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Alright, so I'm basically a new roleplayer. We’re playing Pathfinder on Discord. All the rules, combat and everything else comes from the d20pfsd site. So Pathfinder ruleset, feats, etc.

My character is a natural attacker. Although I feel like I'm getting a grasp on the natural attack die increase rules, my DM kinda had me slow the progression because I was starting to do way too much damage, especially compared to the spellcaster my friend is playing. But I'd still like to know how many I should actually be getting.

Can an expert help me calculate?

Preface: Mythic Campaign - Champion&Archmage, going up to level 25 but currently lvl 17, almost 18

All the feats and abilities that should be considered:

  1. Bloodrager with draconic bloodline → The claws are my main weapons.

    DM says that the two claw dmg increases would count even in Dragonform.

  2. Feats: Improved Natural Atk, Mythic Improved natural attack
  3. Path Ability - Titan's Rage
  4. Other - Constant Strongjaw effect (mostly for the other nat atks) Battlefist - from 3.5 I think, basically increases unarmed damage by one size category. In our game, it basically goes over the claw and with feral combat training would raise the damage by one effective size increase, but 100% does not stack with strongjaw (since lead blades spell was used for it's creation).

Currently my damage as a human is 4d8 when I use titans rage, and in dragonform doing titans rage gets me 8d8, but my own calculations put it at 8d6 and ... 16d6, I think? respectively.

That's not even including the ascetic strike I'm going to take at lvl 18, plus titan strike since I have the feral combat training and IUS for it.

My DM is pretty generous, especially with gold, but it's getting irksome when I'm starting to get close to death against regular mobs that do 200dmg with their full-attack, when they should have died to my own that dealt around 400-600 dmg (other buffs and items in play). I don't want to gripe about him too much, but then he brought up recently that I shouldn't be able to do wing attacks while flying because there's no way I'd be able to keep aloft to do them. (Really?). ...And a few other things, but I digress.

How much damage die should I really be doing with my claws?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Okay, let's see if I can do it better. By homebrew I mean he's created a few spells for titular character to use (my spellcaster friend), and letting me use the battlefist that's not in pathfinder, as well as "training" feats i.e an extra feat every four or five levels or so. Does it really change that much? It's a private game we do online through discord. \$\endgroup\$
    – Draenir
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 17:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Sdjz Maybe their character is part of the in-universe Pathfinder Society rather than the player playing in the organized-play PFS? (It suddenly strikes me that Paizo made things more confusing than necessary by reusing that name for their real-world play org!) @ Draenir, can you clarify what “Pathfinder Society” means in your group’s game? “Private” doesn’t settle the confusion because PFS sanctioned games can include private games. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 17:05
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    \$\begingroup\$ Alright, I guess I still don't know how to describe it. Basically, we are using the pathfinder rules, like Sdjz said. Combat, Aoo's, feats, class advancement, mass combat even. All pathfinder. I just want to know how my dice damage would be using the following pathfinder feats both regular and mythic plus class. Sorry, I really hope this helps clear things up this time. No pathfinder society group in-world or anything. My DM created the entire world for the campaign, and it's not any sort of sanctioned game. \$\endgroup\$
    – Draenir
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 17:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thank you for bearing with us and clarifying the system. I have added the appropriate tag to the question and it should be reopened soon. \$\endgroup\$
    – Sdjz
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 18:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ Just goes to show that I still have a lot to learn about DND, lol. Thanks for helping. \$\endgroup\$
    – Draenir
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 18:09

1 Answer 1

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According to the FAQ on stacking size effects, most of those do not stack:

Size increases and effective size increases: How does damage work if I have various effects that change my actual size, my effective size, and my damage dice?

As per the rules on size changes, size changes do not stack, so if you have multiple size changing effects (for instance an effect that increases your size by one step and another that increases your size by two steps), only the largest applies. The same is true of effective size increases (which includes “deal damage as if they were one size category larger than they actually are,” “your damage die type increases by one step,” and similar language). They don’t stack with each other, just take the biggest one.

However, you can have one of each and they do work together (for example, enlarge person increasing your actual size to Large and a bashing shield increasing your shield’s effective size by two steps, for a total of 2d6 damage).

To make this simple, these are size changing effects:

And these are effective size increases:

Pick one of each type, a size changing effect, and an effective size increase (the highest of each). Then modify your damage according to the natural weapon table (updated on this FAQ and explained on this answer). The result is your actual damage dice.

Considering that the claws from the Draconic Bloodline deal 1d6 damage for medium-sized creatures, picking the best options would mean three size increases on the table, so you increase the base damage by five steps:

  • 1d6 (original)
  • 1d8 (first size increase)
  • 1d10
  • 2d6 (second size increase)
  • 2d8
  • 3d6 (third size increase)

When using your Dragon Form from Draconic Bloodline, which acts as Form of the Dragon II, your size is actually Large, no size changing effects will increase it any further (due to the restriction on the polymorph subschool rules), but you still get to increase it two times, which results in the same progression as before, to a final damage of 3d6, since it starts at 1d8 instead of 1d6.

Finally, Ascetic Strike increases your Unarmed damage, not the damage from any of your natural attacks. But you still would gain the bonuses to the listed combat maneuvers against smaller opponents. If you got the Feral Combat Training feat, you may replace your unarmed strikes by one of your natural weapons when making a Flurry of Blows or any ability or feats that require the Improved Unarmed Strike feat (Ascetic Strike is neither), like Boar Style or even Stunning Fist.

As a hint though, the Bestial Aspect from the Rageshaper Archetype is not a size increasing effect in any way, and should increase your polymorph-granted natural weapons by one additional dice.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 10, 2019 at 15:51

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