Author Topic: Nonspecific damage bonuses  (Read 2075 times)

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Emy

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Nonspecific damage bonuses
« on: October 19, 2010, 08:53:48 PM »
What do I mean by "nonspecific damage bonuses"?
Anything that boosts damage rolls in general, without restrictions like "melee damage rolls" or "weapon damage rolls".

Useful for: ability damage, AoE/DoT attacks, things that hit a large number of times like manyjaws, and Entangling Exhalation (which is the reason I made this post in the first place).

Nonspecific Damage Bonuses
Classes:
  • FactotumDu 1, Cunning Insight: Nonaction, spend an Inspiration Point. +Int (competence?) to an attack roll, damage roll, or save. (Most useful if you roll damage *once* for the entire area of your breath. It's not clear whether this is actually how your roll damage for an area attack in 3.5e.)
  • Horizon WalkerSRD 1-5, Terrain Mastery: +1 insight to attack and damage vs. creatures of the environments you choose.
  • Horizon WalkerSRD 6-10, Planar Terrain Mastery: +1 insight to attack and damage vs. creatures of the planar types you choose.
  • MarshalMH 1, Master of Tactics: Aura. +Cha bonus on damage rolls while flanking (Rules weirdness: note that it's not "bonus to damage against flanked opponents". So if you're flanking one enemy, and hit some random OTHER group of enemies with a breath, you should still get the bonus.)
  • MarshalMH 2, Motivate Ardor: Aura. +1 to damage rolls (+2 at 7th, +3 at 14th, +4 at 20th)
  • WilderSRD 4, Surging Euphoria: +1 morale to attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws after using Wild Surge, for (surge intensity) rounds. Bonus increases to +2 at 12th level, and +3 at 20th level.
Feats:
  • Knowledge DevotionCC: +insight to attack and damage rolls based on the table. (Blue for everyone forever.)
  • Lady's GambitDragon 317: Sacrifice HP up to character level, gain +1 per two HP sacrificed on attack and damage rolls for 1 round.
  • RetributionDragon 326: +1 to damage rolls per 5 damage taken, on your next attack vs. the creature that dealt you damage. Resets each round, and only works for one attack. (Despite using the word attack, I think this one might work for a breath. The wording is a bit confusing.)
  • Stormguard WarriorToB: Channel the storm gives +4 to attack and damage rolls vs any opponent you refrained from taking an AoO on, for each AoO you refrained from making in the last round. (Might even be worth getting reach just to not use it, with this feat.)

Maneuvers/Stances:
  • Blood in the WaterToB, Tiger Claw 1: Stance. +1 attack and damage after every crit. (It's cumulative, but probably not very useful for DFA due to their general lack of weapon use).
  • Lion's RoarToB, White Raven 3: Swift after dropping an enemy below 0hp. You and allies get +5 morale to damage rolls for 1 round.
  • Tactics of the WolfToB, White Raven 3: Stance. You and the allies flanking that enemy with you get +half IL to damage vs. that enemy. (See Marshal's Master of Tactics)

Spells/Powers:
  • DesecrateSRD, Cleric 2, Evil 2: For undead, +1 profane to attack, damage, and saves. Bonus increases to +2 if the area contains an altar to the caster's deity.
  • PrecognitionSRD, Seer 1: +2 insight to one attack roll, damage roll, saving throw, or skill check within the duration. 10min./level. No augmentation.
  • Precognition, GreaterSRD, Seer 6: +4 insight to one attack roll, damage roll, saving throw, or skill check within the duration. 1hour./level. No augmentation.
  • Prescience, OffensiveSRD, Psion/Wilder 1, Psychic Warrior 1: +2 insight to damage for 1min./level. Increase bonus by 1 per 3 extra pp spent.

Soulmelds:
  • Lucky DiceMoI: +1 luck to attack and damage, or to saves, or to skill and ability checks, until start of next turn plus 1 round per essentia invested. Roll 2d6, if you get a 7, gain all bonuses.

Equipment:
  • EagerMIC, +1 equivalent weapon enhancement: +2 to init, +2 to damage dealt within the surprise round and first round of combat.


Reshuffling this junk to the bottom of the post:

I've recently been looking at what all can add damage to a Dragonfire Adept's breath. For reference, I'm currently playing a level 2 DFA, and thought "Hey, I should grab Knowledge Devotion next level. That way, I'll get bonus damage on my breath, and then bonus damage every time the entangling exhalation deals another 1d6 over time." This is possible because Knowledge Devotion adds an insight bonus to all attack and damage rolls, and doesn't specify weapon damage rolls or spell damage rolls or what have you.

So, I began wondering what else could do that, and the answer I came up with is "not much". Almost every single feat, spell, or power I know of that boosts damage boosts weapon damage (like Bard's Inspire Courage), is Metamagic (like Maximize), or specifically melee damage... and things like sneak attack need an attack roll to work (IIRC, but I'm almost certain I'm right on this).

Lady's Gambit could work well with DFA's temp HP invocation, since you lose the HP you sacrifice as if you lost it to damage (and damage removes temporary hit points first). Knowledge Devotion aside, it looks like a Marshal dip gives the best bang/buck ratio for a charismatic Dragonfire Adept. If you have a petal marshal cohort (or similar), it could get ridiculous. Power Surge feat and Metabreath stuff not included, because those are both somewhat specific, and the DFA handbook already has information on them.

This is mostly from the perspective of a DFA; if anyone wants to add things to the list, or tell me what other people can make good use of non-weapon damage bonuses, go right ahead. (Or if you disagree with my interpretation of the Marshal's aura and think you have a better one.)
« Last Edit: October 21, 2010, 03:25:56 AM by Emy »

cru

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Re: Nonspecific damage bonuses
« Reply #1 on: October 20, 2010, 07:13:42 AM »
While I do think that this is mostly ridiculously strict RAW reading, and most DM will not approve it, reserve feats can profit from this as well.

Prime32

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Re: Nonspecific damage bonuses
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2010, 11:36:17 AM »
Off-topic but a DFA can increase his breath damage by +10d8 with Dragon Samurai (or more with bloodlines).

Are draconic auras and incarnum radiance non-specific?
« Last Edit: October 20, 2010, 11:43:50 AM by Prime32 »
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skydragonknight

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Re: Nonspecific damage bonuses
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2010, 08:30:52 PM »
I use Eager weapons in my Manyjaws builds to add +2 bonus to each of the ten 1d6 jaw attacks. Untyped bonus, but only surprise round/first round of combat.
It always seems like the barrels around here have something in them.

Emy

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Re: Nonspecific damage bonuses
« Reply #4 on: October 20, 2010, 10:29:00 PM »
Off-topic but a DFA can increase his breath damage by +10d8 with Dragon Samurai (or more with bloodlines).

Are draconic auras and incarnum radiance non-specific?
It's a nice damage boost, but I'm not so hot on the rest of the class.

I believe both are melee only, but I'll have to check later tonight. Edit: I checked. They're both melee only, though they don't specify "weapon damage", so if you can deal ability damage in melee (Shivering Touch!), you can probably claim the bonus there. I'll consider adding a separate section for things of this nature, which don't just boost weapon damage, but are restricted to melee only.

I use Eager weapons in my Manyjaws builds to add +2 bonus to each of the ten 1d6 jaw attacks. Untyped bonus, but only surprise round/first round of combat.
They give an init bonus, too, which is always good. Added.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2010, 12:35:12 AM by Emy »

NeverGetDrunkButStaySober

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Re: Nonspecific damage bonuses
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2010, 01:57:51 AM »
The Offensive Prescience power grants a nonspecific bonus.

Emy

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Re: Nonspecific damage bonuses
« Reply #6 on: October 21, 2010, 02:34:02 AM »
The Offensive Prescience power grants a nonspecific bonus.

Same with Precognition and Greater Precognition. Adding all three.

fuinjutsu

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Re: Nonspecific damage bonuses
« Reply #7 on: October 21, 2010, 02:36:34 AM »
Off-topic but a DFA can increase his breath damage by +10d8 with Dragon Samurai

Only once a day.  That's lame.  Unless you have an army of Squires of Legend to back you up.
Eh, the wizard have more money than them combined, he could in theory just use all his money on a fleet of trained attack mules, but then we aren't playing 3.5 but zergling rushing in Starcraft instead.

Emy

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Re: Nonspecific damage bonuses
« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2010, 02:57:08 AM »
Adding various SRD material: Horizon Walker's Terrain Mastery, Wilder's Surging Euphoria, and Desecrate (for undead PCs).

Obviously, some of these are much better than others. Horizon Walker and Wilder are particularly weak for this purpose. I should start implementing a coloring system similar to those found in various handbooks. I'm going to begin by marking Knowledge Devotion blue, since it's great for anyone that has the skill points.

Any other input on what should be marked excellent or poor would be appreciated. I haven't done this before.