Simple RAW Thread for 3.5 #36: The Triple Dozen

[Elves]

Cont A 67

You'd be incorrect. "Attack" here is not limited to attack rolls; it uses the broader definition seen with spells such as invisibility. How do we know this? Because the following paragraph uses a gaze attack as an example.

This is incorrect, the gaze attack is used as an example of something Steely Resolve does not affect:

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Special effects tied to an attack, such as energy drain, stun, and so forth, still affect you as normal, and their effects are not delayed by this ability. ...Any other special attack that imposes a condition, such as a medusa?s petrifying gaze, takes immediate effect on you.

What if a gaze attack dealt damage? Since "a creature with a gaze attack can actively attempt to use its gaze as an attack action", it might count as an attack. The text excludes "special effects tied to an attack", but this seems to mean effects other than hit point damage. So steely resolve would probably apply against a gaze attack that dealt damage if it were "used actively as an attack action".

Other special abilities don't have this "as an attack action" clause though. Nothing suggests steely resolve uses a nonstandard definition of attack the way invisibility does.