Master of shrouds, Improved summoning and ability dmg. Please help

[shaga]

Ok so the master of shrouds from libris mortis has a class feature called improved summoning. That feature gives "+2 enhancement bonus on attack rolls and
damage rolls." Now does that apply to the shadows 1d6 strength damage? What about the wraith? (The wraith does 1d4 dmg plus 1d6 drain.)

[hirojinbrodie]

I would imagine it would only apply to the attack, not the damage as that tends to be set and doesn't get augmented as far as I have seen. Not really any muscle behind a incorporeal creature.

[shaga]

I would imagine it would only apply to the attack, not the damage as that tends to be set and doesn't get augmented as far as I have seen. Not really any muscle behind a incorporeal creature.

Its a class feature for the master of shrouds that says that works for the undead summons. So it must work with his summons. The question is do you add the bonus to ability damaga/drain or only on the HP damage?

[Urpriest]

It's ambiguous. For spells that deal ability damage you add any bonus damage as negative energy damage. There's no similar rule for creatures.

[Gargravarr]

Am playing a Master of Shrouds and was wondering as well.

I assume the "Improved summoning" is there to replace "Augment summoning", since the Undead the MoS can cast via class ability have no STR or CON and therefore "Augment summoning" would have no effect.

However, this still does not explain whether "Improved summoning" gives +2 as negative energy or is added to the STR drain, I would like to think the latter is true since for example a Shadow does no added negative energy with his attacks in the first place but it's different with the Spectre and the Wraiths which have +1d6/+1d8 energy damage per attack, so by that logic it would make more sense that it is simply added negative energy damage of +2 for whatever is summoned.

Imho, the class ability is a bit broken anyways, especially with some extra feat flavour that give the summoned extra buffing, so who cares :D

[Raendyn]

It doesn't apply to the str drain because it doesn't say it applies, plain as sky.

[Gargravarr]

It doesn't apply to the str drain because it doesn't say it applies, plain as sky.

Ockham's razor FTW!

[Cheiromancer]

I don't think there is any clear RAW answer to this. But given how sneak attack damage is negative energy (hit point) damage, and so is bonus damage to spells, the consistent ruling would be to say that improved summoning makes attacks do +2 hp damage.