Hi again,
This question is less of a theory question as my other ones, because it's coming up in our campaign very soon.
i've been doing some looking at the Dragon disciple class, and the natural weapons that they are granted.
so with the sorcerer class, you get claws that do normal damage for your size catagory, D4 (D3 if you're small).
Once you get into Dragon disciple class, and hit level 2 you get access to your bite attack, which doesn't have damage listed in the main rule book.
so if we check the natural weapons table, we see that for a medium character the claw and bite damage is D4 / D6 respectively.
however, at character level 7 (sorc 5, DD 2) the claws increase in damage die.
so now you're doing claw damage as a large creature. but your bite attack still functions as a medium creature. is this an oversight?
the increased strength damage seems more a throwback to the dragon bite damage always gaining 1.5x str added to damage. and less a DD class feature.
It seems as though the intent is to increase the damage dice of the sorc / DD character to the damage dice of a large creature... but it isn't really written that way.
so to clarify, cause i've been known to ramble...
DD bite attack - doesn't fit with the damage dice increase for claws, is this intentional?
another question
is D20pfsrd maintained by the guys at Paizo? or do they have nothing to do with it?
I did a search on here regarding, and the posts i looked at used just the character size as a rule on the bite damage.
Not related to the question, but i like telling stories, so most of my rules questions will probably come with some kind of story.
I'm going to be talking to my DM today, cause it's our game day so i'll get a ruling from his perspective today. likely our druid will resist, cause his character seems to dislike mine for no real rational reason, aside from i grappled him because he put on an amulet that we failed to Identify... then he told us that arcane casters cannot use the amulet at all, and divine casters must have it... however if people use the amulet it'll rain firey destruction down on us all.
so he promptly put on the necklace... then I grappled him to try and either get the necklace off him, or stop him from using it.
fortunately for me the rest of the group agrees with my actions.
I guess an addendum to this question would be...
If the Dragon disciple is supposed to be synergic with the Sorcerer draconic bloodline.
and bite attacks according to the natural attacks chart do one die greater than the claws.
is it safe to assume that the intention was to have the bite do 1D8 damage?
this is the arguement i'll be making to the DM, because this makes the most sense to me.
PRD wrote: Dragon Bite (Ex): At 2nd level, whenever the dragon disciple uses his bloodline to grow claws, he also gains a bite attack. This is a primary natural attack that deals 1d6 points of damage (1d4 if the dragon disciple is Small), plus 1–1/2 times the dragon disciple's Strength modifier. Upon reaching 6th level, this bite also deals 1d6 points of energy damage. The type of damage dealt is determined by the dragon disciple's bloodline. Huh, for some reason you have two separate identical threads going.
cannon fodder wrote: PRD wrote: Dragon Bite (Ex): At 2nd level, whenever the dragon disciple uses his bloodline to grow claws, he also gains a bite attack. This is a primary natural attack that deals 1d6 points of damage (1d4 if the dragon disciple is Small), plus 1–1/2 times the dragon disciple's Strength modifier. Upon reaching 6th level, this bite also deals 1d6 points of energy damage. The type of damage dealt is determined by the dragon disciple's bloodline. anyhow, I understand the PRD states that it does D6 damage.
my question is more, does that make sense?
all other creatures do one die more with their bite than their claws... so why isn't it the same for the dragon disciple?
this answer is the reason why i also asked if the PRD was maintained by Paizo staff.
the bite damage disparity seems strange to me, and that's why i'm asking questions, I know the PRD states the bite damage is 1D6, i believe I commented on the medium size damage, which is where i believe the PRD got the number from.
but this seems wrong to me, because of the disparity with all other creatures that have claws and bite attacks.
they all get 1 die greater for their bite attack, why doesn't the dragon disciple?
anyhow, I understand the PRD states that it does D6 damage.
my question is more, does that make sense?
all other creatures do one die more with their bite than their claws... so why isn't it the same for the dragon disciple?
this answer is the reason why i also asked if the PRD was maintained by Paizo staff.
the bite damage disparity seems strange to me, and that's why i'm asking questions, I know the PRD states the bite damage is 1D6, i believe I commented on the medium size damage, which is where i believe the PRD got the number from.
but this seems wrong to me, because of the disparity with all other creatures that have claws and bite attacks.
they all get 1 die greater for their bite attack, why doesn't the dragon disciple?
side note Sorry for the constant replying, i'm going to just edit this post and incorporate the last one... I apparently got reply happy, Home sick so not thinking entirely 100% right now, I apparently had a bit of a blind spot around the edit button...
cannon fodder wrote: Huh, for some reason you have two separate identical threads going. Yeah, you and I had started a reply to the first thread at about the same time.
You finished your post first, so when I finished my reply it spawned a second copy that just had me responding.
Quote: another question
is D20pfsrd maintained by the guys at Paizo? or do they have nothing to do with it?
No, it is not maintained by Paizo, and contains a lot of third party stuff.
This is the official PRD maintained by Paizo.
Jeraa wrote: Quote: another question
is D20pfsrd maintained by the guys at Paizo? or do they have nothing to do with it?
No, it is not maintained by Paizo, and contains a lot of third party stuff.
This is the official PRD maintained by Paizo. Ah, i had only used the D20pfsrd.
so the question about the disparity still stands...
does anyone know why the dragon disciple doesn't have a bite to match it's claws? (in that all other bite attacks when they accompany claws do one die size larger than the claws)
this doesn't make any sense to me... because everything else about the DD class, improves on the draconic bloodline abilities. the bite just seems thrown on... like "wouldn't it be cool to have a bite as well? sure lets just make it do size category damage, and not follow the claws at all"
I guess, the same question relating to the magic nature for overcoming DR. which has been posed a few times on here, and from what I gleaned from the responses is RAW, no it's not magical. but RAI yes it is magical.
from that type of response, wouldn't we then be able to extrapolate that the bite damage die should increase along with the claw damage die? for the same reason that we assume it's also magical.
the claws essentially increase in size category, so why wouldn't the bite follow suit?
Honestly, it's not really a big deal. Most of your damage will be coming from Strength bonuses, not from the actual die size.
Why did they do it like that? Well, the Tengu have a bite attack the same as their claws, and I imagine it'd be much the same with other humanoids.
I don't really have a "mechanical answer" as it were, only a personal opinion regarding the visuals and the effect.
I can, for example, picture clawed hands growing longer claws and slightly enlarged. I have a harder time picturing longer fangs (the mouth wouldn't close properly) or an enlarged jaw. Likewise, I can imagine grabbing/tearing larger chunks of flesh with said enlarged claws, while there's only so much you could stuff in your mouth (that's what she said lol) to take a bite.
Seranov wrote: Honestly, it's not really a big deal. Most of your damage will be coming from Strength bonuses, not from the actual die size.
Why did they do it like that? Well, the Tengu have a bite attack the same as their claws, and I imagine it'd be much the same with other humanoids.
That's an avenue i didn't consider, i'm going to look into humanoid creatures with a bite attack, and see if it fits the increased damage die.
the question about the damage die was more for the feat Improved natural weapon (bite) consideration.
if it's the D8 damage die, then the feat, increases the damage dice to 2D6. That is a huge potential boost to damage.
as opposed to the feat only increasing from D6 to D8.
but as i said, i'm going to do a bit more research looking at humanoids with bite attacks, and post back my findings.
So my findings are as follows.
The majority of creatures that have claw and bite have damage that is indicative of the type of creature it is... IE if it's got a small mouth, it's got a small bite damage.
things like the Grizzly bear, or the Owl bear had their bite damage match their claw damage.
things like the Ettercap and the Hound archon, had bite damage that was increased.
Also of note, the Half-Dragon template gives bite damage for the size category of the creature. which is an increased bite damage.
cannonfodder wrote: I can, for example, picture clawed hands growing longer claws and slightly enlarged. I have a harder time picturing longer fangs (the mouth wouldn't close properly) or an enlarged jaw. Likewise, I can imagine grabbing/tearing larger chunks of flesh with said enlarged claws, while there's only so much you could stuff in your mouth (that's what she said lol) to take a bite. The claws grow due to a magical effect, would it not be fair to assume that when the claws are being used, that the bite attack isn't grown as a snout? which would mimic something like the hound archon, which does D8 damage, and is a medium creature.
being a magical effect it can't be too far fetched to assume that the character using the claws and bite grows a large snout.
the increase to a D8 damage, to keep up with the natural weapons table... could be seen as sharper teeth, or biting and tearing huge chunks of flesh.
after the research, I am more inclined to believe that the D6 is an oversight, and it should be D8.
I think the bite ability should read more like this
Dragon Bite (Ex): wrote: At 2nd level, whenever the dragon disciple uses his bloodline to grow claws, he also gains a bite attack. This is a primary natural attack that deals Damage appropriate to the Dragon Disciples size (D6 medium, D4 small), plus 1–1/2 times the dragon disciple's Strength modifier. If the Dragon Disciple and Sorcerer levels total 7 or more, the bite damage is increased by one size category. Upon reaching 11 combined levels of Sorcerer and Dragon Disciple, this bite also deals 1d6 points of energy damage. The type of damage dealt is determined by the dragon disciple's bloodline. This would essentially add the bite to the Claws ability, and have the bite progress at the same time as the claws. It already seems like this is the intended case, if you take Dragon Disciple as soon as you can right after Level 5 Sorcerer.
I can't edit that last post anymore...
but the last line should read
This would essentially add the bite to the claws ability, and have the bite progress at the same time, and in the same way as the claws.
it seemed like this was the intended case if you took Dragon Disciple from class level 6+ starting as a sorcerer.
Recent threads in Rules Questions
|
