Belier's Bite (conclusively?)

[Zurai]

So you really believe that it is both rules as written AND rules as intended that only the very first bleed damage per encounter matters? A creature can get a papercut for 1 bleed damage per round then be hit for a 10d100 bleed damage once-per-day attack and still only be taking 1 bleed damage per round?

The mind boggles.

[jakebacon]

Zurai wrote:

So you really believe that it is both rules as written AND rules as intended that only the very first bleed damage per encounter matters? A creature can get a papercut for 1 bleed damage per round then be hit for a 10d100 bleed damage once-per-day attack and still only be taking 1 bleed damage per round?

The mind boggles.

You know, the way bleed works it sure seems like that's how it goes, yes. Do I think that's the best way to handle it in every situation? No. All I was concerned with was figuring out Belier's Bite. I interpreted how the feat works with the bleed rules as written. I concluded the feat doesn't stack with itself, you don't roll a bajillion d4s, and 1d4 bleed occurs at the beginning of the creature's turn.

In my opinion Belier's bite is a singular source so it applies a single amount of bleed damage: 1d4. You just get a chance with every unarmed attack you make to apply that 1d4 at the start of the creature's turn. I feel that's correct and I feel it's fair. You have a different interpretation that you feel is correct and I have no problem with that.
What's the phrase? Your Mileage May Vary?

[Zurai]

jakebacon wrote:

You know, the way bleed works it sure seems like that's how it goes, yes.

I can't see how the rules possibly support that interpretation. Nowhere does it say that only the first application of bleed damage matters. It says that ability drain is worse than ability damage, yes, but it doesn't say that it's impossible to tell whether 1 hit point damage is worse than 10d100 hit point damage, which is what you claim. In fact, the rules specifically state: "When two or more bleed effects deal the same kind of damage, take the worse effect."

As for it being the same source, yes, it is. See my mage armor example from before. Same source does NOT equal same effect.

[Ceefood]

I think we all have our own ideas & this really needs Paizo to give an official statement now - I thought I had this rule down but after reading many posts I can now see how it can be taken in various ways

this really does not an official ruling

[Zurai]

For the record, mine and Petrus222's interpretations are extremely similar and differ on one and only one point: he says variable bleed damage is rolled once then is the same thereafter, and I say it's continuously variable (roll every round). Our interpretations of the actual bleed and stacking rules are identical. Frankly, the only difference between our interpretations in gameplay terms are that his is quicker and mine suffers less from the Dice Gods' disfavor (and benefits less from their favor).

[Ravingdork]

Arise chicken!

What if a horned devil hits my character three times with his tail in combat? Would I then have to contend with the highest two rolls out of 6d6 thanks to infernal wound?

Example: In round 3 (been hit with infernal wound once each round) my turn starts just after the horned devil's and I check for bleed damage. Do I roll 2d6? Or do I roll 6d6 adding the two highest?

[Talonhawke]

Ravingdork wrote:

Arise chicken!

What if a horned devil hits my character three times with his tail in combat? Would I then have to contend with the highest two rolls out of 6d6 thanks to infernal wound?

Example: In round 3 (been hit with infernal wound once each round) my turn starts just after the horned devil's and I check for bleed damage. Do I roll 2d6? Or do I roll 6d6 adding the two highest?

There are 2 camps

Camp one says you roll 2d6 3 times and take the highest paired roll.

Camp Two says you take 2d6.

Actually we have a camp 3 who say you roll 2d6 each time your hit and keep the highest of those rolls.

As to the original question if you really believe you just keep adding to the roll just think about long high level combat.

Alright its the BBEG's turn he steps up to attac...

Wait i gotta roll my 30d4 and see which is highest on his bleed damage.

Pathfinder is about simplication not multiplcation of dice.

[Myrin Greasebeard]

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

If a monster's writeup doesn't say it's immune to bleed, check it's creature type. For a golem, constructs are immune to bleed effects:

construct entry in the PRD

What about a ruling on this? Bleed effects do not stack with each other unless otherwise stated as in the bleed critical feat and you roll each round. There is a misconception you roll once and that is it. Belier's Bite is a pain in the butt because it says when you make an unarmed strike. A monk can make several unarmed strikes. Does it deal a 1d4 per strike, or a 1d4 per strike upto a maximum 4 points on bleed on any given round or is it 1d4 per strike like the higher level feat?

I think you would get a d4 per strike doing a maximum of 4 bleed if a 4 is rolled. The bleed is rolled every turn similar to bleed critical. If you hit 10 times, you get 10 chances to roll a 4.

[Joesi]

Oh wow I found this thread yesterday via a search but didn't realize it was a recent thread, so I didn't reply to it.

The big problem here in my opinion is that the bleeding rules don't jive well with Belier's bite.
Logically, it makes good sense that if someone's applying bleed multiple times, the bleed shouldn't be able to easily deal less damage than it has previously, meaning that 2 of the proposed rules (roll once per bleed, always take the highest;roll bleed per round per application, take the highest) make a lot of sense logically.

The problem with those are twofold:
1. Paizo has stated that bleed damage is rerolled per round
2. The feat seems too strong if it had any sort of buff over it's current +2.5 dmg per round (such as "chose the highest", where it'd be 3-4 average damage per round)

So while I think it makes a lot of sense to do it the proposed methods, I don't think it's balanced for the feat. If you gave it a feat tax or higher level requirement then maybe it'd make more sense to do something else.

Oh, I did forget to discuss the 3rd proposed method which actually seems pretty good. Per round, you'd take the highest bleed damage among attacks that deal bleed damage; so if you have 2 attacks per round [which apply bleed], you'd choose the highest of 2 rolls, but still only 2 rolls on the 2nd turn with the 3rd and 4th attacks instead of 4. If you didn't attack in turn 2 then it'd just be re-rolling 1d4 due to the previously applied bleed. The biggest issue with this rule that I see is that it doesn't address the issue of larger variable bleeding being applied, such as 1d6 bleed, where a d4 might roll 3, and a d6 might roll 2; the 3 damage would apply for that round, but would the next round roll a d6 anyway even if it wasn't that dice's value chosen previously? I guess you could rule that the d6 bleed would remain, but then that's just adding another rule that makes things a bit complicated (granted, I don't think it's too complicated for people to deal with really; it's pretty straightforward)