How are damage rolls defined?

Question

I play a warlord with

Warlord's Strike Warlord Attack 3

One convincing cut is all you need to reveal the enemy’s weakness and spur your allies into finishing him off.

Encounter     Martial, Weapon

Standard Action     Melee weapon

Target: One creature

Attack: Strength vs. AC

Hit: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage. Until the end of your next turn, all of your allies gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls against the target.

Inspiring Presence: The bonus to damage rolls equals 1 + your Charisma modifier.

So what exactly is a damage roll? Several possibilities we came up with :

• Our Wolf can leave a mark, target gets damage when he is not attacked
• Hunters quarry of our Elf
• Every single hit of The two-shot abilities of the elf
• sneak attack + attack afterwards count as two damage rolls, gaining twice the bonus?

Somehow this seems hilariously imba to me. Elf would get this bonus 3 times with hunters quarry+ twoshot?

can someone clear this up for me? Help is appreciated.

Answer 1

The bonus is applied to every damage roll the Warlord's allies do.

In order to comprehend what a damage roll really is, read Rules Comendium, page 222. To short it up, any expression of dice (or [W]) that you can find in a power, feat, monster stat block, etc. The following are examples of damage rolls.

• 2d8 + Wisdom modifier damage
• 1[W] + Strength modifier damage
• 3d10+4 fire damage

Damage roll modifiers can be applied to such expressions. If a power, class feature or else allows you to perform multiple attacks (like the Ranger's Twin Strike at-will attack power) or multiple damage rolls, the bonus damage is applied to all relevant expressions involved.

However, any expression referred as extra damage is itself another modifier to a damage instance. See Rules Compendium, page 223.

Extra Damage Many powers and other effect grant the ability to deal extra damage. Extra damage is always in addition to other damage and is of the same type or types as that damage, unless otherwise noted. Because of this rule, an effect that deals non damage cannot deal extra damage. However, a power doesn't necessarily have to hit a target to deal extra damage - it needs only to deal damage to the target.

Under this category fall many Strikers' features, such as (but not limited to)...

• The Rogue Sneak Attack,
• The Ranger Hunter's Quarry, and
• The Warlock Warlock's Curse.

Hunter's Quarry may be used once per turn; let's suppose the Ranger uses Twin Strike, hits both times, applies Hunter's Quarry (1d6) to the first attack, and benefits from his ally's Warlord's Strike for another +4 bonus damage.
1^st hit: he deals basic weapon damage [W] (damage roll) +4 (bonus damage) +1d6 (extra damage).
2^nd hit: he deals basic weapon damage [W] (damage roll) +4 (bonus damage).

Note that the extra damage from Hunter's Quarry is not modified by the Warlord's bonus: it is a modifier itself. For many aspects, you can consider it a still-to-be-rolled static damage bonus.

Answer 2

Damage rolls are defined as "any time you roll damage." Lets go through your examples:

• With your wolf if the damage on the target is rolled you add your warlord's extra damage, if it is static damage (listed as only a number, not dice) then this bonus is not applied.

• Hunter's quarry is extra damage and not its own damage roll (it is applied to the damage roll of an attack.

• With Twin Strike and other multi-attack powers you add it to each attack that has a damage roll. Twin Strike is two attacks so the bonus is added twice.

• If you have a rogue with sneak attack the damage from the attack gets the bonus, but not the sneak attack dice (again this is "extra damage" added on to an attack, not a separate damage roll).

• A case you do not mention is an attack power with a static damage output (like magic missile). This power does not have a damage roll and thus does not get the bonus damage.

Thus your elf with twin strike gets to apply this damage bonus each time she hits with twin strike, but not when she applies her hunter's quarry damage.