Blood Wind Questions

[cowsay]

Blood wind is a difficult spell to envision how it works.

So, the party wizard casts Blood Wind on the druid's fleshraker animal companion so it can attack the sorcerer on the platform forty feet away . . .

1. Does the fleshraker's poison affect the sorcerer?
2. Can the fleshraker bull rush the sorcerer off the platform?
3. If the fleshraker successfully grapples, will the sorcerer be grappled for the duration of the round?

[SurlySeraph]

1. Yes.
2. Can he bullrush with thrown weapons? If not (and I don't know of any way to do so), then no.
3. No.

[cowsay]

1. Yes.
2. Can he bullrush with thrown weapons? If not (and I don't know of any way to do so), then no.
3. No.

Thanks. Would you or someone else mind elaborating a little? I've read your responses in conjunction with reading the spell, and I find that for me, I'm begging the same questions. That is, I can see where your answers might be correct. But I also see reasonable interpretations that would end in different results. Perhaps if you explained a bit more, I would understand better.

Thanks again for taking a few moments with this thread.

[SurlySeraph]

It lets him use his natural attacks as if they were thrown weapons. You can poison a thrown weapon just as well as you can poison a natural attack, so that's no problem. However, you normally can't bullrush or grapple with a thrown weapon, any more than you can charge with a thrown weapon. So he'll get whatever effects he'd have on a normal natural attack, but he can't use any combat maneuvers or suchlike that couldn't be used on a thrown weapon.

[cowsay]

I don't mean to suggest that your interpretation of the spell is wrong, so please forgive me if this comes off that way. But what I'm struggling with is why your interpretation is correct?

The subject can take a full attack action to use all of its natural weapons or unarmed strikes as if they were thrown weapons with a 20-foot range increment. The subject gestures as if making a melee attack, but the result of the attack affects a target within range. This spell does not actually grant reach, and so does not help provide a flanking bonus or allow the subject to make attacks of opportunity at any range greater than normal. The subject uses its normal melee attack bonuses and deals damage normally if it hits, though the target of the attacks can benefit from cover or concealment. Bull rushes and grapples are a part of melee attacks, or they can be. It strikes me that one way to read this spell is that it enables the melee attack to affect a creature that would ordinarily be out of range, rather than limiting those attacks only to those that would have an analog in the ranged weapon world. In some ways it seems harder to justify the poison traveling 40 feet than the bull rush. As I read the spell, it seems to suggest that a character's melee attacks, whatever they happen to be, get to affect creatures at range and I want to understand why the examples I listed above would or would not affect the sorcerer. Again, I'm not sayng that your interpretation is wrong. I just want to know why it is right.

[Amphetryon]

The attacks resolve as thrown weapons, per the verbiage you quoted - the first sentence. The caster "gestures as if making a melee attack", which is not the same thing as making a melee attack.

[cowsay]

The attacks resolve as thrown weapons, per the verbiage you quoted - the first sentence. The caster "gestures as if making a melee attack", which is not the same thing as making a melee attack.

I'm not sure I see, by your logic, how to conclude that the "attacks resolve as thrown weapons". The spell also says "as if they were thrown weapons", which, as you suggest, is not the same thing as making an attack with a thrown weapon.

I suppose it's all in how you read the final clause. It can be read to limit the natural attack as you suggest or it can be read to describe the effects of the spell on the natural attack, that is that the natural melee attack actually happens at the range increments described in the spell.

I am not trying to be difficult here nor am I invested in oue outcome or the other. But I'd like to see if we can parse out a solid interpretation.

I appreciate the efforts, thus far, to help me ferret out the meaning herein, but, perhaps because I am missing something that others see as obvious, I don't yet understand why one interpretation here so clearly trumps others. Thanks for your patience.

[faceroll]

The second sentence says "as a thrown weapon", so you use all the rules of thrown weapons. Proceeding sentences make specific modifications to that rule, such as using melee attack bonus. Can you bull rush with a thrown weapon? If not, then does the text of Blood Wind say you can? No. So the answer is no. Likewise, it doesn't say you can power attack, grapple, or do any of those other things that you also cannot do when using a thrown weapon.

[cowsay]

I realize that I'm the lone trombone among the violins here and that I must seem an intractable idiot. But I'm still not seeing why "as a thrown weapon" means that you cannot grapple or bull rush, even if it does mean "so you use all the rules of a thrown weapon". There is no rule that says you cannot grapple or bull rush with a thrown weapon. Rather, because of how those mechanics work, you need to be close--as in, in the opponent's space--to ultimately perform those mechanics. And you're using your unarmed or natural attacks to perform those mechanics (admittedly, this is more overt in the case of grapple than bull rush, but you need not have a weapon to bull rush).

Assuming for the moment that we were to follow the "so you use all the rules of a thrown weapon" interpretation, then it would seem that all attacks would be made at -4 and require a natural 20 to crit? With that assumption, would you make the same conclusion? Or does "all the rules" only mean some of the rules?

The strongest and least ambiguous argument I can see for not allowing bull rush and grapple is that they are not RAW "melee attacks", which is what the subject is supposed to gesture, but rather "special attacks". And that may be enough to seal the deal for me.

[The Glyphstone]

I realize that I'm the lone trombone among the violins here and that I must seem an intractable idiot. But I'm still not seeing why "as a thrown weapon" means that you cannot grapple or bull rush, even if it does mean "so you use all the rules of a thrown weapon". There is no rule that says you cannot grapple or bull rush with a thrown weapon. Rather, because of how those mechanics work, you need to be close--as in, in the opponent's space--to ultimately perform those mechanics. And you're using your unarmed or natural attacks to perform those mechanics (admittedly, this is more overt in the case of grapple than bull rush, but you need not have a weapon to bull rush).

Assuming for the moment that we were to follow the "so you use all the rules of a thrown weapon" interpretation, then it would seem that all attacks would be made at -4 and require a natural 20 to crit? With that assumption, would you make the same conclusion? Or does "all the rules" only mean some of the rules?

The strongest and least ambiguous argument I can see for not allowing bull rush and grapple is that they are not RAW "melee attacks", which is what the subject is supposed to gesture, but rather "special attacks". And that may be enough to seal the deal for me.

Because they are special attacks made in place of a melee attack, and thrown weapons are ranged attacks. Grapple and Bull Rush specifically require you to move into the target's space, which could be hard/impossible to do if they aren't adjacent to you.

If you'll accept circumstantial evidence, there exists a specific feat in Complete Warrior called Ranged Pin, which allows you to initiate a grapple with a ranged weapon, explicitly calling out thrown weapons or projectiles. Granted, this doesn't explicitly state that you need this feat to perform ranged grapples.

Also, your 'as a thrown weapon' is flawed, because you seem to be confusing thrown weapons (which include javelins, throwing axes, shortspears, and daggers) with improvised thrown weapons (the attacks that would suffer -4 and crit on 20's).

[BlackSheep]

The subject can take a full attack action to use all of its natural weapons or unarmed strikes as if they were thrown weapons with a 20-foot range increment.

It doesn't say the subject can attack as though they were right next to the target, it says the subject can full attack with natural/unarmed strikes at range.

In the SRD, Bull Rush states that you first move into the target's space, so that's right out.

As for grappling, that's a rather sustained effect. Does Blood Wind have a duration? The text you quoted limits the subject to one full attack action. After that, they wouldn't be under the effect of the spell any longer.

Edit-- Mod ninja'd!

[Keld Denar]

Contrast Blood Wind to say...Bloodstorm Blade's Thunderous Throw ability. Thunderous Throw IS a melee attack, even though its made at range. It explicitly calls it out as a melee attack. Blood Wind says to treat it as a thrown weapon. It doesn't include extra verbage to say "treat this as a melee attack". Its not a melee attack, and thus doesn't allow you to do the normal things you can do with melee attacks.

[Thurbane]

It lets him use his natural attacks as if they were thrown weapons. You can poison a thrown weapon just as well as you can poison a natural attack, so that's no problem.
How about melee delivered attacks that you can't normally apply to a thrown weapon, like a Vampire's Energy Drain...would that be transferred through Blood Wind?

[SurlySeraph]

"Living creatures hit by a vampire spawn’s slam attack gain one negative level." He's making a slam attack, though it's treated as a thrown weapon. So I think that would work, yes.

[cowsay]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all this thoughtful feedback. I know it's taken me some time to get the picture, but I'm convinced.