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One of my players was wanting to build a barbarian around this concept he read on the forums for RageLancePounce, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't really work (although maybe he's missing something). Can you help me clarify this? The problems I see are:
1)Pounce applies when you charge, but the bonus damage the lance gets only applies when you are mounted. So if you are using Pounce, you wouldn't get your bonus damage from the lance.
2)Somewhat in conjunction with the first point, it doesn't seem like Pounce would give you a full attack while your mount is charging, you would need Mounted Skirmisher.
3) The bonus damage only applies to the first attack in the charge, even if you have the ability to make iterative attacks.
So what benefit would there really be here? Pounce doesn't give any special bonus to the lance, and while Raging might boost your strength, you're not going to have much survivability in your mount... Right?
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One of my players was wanting to build a barbarian around this concept he read on the forums for RageLancePounce, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't really work (although maybe he's missing something). Can you help me clarify this? The problems I see are:
1)Pounce applies when you charge, but the bonus damage the lance gets only applies when you are mounted. So if you are using Pounce, you wouldn't get your bonus damage from the lance.
2)Somewhat in conjunction with the first point, it doesn't seem like Pounce would give you a full attack while your mount is charging, you would need Mounted Skirmisher.
3) The bonus damage only applies to the first attack in the charge, even if you have the ability to make iterative attacks.
So what benefit would there really be here? Pounce doesn't give any special bonus to the lance, and while Raging might boost your strength, you're not going to have much survivability in your mount... Right?
Sorry I don't wanna look into the other questions (at work), but I know they already said the answer to question 3 is you only get the bonus damage on the FIRST attack after a charge.
Many vaunted 'combos' require 'generous' readings of the rules to work.
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Thanks all. I was pretty sure this was one of those combos that only worked if a lot of rules were "glossed over". I'm glad I can use this thread to show him the error of his ways, I'm really against building characters based on things you read in the threads..... No creativity, and they're probably missing something important or twisting something past the point of breaking to make it work anyway.
DEAD AM STRONG WORD TO BE USING RAGELANCEPOUNCE AM MORE LIKE WEAKER I BELIEVE AM NOTHING SAYING CHARGING WHILE MOUNTED DIFFERENT FROM CHARGING, JUST THAT POUNCING ONLY ALLOWING ONE TIME OF SUPER LANCE DAMAGE REST STILL THERE JUST NOT TRIPLICATED.
THOUGH AM WOULD PROBABLY ALSO WANT IT POINTED OUT THAT BUILD AM FOR HYPOTHETICAL USE ONLY AS IT MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS SUCH AS DM FIAT OVERPOWERED ENEMIES OR ROCKS FALL EVERYBODY DIES.
Many vaunted 'combos' require 'generous' readings of the rules to work.
I was pretty sure this was one of those combos that only worked if a lot of rules were "glossed over"
I think it is important to note that, when RageLancePounce was created, it did not require "generous readings" or anything to be "glossed over." Remember, the linked FAQ entry was a response to the tactic. Outside of that FAQ, the game did not (and still does not) say anywhere that the damage bonus on a charge only applies to the first strike. Mounted pounce was a reasonable interpretation given the way several other abilities and feats related to charging while mounted are written. The difference between a mount and player charging is still murky at best, to the point that there is still substantial disagreement over when, how, and in what ways a mount and a rider are charging. Even the FAQ doesn't address the general case, likely because whichever way you go will invalidate at least a few options.
RageLancePounce was the result of an entirely reasonable interpretation of the rules. It may not have been intended, and may well have been too powerful, but there was no intellectual dishonesty or rules ignorance behind its creation. That has now changed, with the rules being clarified/errated, but it is silly to denigrate a tactic that was plausible at the time just because it is explicitly not rules-legal now.
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@ Mort
My boks may be more recent prints, but they still read the lance as only gaining it's bonus damage while mounted. Is that an update as well?
Also the reading in mounted combat seems very clear that when the mount charges, the rider gains the benefits of its charge, but is not charging himself.
"If your mount charges, you also take the AC penalty associated with a charge. If you make an attack at the end of the charge, you receive the bonus gained from the charge. When charging on horseback, you deal double damage with a lance (see Charge)."
Again, these mnay be updates I was not aware of. No one was denigrating anything, other than attempts to use a build that is currently dead.
My boks may be more recent prints, but they still read the lance as only gaining it's bonus damage while mounted. Is that an update as well?
RageLancePounce was always a mounted build. AM BARBARIAN rode AM BATTY. The thing that changed/clarified was the double damage from a lance only applying to the first attack. As far as I am aware, this has not yet made it into the books (though I am a printing or two behind at this point).
Also the reading in mounted combat seems very clear that when the mount charges, the rider gains the benefits of its charge, but is not charging himself.
The problem is, the rules are written pretty inconsistently on this point. The examples I remember coming up were Supreme Charge ("whenever the cavalier makes a charge attack while mounted") and Ride-By Attack ("When you are mounted and use the charge action"). For abilities like these to work, you have to be able to make a "charge attack" take the "charge action" while mounted. Pounce only requires that you "charge," which would seem to be a part of those, so why would it not apply?
Now, the answer is "because it has been specifically clarified as not working," but at the time there was good reason to believe it was not the case. There were arguments against it on linquistic grounds (for example, a difference between "charging" and "taking the charge action"), but it was far from an illogical conclusion.
Again, these mnay be updates I was not aware of. No one was denigrating anything, other than attempts to use a build that is currently dead.
You stated "I was pretty sure this was one of those combos that only worked if a lot of rules were "glossed over"." RageLancePounce was clarified/errated/nerfed to not work anymore, it was not the result of anyone glossing over the rules. Even now someone using it would not be based on "glossing over the rules," but on "not having reading the one FAQ post that made it impossible."
You continued "I'm really against building characters based on things you read in the threads..... No creativity, and they're probably missing something important or twisting something past the point of breaking to make it work anyway." When the thread your friend likely read was written, "they" (the writers) were not "breaking" any rules or "twisting" anything. It was a reasonable interpretation of how the game worked that has since changed. That your friend was unaware of or willfully ignoring that things had changed does not change that. To say that the writers of such threads were doing this was, indeed, denigrating them, whether you intended it or not.