Does the "Blood Drinker" feat work multiple times during a Flurry of Blows?

[synistar]

I have a player who built a Dhampir monk with the following options:

Tusked: gives a d4 bite attack.

Feral Combat Training: allows bite attack to be used any number of times in a flurry of blows.

Blood drinker: allows Dhampir to do 2 points of Con damage with a bite attack

However, the description for Blood drinker is a little unclear on whether this combination of feats and traits works the way the player wants it to - granting multiple Con damage attacks in one round.

Here is the relevant rules text :

"Normally, you can only drink blood from an opponent who is helpless, grappled, paralyzed, pinned, unconscious, or similarly disabled. If you have a bite attack, you can drink blood automatically as part of your bite attack; otherwise, you must first cut your target by dealing 1 hit point of damage with a slashing or piercing weapon (though you may feed upon a creature with severe wounds or a bleed effect without cutting it first). Once you cut the target, you can drink from its wound as a standard action. Drinking blood deals 2 points of Constitution damage to the creature you feed upon. "

Does drinking blood take a standard action or does it take no time at all with the bite attack? Thoughts?

[Chess Pwn]

it's a free action when part of a bite

[Archaeik]

If it always takes a standard action, you could never do it as part of a bite attack.

It's clearly not intended to work multiple times a round through FCT, but RAW it does.

[Urath DM]

I'm wondering what a Dhampir is doing with Tusked... a feat that requires the character to be an Orc or Half-Orc.

Did he take the required Weapon Focus in Bite, in order to take Feral Combat Training?

The Feat partially-quoted is from the Advanced Race Guide. There, the Dhampir's option for gaining the ability to bite is to trade his spell-like abilities for the "Fanged" Alternate Racial Trait, which allows you to deal a small bite when you deal grappling damage.

Overall, the entire chain of abilities seems to be built on shaky ground. Tusked is not a Dhampir option, and the Dhampir option does not give a bite attack that could be used in a Flurry of Blows or with Feral Combat Training.

[Claxon]

By RAW, yes he would get multiple bite attacks that would each inflict con damage.

No you shouldn't allow it, and don't feel compelled to by your player. Tell him you will allow it to occur once per round, otherwise you will be looking at 4+ points of con damage per round at level 1. Very few things have enough con to survive more than a round or two of combat with such an effect in play. Don't allow it.

Edit: Actually, Urath makes some compelling points. How is he getting access to these abilities that would otherwise not be available?

[Chess Pwn]

take the adopted trait to get tusked.
Unchained monk takes weapon focus lv1 and FCT lv3 and blood drinker lv5. flurry of bites that drain. You'd have 3 attacks at full BAB if you spend the ki point.

[Jeff Merola]

Yeah, he probably has the Tusked trait, not the Tusked feat.

[Deadmoon]

5000gp also gets you a Ring of Rat Fangs, which gives anyone bite as a primary natural attack.

[LazarX]

Chess Pwn wrote:

take the adopted trait to get tusked.

Unchained monk takes weapon focus lv1 and FCT lv3 and blood drinker lv5. flurry of bites that drain. You'd have 3 attacks at full BAB if you spend the ki point.

Lysenko must be feeling vindicated in his grave.

We've been through this before with Kobolds. You can't take adopted to get a physical trait from another species. You can't get tusks from being raised by orcs any more than you can gain a tail from kobolds.

[Chess Pwn]

Everyone has a mouth, thus everyone can take tusked trait to gain a bite attack.

[synistar]

Claxon, Urath, he took the Tusked trait and weapon focus. "Adopted" basically erased the racial restrictions on traits.

I think that the build looks legit by RAW. But I agree it's unbalanced and worthy of errata.

[Berti Blackfoot]

He probably has this:
Unusual Origin
gain a 1d4 bite attack
Bastards of Golarion

Spoiler:

Your undead progenitor left you with more than a hint of vampiric nature.

Prerequisite(s): Dhampir.

Benefit(s): You gain a natural bite attack that deals 1d4 points of damage. Once per day upon making a successful bite attack, you can choose to deal an additional 1d4 points of bleed damage to the creature struck.

Special: You can only select this feat at 1st level.

As to the question: it's hard to tell because of the confusing wording of the last sentence. It looks like they meant you get Blood Drink action for free with your bite, but the drink (or bite+drink) takes a standard action either way. But they did not write that specifically.

So by RAW I guess it works.

[Avoron]

First of all, the kobold issue had nothing to do with the adopted trait. That was with Racial Heritage, and involved gaining a tail attack by taking a feat that assumed you already had a tail.
Tusked, on the other hand, gives tusks to creatures that would not otherwise have them, and getting it with the adopted trait is a legal, if somewhat cheesy tactic.
And if flavor is your concern, who better to gain a bite attack than a creature that is part vampire?
Regardless, there are several other ways for a dhampir to gain a bite attack.

I see some people telling you that you should not allow this, because it is an intrinsically broken interaction of the rules. However, I find it to be an interesting and original tactic that requires character investment and functions as an effective combat technique. So, assuming the rules check out (and it looks to me like they do), you just need to ask yourself this: Does the player being able to do this make the game less enjoyable?
If yes, then talk to the player about limiting it to once per round - maybe direct them to this thread for reasoning. And I think it would be fair to give them a chance to rebuild if they want to - this is a clever tactic, and a lot of character investment is wasted if they are not allowed to use it.
If no, then there isn't any problem.

And I'm not sure there's even any real problem with this tactic being overpowered. This is exactly the intended use of the feat Feral Combat Training. He still has to be able to hit his enemies, and prevent himself from getting hit as well. And it still takes several turns to kill even relatively weak enemies, whereas a typical well-built level 1 barbarian or fighter will be killing almost everything they face in one hit. And because of feat investment, this isn't achievable until a while later. And it pales in comparison to many of the options for casters.

[Claxon]

Chess Pwn wrote:

take the adopted trait to get tusked.

Unchained monk takes weapon focus lv1 and FCT lv3 and blood drinker lv5. flurry of bites that drain. You'd have 3 attacks at full BAB if you spend the ki point.

I'm actually unsure if this works or not because of the confusion between racial traits and race traits.

Quote:

Adopted: You were adopted and raised by someone not of your actual race, and raised in a society not your own. As a result, you picked up a race trait from your adoptive parents and society, and may immediately select a race trait from your adoptive parents' race.

Quote:

Race Traits: Race traits are keyed to specific races or ethnicities, which your character must belong to in order to select the trait. If your race or ethnicity changes at some later point (perhaps as a result of polymorph magic or a reincarnation spell), the benefits gained by your race trait persist—only if your mind and memories change as well do you lose the benefits of a race trait.

Quote:

Toothy: Some half-orcs' vestigial tusks are massive and sharp, granting a bite attack. This is a primary natural attack that deals 1d4 points of piercing damage. This racial trait replaces the orc ferocity racial trait.

I'm pretty sure you can't pick up the racial trait from Orcs, but you could pick up an orc race trait, like Almost Human (although that's actually for Half-Orcs).

Edit: Whoops, just noticed there is a race trait called Tusked that grants a bite. That's silly. But legal. They should not have made that a race trait.

[Jeff Merola]

Claxon wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

take the adopted trait to get tusked.

Unchained monk takes weapon focus lv1 and FCT lv3 and blood drinker lv5. flurry of bites that drain. You'd have 3 attacks at full BAB if you spend the ki point.

I'm actually unsure if this works or not because of the confusion between racial traits and race traits.

Quote:

Adopted: You were adopted and raised by someone not of your actual race, and raised in a society not your own. As a result, you picked up a race trait from your adoptive parents and society, and may immediately select a race trait from your adoptive parents' race.

Quote:

Race Traits: Race traits are keyed to specific races or ethnicities, which your character must belong to in order to select the trait. If your race or ethnicity changes at some later point (perhaps as a result of polymorph magic or a reincarnation spell), the benefits gained by your race trait persist—only if your mind and memories change as well do you lose the benefits of a race trait.

Quote:

Toothy: Some half-orcs' vestigial tusks are massive and sharp, granting a bite attack. This is a primary natural attack that deals 1d4 points of piercing damage. This racial trait replaces the orc ferocity racial trait.

I'm pretty sure you can't pick up the racial trait from Orcs, but you could pick up an orc race trait, like Almost Human (although that's actually for Half-Orcs).

Wrong one. Tusked, not Toothy.

[Chess Pwn]

not toothy, tusked half-orcs have a race trait, a racial trait, and a feet that can give them a bite attack.

[Berti Blackfoot]

Yes at first I thought "holy cow" but afterwards think, well, at most at level 1 it's -2 CON per round which is 2d4 damage plus 2xstrength mod plus 1 per enemy HD, that is if the PC hits with each attack. At level 1 you'd be fighting 2 or 3 HD monsters so it's an extra 2-3 damage maybe per round.

Unless the Caster is throwing out fort save spells it won't be a huge difference.

[TheIronwolf]

But the first paragraph of Blood Drinker restricts you to doing this to only one type of humanoid.

[Avoron]

You can drink anyone's blood, but you only gain temporary HP and a bonus on Con-based rolls from drinking the blood of one type of humanoid.

[Jiggy]

Someone should crunch some numbers to see whether this two-feats-a-race-a-class-and-a-trait build actually kills things any quicker than the standard two-hand Power Attack build (and since it costs more investment, it should kill things quicker).

I'm skeptical as to whether or not it actually does. If it doesn't (or if it does, but only by a slight margin) then we've got some reactionary "OMG OP!!!" criers in our midst.

[Deadmoon]

I don't think people are necessarily saying it's overpowered, but that it's unintended. Remember, though, that what's fair for PCs is fair for NPCs. This combo could be a lot nastier in the hands of a GM controlling multiple creatures than a player.

[Claxon]

At level 10 it's an extra 10 hp of damage per attack, effectively.

But the big issue isn't so much whether or not this out damages 2h weapon damage, but rather the fact that it's not nearly as easy to heal con damage as it is to heal actual hp damage. Beyond which, a character at 0 con is dead, while a character must be at negative con to die from hp damage. So there is a bit of a window difference between the two.

Though it may not seem like a big deal that it's con damage instead of actual hp damage because the enemy does not usually stick around long enough to significant, I disagree. Whatever is good for the goose, is good the gander. Anything players use against NPCs is a fair tactic to be used against them, but using such a tactic against PCs would be devastating without easy access to restoration.

[Berti Blackfoot]

That is true, I didn't think of that: it would allow more CON damage than a vampire once they gain just a few more monk levels. A dhampir shouldn't be able to do more than a full blooded vampire.

[Chess Pwn]

So it makes for an interesting boss, it's not like you'll suddenly have hundreds of orc raised dhampirs running around.