1d8 > 2d6 previous entry is 1d8, so next entry is 2d8
2d6 > 2d8 previous entry is 2d6, so next entry is 4d6 etc.


Chemlak: Thank you for working this out as well as you have.

I know the answer has changed a few times since you have posted. Can you write up the whole thing in concise language. I would love to help you but I got lost in the math somewhere along the way.

my barbarian that can maximize vital strike likes expressions of dice with a large range to the top number is bigger. Also fistfuls of dice are fun.


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That's certainly the apparent outcome, but it does unpleasant things like avoiding the 1d10 to create that linear progression. Which in itself isn't too bad, because natural attacks which use the 1d10 are problem children.

I suppose it would be relatively simple to create a divergent progression, so that natural attacks follow one pattern after 1d8, and weapons follow another, but it offends my sense of elegance and still arrives at a problem with natural attacks using 1d10.

I'd love it if there was "one rule for everything", but that might not be possible.


Chemlak wrote:
fretgod99 wrote:

3d6 is 10.5 on average. 2d10 is 11. So it's really just another version to approximate roughly the same damage (but with a slightly larger range), akin to 2d6 rather than 1d12. 1d10 bumps to 2d6. 2(2d6) is 4d6. So a size increase for a Medium Monk 20 goes from 2d10 (~3d6) to 4d6 (two steps as proposed above).

Small Monks at 20 have 2d8. A size up from that should be 3d6. Medium Monks have 2d10 which is roughly the same (above).

The issue, obviously, is the Large Monk 20 being 4d8, rather than 4d6. They follow the progression nicely until the level 20 bump (going to 4d8, rather than 4d6).

*shrug*

Frickin' ogres. Never liked 'em.

I largely agree, but if we consider that the Small monk does 2(1d8), the medium does 2(1d10) and the large monk does 2(2d8) at level 20, we're looking at middle of the progression (1d8>1d10>2d6>2d8) with the normal 2-step for moving up from Medium to Large.

It's almost as if the monk's damage expression is:

Base 1d6, increase by int(level/4) steps, until int(level/4)>= 3, then increase by int(level/8) steps but double number of dice.

Which, compared to the normal progression (even with the utterly sideways "if medium weapon is 2d10, then treat as 2(1d10)" expansion needed to cover some of the weirder weapons out there) is utterly b$+&$%* insane.

I noticed an error which is why I ended up deleting the post. Didn't think it'd contribute much.

If the rule is going to be (and it's not a bad rule to go off of): once you get to 2d6/2d8, increasing size bumps you up two on the scale, the Medium Monk 20 damage is wrong.

There are four steps between Small Monk 20 and Large Monk 20 (2d8 to 4d8). Medium Monk 20 should be halfway (two steps) between at 3d8. However, they are one step above Small and three steps below Large at 2d10 (which I argue is essentially equivalent to 3d6 - Small to Medium 2d8 to 3d6; Medium to Large 3d6 to 3d8 to 4d6 to 4d8).

So, who knows?


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I concede your equivalence of 3d6 and 2d10 from a broad numerical perspective, but I'm loathe to inject it as a viable alternative at the current stage because the other equivalences we've encountered (2d4/1d8 and 2d6/1d12) have the same maximum result. I'd really like to minimise the "oh, and you can do this trick to change the dice" as much as possible.


In days long past, I once dreamed a dream, a dream of a standardized damage dice table.

A dream that seemed so simple to implement, that when I saw this thread, I immediately hit the FAQ button.

Turns out, it isn't nearly as simple as I thought it was.

I do not really have anything to add to the discussion at hand, however I do have the following question:

When this question has finally been answered, if you add size increasing modifiers to something such that the damage would scale past Colossal, will the damage continue to increase, or halt at Colossal? For example, adding the Impact Weapon Special Ability to a Colossal sized weapon, or taking Improved Natural Attack as a Colossal sized creature?

Sczarni

I'd actually like a couple increments past colossal, if possible. Strong Jaw exists.

And then, of course, we still need the other FAQ answered, which is "Do Strong Jaw and Improved Natural Attack stack"?


Nefreet wrote:

I'd actually like a couple increments past colossal, if possible. Strong Jaw exists.

And then, of course, we still need the other FAQ answered, which is "Do Strong Jaw and Improved Natural Attack stack"?

Rather than a couple of increments, it would be best if they just gave a formula to increase the damage when it would go off the table (or for odd values that don't exist on the table, like 7d8 or something).

Something like "add 2 to the number of dice rolled if the number rolled is less than 10, otherwise, increase the number of dice rolled by a third (rounding down)".

The numbers there would absolutely require tweaking though.

EDIT: That appears to be something like what they are trying to work towards however.


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Mathius wrote:

Chemlak: Thank you for working this out as well as you have.

I know the answer has changed a few times since you have posted. Can you write up the whole thing in concise language. I would love to help you but I got lost in the math somewhere along the way.

my barbarian that can maximize vital strike likes expressions of dice with a large range to the top number is bigger. Also fistfuls of dice are fun.

Really sorry, I completely missed this post before now. I'm currently doing a little diagram with the rules as I have them so far that I'll put online and link here, later.

It's somewhat hideous, but I think there are only five rules to follow. There is the special caveat that I have as yet not worked out how to manage a 1d10 natural attack that reduces in size and then goes back up. Oh, and the medium-sized monk level 20.

Sczarni

Chemlak wrote:
It's somewhat hideous, but I think there are only five rules to follow. There is the special caveat that I have as yet not worked out how to manage a 1d10 natural attack that reduces in size and then goes back up.

Did you not like the idea I had up thread regarding d10s?

Edit:

From earlier, I wrote:

PROGRESSION #2 (for weapons whose base medium damage is 1d10)

1 => 1d2 => 1d3 => 1d4 => 1d6 => 1d8 => 1d10 => 2d8 => 2d10 => 4d8 => 4d10 => 8d8 => 8d10


Legowaffles wrote:
Nefreet wrote:

I'd actually like a couple increments past colossal, if possible. Strong Jaw exists.

And then, of course, we still need the other FAQ answered, which is "Do Strong Jaw and Improved Natural Attack stack"?

Rather than a couple of increments, it would be best if they just gave a formula to increase the damage when it would go off the table (or for odd values that don't exist on the table, like 7d8 or something).

Something like "add 2 to the number of dice rolled if the number rolled is less than 10, otherwise, increase the number of dice rolled by a third (rounding down)".

The numbers there would absolutely require tweaking though.

EDIT: That appears to be something like what they are trying to work towards however.

An size increase is supposed to generate approximately 50% more damage. 7d8 (7-56 ave 31.5) goes to 14d6 (14-84 ave 49). 150% of 31.5=47.25, so you are pretty close. It would be right on if you had gone to 7d12 vice 14d6, but the decision was to use 2d6 instead of the d12s.

Sovereign Court

Out of curiosity; my earlier post got ignored. Did I get snowed under or was it just too far out there?


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Nefreet wrote:
Chemlak wrote:
It's somewhat hideous, but I think there are only five rules to follow. There is the special caveat that I have as yet not worked out how to manage a 1d10 natural attack that reduces in size and then goes back up.

Did you not like the idea I had up thread regarding d10s?

Edit:

From earlier, I wrote:

PROGRESSION #2 (for weapons whose base medium damage is 1d10)

1 => 1d2 => 1d3 => 1d4 => 1d6 => 1d8 => 1d10 => 2d8 => 2d10 => 4d8 => 4d10 => 8d8 => 8d10

Internet ate my response.

It's a perfectly serviceable progression, but I can't help but believe that it's possible to come up with a single method of starting with a damage expression, and knowing that it's manufactured/natural/type-X, and being able to increase or decrease and get the right result. Since that progression doesn't match the progression from Improved Natural Attack, it adds to an already complex problem.

For the record, when I say "type-X", I'm actually talking about two existing progressions, which are the UMR Natural Attacks progression (which I know), and the 1d10 natural attack progression.

Here's the problem I need to solve:

A small attack does 1d6 damage. We are increasing the size to huge. How much damage does it do?

You are allowed to add one additional piece of information about the source of the damage, must be able to correctly calculate the damage for a manufactured weapon, a natural weapon, a natural weapon where the creature has Improved Natural Attack, and a natural attack that passes through the 1d10 damage line, and your one piece of information must be the thing which informs which damage line you use, and must not require added text to the rule books.

So, for example, if all Outsiders pass through the 1d10 line, that's your one piece of information.

It's a doozy of a problem.


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Ascalaphus wrote:
Out of curiosity; my earlier post got ignored. Did I get snowed under or was it just too far out there?

Not ignored. Personally, I'm working on my own solution. If I hit a roadblock or an actual solution, I'll revisit.


Chemlak wrote:
I concede your equivalence of 3d6 and 2d10 from a broad numerical perspective, but I'm loathe to inject it as a viable alternative at the current stage because the other equivalences we've encountered (2d4/1d8 and 2d6/1d12) have the same maximum result. I'd really like to minimise the "oh, and you can do this trick to change the dice" as much as possible.

Certainly understandable. I was just looking at things from an overabundance of exceptions standpoint.

Meaning, the more exception-oriented entries you have, the more complex and confusing it gets.

Approximating a non-standard damage die to the nearest rough equivalent within the given spectrum leads to fewer disparate results than creating another metric for specific non-standard damage die attacks. i.e., If the attack uses dX, proceed under this progression; if the attack uses dY, proceed under this one; if the attack ... - as opposed to normalizing everything (eventually) to a d6/d8 progression, which is where everything seems to be heading, anyway (it's a matter of how fast you want to get there).

It really boils down to whether you want to approximate damage range or damage average. Each one is valid, it's just a matter of what you want to prioritize.

Approximating average damage might be the "less bad" solution when it comes to non-standard damage dice, if just for the sake of ease. Or not. *shrug*

It's an interesting little conundrum to say the least.


Would it be more or less preferable to have one progression but change the number of steps a weapon moves up when increasing in size?

So most weapons based in d6s and d8s do the ordinary two steps per size increase once you get to 2dX.

What if for weapons based on d10s you just increase by three steps once you get to 2d10, but convert it to the standard d6/d8 scale?

2d8 => 2d10 ~ 3d6 => 4d8 (double 2d8) => 6d6 (double 3d6 ~ 4d10), etc.

Thoughts?


Knowing Paizo, I'd imagine them doing this instead:

PROGRESSION #2 (for weapons whose base medium damage is 1d10)

1 => 1d2 => 1d3 => 1d4 => 1d6 => 1d8 => 1d10 => 2d6 => 2d8 => 2d10 => 3d8 => 3d10 => 4d8


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Sarrah wrote:

Knowing Paizo, I'd imagine them doing this instead:

PROGRESSION #2 (for weapons whose base medium damage is 1d10)

1 => 1d2 => 1d3 => 1d4 => 1d6 => 1d8 => 1d10 => 2d6 => 2d8 => 2d10 => 3d8 => 3d10 => 4d8

Doesn't work.

Improved Natural Attack wrote:
A weapon or attack that deals 1d10 points of damage increases as follows: 1d10, 2d8, 3d8, 4d8, 6d8, 8d8, 12d8.

Let's say there's a giant that has a slam attack that does 1d10 damage. It is affected by reduce person. What is the damage of its slam now? How about after you cast a natural weapon version of lead blades on it?

To be a truly elegant solution, you have to be able to know that the giant's slam has gone back up to 1d10 without knowing that it's already been reduced from that.


It seems to me that reducing the damage from Small-sized weapons is the only solution... I honestly don't think an average of -1 damage is anything to worry about, anyway.


People will still complain. It's bad enough there never seems to be a lot of small gear in adventure paths. ;)


Well... Most gear resizes to fit. Armor and weapon are a real problem, though. Besides, there ar elots of nerfs that people rightfully complained about and that never stopped Paizo.

This one at least has a reason and is incredibly minor.


Agreed, a codified chart would be incredibly nice for this.


Azten wrote:
People will still complain. It's bad enough there never seems to be a lot of small gear in adventure paths. ;)

What if they made the change and then gave all small characters a +1 bonus on damage along with the +1 to hit that they already have? That would preserve the current average damage to keep players of small characters happy while allowing the simpler progression.

I haven't run the numbers yet. Would the new rules create a similar penalty for characters who are smaller than Small?


So from my understanding the issue with your idea is the small characters only lose the 1 damage for the high end of weapons. the 1d10s, and maybe 1d8s, haven't done math. So if you gave a flat +1 damage to small people then the lower damage weapons are getting a buff, which might cause medium players to complain that small now are getting a buff to damage.


Chess Pwn wrote:
So from my understanding the issue with your idea is the small characters only lose the 1 damage for the high end of weapons. the 1d10s, and maybe 1d8s, haven't done math. So if you gave a flat +1 damage to small people then the lower damage weapons are getting a buff, which might cause medium players to complain that small now are getting a buff to damage.

Thanks for clearing no that up. I skimmed the thread and didn't realize that the penalty only affected some weapon sizes.


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I spent a couple of hours yesterday trawling through the bestiaries looking for any commonality amongst creatures that have natural attacks that do 1d10 damage.

The only consistent feature I found is that they are all medium or larger. Other than that, they're all over the place.

I have not yet done the inverse correlation to find all the creatures with natural attacks that arent 1d10, but I'm probably not going to bother because the data set will become unmanageably large.

I sincerely doubt that it's possible to coherently describe the conditions under which a natural attack passes through the 1d10 mark, other than knowing that a 2d8 natural Attack that is not a Real Natural Attack reduces to 1d10.

I seriously think I'm going to have to write off 1d10 natural attacks as a special case.

Damnit.


No formula or progression is going to be able to account for every version of attack that currently exists in PF because the attacks were not created with a unified progression in mind.

That's part of the reason I asked the question I did earlier. Is it better to try to create disparate progressions for multiple types of attacks or to create one progression and determine how and/or at what rate different types of attacks move along that progression?

Ultimately, this is an errata request. That means some rules are going to get changed. There's no way around that. So I think the fair question is "what is the best way to resolve this moving forward" as opposed to "is there a way to synthesize everything we already have from the past". We already know the answer to the latter: No, there isn't a way to synthesize and streamline what already exists. If there was a relatively simple and elegant solution, there wouldn't be much of a call for this errata.

Thus, the question for the developers really is how much they want to change at least some existent rules. Is it preferable to have more progressions, each one depending upon the source of the attack (manufacture weapons, natural weapons, natural weapons with d10 base, unusual natural weapons for large creatures, etc.)? Or is it better to have fewer progressions that you fit differently sourced attacks into? Or, some combination thereof (i.e., the bottom end is slightly different based upon the weapon category, but once you get to XdY damage through size increases, everything continues along the same progression, but at different rates)?

Sczarni

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I've said it earlier in this thread (but I'll reiterate it again): I really hope that, in addition to finding a stable damage progression, we also get a definitive answer on which size increases stack and which don't (namely Bashing with Shield Spikes, and Strong Jaw with Improved Natural Attack).

If there was ever an opportune time to release two different, but related FAQs, this would be it.


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The thing is, I can accurately describe manufactured weapons, and I can accurately describe all natural weapon progressions except the one that passes through 1d10. With that one exception (well, and the weirdness that is medium monk 20), I can describe the up and down size alteration behaviour of every single damage expression in the game with just a few rules to determine the result.

I'm not hugely bothered by not being able to describe the dice every creature has (which I know were often assigned just to fit damage output), because there is a lovely rule under Natural Attacks in the UMR that says "creatures don't have to use these dice". Which is fine, but it means there's no way to know how a natural attack goes down from a 1d10. Which is a shame.

Liberty's Edge

I just do what Hero Lab tells me to do.

Grand Lodge

Nefreet wrote:

I've said it earlier in this thread (but I'll reiterate it again): I really hope that, in addition to finding a stable damage progression, we also get a definitive answer on which size increases stack and which don't (namely Bashing with Shield Spikes, and Strong Jaw with Improved Natural Attack).

If there was ever an opportune time to release two different, but related FAQs, this would be it.

Yes please for Strong Jaw/INA. As I see it, INA is useless if I plan on always casting Strong Jaw. But it comes so late that most certain (as in probably not Animal Companions with lots of attacks) will take INA anyways. And that lessens how useful Strong Jaw is.

So a definitive answer for that would be great.


And "size" should be a numerical value, ranging from 1 (Fine) to 9 (Colossal) for creatures [more for larger things]. And size increases would be numerical bonuses. And they would be typed (or not) and stack (or not).

And the progression wouldn't be constrained at Colossal (unless the ability says so) as you can translate a given dice indication into smaller things (e.g. 7d6 = 7 x 1d6 -> 7 x 1d8 = 7d8).

As to having a nice and proper damage dice progression: we can have such, and unwieldy numbers would just graft themselves to it. So, say, increasing 1d10 would rejoin the progression at 2d6.


thorin001 wrote:
An size increase is supposed to generate approximately 50% more damage.

Nope, it's still 100% per two steps, which is 41% per step.

A 50% per step increase would go ...4d6, 6d6, 9d6...
That is too fast.


Matthew Downie wrote:
Nope, it's still 100% per two steps, which is 41% per step.

Correct. And, for those of you curious about this percentage, it means that each step is multiplied by the square root of 2 (1.41421...). Thus, taking two steps actually multiplies the result by 2.


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Louis IX wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
Nope, it's still 100% per two steps, which is 41% per step.
Correct. And, for those of you curious about this percentage, it means that each step is multiplied by the square root of 2 (1.41421...). Thus, taking two steps actually multiplies the result by 2.

wince

Yes, the square of root 2 is indeed 2, but we're not talking about the real number line, here, we're talking about a pattern of integers which doubles every two steps.

Unless you can find a rounding method that means that 3xroot-2 = 4 and 8xroot-2 = 12, and 16xroot-2 = 24, you will not get the right number of dice.

But that's probably getting overly technical.


Chemlak wrote:
Yes, the square of root 2 is indeed 2,

Nope. 1.414213562

Chemlak wrote:
but we're not talking about the real number line, here, we're talking about a pattern of integers which doubles every two steps.

I was assuming that 'doubles every two steps' was the goal, in which case aiming to multiply by sqrt(2) every step is a much better method than aiming to multiply by 1.5 every step, which leads to accumulating errors.

Looking at this progression:
2d8, 3d8, 4d8, 6d8, 8d8, 12d8.
The increases per step are:
+50%, +33.3%, +50%, +33.3%, +50%
Which averages out at an increase of roughly 41% per step.
A method based on increasing by 50% per step would look more like this:
2d8, 3d8, 4d8, 7d8, 10d8, 15d8


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If you do maths and calculate the square of root-2 as anything other than 2, you're not using any maths I've ever come across.

But that's really beside the point (I assume you missed the word "square").

I'm not arguing for 50% increases, nor am I arguing against root-2 as an approximation: I'm saying that double every two steps is foolproof and matches all existing progressions exactly.


Sorry, misread that. 'Square of root 2' and 'Square root of 2' look pretty similar.


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HangarFlying wrote:
I just do what Hero Lab tells me to do.

Me too, when playing. Actually, that's an excellent point: can anyone use the HL editor to find the damage progression for the 1d10 natural attack?

I'm pretty sure it'll go ...>1d8>1d10>... but it might be helpful in figuring something out, since Lone Wolf Development pretty much have to have asked Paizo what it needs to be.

Lantern Lodge

Perhaps the easiest thing to do is create a chart, and say with the caveat "Follow the rules regarding your specific weapon, and then when the specific isn't clear what the damage should be, follow the chart".


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I have a chart!

It's currently missing the fifth rule, which is when the Real Natural Attack branch is used, and the sixth rule, which is how 2d10 works like twice 1d10 until you find an expression already on the progression.

Here it is!

Edit: this was originally pretty and multi-coloured, but I ended up deleting some extraneous detail, so it's just black and white right now.

Grand Lodge

Chemlak wrote:

I have a chart!

It's currently missing the fifth rule, which is when the Real Natural Attack branch is used, and the sixth rule, which is how 2d10 works like twice 1d10 until you find an expression already on the progression.

Here it is!

Edit: this was originally pretty and multi-coloured, but I ended up deleting some extraneous detail, so it's just black and white right now.

So 3d8 turns into 4d6? 3 - 13.5 - 24 vs 4 - 14 - 24

One more minimum damage, .5 higher avg damage, same cap. Is that how it currently works?


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Not for a single size increase. Above 1d8, there is a fair chance you need to move two steps along the progression for one size increase (rules 3 & 4).

3d8 will move to 4d8.


I couldnt follow the rules. Is there a layman's way you can word that?

Grand Lodge

Chemlak wrote:

Not for a single size increase. Above 1d8, there is a fair chance you need to move two steps along the progression for one size increase (rules 3 & 4).

3d8 will move to 4d8.

Oh alright, I was only looking at the progression and didn't look at the rules..

I know you're trying to be concise, but moving up two steps for a single increase is not intuitive.


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Slacker2010 wrote:
I couldnt follow the rules. Is there a layman's way you can word that?

I hope so!

Pick a weapon (for maximum annoyance, I'm going to say bastard sword) and, if manufactured rather than natural, a size (in my example, I'm going to use small) and find it on the chart (1d8).

Now, one step at a time, increase or decrease along the chart. (My halfling bastard sword wielder is getting enlarged and has an impact weapon.) But wait! There are situations when you'll skip steps: if it's a natural weapon that's doing 1d8 or more, or if it's a manufactured weapon that does 1d8 or more and is medium sized or larger. (The enlarged halfling with an impact bastard sword started off small doing 1d8. Moving a step up, he's now medium and doing 1d10. So the next size increase skips a step (2d6) and moves on to 2d8.)

That's pretty much it. There are a few esoteric weapons where it gets a bit weird (I'm looking at you, musket!), but they're few and far between.

You can also safely ignore the Real Natural Attacks branch unless you have one and it exactly matches the damage listed under Natural Attacks in the Universal Monster Rules.

I'll look at doing a non-skipping version of the chart, see if that makes it easier to understand. It'll just have more branches.

Silver Crusade

So, I'm curious on how much damage the following would result as.

Lets say I'm a Kitsune with the Ranger's "Claws of the Beast" Natural Weapon Style. I'd have 3 primary attacks, one 1d4 bite and two 1d4 claws. Now if I took Improved Natural Attack: Claws and then later cast "Strong Jaw", what damage am I doing per Claw? And what damage am I doing with my bite?

Thanks and appreciate anyone willing to help answer my question.

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