| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
In the Feats and Skills section of the Core Rulebook FAQ there is the following entry:
Q. Point Blank Shot: Do I add the feat's extra damage to the splash damage from a splash weapon?
A. No, the extra damage from Point Blank Shot only applies to the target of a direct hit with a splash weapon (including direct hits from an alchemist's bomb).
This is consistent with all previously published stuff as far as general splash weapons goes, but contradicts the APG description of the Alchemist's Bomb:
"Splash damage from an alchemist bomb is always equal to the bomb's minimum damage (so if the bomb would deal 2d6+4 points of fire damage on a direct hit, its splash damage would be six points of fire damage)"
The passage does not specify that the "+4" points of damage are entirely from the alchemist's intelligence modifier, which is plainly stated elsewhere as applying to splash damage from a bomb and, in fact, any splash weapon thrown by an alchemist. Thus the "always equal to the bomb's minimum damage" phrase would include not just the point-blank feat damage bonus, but ANY damage bonus.
I was wondering if the design team had noticed this, because usually when their answers aren't simply clarifying rules but clearing up errors or contradictions in the rules, they explicitly note the previous error, and in this answer there was no "yeah, I know it says that, but it was a mistake that will be cleared up in the next printing"
I'm currently playing an alchemist and I also noticed this line in the bomb ability after seeing this thread. The FAQ does contradict the wording of the bomb feature. Logically, it might make that much sense for the +1 damage from point-blank shot to apply to splash damage, but bombs do come from a supernatural ability. I mean, does an extra point of "precision" based damage break logic any more than the precise bombs discovery?
I like the wording of bomb splash damage being "always equal to the bomb's minimum damage." It can give splash damage a nice amount of damage, especially if you are under the effects of a bard's Inspire Courage or other damage boosting effects. If this was rewritten to exclude point-blank shot, it would either be a bit awkward (keeping it mostly the same but writing in an exception for point-blank shot), or drop the bomb's potential splash damage a bit (rewriting it to just being number of dice plus intelligence modifier).
Personally, I think the exception should be written for bombs in the FAQ. As I said, this is a special supernatural ability and if the alchemist can gain the ability to manipulate the splash damage of his bombs in ways like what precise bombs does, I doesn't see a problem with point-blank shot making that splash damage a little more potent at shorter ranges.