Dead Shot + Hammer the Gap?

[Barry Armstrong]

So, I know that Dead Shot and Vital Strike do not stack since the Deed is a full-round action and the Feat is a standard, but what about Dead Shot and Hammer the Gap? Hammer the Gap specifies full attack action, and Dead Shot is treated as a full-attack action according to the wording, but the semantics are a bit fuzzy...

What say you, wise sages?

[Kazaan]

Nope. Dead Shot is a Full Round Action, not the Full Round Action named "Full-Attack". To do Hammer the Gap, you must perform Full-Attack. Dead Shot gives you the ability to perform Dead Shot which takes a full-round action. The two don't jive.

[Barry Armstrong]

I'm good with that. I hate unclear semantics. The wording of that deed includes several instances of "single attack", is treated "as a full-attack action", but is ruled as a full-round action. Confusing.

[Kazaan]

When it says "roll attack dice as you would for a full-attack action" it just means you roll all your standard iterative attacks. So if your BAB is +11, you're attacking at +11/+6/+1 iteratives. Doing Dead Shot means you roll 1d20+11, 1d20+6, and 1d20+1 (like you would if you were doing Full-Attack) and if any one of those succeeds, the whole attack succeeds and any extra that succeed add another damage dice to the base. It's still all counted as a single attack and the ability subsumes a full-round action to perform but it's as different from Full-Attack, in mechanical terms, as performing Charge (another full-round action). Moreover, the rolls for Dead Shot all still amount to a single damage roll, not multiple damage rolls so even if it did modify the Full-Attack action, you're still not getting benefit because there are no additional damage instances to add a bonus to.

In determining what kind of action it is, you generally have to look at the first line: "At 7th level, as a full-round action..." This phrase says it all right here. It is a full-round action called Dead Shot (Ex). It may compare how you do certain calculations to what you'd do in other actions, but that line says it flat out that it's a "Use Extraordinary Ability" full-round action.

[Barry Armstrong]

Right. I think I get it now. So, there would be no qualifying factor for a feat like Clustered Shots because this is considered a SINGLE ATTACKresolved as a FULL-ROUND ACTIONand simply has MULTIPLE ATTACK ROLLSas a mechanic for the extra base damage dice.

[Kazaan]

Barry Armstrong wrote:

Right. I think I get it now. So, there would be no qualifying factor for a feat like Clustered Shots because this is considered a SINGLE ATTACKresolved as a FULL-ROUND ACTIONand simply has MULTIPLE ATTACK ROLLSas a mechanic for the extra base damage dice.

Bingo.