Dominigo's page

I have been going through the book this last week, and I found something odd with nonlethal damage that I think I know how is supposed to work, but it looks like the wording might technically have it working differently. I didn't see any threads covering this after a quick search, so I am making a quick post for my own benefit.

This pertains to four specific things, that I will add below:

So basically the questions that I have is these:

Does taking the -2 penalty to make a lethal attack with a nonlethal weapon remove the nonlethal weapon trait?
• If so, does taking the -2 penalty to do a nonlethal attack with a lethal weapon add the weapon trait?
• Does the Powerful fist ability of the monk remove the nonlethal trait?

These all matters, of course, in reference to Immunity to Nonlethal Damage. The immunity states that it makes the creature immune to all damage from an attack that has the nonlethal trait, not from nonlethal attacks. The nonlethal trait doesn't actually make attacks with that particular weapon nonlethal, it simply reverses whether making lethal or nonlethal attacks applies the -2 penalty.

So for the example given in the Immunity to Nonlethal, the stone golem may technically be immune to the monk's punches since his unarmed strikes still technically have the nonlethal trait. Similarly, another character could do nonlethal attacks at a -2 penalty with a longsword at otherwise full effectiveness. Obviously, this is silly and not how I would run it, but I can't find anything that bridges this gap.

Based on the example given in the immunity section, the answer that I would assume and play at the table is that taking the -2 penalty does not add or remove the nonlethal trait, but the powerful fist feature does. This way, not just anyone can punch a golem and hurt it, as stated, but a character with an appropriate special ability could, such as a monk. In this case, I would rewrite powerful fist as such:

You know how to wield your fists as deadly weapons. The damage die for your fist changes to 1d6 instead of 1d4. When making an unarmed attack, the monk may choose to remove the nonlethal trait.

Has anyone found anything to clarify this better, or have a reason why it should work a different way?

I was looking at the confused condition and saw two parts that made me wonder if they could end poorly for a group when someone gets confused. The first part is that on a confused creature's turn, it will attack whatever most recently attacked it so long as its attacker remains alive and in sight. This makes reasonable sense as one of the major effects of the confused condition is a characters inability to tell friend from foe, allowing him to simply guess anything attacking him isn't his friend. This is also related to the second part of the condition that caught my eye when reading it. When a creature is confused, any allies attempting to cast a beneficial spell requiring a touch on the confused creature are required to make a melee touch attack as the creature now sees his old ally as a potential foe.

Here's my question: Does this touch attack as a part of the beneficial spell count as an "attack" for inciting counterattacks from the confused creature? I can certainly see how sometimes it wouldn't cause it, such as when a cleric healed the creature of damage. It would seem to me, however, that with some other spells might cause a counter attack. For example, what if the fighter gets confused during a fight and the wizard, in an effort to help protect his debilitated friend, casts a displacement spell on the fighter and succeeds on touching him. From the fighter's point of view, some possibly evil wizard has just walked up and placed some strange magic on him that is warping his vision of his body. Would the fighter respond to this "attack" by beating the wizard over the head immediately on his turn?

I am currently running Carrion Crown, and one of the characters is a Dhampir. While this has made for some amusing times as the he desperately tries to avoid any damage at all (there is no one who can channel negative energy in the party), I have a concern about an upcoming fight with an incorporeal undead.

Since he has negative energy affinity and is healed by negative energy rather than harmed, it would seem that enemies such as ghosts or wraiths who do touch attacks with negative energy, he would actually be healed by their attacks! This seems like it is going to trivialize the encounter for him, and I was wondering if such attacks wouldn't actually work as a "channel negative energy to harm", where they can only harm living creatures and not heal undead. Specific details on fight below.