Weapon Damage Bonuses

[Arkwright]

Hey-
I'm still a newb and I don't think I understand bonuses to weapon damage properly.

By this I mean like how a scimitar does 1d6 damage +4 if you have a strength of 18.

My question is- what affects weapon damage? What applies a bonus?

A guide to the Magus I have read seems to have a sample build where weapon damage is:

At level 1: 1d6+0
At level 3: 1d6+6
At level 6: 1d6+7
At level 11: 1d6+17

This build is using a scimitar with a strength of 11 and receiving weapon spec at level 11 and power attack at 9.

My question is, where is the +6 at level 3 coming from? What happened between level 6 and 11?

Thanks.

[gishjunkie]

The build is using Dervish Dance which allows you to use Dex for both to hit and damage with a scimitar but the earliest you can get it is third level. The deference between 6th and 11th is weapon specialization +2 and power attack +6. Also the magus gets to boost his weapon with his arcane pool.

[Arkwright]

Ahhh, I see, I didn't realize that power attack increased and still haven't wrapped my head around how arcane pool can affect weapon damage...... thanks!

[Umbranus]

gishjunkie wrote:

but the earliest you can get it is third level.

This is true for the pure magus.

But the Dawnflower dervish bard archetype gets dervish dance at first level as bonus feat and a fighter can take it at second level with his bonus feat.