Mythic Vital strike question?

[Baachus]

As a druid, I am trying to use Mythic Vital Strike with Strong Jaw and Bulls strength as a Stegosaurus.

How does all of this work, then add vital strike to it?

My strength is 14 +2 Bonus
Dex is 20 +5
Bulls Strength +2
Huge animal: If the form you take is that of a Huge animal, you gain a +6 size bonus to your Strength, a –4 penalty to your Dexterity, and a +6 natural armor bonus.

Total Str: 24 (Bonus +7)
Total Dex 16(-4) (Bonus +3)

Stegosaurus (Huge)
Melee tail +16 (4d6+12 plus trip)
Strong Jaw makes Colossal tail 4d6
So am I now?
8d6 +12 ?

Roll the weapon’s damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength
So now?
Melee tail +16 (16d6+12 plus trip) ?

Now how does this work?

VITAL STRIKE (MYTHIC)
You can strike your foes with incredible force.
Prerequisite: Vital Strike.
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.
Extra damage from sources that wouldn't normally be multiplied on a critical hit isn't multiplied by this feat.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Basically, instead of "Roll the weapon’s damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength..." you do it after adding the bonuses, except ones like sneak attack that aren't multiplied on a critical hit. You don't have anything in that last category, so 8d6+12 => 16d6+24. With Improved Vital Strike you'd be doing 24d6+36, and with Greater 32d6+48. Not too shabby.

[Baachus]

How do I determine what the bonuses are?
I Grabbed the +16 and +12 from:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/strong-jaw

Do we use the dinosaurs base attack of +9 plus my strength bonus ?
Then how do you do that with the strong jaw, vital strike, then mythic strike?

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Oh, sorry, I just assumed you had those right and didn't check.

You kinda have to reverse-engineer it from the dino stats. It has Str 27, modifier +8, and gets 1.5x that on damage because it has only a single natural attack, so it has a +12. You have a Str of 22 (14+2+6), modifier +6, so you only have a 6*1.5=+9 damage to start with. Its tail slap is normally 4d6, so you follow the FAQ on damage dice increases, increasing it four steps (two sizes) to 8d6.

Hence you have 8d6+9 before applying your feats. With normal vital strike it goes to 16d6+9, with mythic 16d6+18.

The dino's base attack of +9 is just its Str modifier plus 1 for Weapon Focus (see its feats). Unless you have Weapon Focus (tail slap) yourself you won't get the +1, just your Str modifier.

Mmm, I feel like I'm forgetting something. Somebody sanity-check me?

[Saethori]

As a druid, you use your own Strength and Base Attack Bonus, as adjusted by the spell. The damage dice of the attack is 4d6 naturally, so under the effects of Strong Jaw, it becomes 8d6 (as according to the natural weapon size FAQ). You apply 1.5 times your Strength to the attack, since it's your only one, and so the base damage is 8d6+10. If you use Vital Strike, it's 16d6+10. If you have Mythic Vital Strike while using Vital Strike, it's 16d6+20.

[GM Rednal]

Well... Mythic Vital Strike is one of the things most widely agreed-upon as "broken" in the Mythic ruleset. o wo/ If that's a concern for the OP's group... well, there are a number of suggested solutions, such as switching to multiplying the dice by the number of attacks that would have been made. The Mythic Solutions PDF is a good place to get these.

Otherwise, uh, know that you're probably going to quickly start doing damage well in excess of what the system expects. XD; You should double-check with your GM on that if you haven't already done so.

[Saethori]

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

You have a Str of 22 (14+2+6), modifier +6

24 was correct; Bull's Strength gives +4 Strength, but he was counting only the modifier.

[Joey Cote]

I seem to be completely misunderstanding this feat. Doesn't this

"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."

mean that if you score a critical hit while using Vital Strike chain and that the bonus damage that is normally multiplied on a critical hit is multiplied by the bonus dice that vital strike chain is giving.

IE, in the above example the 16d6+10 (what rule is increasing the damage to 16d6+20?) on a critical hit would do 8d6(base) +8d6(vital strike)+8d6(critical hit)+80 (10x8(x8 because the 8 extra dice from vital strike replace the normal x2) for mythic vital strike).

Or is that bonus damage supposed to be multiplied on every hit? I can see where the +20 damage number is coming from if its based on the normal x2 multiplier for a crit, but if not, why does it even say "by the number of weapon damage dice you roll for that feat." That would be pretty utterly broken, not that mythic material isn't basically broken. Even if it was based on needing a crit to trigger it, its pretty powerful.

[Khudzlin]

My guess is that the mythic feat is poorly written and you should follow Rednal's suggestion (multiply by the number of attacks, which is the number by which you multiply the number of dice).

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

The bonus damage is on every hit, and the x2 is from Vital Strike, not from the crit multiplier (which doesn't come into it unless you actually crit). Yes, it is very powerful. That's Mythic for you!

The reference to crits isn't because crits actually come into it, it's just a convenient way to say "don't multiply sneak attacks, flaming, etc."

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Say you're wielding a hypothetical 3d6 weapon, and you have 5d6 of sneak attack (which is never multiplied on a critical hit), and a Str modifier of +7. We'll start with the non-mythic cases.

With no feats, on a hit you do 3d6 + 5d6 + 7 = 8d6+7.

With Vital Strike, on a hit you do 2x3d6 + 5d6 + 7 = 11d6+7.

With Improved Vital strike, you do 3x3d6 + 5d6 + 7 = 14d6+7.

With Greater Vital Strike, you do 4x3d6 + 5d6 + 7 = 17d6+7.

Now toss in Mythic Vital Strike.

With Vital Strike, you do 2x3d6 + 5d6 + 2x7 = 11d6+14.

With Improved, you do 3x3d6 + 5d6 + 3x7 = 14d6+21.

With Greater, you do 4x3d6 + 5d6 + 4x7 = 17d6+28.

Note that I never referenced the weapon's critical multiplier. It could be x2 or x20 and it wouldn't matter.

Does that help?

[Khudzlin]

The wording "multiply by the number of weapon dice" seems to say you multiply the bonuses by more than 2/3/4, especially if your weapon damage is multiple dice (though it's so obviously broken, multiplying by 2/3/4 is the only sane interpretation).

Also, am I correct in assuming that the multiplier for Vital Strike combines with the one for a critical hit, so that, with a x2 weapon, the damage becomes the following on a crit?

VS: 3*3d6 + 5d6 + 2*7
IVS: 4*3d6 + 5d6 + 2*7
GVS: 5*3d6 + 5d6 + 2*7

VS+MVS: 3*3d6 + 5d6 + 3*7
IVS+MVS: 4*3d6 + 5d6 + 4*7
GVS+MVS: 5*3d6 + 5d6 + 5*7

[Chemlak]

Fuzzy and Khudzlin have the "obviously what's intended, even though the strict RAW doesn't quite say this" answer.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Khudzlin, you have it; the extra Vital Strike damage isn't itself multiplied on a crit, only added in.

As far as RAW goes, you just have to read "the weapon damage die" as being 3d6 (or whatever) instead of calling it d6 and saying there are 3 of them. The phrase is used that way here and there (for weapon damage) in the non-mythic rules too. A quick search turns up:

Quote:

Improved Damage (Ex): One of the eidolon's natural attacks is particularly deadly. Select one natural attack form and increase the damage die type by one step. This evolution can be selected more than once. Its effects do not stack. Each time an eidolon selects this evolution, it applies to a different natural attack.

Quote:

Gorilla: Your arms become long, flexible, and strong like those of a great ape. Your unarmed damage die type increases by one step, and you gain a +4 competence bonus on combat maneuver checks when making the grapple or reposition combat maneuver.

Quote:

[Hive]Totem Toxicity (Su): While raging, the barbarian increases her bite damage die type with the animal fury rage power by one die type and decreases the penalty on attack rolls with that bite to -2.

I don't think the use of the word "type" is crucial (or even useful).

[Khudzlin]

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

Khudzlin, you have it; the extra Vital Strike damage isn't itself multiplied on a crit, only added in.

That's the application of the rule about combining multipliers for rolls (which derives from considering such multipliers as additive - x2 is +100% and so on). So x2 and x2 becomes +100% +100% = +200%, which is x3.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

And Vital Strike specifies "These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total."

[Khudzlin]

I wish they had written Mythic Power Attack as clearly, because the wording suggests a departure from the "combine multipliers" rule. Luckily I caught that a few levels back (and I use a x2 weapon, so the difference was only equal to the MPA bonus).