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.)