Benefit: You gain a +2 insight bonus on Knowledge checks made to identify creatures, including the one Kirin Style allows. While using Kirin Style against a creature you have identified using that feat, as a swift action after you have hit a creature with a melee or ranged attack, you can add twice your Intelligence modifier in damage (minimum 2).
What I do know
Now I know this feat is a bit clunky in how it works and many things have been debated and sort of agreed upon here on the forums, but my search-fu is apparantly weak as I cannot find any answers for how this interacts with damage reduction.
Here's the scenario - a small sized Wizard/EK with an intelligence modifier of +6 is using vital strike with an +2 undead bane heavy repeating crossbow modified by gravity bow firing holy crossbow bolts against an undead creature with DR 10/Bludgeoning.
Based on what I have read, I am led to believe that Kirin Strike's bonus damage is always of the same type as the base damage, so in this case, piercing.
His vital strike damage with said weapon is 4d6, the undead bane adds another 2d6 and the holy adds 2d6 again putting the damage at 8d6 total. The first 4d6 + 2 (magic bow) piercing is reduced by 10 for obvious reasons, as it does not overcome the bludgeoning damage reduction. So let's call this 6 damage (average minus 10.) The 4d6 of the holy and undead bane goes off for another average of 14 damage. So far, we're at 20 average damage. No problems yet.
[/b]The Question[/b]
The Kirin Style feat says that you add damage as a swift action. As previously discussed, the type should be piercing, so if it is added separately (as it's a separate action to deal the damage), then it's reduced by 10 to only 2 points of added damage. However, it does say that you add the damage, so that also could imply that the 12 points of damage are added onto the 4d6+2-10 that we already applied the damage reduction to, meaning it deals it's full damage.
Unfortunately, the Damage Reduction description does not offer any assistance...
At the time, I let the game run along and did not rule that it would be reduced seperately. I'm not saying I made the wrong choice necessarily, but I figured I would seek advice for the future as this is likely to come up again by the end of the campaign. So which is it? Is Kirin Strike added to the attack as it implies therefore not being reduced by damage reduction seperately, or is it instead reduced seperately because it is activated using a second action?
(Note: I feel like Kirin strike should be worded as precision damage - "you take a swift action to study the creatures movements and aim your shot careful to hit an exposed weakness." If it were like this, that would solve a lot of problems, I think.)
Here's some food for thought. Kirin Strike is based on "studying an opponent" and rewards that effort with extra damage. Thus I would think that the damage is "cashed in" upon a successful attack therefore adding to the overall and in your above example not being reduced. Lets be honest is your wizard gonna "study" his opponent to death after the shot lands? I highly doubt it. It would seem that the only reason they want the damage applied after is to increase the value of the ability by allowing it after you know you have successfully dealt damage. Thus you aren't wasting the ability before you know the outcome (an intelligent option for an INT based ability lol).
Ugh, sorry that original post reads poorly. I was editing it up quite a bit, but got drawn away from my computer and by the time I got back, the 1 hour timer had expired. I'm going to re-summarize this, since the first post is hard to read (IMO). Mods, if you see this and can do so, feel free to copy paste everything from the end of this sentence down into the original post, and then deleted this post.
Benefit: You gain a +2 insight bonus on Knowledge checks made to identify creatures, including the one Kirin Style allows. While using Kirin Style against a creature you have identified using that feat, as a swift action after you have hit a creature with a melee or ranged attack, you can add twice your Intelligence modifier in damage (minimum 2).
What I do know
Now I know this feat is a bit clunky in how it works and many things have been debated and sort of agreed upon here on the forums, but my search-fu is apparently weak as I cannot find any answers for how this interacts with damage reduction.Here's the scenario - a small sized Wizard/EK with an intelligence modifier of +6 is using vital strike with an +2 undead bane heavy repeating crossbow modified by gravity bow firing holy crossbow bolts against an undead creature with DR 10/Bludgeoning.
Based on what I have read, I am led to believe that Kirin Strike's bonus damage is always of the same type as the base damage, so in this case, piercing.
His vital strike damage with said weapon is 4d6, the undead bane adds another 2d6 and the holy adds 2d6 again putting the damage at 8d6 total. The first 4d6 + 2 (magic bow) piercing is reduced by 10 for obvious reasons, as it does not overcome the bludgeoning damage reduction. So let's call this 6 damage (average minus 10.) The 4d6 of the holy and undead bane goes off for another average of 14 damage. So far, we're at 20 average damage. No problems yet.
The Problem
The Kirin Style feat says that you add damage as a swift action. As previously discussed, the type should be piercing, so if it is added separately (as it's a separate action to deal the damage), then it's reduced by 10 to only 2 points of added damage. However, it does say that you add the damage, so that also could imply that the 12 points of damage are added onto the 4d6+2-10 that we already applied the damage reduction to, meaning it deals it's full damage.
Unfortunately, the Damage Reduction description does not offer any assistance...
At the time, I let the game continue on with the assumption that the damage was added and therefore not reduced separately. [i]
(Note: I feel like Kirin strike should be worded as precision damage - "you take a swift action to study the creatures movements and aim your shot careful to hit an exposed weakness." If it were like this, that would solve a lot of problems, I think.)[i] I'm not saying I made the wrong choice necessarily, but I figured I would seek advice for the future as this is likely to come up again by the end of the campaign. So which is it?
The Question
Is Kirin Strike's damage added to the attack as it implies therefore not being reduced by damage reduction separately? Or is it instead reduced separately because it is activated using a second (swift) action?
Edit: for Readability
The ability is adding damage to an attack, the swift action isn't another attack, it is a action cost to limit how often the ability can be used per round.
It wouldn't be reduced by DR beyond what the triggering attack was.