Precise Bombs, splash damage and Targeted Bomb Admixture


Rules Questions


I played my 2nd level Alchemist in a Society yesterday at my local store and had a bit of a unique and confusing situation pop up and wanted to ask the rest of you on how you would rule it. The GM made a ruling on it, but I don’t think he was even positive on how it worked. Fortunately no one was killed from what happened.

I won’t bring up the scenario, as it’s not really relevant, but basically we were at the final battle of the scenario and also were in a tight room with three of the enemies. In a 3 (square) x 6 room, there were probably only 5 squares that were free.

I had Targeted Bomb Admixture in effect, and for those of you who do not know, when throwing my bombs, they give no splash damage. However, the damage from my INT modifier is doubled. I threw a bomb and it missed, so the GM rolled deviation, and it landed directly on a fellow party member.

Now, ‘Throw Splash Weapon’ indicates that with a miss, the square where the splash weapon deviates to, including the surrounding squares, are all splash damage. But since Targeted Bomb Admixture says it deals no splash damage, how does that work?

The GM thought about it for a minute and ruled that only the square where my bomb deviated to would be affected (due to my extract), which again, was a party member. However, the GM said he would get a Reflex save for half, as it was splash damage. I then brought up if I could use Precise Bomb to negate the damage. The GM thought again for a minute, but then said no, as he believes that needs to be decided before the bomb is thrown, although RAW is not clear on this as well.

Our party member ended up taking 9 points of damage (he failed the Reflex) and went negative. I felt quite bad at this point. But fortunately, he ended up surviving as he had Infernal Healing cast on him right afterwards. If that did not happen, I would have gone next to one of the enemies to use my CLW on him. I’m just glad he was ok in the end.

But to the all of you, how would you have ruled on this?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Hobbun wrote:

I played my 2nd level Alchemist in a Society yesterday at my local store and had a bit of a unique and confusing situation pop up and wanted to ask the rest of you on how you would rule it. The GM made a ruling on it, but I don’t think he was even positive on how it worked. Fortunately no one was killed from what happened.

I won’t bring up the scenario, as it’s not really relevant, but basically we were at the final battle of the scenario and also were in a tight room with three of the enemies. In a 3 (square) x 6 room, there were probably only 5 squares that were free.

I had Targeted Bomb Admixture in effect, and for those of you who do not know, when throwing my bombs, they give no splash damage. However, the damage from my INT modifier is doubled. I threw a bomb and it missed, so the GM rolled deviation, and it landed directly on a fellow party member.

Now, ‘Throw Splash Weapon’ indicates that with a miss, the square where the splash weapon deviates to, including the surrounding squares, are all splash damage. But since Targeted Bomb Admixture says it deals no splash damage, how does that work?

The GM thought about it for a minute and ruled that only the square where my bomb deviated to would be affected (due to my extract), which again, was a party member. However, the GM said he would get a Reflex save for half, as it was splash damage. I then brought up if I could use Precise Bomb to negate the damage. The GM thought again for a minute, but then said no, as he believes that needs to be decided before the bomb is thrown, although RAW is not clear on this as well.

Our party member ended up taking 9 points of damage (he failed the Reflex) and went negative. I felt quite bad at this point. But fortunately, he ended up surviving as he had Infernal Healing cast on him right afterwards. If that did not happen, I would have gone next to one of the enemies to use my CLW on him. I’m just glad he was ok in the end.

But to the all of you, how would you have ruled on this?

You can't use Precise Bomb in this situation, though for a different reason.
Quote:
If the bomb misses, this discovery has no effect.

I would rule that Targeted Bomb Admixture makes it only do damage on a direct hit. No splash damage if you hit. No splash damage if you miss. Thus no damage if you miss.

BTW, I've just started an Alchemist in PFS and I was looking at Targeted Bomb Admixture. It has no use at 1st level, right? 1 round/level duration, so 1 round - which expires at the start of your next turn, so you can't actually throw a bomb after casting it, while it's still in effect? At 2nd level you get one round to throw in.


thejeff wrote:
You can't use Precise Bomb in this situation, though for a different reason.

Oh, of course. I should have remembered this. Thank you.

thejeff wrote:
I would rule that Targeted Bomb Admixture makes it only do damage on a direct hit. No splash damage if you hit. No splash damage if you miss. Thus no damage if you miss.

I think where we got confused here is it deviated to the square the other party member is in, so we were stuck on ‘hitting’ our party member. Where really, it is only splash damage. But I agree with your ruling on doing no damage as it is only splash.


On a miss, you determine the square the bomb landed in, so think of it as falling between the feet of anybody standing there, so all you get is splash damage, and with Target Admixture, there's no splash.


Yes, I agree with the ruling on being no splash because of Targeted Bomb Admixture. Although I believe with the deviation rules for throwing splash weapons is determined by a D8, you can’t choose the square.

The only type of control you have with a miss is if you have the feat Splash Weapon Mastery, which I do not have, at least not yet.


er, yeah, the D8 determines which square it lands in


Quote:
the square where the splash weapon deviates to... [deals] splash damage

Oh I didn't know that. Because my alchemist always had splash weapon mastery that wouldn't have ever been an issue anyway(worst scenario would be an ally getting hit in the splash radius)

Anyway, I think the ruling that even if the bomb lands on a target's square it won't deal any damage is valid, and it can be supported logically too (specially enchanted bombs which only really trigger when hitting a target).

What the DM came up with is reasonable too, but it's a tough call; both work well. The GM's ruling is certainly a lot more customized and deviant from the rules though, but still made good sense (particularly the reflex save because the attack missed and has no splash).

Just out of curiosity,
I heard some people have been calculating misdirection distances in an illogical non-RAI/RAW fashion, so am curious if you did it "right": 1 square away from the intended target for each 5–20' away (alchemist bomb's range increment) the alchemist was from it's target?
Technically it's better for me to word it as "for each multiple of 25' away, plus 1 square" but it seems more difficult to understand.


Divide distance from alchemist to target by range increment (20'), round up, and miss by that many squares.


Joesi wrote:

Just out of curiosity,
I heard some people have been calculating misdirection distances in an illogical non-RAI/RAW fashion, so am curious if you did it "right": 1 square away from the intended target for each 5–20' away (alchemist bomb's range increment) the alchemist was from it's target?
Technically it's better for me to word it as "for each multiple of 25' away, plus 1 square" but it seems more difficult to understand.

When there is a miss, you roll a 1D8. If you roll a 1, the throw falls one square short. If the number is 2-8, you count clockwise around the intended target, that determines the direction the miss will head in.

For distance away from intended target, you count the number of range increments thrown (in the direction determined by the d8).

For example, here is a visual representation of target with location of d8. The thrower is from the south:

456
3T7
218

Let's say you roll a 3 on the d8, and you throw it 4 range increments. That means the thrown weapon will land 4 squares directly to the left of 'T', or the intended target.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Precise Bombs, splash damage and Targeted Bomb Admixture All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.