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Any talk of Radiant Charge I've seen in the forums indicates that it can only be used once a day. I don't see anything in the text that limits it as such. I understand that it uses all Lay On Hands, and a Paladin won't replenish those uses until the next day, but I don't see anything that says the feat can't be used again even when all LOH are expended, for the Cha bonus. Thoughts?
I hope this hasn't already been discussed to death. I did some searches and haven't found this addressed.
Prerequisites: Lay on hands class feature.
Benefit: When you hit with a charge attack, you can expend all of your remaining uses of lay on hands to deal extra damage equal to 1d6 per use of lay on hands expended + your Charisma bonus. This damage comes from holy power and is not subject to damage reduction, energy immunities, or energy resistances.
Paizo Peripheral
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If you don't have any uses of LoH left, you can't even activate this, so you wouldn't be able to add the LoH-dependent damage or the extra Charisma mod damage.
If you don't have any uses of LoH left, you can't even activate this....
Where does it say that? Is it in this sentence?
"When you hit with a charge attack, you can expend all of your remaining uses of lay on hands to deal extra damage equal to 1d6 per use of lay on hands expended + your Charisma bonus."
I just don't see it. It seems clearly written to indicate that you get a bonus based on LOH uses and Charisma bonus. I see nothing to indicate that the character needs to have a certain number, or any number, of LOH uses available to activate the ability. I feel that my reading is very straight forward. I'm curious why others do not read this the same way. What am I missing?
I think you may be on to something here, thebig (can I call you "thebig"?).
dotting for interest.
All my friends call me "thebig." ;)
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If you have 0 of something remaining, then you cannot spend "all of" that thing because you don't have any, therefore you cannot use the feat.
The word "remaining" tells you that you must have at LEAST 1 use of LOH left in your pool to activate it.
Pretty strait-forward to me.
If you have 0 of something remaining, then you cannot spend "all of" that thing because you don't have any, therefore you cannot use the feat.
By that logic, someone without a Charisma bonus shouldn't be allowed to use the feat either.
The word "remaining" tells you that you must have at LEAST 1 use of LOH left in your pool to activate it.Pretty strait-forward to me.
How is that straight forward? On the contrary, your reading, which I admit appears to be the common reading, is quite interpretive. There's nothing which says that the available LOH uses activate the feat, just that each use adds 1d6 damage. "Remaining" means that all LOH uses must be expended, but I don't see that expending them is what activates the feat anymore than having a Charaisma bonus activates the feat. They are simply two values that add to damage. If the character has no Cha bonus, it gets no Cha bonus to damage; if the character has no LOH uses left, it gets no bonus to damage based on LOH.
Yes, the answer is in that scentance. "When you hit with a charge attack, you can expend all of your remaining uses of lay on hands to deal extra damage..."When you charge you CAN expend all of your Lay on Hands uses to get the extra d6's and Cha bonus. Or, you can choose to NOT expend all of your Lay on Hands charges and get no bonuses charging normaly.
I believe "can" here means that it's not obligatory to use the feat on a charge, as in, "when charging you can use this feat, or not."
If you do not have uses of lay on hands to use then you cannot get the benefit of the ability.What you want the ability to say is, "When you hit with a charge attack add your Charisma bonus to damage. Also, you CAN expend all of yoru rmaining uses of lay on hands to deal extra damage..."
Actually, that's not what I want it to say. I think the feat expends all uses of LOH no matter what. I don't think it should be optional and I never said so. That part is not in dispute. My point has only been that you don't need to have LOH uses available in order to activate the feat. Rather, you simply don't get any bonus associated with LOH in such a case, only Charisma.
But it doesn't say that.So, either you expend all of your lay on hands and get the bonuses or you don't expend lay on hands uses and charge normaly.
Make sense?
Even though I'm still arguing the point, yes, you're making sense. Yours is the kind of answer I was looking for, one that identifies the crux of the statement where the two interpreations diverge, although I don't think the real crux is the word "can," as you suggest, but "to": "you can expend all of your remaining uses of lay on hands [in order] to deal extra damage . . . ." Adding "in order" just before "to" clarifies your reading. Since it's common to omit that part of the expression while still meaning exactly that, such that "to" and "in order to" can mean the same thing, I'm warming to your interpretation.
Good stuff. This is helpful. :)
"thebig" I might need you in the next game session I have. I need someone that can argue a case against a contract devil that just because my character has no soul should not mean he cannot make a deal that requires him to sell his soul.
If you can spin your logic magic on him I would very pleased.
If you have 0 of something remaining, then you cannot spend "all of" that thing because you don't have any, therefore you cannot use the feat.By that logic, someone without a Charisma bonus shouldn't be allowed to use the feat either.
That would actually make sense, since Charisma is pretty much the prime attribute for paladins.
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The ability makes no mention of uses per days, it has two variables
Charisma and LoH.
Mathwise it's (charisma modifier)+(Loh charges x1d6)=Damage added.
Taking LoH to zero doesn't mean you can't, it just means you no longer get them d6s.
There's nothing raw there preventing you from using it over and over.
I'm with Carbon. "Remaining" requires a non-zero number.
It doesn't require a LOH use to activate, it just uses them all up when you do use it. Therefore, with 0 uses left, you would still add CHA. IMO anyway.
FAQ'ed
I'm of the opinion that you can. Currently trying to think of similarly worded abilities for comparison. FAQ'd
So your saying the charge it's self bypasses dr and all that jazz always but the charisma damage is extra and dependent on loH?
o that is now t hat it says it clearly references the charisma damage has bypassing dr dependent on loH. If you don't spend the loH all you have is a normal charge
It says, "you can expend all of your remaining uses of lay on hands". You can't expend something you don't have any of, so I don't see how this could work. Hopefully there will be some official clarification though since obviously a lot of people feel differently.
I think a more important question is whether the Charisma bonus would be multiplied when using a lance and or Spirited Charge. Since it is called "extra damage" I am guessing it is part of the damage for the charging attack. While extra dice don't get multiplied flat bonuses like the Cha mod generally do.
I think the feat would be a lot better if they let you spend whatever number of LoH uses you wanted to get +1d6 per use. That way you could kind of meter it out.
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I don't agree, I think the RAI is very clear here: Radiant Charge is a nova ability and its intended to be used no more than once per adventuring day.
It is not so much that it has a per day limit, but it does have a restriction based on you needing LoH to activate it.
No LOH= no activation..
So if you can find a way to recharge your LOH before the end of the day you could use it again.
you can expend all of your remaining uses of lay on hands to deal extra damage equal to 1d6 per use of lay on hands expended + your Charisma bonus.
What happens when you spend all of your LOH's?
You deal extra damage equal to "1d6 per use of lay on hands expended + your Charisma bonus."
The ability does not separate the two. There is no comma or other grammatical structuring to support the LOH damage and the charisma damage being seperate.
So unless it is stated otherwise it is all or nothing.
Now if the feat said "You deal extra damage equal to your Charisma bonus, and in addition if you expend all of your LOH's you also deal additional damage equal to 1d6 per use of lay on hands expended" then the OP might have a valid case.
However it is not written like that.
edit:fixed
Definitely in the "you cannot expend what you don't have" camp on this.
Also, the Cha bonus being added doesn't specify whether it must be positive or not, so you'd add the 0 if you had a 10 or 11, or a penalty if you had less than that, presumably. The usage of the word "bonus" however might indicate that you only add your modifier if it is positive. 3.5 used to call this stuff out specifically, with verbiage like, "add your Cha modifier if positive."
The question is: Is expending your LoH's a cost, or a portion of the effect?
Basically, do you have to "spend" LoH's down to zero to activate the feat? Or do you expend your LoH's down to zero as a result of activating the feat?
The former is the traditional reading. The latter is the OP's interpretation.
I'm inclined to lean towards the former.
It is interesting that the game is so legalistic that things like this get debated despite seeming "obvious". I guess sometimes the less intuitive option turns out to be RAI if not RAW and a FAQ or errata gets made, but honestly that seems unlikely in this case.
At 6th level, my Paladin can not know/prepare/cast 2nd level spells. His "base daily spell allotment" of 2nd level spells is not 0 (zero). It is an empty set. It is a non-presence for my 6th level Paladin, regardless of his Charisma modifier, his equipment, etc.
At 7th level, my Paladin's "base daily spell allotment" for 2nd level spells is 0 (zero). This is a significant change from 6th level, because now, with a high enough Charisma, my Paladin gets bonus spells of 2nd level which he adds to his "base daily spell allotment".
The Point:
Zero is a relevant and quantifiable number in the Pathfinder Rules.
Having zero uses of Lay on Hands is not the same as not having Lay on Hands.
"... you can expend all of your remaining uses of Lay on Hands..." does not indicate a minimum number of uses required.
You can no more expend 0 LoH than you can cast 0 spells.
I guess Paizo will he to do an FAQ on O vs nothing. smdh
At 6th level, my Paladin can not know/prepare/cast 2nd level spells. His "base daily spell allotment" of 2nd level spells is not 0 (zero). It is an empty set. It is a non-presence for my 6th level Paladin, regardless of his Charisma modifier, his equipment, etc.
At 7th level, my Paladin's "base daily spell allotment" for 2nd level spells is 0 (zero). This is a significant change from 6th level, because now, with a high enough Charisma, my Paladin gets bonus spells of 2nd level which he adds to his "base daily spell allotment".
The Point:
Zero is a relevant and quantifiable number in the Pathfinder Rules.
Having zero uses of Lay on Hands is not the same as not having Lay on Hands.
"... you can expend all of your remaining uses of Lay on Hands..." does not indicate a minimum number of uses required.
You're comparing apples and oranges. The spells thing is a holdover from 3rd Edition, and is there only to signify that if you have a high enough casting stat, you will gain a new spell at that level.
Taking your casting example, you couldn't extend a 1st level paladin spell to fit in that 2nd level paladin spell slot with a 0, because it isn't available to you. The only difference between the -- and 0 is that for the latter, if your Cha is high enough, you get to change the 0 to a 1 or a 2, whereas that isn't allowed for the --. It's a form of shorthand in this case.
Personally, I've always found that to be rather stupid in any case...it's not like just giving paladins and rangers 1 spell in place of that 0 would make them much more powerful...and if the designers didn't want those classes gaining 2 spells at level 6 and such, they could have just changed the spell progression table.
It's also a good thing to remember that the design team is very loathe to add feats, etc that provide stat consolidation, hence why both Dervish Dance and the agile weapon property haven't made it over to the core rule line. The main feat that does something like this, Guided Hand, has a feat pre-requisite that even some of the developers think is a lame-tastic feat.
EldonG - It is good to know that by RAW you can use Radiant Charge when you have 0 remaining uses of LoH as long as you're dead first! Thanks! (since it is the Internet I should probably point out that I'm not serious)
It is interesting that the game is so legalistic that things like this get debated despite seeming "obvious". I guess sometimes the less intuitive option turns out to be RAI if not RAW and a FAQ or errata gets made, but honestly that seems unlikely in this case.
I agree. On first blush, it seemed obvious, and then it didn't. So, I asked.
I started this thread in order to explore the possibilities. I didn't post because I was certain my alternate reading was correct. I simply thought the text was vague, and the question deserved to be asked. As for my personal interest, I just started playing a paladin, and I'm planning my progression. This feat is not worth it to me under the conventional interpretation. It's just way too niche. From a roleplaying perspective, however, it meshes nicely with my concept. Even under the more liberal reading, Radiant Charge is still a bit less attractive mechanically than going with Ride-by-Attack and Spirited Charge. Under the conventional reading, it's just meh.
FAQ'd but I'm in the "Works by RAW but is not RAI" camp.
So is the damage multiplied on a crit?
The dice? No. The Charisma bonus to damage . . . I haven't been counting it, but maybe I should. I'll have to check that.
Thread necros are so much fun...they bring back memories of post you had forgotten abt
Yeah, it was fun to see this come back. Level 11 now (Dragoon 2/Paladin 9) in a Kingmaker campaign, and this feat sees little use. I'm still in the camp that asserts it is RAW, is probablynot RAI, but it should have been RAI anyway. I get 4d6 healing per Lay On Hands, but this feat still just gives me 1d6/Lay on Hands of damage. Horrible trade-off. The higher your level, the less it matters. Scaling the damage equal to the healing power of LoH, however, would be over-powered, I think. Even with the interpretation I'm selling, this is still a niche feat.
Yeah, it was fun to see this come back. Level 11 now (Dragoon 2/Paladin 9) in a Kingmaker campaign, and this feat sees little use. I'm still in the camp that asserts it is RAW, is probablynot RAI, but it should have been RAI anyway. I get 4d6 healing per Lay On Hands, but this feat still just gives me 1d6/Lay on Hands of damage. Horrible trade-off. The higher your level, the less it matters. Scaling the damage equal to the healing power of LoH, however, would be over-powered, I think. Even with the interpretation I'm selling, this is still a niche feat.
Definitely a mediocre feat for the dedicated Paladin. But for a 2 level Paladin dip, where you're stuck at 1d6 healing forever? Seems alright.
I'm thinking of making a high charisma character like a Cavalier/Bard/Paladin/Battle Herald and I'm eyeing this feat.
"thebig" I might need you in the next game session I have. I need someone that can argue a case against a contract devil that just because my character has no soul should not mean he cannot make a deal that requires him to sell his soul.
If you can spin your logic magic on him I would very pleased.
Just tell him you'll sell him every soul that you do have, and that should work out just fine.
My Kingmaker PC (currently Paladin 4/Bard 11) never took this feat. It would be pretty cool if it just let you spend a single use of LoH to add Charisma to your charging damage. Spending all of your LoH can allow you to do stuff like bring back the dead. Doing a few extra damage on a charge doesn't seem worth it.