Mounted Charge Question

[Saldiven]

This is probably a pretty easy one, I just haven't seemed to get my eyes in the right place to find it.

Character has Spirited Charge and Vital Strike. The character is armed with a lance. The character charges an enemy and hits.

How many dice does the player roll for damage? It's a question of order of operation. The best I can figure, the answer will be between 4 and 6 dice. Which is correct?

Thanks :D

[Gauss]

Since you are performing a charge attack you cannot use Vital Strike:

FAQ link

FAQ wrote:

Mounted Combat: When making a charge while mounted, which creature charges? The rider or the mount?

Both charge in unison, suffer the same penalty to AC, the gaining the same bonus to the attack rolls and following all other rules for the charge. The mounted combat rules are a little unclear on this. Replace the third paragraph under the "Combat while Mounted" section on page 202 with the following text. Note that a "mounted charge" is synonymous with a "charge while mounted," and that when a lance is "when used from the back of a charging mount" it is during a mounted charge not when only the mount charges.

A mounted charge is a charge made by you and your mount. During a mounted charge, you deal double damage with your first melee attack made with a lance or with any weapon if you have Spirited Charge (or a similar effect), or you deal triple damage with a lance and Spirited Charge.

This change will be reflected in future printings of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook

You roll 3 dice.

Edit: If you choose to houserule that you can use Vital Strike during a Mounted Charge then you roll 4 dice. 1d8(base)+2d8(spirited charge)+1d8(vital strike).

[Saldiven]

Thanks! I knew it was something simple somewhere, but couldn't seem to find it by myself.

[Akerlof]

Gauss wrote:

Edit: If you choose to houserule that you can use Vital Strike during a Mounted Charge then you roll 4 dice. 1d8(base)+2d8(spirited charge)+1d8(vital strike).

Just for clarification, here's the specific rule on multuplying damage.

"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."

In other words, multipliers are additive rather than multiplicative. The way I like to think of it is to subtract 1 from each multiplier, then add that many times the base damage to the unmodified damage:

So, critting with a lance while you have Spirited Charge = 1 (base) + 1 (charging while mounted with a lance = 2 - 1) + 1 (Spirited Charge = 2 - 1) + 2 (Critting with a x3 weapon = 3-1) = 5x damage.

In Pathfinder, 3 times 3 is 5. =D