"Damage Dice" Singular or Plural? (Mythic Vital Strike)

[Keiger]

"Benefit: Whenever you use Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike, or Greater Vital Strike, multiply the Strength bonus, magic bonus, and other bonuses that would normally be multiplied on a critical hit by the number of weapon damage dice you roll for that feat."

I believe that "damage dice" is a collective noun that refers to the dice rolled by the weapon as a singular collective. However my GM is reading it as the individual dice that are rolled, because "dice" is strictly a plural noun.

This causes the discrepancy where a greatsword dealing 2d6+6 would do 4d6+12 in my mind but to him does 4d6+18 as he is multiplying the flat damage by the number of dice rolled and not the number of times the damage dice are rolled.

If it was intended the way I think it is supposed to work, it should have been worded: "by the number of times you roll damage dice for that feat."

So, is that really how it works?

[thewastedwalrus]

Hmm, it's definately supposed to have you multiply your damage modifiers by X2, X3, and X4 for the different versions of vital strike, but in the way it's worded, your GM is right.

Vital strike with a greatsword would roll an aditional 2d6 on top of 2d6 for 4d6. Thats 4 damage dice you roll with this feat. Thusly, multiply by 4 is the correct RAW interpretation, but its absurd if you think about it.
Imagine you are enlarge personed, your vital strikes now do 6d6 damage, so X6 modifiers. It's only gets more insane the bigger you get, and thats only with regular vital strike, greater vital strike would be 12d6 so X12 modifiers.

There is only the one sane interpretation of this feat, and it's yours.

[theevilmonk]

In my opinion damage dice would refer to the base damage (in this case with a greatsword 2d6) not the total number of dice rolled.
So base mythic vital strike should do x2 for 4d6+12 instead of 2d6+6, not 4d6+24.
I'd essentially consider it an automatic crit, that can still crit.
actually thats exactly what it is.

Extra note: Weapon damage dice for this case is described in the original vital strike feat which this is modifying

When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon’s damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision-based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.

[Diego Rossi]

FAQed, but it really need an errata.

I agree that raw it is based on the added dices, but RAI almost certainly is that it is based on how many times you have multiplied your starting dice or dices.

Reading it differently would greatly benefit a greatsword over a greataxe and similarly affect other weapons, granting a larger benefit simply because they use more dice.

Edit: corrected, thanks Chemlak and "Damn you, English!"
As Heinlein said, it is the language invented by Norman lords to court Saxon maids, so a mix mash of rules.
;-)

[Chemlak]

[pedant]Dice is already the plural form. Die is the singular.[/pedant]