Dragonborn dragon breath

[Nikosandros]

Amazon is sitting on my gift set, but luckily I was able to get the Italian version of the PHB at a very good price... so finally, I have at least one manual!

Anyway, I have a question about the dragonborn racial power. A character can choose which ability to base the attack on, but the damage is always modified by Con. Do you think that this exception to the idea that the same ability modifies both the attack and the damage roll is on purpose or is it an errata?

 

[Yaezakura]

It's definitely on purpose. The accuracy of the breath is measured in one of three ways:

Strength: Force and speed of expulsion.
Constitution: Amount of element expelled and time sustained.
Dexterity: Timing of release.

The damage, however, is all about option 2 up there. Constitution is your measure of how much you can build up and how long you can sustain the breath, which leads to higher damage.

 

[Nikosandros]

Are there any other attacks that have a different ability for hitting and for damage?

 

[Surgoshan]

Yup. I can't recall offhand, but there are other attacks which have multiple possibilities for the type of damage, and which have one stat for attack and another for damage.