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I know there's been a lot of threads about eidolons and how much damage they can do on an attack, but none of them seem to address the specific issues I'm looking at (and if they have, just link me to them).
There's really two parts to this question.
First, the Improved Natural Attack feat.
Straightforward enough. But the problem comes when you compare these progressions to the actual Natural Attacks By Size chart. The chart consistently uses the following progression: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.
1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 4d6
Notice that while almost the entire table uses the first progression from the INA feat, it goes to 2d8 instead of 3d6, which puts that one spot onto the secondary progression.
So if a Large eidolon with a slam attack (specified to be 2d6 at that size) takes Improved Natural Attack, does it size up to 2d8 (as per a huge eidolon and the damage table) or does it size up to 3d6 (as per the feat)? Does a Huge eidolon with the feat size up from 2d8 to 4d6 as (per the table) or to 3d8 (as per the feat)?
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The second problem has to do with the "Improved Damage" evolution. Originally, I just considered it the same as the INA feat. In light of the prior confusion, I had to go back and take a closer look and now I wonder at the wording.
The evolution says "Select one natural attack form and increase the damage die type by one step." This is not the same language as used in INA, although it's similar. I could make a case for saying that it bumps the size of the die, regardless of anything else, so Xd4 becomes Xd6, Xd6 becomes Xd8, and Xd8 becomes Xd10, regardless of whatever X is. I don't think that was the intended effect, but it certainly looks like a viable reading to me.
Even if we assume that it is supposed to work like INA, that leaves the question of which progression to follow. If the eidolon's slam is 2d6 before taking the feat, does it progress to 2d8 or 3d6? If they're huge, does it go to 4d6 or 3d8? And what if you combine it with the feat? Does the order matter? (It shouldn't.)
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Any clarification would be great.
I know there's been a lot of threads about eidolons and how much damage they can do on an attack, but none of them seem to address the specific issues I'm looking at (and if they have, just link me to them).
There's really two parts to this question.
First, the Improved Natural Attack feat.
Straightforward enough. But the problem comes when you compare these progressions to the actual Natural Attacks By Size chart. The chart consistently uses the following progression: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.
1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 4d6Notice that while almost the entire table uses the first progression from the INA feat, it goes to 2d8 instead of 3d6, which puts that one spot onto the secondary progression.
So if a Large eidolon with a slam attack (specified to be 2d6 at that size) takes Improved Natural Attack, does it size up to 2d8 (as per a huge eidolon and the damage table) or does it size up to 3d6 (as per the feat)? Does a Huge eidolon with the feat size up from 2d8 to 4d6 as (per the table) or to 3d8 (as per the feat)?
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The second problem has to do with the "Improved Damage" evolution. Originally, I just considered it the same as the INA feat. In light of the prior confusion, I had to go back and take a closer look and now I wonder at the wording.
The evolution says "Select one natural attack form and increase the damage die type by one step." This is not the same language as used in INA, although it's similar. I could make a case for saying that...
This seems to be tricky and make no sense what-so-ever. There does seem to be a legitimate inconsistency. I've only skimmed through and haven't done a thorough search but it appears as if elementals and dragons have their natural bumped up a step according to the universal monster rules while constructs follow the chart exactly. Now my gut ruling would be to say that monster creation should follow the universal monster rules. However, should a feat or anything else contradict the universal monster rules you should follow as the feat (or evolution) says.
The feat text would trump the "size increase" info. The text of the feat tells you exactly what to do: you follow the chart in the feat.
For the second feat I would also do exactly what it said. Increase the die.
The feats themselves tell you what to do- there isn't anything inconsistent about it.
-S
my experience is the first list is the corre t one. that is what is usecmthroughout themeidolon.
the thing that screws up the di e progression is 2d4 formsome reason someone de iced that instead ofnitnupgracing to d10 like it should it bumpsnup to 2d6 as ea h d4 increases, qs a result of this do jumps to 2d8 instead and 2d6 jumps tp 3d6 instead of 2d8
The feat text would trump the "size increase" info. The text of the feat tells you exactly what to do: you follow the chart in the feat.
For the second feat I would also do exactly what it said. Increase the die.
The feats themselves tell you what to do- there isn't anything inconsistent about it.
-S
The feat also says "as if it increased in size".
And if the evolution increases the die size, it really matters which order they're applied in. If you size the die first, 2d8 becomes 2d10 which (per the weapon tables) becomes 4d8, whereas if you size it later, 2d8 becomes 3d8 which becomes 3d10. 4d8 is 4-32, 3d10 is 3-30, so it's not like they're equivalent ranges...
Personally, I'd say that the evolution changes the *base* damage from d8's to d10s, and then the feat bumps it, but that's me, and it's certainly not clear.
4d8 is 4-32, 3d10 is 3-30, so it's not like they're equivalent ranges...The feat text would trump the "size increase" info. The text of the feat tells you exactly what to do: you follow the chart in the feat.
For the second feat I would also do exactly what it said. Increase the die.
The feats themselves tell you what to do- there isn't anything inconsistent about it.
-S
The mathematician side of me just died a little. To prove my point, compare 17d2+1d3-17 to 1d20. Both have a range of 1-20 with an average of 10.5 yet both are COMPLETELY different statistics. In the first, your chances of getting a 20 are 1/393216. Good luck scoring a crit any time soon. Meanwhile you have a 1/20 chance of making that crit. 17d2+1d3-17 might as well read "take 10" whereas we know the value of taking 10 when dealing with a d20. Please learn some statistics.
The mathematician side of me just died a little. To prove my point, compare 17d2+1d3-17 to 1d20. Both have a range of 1-20 with an average of 10.5 yet both are COMPLETELY different statistics. In the first, your chances of getting a 20 are 1/393216. Good luck scoring a crit any time soon. Meanwhile you have a 1/20 chance of making that crit. 17d2+1d3-17 might as well read "take 10" whereas we know the value of taking 10 when dealing with a d20. Please learn some statistics.4d8 is 4-32, 3d10 is 3-30, so it's not like they're equivalent ranges...The feat text would trump the "size increase" info. The text of the feat tells you exactly what to do: you follow the chart in the feat.
For the second feat I would also do exactly what it said. Increase the die.
The feats themselves tell you what to do- there isn't anything inconsistent about it.
-S
I said they're not equivalent. Even if they were, though, they're both bell curves of similar shape. Not exactly the same, but similar. Comparing a 3-die curve to a 4-die curve is reasonable. Comparing a 18-die curve to a 1-die curve is just ridiculous.
If you want to put that mathematician side to good use, it'd be helpful to see a chart of all the combinations of "Bump up die size, then increase based on INA" vs "Increase based on INA, then bump die size" for each starting size of the eidolon. If there's a particular combination which produces absurd results (i.e. there's a large difference in potential damage depending on the order you apply things), that'd be good to have called out.
if it was me, id throw out the pathfinder size increases, and use the 3.5 open source material, they have no holes in them like this, therefore increasing size and improved damage evolution and the feat, would just give you 3 increases on that chart. way way easyer
if it was me, id throw out the pathfinder size increases, and use the 3.5 open source material, they have no holes in them like this, therefore increasing size and improved damage evolution and the feat, would just give you 3 increases on that chart. way way easyer
Nope, 3.5 had exactly the same issue. This was something Pathfinder inherited. I can't link you to it, because the table for monster damage-by-size isn't in the SRD, but compare table 5-1 on page 296 of the 3.5 Monster Manual to the feat on page 304.
Bumping in hopes someone has an answer to this, either based on rules or logic, because it gets even more painful when you factor in enlarge person.
To summarize, there's now three things that affect damage: The improved attack evolution ("increase the damage die type by one step"), the INA feat ("increases by one step on the following list, as if the creature’s size had increased by one category"), and the enlarge person spell ("All equipment worn or carried by a creature is similarly enlarged by the spell. Melee weapons affected by this spell deal more damage").
Just what the evolution does is debatable, how the feat works in relation to an eidolon's "if large... if huge..." damage entries is unclear, and the spell runs smack into the flaw in the INA tables vs the size charts.
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My interpretation would be that you apply the evolution first (inherent to the creature's attack), then the feat (permanent bonus), then the spell (temporary bonus). Buy using the literal reading of the evolution, that would a huge eidolon's slam damage 2d10, which can't be sized up by the INA feat without making the assumption that 1d10 -> 2d8 is equivalent to 2d10 -> 4d8 (which is what the weapon size chart says). From 4d8, you'd go to 6d8. Does this interpretation make sense?
Anyone find an answer to this question yet? It has become imminently pertinent in my game.
I haven't, sadly.
Eidolon becomes large. Change the base form as necessary for size, add evolutions in order as they can be applied to the Eidolon by prerequisites (ie.Body size, Limbs (to body), Natural Attacks to limbs, then Improvements to Natural Attacks)
So a Large Eidolon with Limbs(Arms), Slam(To Arms) and Improved Damage(To Slam) would go in this progression. From Slam (Large)=2D6 to Improve Damage(to Slam(Large))=2D8.
However, if my Level 7 Summoner's eidolon already had INA on its claws and at level 8 I kept its claws and dropped some other evolutions to give it the Large evolution I would see the logical progression of applying evolutions as the ones it already had and then it growing bigger as it got more powerful. Depending on the attack type this would produce different results.
"Most sensible" is in the eye of the beholder and the path they took to get there.
I'd just treat the natural attack progression as going from 2d6, 3d6, 4d6. That's a steady increase of 3.5 avg damage per bump.
If the middle stage were 2d8, you have an increase of +1 for the first bump, and +6 for the second, which doesn't make much sense.
Additionally, the rules for increasing regular weapon damage go 2d6, 3d6, 4d6. Everything points to the stated natural attack progression simply being in error.
Didn't want to read through the whole thread, but if it hasn't been mentioned already it should be pointed out that the improved damage evolution and INA do not stack. (It's in the FAQ somewhere).
Can you find it and link it? I don't recall seeing it, but I haven't looked lately.
They definitely seem to stack as written:
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.
Select one natural attack form and increase the damage die type by one step.
Though of course, neither stacks with itself. (And there were similar feats/abilities that didn't stack in 3.5.)