QUESTION
Does damage reduction stop bleed? Under DR, it says:
“whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury-based disease.”
So, when our Alchemist (with two daggers of wounding) was dealing 2-3 overall points of damage with his daggers after DR from a Bearded Devil, would it still cause the full bleed damage, since it doesn’t seem to negate it? At first I said no, then after reading it, I let it happen, but it felt strange to me. Could I get a clarification?
QUESTION
How does splash damage work with creatures larger than medium size? Are they treated as a single, big square in which the splash emanates from? Or does the alchemist "choose" some sort of square to hit that they occupy and have the splash emanate from there? Something else? Clarification would be helpful!
QUESTION
This next one might seem silly... Do Fireballs catch people on fire?
Thanks guys!
Q1: Yes it wasn't completely negated so the effect still happens. Think about it, if you prick the guy with a dagger that has poison on it would you reduce the poison damage because he only got by the DR by a single point?
Q2: It says those adjacent to the creature and specifies you can't specifically target an intersection that the monster occupies, so all those adjacent to the target monster would take splash. As a DM you may want to house rule this.
Q3: Does it specify that those hit catch fire? Then no. Please note that burning hands does specify that it can start fires. On a save throw of a natural 1 however some equipment might be damaged.
Q1: Yes it wasn't completely negated so the effect still happens. Think about it, if you prick the guy with a dagger that has poison on it would you reduce the poison damage because he only got by the DR by a single point?
Q2: It says those adjacent to the creature and specifies you can't specifically target an intersection that the monster occupies, so all those adjacent to the target monster would take splash. As a DM you may want to house rule this.
Q3: Does it specify that those hit catch fire? Then no. Please note that burning hands does specify that it can start fires. On a save throw of a natural 1 however some equipment might be damaged.
Thanks for the info. Fireball says it catches fire to combustibles, and most of the stuff the players are wearing are usually combustible, so I was wondering how people handled that. I'm not sure what I'll do about splash damage... that seems odd to me. I might houserule that into something else like you said.
Generally put equipment doesn't get damage unless a natural 1 is rolled on the save throw (or the equipment is specifically targeted). This is covered in the magic section of the rules.
"Items Surviving after a Saving Throw: Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks: Items Affected by Magical Attacks. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt.
If the selected item is not carried or worn and is not magical, it does not get a saving throw. It simply is dealt the appropriate damage."
Generally put equipment doesn't get damage unless a natural 1 is rolled on the save throw (or the equipment is specifically targeted). This is covered in the magic section of the rules.
"Items Surviving after a Saving Throw: Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks: Items Affected by Magical Attacks. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt.
If the selected item is not carried or worn and is not magical, it does not get a saving throw. It simply is dealt the appropriate damage."
Ah, thanks again! I didn't know that existed as a rule. I'll definitely take that into account now.
When it says combustibles it's referring to the real light stuff like paper, hair, tinder, a shoguns house, maybe even a rope bridge.
I usual explain fire damage (especially for spells) as mostly heat. The actual flames are of a fairly short duration. However, intense heat can ignite or damage items under the right circumstances.
Alchemist's fire is an exception to the rule, since it sticks.
Thanks for the info. Fireball says it catches fire to combustibles, and most of the stuff the players are wearing are usually combustible, so I was wondering how people handled that. I'm not sure what I'll do about splash damage... that seems odd to me. I might houserule that into something else like you said.
One option is to pick a single square. The splash damage applies to the adjacent squares. Those occupied by the monster's base are empty (unless the creature is being grappled or you are dealing with diminuative or smaller creatures). So for a large creature, you can target a corner square and still splash four adjacent squares.
Thanks for the info. Fireball says it catches fire to combustibles, and most of the stuff the players are wearing are usually combustible, so I was wondering how people handled that. I'm not sure what I'll do about splash damage... that seems odd to me. I might houserule that into something else like you said.One option is to pick a single square. The splash damage applies to the adjacent squares. Those occupied by the monster's base are empty (unless the creature is being grappled or you are dealing with diminuative or smaller creatures). So for a large creature, you can target a corner square and still splash four adjacent squares.
Actually, during play last night, I houseruled that exact thing. When he hit with a bomb, he would simply choose a square that the creature occupied and have the splash emanate from there. Seemed to work fine.
A hit deals direct hit damage to the target, and splash damage to all creatures within 5 feet of the target.
That seems to read pretty clearly that the "target" is the creature you are damaging, and thus all creatures within 5 feet of that creature are hit.
Splash on a medium
[x][x][x]
[x][C][x]
[x][x][x]
Splash on a large
[x][x][x][x]
[x][C][C][x]
[x][C][C][x]
[x][x][x][x]
They even specifically say that if you target a specific spot on a grid occupied by a large creature it's as though you just targeted the creature instead.
You can instead target a specific grid intersection. Treat this as a ranged attack against AC 5. However, if you target a grid intersection, creatures in all adjacent squares are dealt the splash damage, and the direct hit damage is not dealt to any creature. You can't target a grid intersection occupied by a creature, such as a Large or larger creature; in this case, you're aiming at the creature.