[PF] Damage Dice Progression Madness

[Keneth]

If we ignore the weapons with weird damage dice, we have two basic categories for damage dice progression by size.

Manufactured weapons: 1 → 1d2 → 1d3 → 1d4 → 1d6 → 1d8 → 2d6 → 3d6 → 4d6 → 6d6 → etc.
Natural weapons: 1 → 1d2 → 1d3 → 1d4 → 1d6 → 1d8 → 2d6 → 2d8 → 4d6 → 4d8 → 8d6 → etc.

Up to 2d6, these categories agree with each other, but after that they diverge wildly. The first one is smoother and has the added benefit of only rolling d6s when we get to large numbers. The second one is more consistent throughout, but has annoyingly large jumps later on.

The question I have is: Which category should unarmed attacks fall into? Ignoring monk's unarmed strike progression, as that is a different beast entirely, unarmed attacks seem to fall somewhere in between as far as the rules are concerned. And since unarmed attack conveniently starts at 1d3 (for medium) it ends just on 2d6 for colossal creatures.

Note that this likely has no effect on any games in general. It's just a curiosity I've stumbled onto while I was researching unarmed strike.

What do you guys think (about unarmed attacks and damage dice progression in general)?

[Lord Vukodlak]

If we ignore the weapons with weird damage dice, we have two basic categories for damage dice progression by size.

Manufactured weapons: 1 → 1d2 → 1d3 → 1d4 → 1d6 → 1d8 → 2d6 → 3d6 → 4d6 → 6d6 → etc.
Natural weapons: 1 → 1d2 → 1d3 → 1d4 → 1d6 → 1d8 → 2d6 → 2d8 → 4d6 → 4d8 → 8d6 → etc.

Natural weapons don't need to follow the same rules as regular old weapons. As creatures grow larger their HD goes exponentially higher as does their CR so they need a higher base damage then simply going up by one step.

Typically if your enlarging something on the fly you'd just apply as if using the improved natural attack feat. Rather then looking up the base damage by size as one table is much easier to find.

The real reason is convince of dice, it can be easier if your rolling few die of a higher denomination

[grarrrg]

Manufactured weapons: 1 → 1d2 → 1d3 → 1d4 → 1d6 → 1d8 → 2d6 → 3d6 → 4d6 → 6d6 → etc.
Natural weapons: 1 → 1d2 → 1d3 → 1d4 → 1d6 → 1d8 → 2d6 → 2d8 → 4d6 → 4d8 → 8d6 → etc.

Actually there are 2 different Natural Attack progressions.
The one you have listed as Natural is the "Strong Jaw" Natural progression.

The Improved Natural Attack feat follows Manufactured Weapon progression.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Actually there are 2 different Natural Attack progressions.
The one you have listed as Natural is the "Strong Jaw" Natural progression.

The Improved Natural Attack feat follows Manufactured Weapon progression.

Actually he's using the "Natural Attacks by Size" table from the universal monster rules.

[Keneth]

The Improved Natural Attack feat follows Manufactured Weapon progression.

Improved Natural Attack does indeed seem to kick dice progression into the standard set. Which begs the question why the natural attacks don't follow the same progression as normal weapons in the first place.

Obviously, natural attack don't need to follow the same rules, but if virtually every natural weapon is gonna progress in the same manner, they might as well have a uniform progression with that of manufactured weapons.

Plus, there's that atrocious d10 which messes up every damage progression it's ever been forced into. I've been using it for a while in my revised weapon system, but have recently abolished it entirely from weapon rules.

Overall, I can't really tell why there are so many outliers in the core system. Then again, these shenanigans go back to the roots of D&D. Might as well be asking who thought THAC0 was a good idea or why we need flowcharts to understand grapple rules. :smallbiggrin: