Bleeding Wounds

[GutterFace]

Can someone help me understand a wound that Bleeds in D&D (3.5)

lets say you cause a bleeding wound that does 1 damage. it says per round. does that mean each round, or each round at the start of their turn?

also is Bleed damage in D&D even viable or is it sort of useless?

does anyone have a bleeding damage optimization build in mind?

thanks!!!

[FleshrakerAbuse]

D&D does not often have very many damage over time effects that are useful. Heavy blood loss is more often from result of constitution. However, there are various spells that allow bleeding abilities. Feats are less common, and warblades and swordsages gain some maneuvers that allow bleeding.
Arterial Strike for Rogues, a feat that forgoes sneak attack damage for bleeding.
Decomposition, druid spell that accelerates organic decay (bleeding).
Bloodstorm blades gain an ability for it.
I'm not sure about maneuvers.

Best thing to do is to win as fast as possible.

[Arc_knight25]

I'm pretty sure in 3.5 Bleed effects stack. They stick around till the wounded makes a DC 15 heal check or receives any healing.

Also i'm pretty sure Bleed damage ignores DR. Of course the creature needs to have vital organs and such to be effected by a bleed effect.

[GutterFace]

that sounds reasonable thanks. yea D&D always seemed like you should win a fight in a hurry and not "poke the bear" so to speak.

[Amphetryon]

If your group regularly has encounters that last no more than 3 - 4 rounds, there's almost no point to Bleed damage, unless everyone uses it and you find that 4th round extremely dicey.

If your group regularly has encounters that last no less than 5 - 6 rounds, Bleed damage can be a useful tool to shorten the combats and force the enemy to make potentially difficult tactical decisions about how to spend his actions per round.

[CaladanMoonblad]

The OP is correct in finding a paucity of mechanics for bleed damage in D&D.

The old Role Master RPG had bleed damage as part of their critical hits tables (this system did not have multiple attacks per round, no matter how high a level someone was, so combat lasted a long time without a good crit).

I've imported limited use of bleed damage to my house rules. d20 doesn't simulate artery wounds very well (a nick to your femoral artery will bleed you out in a few short minutes. There was a hockey player who got his femoral cut by a skate during practice (see article here (http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/02/21/jets-zach-redmond-undergoes-surgery-after-skate-cuts-femoral-artery/)), and with modern medicine his surgery took 3 hours. That is of course, with blood transfusions to increase the pressure he was losing from his wound.) In d20, this sort of bleed damage is not even a possibility with the limited mechanics for bleed.

Just remember that bleed damage is usually more problematic for players than for NPCs. Using bleed damage for house rules is more of a nerf for players while increasing the realism. It's a fair trade in my opinion as a GM

:)