Powerful Charge + Power Attack

[Nefreet]

My Saurian Shaman will soon be able to summon a Triceratops. I always try to stat out my summons beforehand so as not to slow down game play, but I ran across a lack of information that a quick search of the forums could not help me with:

PRD wrote:

Powerful Charge (Ex): When a creature with this special attack makes a charge, its attack deals extra damage in addition to the normal benefits and hazards of a charge. The attack and amount of damage from the attack is given in the creature's description.

The Triceratops has 4d10+16 listed for its Powerful Charge. Its regular Gore attack does 2d10+12. Its Strength modifier is +8, so it appears that the formula for determining the damage of a Powerful Charge is (damage dice + Str modifer) x 2.

That's easy enough to understand, but what happens when you apply the benefits of Power Attack?

Power Attack wrote:

Benefit: You can choose to take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls to gain a +2 bonus on all melee damage rolls. This bonus to damage is increased by half (+50%) if you are making an attack with a primary natural weapon that adds 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier on damage rolls. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every 4 points thereafter, the penalty increases by –1 and the bonus to damage increases by +2.

The Triceratops has a BAB of +10, so by taking a -3 on its attack rolls the Triceratops would add +6 to its damage. Since it has only a primary natural attack, this becomes +9.

With a Powerful Charge, is it:

1) +9 (no change)
2) +12 (doubling the base +6 that Power Attack would give before adjusting for the single natural attack)
3) +18 (doubling the +9 that the Triceratops would be doing had he not charged)
4) something else?

Thanks in advance!

[CWheezy]

Power attack would be +9 I think. It looks like the two handed fighter's overhand chop in terms of bonus damage calculation

[Driver 325 yards]

The forumla you figure out is not completely correct (though it is correct for a Triceratop). Triceratop has a natural weapon that normally does 1 & 1/2 strength damage. For such natural weapons the powerful charge strength damage is X2. However, for natural weapons that normally do just Str mod damage, the powerful charge strength damage is 1 & 1/2.

Now, as for power attack, since gore normally does 1 & 1/2 str, the power attack damage is 3 damage for every 1 to attack penalty. Thus it would be 9.

Accordingly, the formula for your gore powerful charge is (2 x Str) + (2 x natural weapon damage) + (2 PA damage for every 1 PA penalty taken)

This would equal 4d6 + 16 + 9 = 4d6 + 25 in your case.

[Nefreet]

Wouldn't that be just +6, then?

(which I was afraid of, but was hoping it'd be +6 doubled)

[CWheezy]

I thought if you only had one natural attack it acted like a two handed weapon for all things, including power attack

[Nefreet]

Only on natural attacks that apply 1 1/2 times your Strength modifier, which Powerful Charge does not.

It's open to interpretation, at the least.

It could be just +6, by the most restrictive interpretation, or it could be +18, by the most liberal.

I'm leaning towards +12 myself, based on how the Strength bonus is being treated.

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

I couldn't find the powerful charge description either until I was reading through the race guide recently. Here's the quote:

"Powerful Charge (2 RP): Prerequisite: Natural attack trait; Benefit: Select one of the race's natural attacks. Whenever a member of this race charges, it deals twice the number of damage dice with the selected natural attack plus 1-1/2 times its Strength bonus."

So, you'd get 1.5 power attack bonus, or 9 extra damage from power attack. (in my opinion)

[Nefreet]

Oh, nice. Never thought to look in the ARG. I'll go with that for now. Thanks!

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

Np! :)

[Krodjin]

Another vote for +9 from PA.