Splitting Bolt with Dead Shot and Vital Strike


Rules Questions

Grand Lodge

Assume Bolt Ace Gunslinger

How would Vital Strike interact with Splitting Bolt

Splitting Bolt:

When this +1 bolt hits a foe, it
deals damage as normal and
then splits in two, creating two
smaller bolts. Each of these smaller bolts flies toward another
target within 30 feet of the initial enemy struck. A single splitting
bolt can thus strike up to three targets. The smaller bolts use the
same attack roll result as the original splitting bolt and the same
damage dice, though the damage for each bolt is rolled separately.
Neither the attack roll nor the damage of the smaller bolts can
be affected by any special abilities of the wielder or crossbow.

Dead Shot:

Dead Shot (Ex): At 7th level, as a full-round action, the gunslinger can take careful aim and pool all of her attack potential into a single, deadly shot. When she does this, she shoots the firearm at a single target, but makes as many attack rolls as she can, based on her base attack bonus. She makes the attack rolls in order from highest bonus to lowest, as if she were making a full attack. If any of the attack rolls hit the target, the gunslinger’s single attack is considered to have hit. For each additional successful attack roll beyond the first, the gunslinger increases the damage of the shot by the base damage dice of the firearm. For instance, if a 7th-level gunslinger firing a musket hits with both attacks, she does 2d12 points of damage with the shot, instead of 1d12 points of damage, before adding any damage modifiers. Precision damage and extra damage from weapon special abilities (such as flaming) are added with damage modifiers and are not increased by this deed. If one or more rolls are critical threats, she confirms the critical once using her highest base attack bonus –5. For each critical threat beyond the first, she reduces this penalty by 1 (to a maximum of 0). The gunslinger only misfires on a dead shot if all the attack rolls are misfires. She cannot perform this deed with a blunderbuss or other scatter weapon when attacking creatures in a cone. The gunslinger must spend 1 grit point to perform this deed.

Vital Strike:

Benefit: When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon’s damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision-based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.


It would appear that Dead Shot and Vital Strike are incompatible because one requires a full round action and the other requires a standard action.

Also the secondary bolts from the Splitting Bolt are not affected by special abilities so they would not be affected by either Dead Shot or Vital Strike.

Splitting Bolt plus Vital Strike: The secondary bolts would use the attack roll but would not get the extra damage dice.

Splitting Bolt plus Dead shot: Looks like a can of worms.


Corwin Illum wrote:

Assume Bolt Ace Gunslinger

How would Vital Strike interact with Splitting Bolt

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

I'm reasonably sure that, in both cases, you would resolve the feat/ability as normal (Dead Shot or Vital Strike), and then resolve the two extra attacks from Splitting Bolt (against your other target(s)) as if they were basic, unmodified attacks at your highest successful roll (for Dead Shot) or your original attack roll. No extra dmg dice, no extra rolls, etc.

The relevant line from Splitting Bolt:

Splitting Bolt wrote:
Neither the attack roll nor the damage of the smaller bolts can be affected by any special abilities of the wielder or crossbow.

Alternatively, for Dead Shot, it could be ruled that the secondary attacks from Splitting Bolt use the first successful attack roll, regardless of whether or not subsequent rolls are higher.

I don't think the question was about if Dead Shot/Vital Strike can be combined... if so, the answer is no.

Grand Lodge

Makes sense.

I was never thinking Dead Shot and Vital Strike themselves stacked.

For what it is worth, I am trying to find ways to get a crossbow and have advantages over a normal bow. This bolt looks interesting, and an option bow users don't have.

I am thinking some options DO work? Spells such as Gravity Bow and Flame Arrow. As these part the enchantment on the ammunition itself, not from the bow or the wielder.

Gravity Bow:

Gravity bow significantly increases the weight and density of arrows or bolts fired from your bow or crossbow the instant before they strike their target and then return them to normal a few moments later. Any arrow fired from a bow or crossbow you are carrying when the spell is cast deals damage as if one size larger than it actually is. For instance, an arrow fired from a Medium longbow normally deals 1d8 points of damage, but it would instead deal 2d6 points of damage if fired from a gravity bow (see table on this page for associated increase/decrease in damage due to size change). Only you can benefit from this spell. If anyone else uses your bow to make an attack the arrows deal damage as normal for their size.

Flame Arrow:

This spell allows you to turn ammunition (such as arrows, crossbow bolts, shuriken, and sling stones) into fiery projectiles. Each piece of ammunition deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage to any target it hits. A flaming projectile can easily ignite a flammable object or structure, but it won't ignite a creature it strikes.


So just to make sure I'm understanding:

"The smaller bolts use the same attack roll result as the original splitting bolt and the same damage dice, though the damage for each bolt is rolled separately."

"Neither the attack roll nor the damage of the smaller bolts can be affected by any special abilities of the wielder or crossbow."

am I having to recalculate my Attack roll to not have any feats etc. for the small bolt and just the same Die roll, or do they use the same "attack roll result" including bonuses?

similar question on the damage roll.

it seems to me that you have one sentence stating to use the same rolls, and another sentence stating to use different rolls.


I'd agree there seems to be some discrepancy, but I don't think they actually conflict.

It says to use the "attack roll result", that seems pretty definitive to me that you don't need to recalculate anything about the roll.

The other rule is likely talking about special qualities such as Seeking.

Though, I suspect certain things, like True Strike, should only work on the initial attack.

This probably could use some clarification.


huh i wonder if you applied poison to that bolt if it would also split or only apply to the first hit


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

ok, so I've been playing around with a gunslinger bolt ace, wielding 2 hand crossbows. Ignoring the argument about whether he can reload or not, here are the weapon stats at 20th level:

Hand crossbow (light)
+19/+19/+14/+9/+4
17-20/x3
TYPE RANGE AMMUNITION DAMAGE
P 30' 1d4+20

Hand crossbow (light, offhand)
+19/+19/+14/+9
17-20/x3
TYPE RANGE AMMUNITION DAMAGE
P 30' 1d4+20

So let's just look at the first attack, Normally I roll 1d20+19 to hit and 1d4+20 for damage.

If I instead use Splitting bolt:

is it 1d20+19 and use the total for all 3 bolts. or is it 1d20+19 for the first bolt and use the same 1d20 roll (without the +19) for the 2 smaller bolts since they state "Neither the attack roll nor the damage of the smaller bolts can be affected by any special abilities of the wielder or crossbow" and that bonus +19 is due to "special abilities of the wielder".

and let's pretend all three hit, is damage 1d4+20, 1d4+20, 1d4+20 or is it 1d4+20, 1d4, 1d4? again for the same reason.

or is it talking about other special abilities like an arcane archers ability to add "flaming" to an arrow, or a rogue being able to backstab with an arrow?


Honestly, at this point, the answer is "ask your GM"...

but as I said above, it clearly indicates that you use the same result; the result includes modifiers.

Now what gets tricky is whether or not enhancement bonuses on the crossbow count as a "special ability"... I would argue that you still get them, but they are clearly magical, so I can see it adjudicated the other way as well.

However, barring things like Truestrike or Bane (which do appear to count as a special ability), the secondary bolts should still key off of both the attacker's BAB and his Dex since those aren't special. And even if you rule that the weapon enhancement doesn't count, any enhancement on the fired bolt should.

tl:dr
My take is that you'd use the +19 in your scenario, and that "special abilities" only refers to weapon properties of the crossbow, class features, or other special attacks/qualities that you might possess.


Thanks. So I'm not wrong when I say that Paizo really needs to clarify this one....

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