Yeah, the arsinoitherium's powerful charge damage really should be higher, shouldn't it?
[It's attack roll and average damage on its attack is only 1 outside the range listed for a CR 7 critter. Good Fort save, but low Will save. CR 7 seems about right. It doesn't have the hit points or saves for CR 8.]
yknow what? I was already to defend the Arsinoitherium, but it really DOES look like a misprint. The gore and powerful charge are the same damage 4d8, the trample is 2d8, animal companion goes up to 2d8. Seems to me the gore should be 2d8.
Powerful Charge (Ex)
When a creature with this special attack makes a charge, its attack deals extra damage in addition to the normal benefits and hazards of a charge. The attack and amount of damage from the attack is given in the creature’s description.
Distant Scholar is correct, shouldn't the charge be like 8d8+13 or at least 4d8+18 or something?
If you compare the Arsinoitherium to the bestiary recommendations for designing new monsters, it looks like the base gore damage is in the wrong, and the powerful charge damage might be based off the correct gore damage.
As I said above, I disagree completely. The average damage is only 1 higher than the given range.
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It's only just outside the range, unless you factor in that it will probably charge as much as possible.
Interestingly, there was already a correction to this:
Page 186—In the Megafauna, Arsinoitherium
stat block, in the Special Attacks entry, change the
powerful charge damage from “4d8+24” to “4d8+13”.
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It's a Large creature with a 4d8 gore attack... compare that to normal damage for a natural weapon that size: 1d8
I suppose they did so because it's got two horns, and it is indeed close to recommended damage.
The powerful charge damage may be based on the Trample damage, which is more of a hoof thing.
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But if you look at the damage that attack does, it fits neatly into the recommended values in the bestiary guide to designing monsters; the right damage for CR 7, even though it totally ignores the guidelines for natural weapon damage by size. The end result is within bounds, but it was arrived at in a strange way. You can justify it because it's actually a pair of horns, not a single horn.
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But consider the dire tiger, which becomes available at the same moment as the arsinoitherium. It doesn't have Rake until you get level 8, but since you complain about Strong Jaw, which is available from level 7, I think it's best to pick level 8 as our place of comparison. Oh, and you don't have the BAB to get Vital Strike until level 9, so that's moot.
Arsinoitherium: 4d8 +1 .5 STR
With strong jaw and vital strike: 16d8 + 1.5 STR + static bonuses
Average damage on hit: 72 + 1.5 STR + static bonuses
Dire Tiger: 4 claws 2d4 + STR + static bonuses, bite 2d6 + STR + static bonuses and improved critical.
With strong jaw: 4 claws 2d8 + STR + static bonuses, bite 4d6 + STR + static bonuses and improved critical
Average damage assuming all attacks hit, but no critical hits: 50 + (5 * STR + static bonuses)
So now we solve to find at which (STR + static bonuses) the Dire Tiger will out-damage the Arsinoitherium...
72 + 1.5*STR + 1*static = 50 + 5*STR + 5*static
22 = 3.5*STR + 4*static
Let's suppose static bonuses of +2 (+1 AoMF and +1 miscellaneous; bardic performance, Prayer etc.); that leaves us with STR*3.5 = 14 for the Arsinoitherium to break even with the Dire Tiger. With a STR of +4, the Dire Tiger is equal to the Arsinoitherium.
If static bonus or STR go any higher, the Dire Tiger becomes better. So the question is, is this a high or low STR and static bonus? I think it's on the low side; a level 8 druid gets +2 STR for a Large wild shape, has about 14 Strength to start with, and can certainly afford a +2 Strength belt.
But wait! There's more!
The Dire Tiger relies on Charge-Pounce, which permits a double move, while Vital Strike allows a single move at most. So the Dire Tiger has higher mobility. Woodland Stride and Feather Step will help you deal with a lot of difficult terrain.
Dire Tiger doesn't need Vital Strike, saving a feat.
Dire Tiger uses 5 attacks, and if not all of them hit, at least you've hit something. Arsinoitherium puts all its eggs into one (depleted uranium) basket.
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So is the Arsinoitherium underpowered? I wouldn't go that far. I think it's a big boy, and Furious Finish will certainly help it go far, although that requires a Barbarian dip. But it's not a weirdly OP form, compared to other available forms. Druids just do very large amounts of damage at that level.
Dire Tiger: 4 claws 2d4 + STR + static bonuses, bite 2d6 + STR + static bonuses and improved critical.
With strong jaw: 4 claws 2d8 + STR + static bonuses, bite 4d6 + STR + static bonuses and improved critical
2 Things
1. I've been looking and I really want to show my GM where you got the advancement from 2D4 to 2D8. Not under improved natural attack or strong jaw. Where'd you get it?
2. When you wild shape into a dire tiger, you do not get its feats. Thus, no improved critical (99% sure). Not a special ability, just a feat that its bestiary stat block has.
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I was probably wrong about the critical. But it looks like I didn't use the critical in DPR calculations anyway, so no biggie there.
I think (it's some time ago) that I used the Strong Jaw table to do the damage dice.
In the Strong Jaw table, advancing 1d4 by two sizes produces 1d8. So when advancing 2d4, I advanced it to 2d8.
Upon further investigation I found a lot of people using the manufactured weapon chart with the 2D4 claws. 2D4 would go to 2D6 as you stated, but a medium 2D6 goes up to 3D6. That seems to make the most sense, and I found it all on my own :P
(Strong Jaw table doesnt have 2D4 for some reason, neither does Improved Natural Attack table)
Thanks for inspiring my research though, and thanks for the calculations. Making a druid and you have definitely convinced me to include a dire tiger form.
4D6 claws with Improved Natural Attack and Strong Jaw :) (2D4 -> 2D6 -> 3D6 -> 4D6)
That should change your damage calculation numbers quite a bit (even without INA)
The problem is that it has Powerful Charge but does no additional damage with it.
Which is the entire point of the ability to do more than normal single attack damage.
I would say that the base damage should be 2d8+, in line with other similar animals.
The damage vs. CR guideline should take into account usage of animal abilities,
a creature with Powerful Charge is expected to Charge, thus the Powerful Charge damage is reasonable to assess for dmg. vs. CR purposes.
That is why Rhine and Wooly Rhino have similar Powerful Charge damage for similar CR, while having half the base dmg.
If you want to say that the base dmg itself must be the means of achieving the dmg. vs CR spec (a ruling which has no basis),
then you haven't fixed the situation, because now there are two creatures who don't even meet half the dmg. vs CR spec.
(and many more, I'm sure, beyond just Rhino/Wooly Rhino)
