Psionic Lion's Charge bonus damage question.

[Aquillion]

Psionic Lion's Charge (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psionicLionsCharge.htm) says:


Augment

For every additional power point you spend, each of your attacks after a charge in the current round gains a circumstance bonus on damage equal to the number of additional points spent.
Am I reading that right?

If I spend one extra power point, all my attacks get +1 damage. Straightforward.

If I spend two power points, them for each power point I spent (two), all my attacks that round get bonus damage equal to the number of additional points spent (two) -- or, in other words, I get four bonus damage.

If I spend three power points, then I get +3 damage, three times, or nine bonus damage. To all my attacks.

And so on and so forth, getting the square of the number of power points spent, up to 289 extra damage per attack on a charge at manifested level 20 (spending 17 extra power points to get +17 to damage, 17 times.)

That can't be the intention, but it seems to be what the rules-as-written say!

[RDX]

I'm not quite sure where you're getting the exponential increase from, to me it looks like if you spent 17 additional points, you would get a +17 for each attack, so if you got 4 attacks, you would get + 17 four times, since it says each of your attacks gains the bonus.

EDIT:
I see it now. Yeah, I guess by RAW you get an exponential increase, although that can't be what was intended.

[Frog Dragon]

Oh I see.

"For every additional power point you spend...bonus on damage equal to the number of additional points spent."

So it would seem that by a strict raw reading, by spending one power point, you gain a +1 (because you spent one point) for every point you spend (so still +1)

But because it says that you get a bonus equal to the amount of points you spend for each point you spend, if you spend two, you gain two points per power point you spend. Working out to 4.

This sounds like the RAW equivalent of a typo though.

[Crow]

It's pretty obvious how this power is supposed to work.

By RAW, then yes you are correct. But that's where common sense and the DM come in.

[eggs]

PLC's wording is terrible in about as many ways as it has words.

It's pretty clear what it's supposed to do, so I kind of doubt anyone actually rules that it gives the permanent undispellable ability to make multiple full attacks on a charge with a permanent, stacking and quadratically scaling damage boost.

[JadePhoenix]

RAW, this power also gives you pounce forever after you manifest it once.

Yeah, use common sense.

[Rejusu]

Actually the thing that makes it work (a strict RAW reading) actually means it doesn't work. Let's look at the way it's worded:
"For every additional power point you spend, each of your attacks after a charge in the current round gains a circumstance bonus"

Bolded parts are the important bits. Basically the way it's worded means that for each point you spend you gain a bonus. Which means that when you spend 2 points you're not getting a +4 circumstance bonus, you're gaining TWO +2 bonuses. And while circumstance bonuses do stack with other circumstance bonuses, they don't if they're from the same source.

This means that a level 20 manifester would get 17 +17 bonuses, but 16 of them would be cancelled out.