[PoW] Iron Hide Stance's Strength bonus

[nothinglord]

How exactly does the Strength bonus for Primal Fury's Iron Hide Stance work?

"the initiator’s Strength bonus to damage is doubled (or tripled if wielding a weapon with two hands)."

Would this mean a character with a strength bonus of +4 using a one handed weapon would add 8 using only one hand and add 12 (4*3) using two hands or 8 with one hand and 18 (4*1.5*3) with two hands? I'm asking because the interaction between this stance and things like the Landsknecht's Strength of Arms ability or the Dragon Style and Dragon Ferocity Feats aren't clear to me.

I assume it just replaces the normal bonus (as the first example), but that means that any ability that increases your strength bonus is sort of wasted. If a Landsknecht with this stance gets the same benefit as anyone else it why would the take it over something else. If it worked as the second example those kinds of abilities would still be beneficial and still wouldn't top using a 2 handed weapon (even dragon style + dragon ferocity adding 2x str on the first hit).

[DungeonmasterCal]

That confuses me, too. Maybe Jeremy Smith will come along and explain everything!

[Trekkie90909]

Well, in pathfinder multiplication works more like addition, so x2 x2 for example becomes x3 instead of x4; this should carry over to effects like iron hide stance; so normally you get x1 str mod to damage, this becomes 1.5 bonus to damage if using a weapon 2 handed. Therefore when using iron hide stance, you would get a net x2 for a one handed weapon, and a net x3.5 with a two handed weapon.

For your hypothetical case of a fighter with +4 str; this would be +8 damage for one handed, or +14 for two handed.

I would imagine that the intent of the feat is to require less math, and it just doubles the normal strength bonus to damage; so x2 for one handed, and x3 for two handed (+8/+12 in the hypothetical), but that's not what's written.

If you were to use things like dragon style, it would continue to stack additively as per normal in pf rules.

[J4RH34D]

I would say the way to work this is that you ignore the stance to start with.
Make an attack and calculate your normal bonus from strength as per your other feats and such, and then apply the stance.

Dragon ferocity is not actually technically a multiplication, it is an addition.
"increase your Strength bonus on unarmed strike damage rolls by an additional one-half your Strength bonus"

So you would apply dragon ferocity, and then double. As far as I can tell by raw.

If you decide Dragon Ferocity is actually a multipicative effect, then it would be 0.5+1=1.5 x bonus for a total of 2.5 x strength mod.

[DungeonmasterCal]

That seems like a more realistic assessment. I liked Trekkie90909's explanation, too, though the high end seemed a bit much to me. I've gone back and read the rules of the Iron Hide stance and this seems more accurate. At least to me, a mathematically challenged person.