SangoProduction
2022-03-28, 01:04 PM
Blooded Strike
Whenever you use the attack action or an attack of opportunity to attack or disarm a creature, you deal an additional 1 point of bleed damage to the target on a successful attempt, +1 for every 3 points of base attack bonus you possess; this stacks with any other bleed damage you are capable of dealing. Practitioners of the Duelist sphere never provoke attacks of opportunity when attempting combat maneuvers against a target currently taking bleed damage.
Attack Action is (in brief) defined as a standard action used to attack (or generally the offensive nonmagical standard action stuff). Full definition is on the wiki if that was too abridged.
So, it happens when you use an attack action to attack or disarm a creature. So, even if your attack action involved multiple attacks against that creature, you only used one attack action to attack it. Thus they only take 1 bleed (at level 1). I think we can very easily come to that conclusion. (Bleed talents which amplify over multiple applications also tend to imply either this is the correct interpretation, or "We intend for level 1 characters to blind someone in the first round until healing is applied")
Now here's where the language is less clear. Is this an exclusive condition? So if you successfully use your attack action to attack not "a creature" but "multiple creatures," does this disqualify it? I think that's a silly interpretation, and I would say no it doesn't prevent you from at least "deal 1 additional bleed damage to the target on a successful attempt." I'm open to debate, but hopefully it can be more productive than arguing semantics, because by RAW, that's not an invalid conclusion. Just not one that I support.
So let's assume it's an inclusive condition: so long as you at least meet the condition, you can do the effect.
But it says "the target." What if your attack action includes multiple targets? Whether by AoE attack or multiple attacks within your attack action, aimed at different targets.
You can resolve that as "you pick a target from your targets to take 1 damage," or you can say "the group being attacked is the target" (even though a group isn't a physical thing, and it's certainly not a creature, it's a meta construct used to provide logical... anyway, shut up).
Well, the "pick 1 target to take 1 damage" feels kinda bad. So, just for argument sake, let's say it's the latter. So what is a "successful attempt" then?
Does the entire group need to be hit / fail save / whatever, or else it's not a success? High risk, but potentially multiplying your reward. A potentially useful interpretation.
Or does only one need to fail for it to be successful? If so, then on success, you deal damage to the target - the group. That seems slightly dysfunctional to have missed targets still take damage. But honestly, it's 1 bleed damage. Who cares?
And that's the end of my analysis. Either it's a funky ruling, or you need to hit the entire group to apply AoE bleed, or it's an exclusive condition - purely single target.
(Oh, side note. Not the point. But it... is not actually clear whether or not it allows you to implicitly stack this bleed with itself, despite what I believed. It says "other bleed you are capable of dealing." Which is not overwriting the rules on bleeds stacking, once already applied. Only increasing the bleeds you deal by 1 + 1/3 BAB. Which... is actually incredibly disappointing. Like wow. I don't even rate setting someone alight for 1d6 burning damage a round to be particularly notable. That kinda sucks. And it means that two duelists are anti-synergistic with each other. I hate that I've gone down this rabbit hole. I was just about to consider playing a Crimson Dancer.)
-
But, what I am thinking was *intended* was for it to apply to each target hit or disarmed. But I do not see a valid reading of the RAW to support that. So that's purely my conjecture. Also mostly based on the fact that, once taken out of the single-target context, the RAW seems to break down logically. Which is actually an argument in favor of the targeting being an exclusive condition.
Feel free to tell me how I am wrong and stupid, and clearly missed something. Because I want to be. Having it be a strictly single target effect kinda sucks. Your first instinct may be to look at the word "Whenever," but that's tied to the attack action. And if it's not, you get the deal with dual wielding barrage users blinding people in the first round of combat, which lasts until the bleeding is healed.
But with that out of the way, let's see if I (or one of you) could homebrew a more clear "This allows for AoE bleeds."
When you use an attack action or attack of opportunity, you may deal an additional 1 point of bleeding damage to each creature you successfully hit or disarm. This bleed damage increases by +1 per 3 points of base attack bonus you possess. This bleed damage stacks with any other bleed damage they take. You never provoke attacks of opportunity from bleeding opponents.
(I also made the bleed damage stack with existing bleeds, and not simply increase your bleed damage in an attack. But other than that, I tried to maintain the original language as much as possible.)
Whenever you use the attack action or an attack of opportunity to attack or disarm a creature, you deal an additional 1 point of bleed damage to the target on a successful attempt, +1 for every 3 points of base attack bonus you possess; this stacks with any other bleed damage you are capable of dealing. Practitioners of the Duelist sphere never provoke attacks of opportunity when attempting combat maneuvers against a target currently taking bleed damage.
Attack Action is (in brief) defined as a standard action used to attack (or generally the offensive nonmagical standard action stuff). Full definition is on the wiki if that was too abridged.
So, it happens when you use an attack action to attack or disarm a creature. So, even if your attack action involved multiple attacks against that creature, you only used one attack action to attack it. Thus they only take 1 bleed (at level 1). I think we can very easily come to that conclusion. (Bleed talents which amplify over multiple applications also tend to imply either this is the correct interpretation, or "We intend for level 1 characters to blind someone in the first round until healing is applied")
Now here's where the language is less clear. Is this an exclusive condition? So if you successfully use your attack action to attack not "a creature" but "multiple creatures," does this disqualify it? I think that's a silly interpretation, and I would say no it doesn't prevent you from at least "deal 1 additional bleed damage to the target on a successful attempt." I'm open to debate, but hopefully it can be more productive than arguing semantics, because by RAW, that's not an invalid conclusion. Just not one that I support.
So let's assume it's an inclusive condition: so long as you at least meet the condition, you can do the effect.
But it says "the target." What if your attack action includes multiple targets? Whether by AoE attack or multiple attacks within your attack action, aimed at different targets.
You can resolve that as "you pick a target from your targets to take 1 damage," or you can say "the group being attacked is the target" (even though a group isn't a physical thing, and it's certainly not a creature, it's a meta construct used to provide logical... anyway, shut up).
Well, the "pick 1 target to take 1 damage" feels kinda bad. So, just for argument sake, let's say it's the latter. So what is a "successful attempt" then?
Does the entire group need to be hit / fail save / whatever, or else it's not a success? High risk, but potentially multiplying your reward. A potentially useful interpretation.
Or does only one need to fail for it to be successful? If so, then on success, you deal damage to the target - the group. That seems slightly dysfunctional to have missed targets still take damage. But honestly, it's 1 bleed damage. Who cares?
And that's the end of my analysis. Either it's a funky ruling, or you need to hit the entire group to apply AoE bleed, or it's an exclusive condition - purely single target.
(Oh, side note. Not the point. But it... is not actually clear whether or not it allows you to implicitly stack this bleed with itself, despite what I believed. It says "other bleed you are capable of dealing." Which is not overwriting the rules on bleeds stacking, once already applied. Only increasing the bleeds you deal by 1 + 1/3 BAB. Which... is actually incredibly disappointing. Like wow. I don't even rate setting someone alight for 1d6 burning damage a round to be particularly notable. That kinda sucks. And it means that two duelists are anti-synergistic with each other. I hate that I've gone down this rabbit hole. I was just about to consider playing a Crimson Dancer.)
-
But, what I am thinking was *intended* was for it to apply to each target hit or disarmed. But I do not see a valid reading of the RAW to support that. So that's purely my conjecture. Also mostly based on the fact that, once taken out of the single-target context, the RAW seems to break down logically. Which is actually an argument in favor of the targeting being an exclusive condition.
Feel free to tell me how I am wrong and stupid, and clearly missed something. Because I want to be. Having it be a strictly single target effect kinda sucks. Your first instinct may be to look at the word "Whenever," but that's tied to the attack action. And if it's not, you get the deal with dual wielding barrage users blinding people in the first round of combat, which lasts until the bleeding is healed.
But with that out of the way, let's see if I (or one of you) could homebrew a more clear "This allows for AoE bleeds."
When you use an attack action or attack of opportunity, you may deal an additional 1 point of bleeding damage to each creature you successfully hit or disarm. This bleed damage increases by +1 per 3 points of base attack bonus you possess. This bleed damage stacks with any other bleed damage they take. You never provoke attacks of opportunity from bleeding opponents.
(I also made the bleed damage stack with existing bleeds, and not simply increase your bleed damage in an attack. But other than that, I tried to maintain the original language as much as possible.)