Can weapon Focus ever stack?

[Hambot]

Just statted out a NPC hireling properly for the first time (he has been playing with the PC's for weeks and still isn't dead so its time to upgrade him from reskinned monster to member of the party)

I am basing him on a cross between a mike mearls goblin piker and a human fighter. I am statting him out without daily powers, utility powers, class features, but his encounter pike based powers still have recharge 6 on them. After weeks of play, he is actually pretty balanced.

So I'm picking feats that are fire and forget. I noticed a Halberd is an axe and a polearm, then noticed that weapon focus allows you to take the feat more than once, but applying it to a different weapon group each time.

Aha! I thought, so that's why a weapon that counts as two things is good - you can get weapon focus twice, once counting it as a polearm and once counting it as an axe.

But then I look at the rule saying you can't stack bonuses of the same type... - so does the exception in the weapon focus feat allow you to break the general rule giving the guy +1 damage to axe attacks, +1 damage to polearm attacks for a total of +2 damage for a Halberd attack?

 

[Maleketh]

There is no exception in the feat - Weapon Focus grants a feat bonus to damage, and multiple bonuses of the same types don't stack. Although having Weapon Focus (Axe) and Weapon Focus (Polearm) gives you a wider variety of improved-damage weapons, you only get the bonus once when wielding a halberd.

 

[DracoSuave]

Hell no.

 

[Hambot]

Thanks guys. I just checked it with the demo character builder and it picked up on it too! it listed +6 sources of damage, but put [doesn't stack] next to the second occurance of weapon focus.

It also resolved that "does weapon focus - staff" count towards damage done through staves used as an implement question that I've seen kicked around. Character builder is shaping up to look quite useful.