Another thread got me thinking about big, single hit damage, wonderin if my math was right here (even if not quite PFS legal).
Level 12, ranger 11 (guide), barbarian 1
17 starting strength before racial mods, 22 str at level 12
Tiefling variant from Council of thieves, one that gives 2 str, and the special ability that gives you oversized limbs, allowing you to use large weapons without penalty (I know it's a random table, that's why this thread is called silly damage)
Heirloom Weapon trait, and a Huge bastard sword (from your demonic ancestor perhaps). Damages.. 1d10 regular, 2d8 large, 3d8 huge?
Now add a potion of enlarge person (weapon larger, +2 str, -1ab) and cast the spell Lead blades (weapon 1 size larger again). Almost seems a formula of add 50% every time you go up, so 2d8 (large) would go to 3d8 (huge), ~3d12 (huge+1, enlarge), then ~6d8 (huge +2, lead blades)?
Feats of note: power attack, furious focus, vital strike, greater vital strike, weapon focus
Gear of note.. +6 str item, +3 weapon, haste item.
So... on a single hit (greater vital strike, rage, instant enemy) you'd be 34 str (22 base, 6 item, 2 enlarge, 4 rage), +12 AB from str, +18 damage from str
ranger instant enemy for +6/+6
Furious focus power attack, no AB loss on first hit, +12 damage
total AB is 32, (12 BAB, 12 str, -2 oversized weapon, +1 weapon focus, +1 heirloom weapon, -1 enlarge, +6 instant enemy, +3 weapon)
total damage is 18d8+39 for 120 average (57-173 range)(18str, 6 FE, 3 weapon, 12 greater vital strike)
Full round attack instead of vital strike
AB progression is 32, 28(haste, furious focus doesn't apply), 23, 18
Damage per hit is 6d8+39, 66 average, with damage dice like that it definitely looks like the vital strike way is how you want to go without haste, unless you are facing low AC creatures, at which point you could be looking at 198 average damage normal and 264 damage hasted.
Any place I went wrong on the math, and any improvements on this?
Another thread got me thinking about big, single hit damage, wonderin if my math was right here (even if not quite PFS legal).
Level 12, ranger 11 (guide), barbarian 1
17 starting strength before racial mods, 22 str at level 12
Tiefling variant from Council of thieves, one that gives 2 str, and the special ability that gives you oversized limbs, allowing you to use large weapons without penalty (I know it's a random table, that's why this thread is called silly damage)Heirloom Weapon trait, and a Huge bastard sword (from your demonic ancestor perhaps). Damages.. 1d10 regular, 2d8 large, 3d8 huge?
Now add a potion of enlarge person (weapon larger, +2 str, -1ab) and cast the spell Lead blades (weapon 1 size larger again). Almost seems a formula of add 50% every time you go up, so 2d8 (large) would go to 3d8 (huge), ~3d12 (huge+1, enlarge), then ~6d8 (huge +2, lead blades)?
Feats of note: power attack, furious focus, vital strike, greater vital strike, weapon focus
Gear of note.. +6 str item, +3 weapon, haste item.
So... on a single hit (greater vital strike, rage, instant enemy) you'd be 34 str (22 base, 6 item, 2 enlarge, 4 rage), +12 AB from str, +18 damage from str
ranger instant enemy for +6/+6
Furious focus power attack, no AB loss on first hit, +12 damage
total AB is 32, (12 BAB, 12 str, -2 oversized weapon, +1 weapon focus, +1 heirloom weapon, -1 enlarge, +6 instant enemy, +3 weapon)
total damage is 18d8+39 for 120 average (57-173 range)(18str, 6 FE, 3 weapon, 12 greater vital strike)Full round attack instead of vital strike
AB progression is 32, 28(haste, furious focus doesn't apply), 23, 18
Damage per hit is 6d8+39, 66 average, with damage dice like that it definitely looks like the vital strike way is how you want to go without haste, unless you are facing low AC creatures, at which point you could be looking at 198 average damage normal and 264 damage hasted.Any place I went wrong on the math, and any improvements on this?
Huge weapons can not be wielded by medium sized creatures. The ability to use a large sword without penalty does not give you access to huge weapons.
You also can have to do the math to see how many of your attacks hit on average.
Progression from improved natural attack which shows how weapons increase in size.
1d8, 2d6(large), 3d6(enlarged by spell), 4d6(lead blades), 6d6, 8d6, 12d6.
4d6 with greater vital strike=12d6=42 on average before strength modifiers
I don't know what gear you have so you may or may not have the belt that gives +6 also. If you do have the belt then the +39 is correct so when you do hit you get 81 points of damage on the vital strike that is.
What you need to remember is that rage and the ranger ability are both swift actions so you won't be activating them on the same round.
Bastard sword, would be 1d10, 2d8 (large), 3d8(enlarge), 4d8(lead blades), so still be 12d8 on a vital strike, 93 average damage, and at a 34 ab, and a 34/30/25/20 progression (no -2 for oversized weapon anymore) with 56 average damage you are still hitting pretty hard. In the DPS threads the target AC is generally 27, so the first 3 hits land on a 2 or better, the 4th only needs a 7, so that's not bad at all. Drop 1 ranger level to get say a magus or wizard level for your own (1 minute duration) enlarge would make it a little more self sufficient (magus would have no spell failure in light armor, and could even add 1 more damage if you took arcane strike) but cost you 1 AB.
As for the swift action, rage lasts a few rounds and instant enemy lasts until the enemy is dead, so with the other buffing it shouldn't be too hard to get both up.
Bastard sword, would be 1d10, 2d8 (large), 3d8(enlarge), 4d8(lead blades), so still be 12d8 on a vital strike, 93 average damage, and at a 34 ab, and a 34/30/25/20 progression (no -2 for oversized weapon anymore) with 56 average damage you are still hitting pretty hard. In the DPS threads the target AC is generally 27, so the first 3 hits land on a 2 or better, the 4th only needs a 7, so that's not bad at all. Drop 1 ranger level to get say a magus or wizard level for your own (1 minute duration) enlarge would make it a little more self sufficient (magus would have no spell failure in light armor, and could even add 1 more damage if you took arcane strike) but cost you 1 AB.
As for the swift action, rage lasts a few rounds and instant enemy lasts until the enemy is dead, so with the other buffing it shouldn't be too hard to get both up.
I thought you were using a longsword. The bastard does give a little more damage, and the damage is high, but as a DM I would not worry about it. It is not like those combinations will always be available for every fight.
One greater dispel magic drops enlarge, haste, and lead blades.
PS:Once again it is a nice combo.
Silliness is in the eye of the beholder, or GM. If your group thinks it is too silly don't allow it, to me it would be too much of a stretch to get a vanilla-mix mechanical benefit, so I'd probably disallow some of the stacking of size/damage increases.
if you think this is silly, then you should really take a look at the mounted charger barbarian with pounce. That is completely by the book, and way crazyer than this.
On top of that the barbarian gives more damage without 3 spells on him, and without using 2 swift actions to buff up the damage, meaning he can do it from round 1, where this ranger/barbarian can do it from round 2 if he is lucky, but more likely round 3 or 4 due to all the buffs he need.
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'You have oversized limbs, allowing you to use Large weapons without penalty.' (Pathfinder #25, page 65)
So, as Wraithstrike points out, you can't use that tiefling power to wield Huge weapons... on the other hand, you're not limited to using a Large bastard sword (for the one-handed to two-handed size change), but can instead use a normal, Large-sized, two-handed weapon. For example, a Large greatsword or greataxe gives you a base damage of 3d6 (which bumps with size increases to 4d6=>6d6=>8d6, assuming no change from the way 3.5 bumped weapon damage with size increases). So, with Enlarge Person and Lead Blades you'll do a base 6d6, or 18d6 with Improved Vital Strike (no Greater until you have a BAB of 16+) plus whatever normal damage bonuses you get from Strength, et al.
Nice (and intimidating as all heck if you're the other guy...) but not really 'silly' as such. Of course when I read the thread title I was hoping for a thread about silly damage types... oh no, I've taken 5 points of damage to my sense of decorum! ;)
found something that confirms damage dice progression under improved natural attack, which works great for figuring out progession for anywhere else:
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./
And I did call it silly damage because I would never expect a regular group to allow it for normal play (especially with the 1% chance of actually getting that ability for a tiefling).
I guess that calls forth the next step in this.... how does reach with large weapons and large characters work? At what point do you get 10 foot reach, and I'm assuming if you aren't using a weapon designed to hit 2 squares away, large creatures retain close combat ability as well?
No thats not silly damage.
Silly damage is the time I confirmed a critical and did a grand total of.... Wait for it..... You're gonna be absolutely amazed....... 0 damage, just to be clear that was not damage taken but rather my base damage before apply dr or anything. Stupid slings.
Edit: oh I forgot what made it truly silly. That was max damage. 1d2-2 max damage 0. After that I kept outta weapons combat.
Every hit does at least one point of damage. If it would have been zero or less, then it becomes one point of non-lethal damage.
/nitpick
found something that confirms damage dice progression under improved natural attack, which works great for figuring out progession for anywhere else:
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./
And I did call it silly damage because I would never expect a regular group to allow it for normal play (especially with the 1% chance of actually getting that ability for a tiefling).
I guess that calls forth the next step in this.... how does reach with large weapons and large characters work? At what point do you get 10 foot reach, and I'm assuming if you aren't using a weapon designed to hit 2 squares away, large creatures retain close combat ability as well?
Your base size determines your reach. Once you are large your reach goes to 10 feet, but you still threaten the 5 foot area also.