| Sumutherguy |
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
So for as long as the rules subsection of the Pathfinder forums has existed, threads have perennially popped up with folks trying to combine vital strike, spring attack, and charging in some combination. Throughout the years, folks have told them "no, those don't stack", and everyone has left saddened and/or frustrated.
So let's have another one of those, 'cause I think I may have finally found a RAW solution to this age-old problem, and while I'm sure there's some nuance im missing, it looks solid to me.
EXHIBIT A: Divine Fighting Technique in the Weapon Masters Handbook entitled Gorum's Swordsmanship. Relevant text reads as follows:
Initial Benefit: If you have the Vital Strike feat, you can
apply its effect to an attack you make with a greatsword at the
end of a charge.
EXHIBIT B, YOUR HONOR: A feat from the Advanced Race Guide entitled Martial Versatility. Reads as follows:
Benefit: Choose one combat feat you know that applies to a specific weapon (e.g., Weapon Focus). You can use that feat with any weapon within the same weapon group.
This feat will be used with Gorum's Sowrdsmanship, which applies to the greatsword as a weapon, opening the feat up to all heavy blades.
EXHIBIT C IF IT PLEASE THE COURT: The Horselord Archetype of the Cavalier, relevant abilities read as follows, bolded for emphasis:
At 6th level, a horselord gains the benefits of the Mobility feat so long as she is mounted. Additionally, the horselord deals double damage while using a one-handed slashing weapon from the back of a charging mount, as though using a lance. This replaces the bonus feat gained at 6th level.
At 9th level, a horselord gains the benefits of the Spring Attack feat so long as she remains mounted. The horselord uses her mount's movement for this action and neither the horselord nor her mount provoke attacks of opportunity from the target. When making a single attack with a one-handed slashing weapon while using the Spring Attack feat, the horselord treats her mount as charging. This ability can be used to qualify for other feats that treat Spring Attack as a prerequisite; however, the cavalier can benefit from those feats only while mounted.
So, we combine these three things (in a level 4 titan fighter/6 horselord cavalier worshiping gorum) with a mount and spirited charge and we get:
A charging spring attack with a bastard sword applying vital strike damage, which is tripled from the horselord ability and spirited charge.
Is this an actually functional combination of these three oddities, or am I missing something? I'm a little worried that the horselord text might be a bit weird re: spring attack, but i'm pretty confident about the other stuff enabling a vital strike triple-damage bastard sword charge.
Michael Sayre
|
A charging spring attack with a bastard sword applying vital strike damage, which is tripled from the horselord ability and spirited charge.
Note that the Vital Strike damage isn't multiplied by the charge. You'd have a triple damage attack + the extra dice from Vital Strike.
Otherwise, yeah, seems to work.
| Manly-man teapot |
No, that's not what Martial Versatility does. It only applies your Weapon Focus and Improved Critical across the entire weapon group.
Well, at least that's what the writer, who is probably on the core dev team, intended. I mean, it's not like someone made put the exact same sloppy writing in a very, very popular 3.5 book so they had experience about what to avoid - oh wait, it's exactly like that.
If your GM approves of your reading, you deal 3d10+3*X+1d10 damage on your charge, before upgrades for weapon size shenanigans. But if your GM allows the permissive reading of Martial Versatility, you can get up to much crazier things.