Critical Hit on a Lance

[Trscroggs]

Assume a medium character is charging with a lance and lands a critical hit. How many damage dice is the player going to roll and how many times does is he going to multiply his flat damage?

Later he will take Spirited Charge, what will the damage be then?

[Michael Sayre]

The first time through he'll deal 4x damage. So, 4d8+4xSTR+4xEnhancement+4x any other static damage bonuses (Power attack, smite, etc.)+any bonus die (1d6 for flaming, for example). Bonus die are never multiplied. When you factor in Spirited Charge, he'll be at 5x.
In Pathfinder, two doubles makes a triple, a triple and a double make a quadruple, etc.

"Multiplying Damage: Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results.

Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage. So if you are asked to double the damage twice, the end result is three times the normal damage.

Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon's normal damage are never multiplied."

[Samasboy1]

Ssalarn has it right.

Think of multiples as adding copies of the base damage. You add all the copies together, but only the base damage once.

So double damage on a charge (x2) becomes base + 1 copy.

Triple damage critical with lance (x3) becomes base + 2 copies.

You get the base once plus a total of 3 copies = x4 damage.

["Devil's Advocate"]

But the Base Damage of a Mounted Lance is 2d8 + Str + Str. A Mounted Charge changes the Base Damage. It isn't a multipier, and it is not extra damage. So a Crit with a Mounted Charging Lance is actually either 6d8 (+Str x6), or 8d8 (+Str x8) for a Spirited Charge. It's more similar to effectively increasing the size of the Lance than counting it incorrectly as an additional multiplier like x2, and then x3.

[Michael Sayre]

"Devil's Advocate" wrote:

But the Base Damage of a Mounted Lance is 2d8 + Str + Str. A Mounted Charge changes the Base Damage. It isn't a multipier, and it is not extra damage. So a Crit with a Mounted Charging Lance is actually either 6d8 (+Str x6), or 8d8 (+Str x8) for a Spirited Charge. It's more similar to effectively increasing the size of the Lance than counting it incorrectly as an additional multiplier like x2, and then x3.

You are wrong, sorry. The base damage of a lance is 1d8. This is doubled when used from the back of a charging mount, and then that double gets doubled again on a x3 crit.

Double is a multiplier. It is 2x the orginal. That's what multipliers are.

["Devil's Advocate"]

I disagree. It's changing the base damage. Otherwise it would say something along the lines of a Mounted Charge counts as a crit for damage (but not other purposses such as a Flaming Burst weapon), and on an actual crit deals an additional x3 damage, effectively become a x4 weapon. It is a multiplier, but it isn't the kinds of multiplier that rule was refering to, such as increasing a crit multiplier through a special ability.

[shallowsoul]

Hurts

[TriOmegaZero]

"Devil's Advocate" wrote:

I disagree.

I disagree with your disagreement.

Quote:

Lance: A lance deals double damage when used from the back of a charging mount. While mounted, you can wield a lance with one hand.

If the base damage were 2d8 you would be doubling THAT to 4d8 on a mounted charge.

["Devil's Advocate"]

That's correct, except that it deals x3 damage, not x2, so 6d8 rather than 4d8.

A similar example would be a medium-sized someone using Enlarge Person with a Longsword (1d8 -> 2d6), 19-20/x2. It changes the base damage. On a Crit, it would not deal 2d6 + 1d8 (+ double str), as 1d8 is the "base damage" of a Longsword. It would deal 4d6 with x2 Str.

[TriOmegaZero]

No, I meant on a non-crit.