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I've just adopted the Pathfinder Mythic Adventures rules, more or less wholesale, into my heavily house-ruled 3.5 campaign (following my adoption of other parts of Pathfinder over the years), and one of the mythic characters has the Dire Charge feat that allows a full attack at the end of a charge.
I'm not sure, but I think in general the rules under Pathfinder limit the sort of extra damage caused by Aerial Assault to the first attack per round (as with sneak attack, if I recall correctly). So would the Aerial Assault damage be limited to the first attack? If someone can't leap very high, that seems like a very weak version of the ability, but if they can drop from, say, 200 feet (+20d6!) allowing the damage on multiple attacks seems like it might be excessive even at 35th level. What do you think?
Thanks. :-)
This is the PF2 forum. All the mythic stuff is still PF1 as far as I know. I'll flag the thread for you.
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This is the PF2 forum. All the mythic stuff is still PF1 as far as I know. I'll flag the thread for you.
Oh, sorry. What does flagging do? Will they move it to a PF1 board?
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Yes, that is something that they do for that sort of flag.
How long does it take them to move a thread? It looks like nobody will give an opinion as long as it's here on the PF2 board.
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The time is variable depending on mod availability, I think. Given it's taking a little while, I'll try to answer your original question. I'd use this FAQ as the justification for stating you don't get 20d6 extra damage on every attack you make in your full attack.
Lance: If I have the pounce ability and I charge with a lance, do my iterative lance attacks get the lance's extra damage multiplier from charging?
No, it doesn’t makes sense that those iterative attacks gain the damage bonus. To make that second attack, you have to pull the lance back and stab forward again, and that stab doesn’t have the benefit of the charge’s momentum. (The Core Rulebook doesn’t state that you only get the damage multiplier on the first attack with a lance because when the Core Rulebook was published, there was no way for a PC to charge and get multiple attacks with a weapon in the same round, so that combination didn’t need to be addressed.)
That being said, by the time you're at level 35 and using the Mythic rules, the damage would be so broken that I'd encourage you to make the call that you think will be most appropriate - you're well outside of the point where the maths works :)
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Thanks, Arcalan!
In 3rd Ed (3.0 and 3.5) the +2 attack bonus for charging and the -2 AC bonus for charging both last until the next round, as each round is only 6 seconds. I see identical text in the PF SRD. Power Attack's benefits and penalties last through one round too. By parallel reasoning, one might allow other conditions, like the extra damage from Aerial Assault, to last that round too.
The DC for a high jump is very high (no pun intended) so that to get 10 feet into the air you need a Jump (or Acrobatics) check of 40. Let's take a first level barbarian with 4 ranks in Jump (or Acrobatics) and +4 for fast movement +10, and +4 for Strength of 18. On a roll of 20 the barbarian gets 32 (34 when raging) and fails to reach 10 feet. You also gain +10 feet per your tier. So a low-level character with a Mythic Tier of 1 is basically going to be jumping only 10 feet and doing an extra +1d6 on a charge. That's nice for a first-level character, but is it mythic? That's less than, say, the even the base extra damage on a critical hit, much less the full damage with a greatsword (+2d6 +9 while raging) or greataxe (+2d12 +18 while raging). The extra 1d6 from Aerial Assault is nice, but you can do it only on a charge, so it it really mythic? Of course the multiple attacks in my question don't come into play at that level.
Let's take the barbarian at 21st level, tier 1 and Dire Charge. The barbarian can have 24 ranks in Jump (or Acrobatics). Fast movement is an increase rather than an enhancement bonus, so it stacks with the +30' from expeditious retreat or haste or boots of striding and springing. So another +30 to the speed grants another +12 to the Jump (Acrobatics). Mighty rage grants another +2. Level-dependent ability score increase grant another +2. Total bonus is +24 ranks +7 Strength (+11 raging) +16 faster speed = +47 (+51 raging). The DC for 20 feet is 80! Even on a natural 20 and a +6 belt of giant Strength the barbarian gets only 74 and jumps only 10 feet, plus 10 for the tier, and so does an extra 2d6. At that level s critical hit with, say, a +4 greatsword does an extra 2d6+26 or with a +4 greataxe +3d12+52. It doesn't really seem like allowing an extra 2d6 damage on all the attacks on a Dire Charge with Aerial Assault would be a problem.
Is it a problem at 35th level? In a current combat in my campaign against advanced mountain giants (the king has a CR of 35), the 35th-level half-celestial thinking of taking Aerial Assault did around 300 points of damage to one of the giants on the first round. Then the party's fighter (also 35th level) did around 350. Finally an NPC 25th-level paladin tricked out for charging did 400 hit points. The giant took 1050 points of damage (minus about 20 per hit from DR 20/-), was still standing, and with Pain Mastery was suddenly even stronger than before they hit it.
The half-celestial would be able to use Aerial Assault to get much higher into the air than the wingless barbarian above. At 35th level he has a flying speed of 280 and perfect maneuverability. Since you can descend at double speed, he can basically fly up 185 feet and then drop on an opponent, with Aerial Assault doing +18d6 (average 63). An extra 63 wouldn't have dropped the giant. The mountain giant (one of the two younger ones) had over 1200 hit points while raging. Of the 1050 it took, 320 were absorbed by its damage reduction, so it really took more like 700. So he still have 500 left. Even if the half-celestial had hit him for another 63 * 5 (and I think he didn't have the spell going for the fifth attack), another 315 wouldn't have taken him down.
The same party fought an advanced hoary hunter who handed them their hats. It had the whole collection of Parry feats from a 3.0 issue of Dragon, and only the half-celestial was able to hit it, on a natural 20. In that fight, the cavern was only 30 feet high, so the half-celestial would have been able to do only an extra 3d6 on the one and only attack that hit the HH. The HH and the advanced hoary steed managed to take out the half-celestial in one round with a kick or two left over for the party's legendary werebear barbarian, but parried all the attacks of the human fighter, disarmed him of both his swords, and took him down on the repostes. The next round the HH took out the werebear. That's when the wizard decided to teleport everyone out of there. (The werebear's +5 sizing greathammer remains on the floor of that cavern to this day.)
The half-celestial might even start a fight at 200 feet and drop with Aerial Assault for 20d6 (average 70). So he might on occasion, while outdoors, do up to an extra 350 on average. Indoors, however, he might often be limited to +1d6 or none at all. I'm pretty sure that the ceiling in this room isn't 10 feet above the floor! :-D
Thanks, Heather!
