[3.5] Ring the Golden Bell and Maneuvers

[A.A.King]

Ring the Golden Bell is an interesting feat from the Dragon Compendium which lets you use something like Stunning Fist from a distance. The wording is "can deliver any effect your unarmed strike can normally deliver". But do "strikes" which require a melee attack fall under any effect? Or to put it better:
- Can you use one of your daily uses of "Ring the Golden Bell" to change the range from a Maneuver (Strike) from Melee to Ranged (provided it is within the range increment of "Ring the Golden Bell")

And, while we're discussing Ring the Golden Bells I have one more thing I hope it can do (though it is a bit more far fetched then the previous question).
- Can you use one of your daily uses of "Ring the Golden Bell" to make a ranged attack instead of a melee touch attack for an effect that requires you to make a melee touch attack?

[Psyren]

I think you're misunderstanding the feat a bit. RtGB doesn't let you deliver melee attacks at range - rather, it gives you a special ranged attack (with a 5ft. increment, more with higher Wis) to which you can apply your unarmed strike damage and any unarmed strike effects (like stunning fist). You aren't actually projecting your existing melee attacks, you're using a new special attack that the feat gives you.

With that in mind, your questions:



- Can you use one of your daily uses of "Ring the Golden Bell" to change the range from a Maneuver (Strike) from Melee to Ranged (provided it is within the range increment of "Ring the Golden Bell")

The answer to your question is "are there any ranged strikes?" If there's a strike that can be used at range (I'm not familiar enough with ToB to know whether that is the case or not) then RtGB's ranged attack can be used with it. If not, then no. It doesn't let you deliver a melee attack (such as a melee strike) at range.



- Can you use one of your daily uses of "Ring the Golden Bell" to make a ranged attack instead of a melee touch attack for an effect that requires you to make a melee touch attack?

See above - you're not substituting a ranged attack for a melee attack, you're applying melee damage to your special ranged attack. So if a given ability requires a melee attack, that is still what you'll make.

[Chronos]

I don't know, "can deliver any effect your unarmed strike can deliver" looks pretty encompassing to me. If your unarmed strike can deliver a stunning fist, RtGB can, too. If it can deliver Touch of Golden Ice, so can RtGB. If your unarmed strike can deliver Mountain Tombstone Strike, so can RtGB. Note that using the feat just requires an attack, not a standard action, so you should be able to use it as the attack that's part of a maneuver.

[A.A.King]

I don't know, "can deliver any effect your unarmed strike can deliver" looks pretty encompassing to me. If your unarmed strike can deliver a stunning fist, RtGB can, too. If it can deliver Touch of Golden Ice, so can RtGB. If your unarmed strike can deliver Mountain Tombstone Strike, so can RtGB. Note that using the feat just requires an attack, not a standard action, so you should be able to use it as the attack that's part of a maneuver.

Yeah, this was my logical as well.

[Devronq]

Ring the Golden Bell is an interesting feat from the Dragon Compendium which lets you use something like Stunning Fist from a distance. The wording is "can deliver any effect your unarmed strike can normally deliver". But do "strikes" which require a melee attack fall under any effect? Or to put it better:
- Can you use one of your daily uses of "Ring the Golden Bell" to change the range from a Maneuver (Strike) from Melee to Ranged (provided it is within the range increment of "Ring the Golden Bell")

And, while we're discussing Ring the Golden Bells I have one more thing I hope it can do (though it is a bit more far fetched then the previous question).
- Can you use one of your daily uses of "Ring the Golden Bell" to make a ranged attack instead of a melee touch attack for an effect that requires you to make a melee touch attack?

I'm curious and i want to read this feat but what is the dragon compendium? Its not on my list of books.

[Chronos]

Dragon Compendium is a collection of some of the more interesting things that have shown up in the pages of Dragon Magazine. Be advised that most of it hasn't gotten nearly as much attention in its design as in most other books, leading to some options which are just trivial variants on core options, and others that are hard to make sense of when they start interacting with other rules.

[Psyren]

If your unarmed strike can deliver Mountain Tombstone Strike, so can RtGB.

I guess the real question here then is: "Is a strike an "effect?" Meaning, is a strike something that is added to your attack, or is a strike an attack itself?

[A.A.King]

I guess the real question here then is: "Is a strike an "effect?" Meaning, is a strike something that is added to your attack, or is a strike an attack itself?

Well, both really. A strike is a special way to attack which delivers can deliver an effect. It's not just a normal attack if you read the description and think about how it works, but neither is stunning fist really. You need to declare you are using it and it can't be used on creatures immune to critical attacks, so clearly you are striking very specif parts of the body. It's not an effect like Fiery Fist were all you do is enhance your fist with fire, it's a special maneuver were you strike at just the right place at the body to make your opponent stunned. The only real difference between Stunning Fist and a real martial maneuver like Mountain Tombstone strike is that you can use Stunning Fist during a Full Attack Action.

So I would see a Maneuver which has a Range of Melee and modifies a normal attack roll by adding a special effect or just simply adding some form of extra damage is an effect for the purpose of RtGB

Sure, some silliness might happen when you use something like "Clever Positioning" (a strike which lets you switch places with your opponent) with a ranged attack but that's only slightly more silly then when such a maneuver was made with a reach weapon.

If you compare maneuvers for example to the Decisive Strike ACF from PHII. It's let you use a full round action to make only a single attack (similiar to Maneuvers except that you still have a move action with those). And it adds the effect that you deal double damage and that the Save DC of a Stunning Fist is increased by 2. Surely you can use RtGB with a Monk's ACF and it's not much different from a maneuver.