I'm thinking about combining my Aldori Duelist with the Gladiator archetype and going into performance combat using the Performance Combatant Feat. I think I have my head wrapped around the idea of the performance checks, but what about the Victory Points? I can't find ANY thread about VPs, so here's my understanding so far:
You normally get VPs from making a successful DC 20 performance combatant check when the crowd is helpful. You can use spend a VP at any time without an action during a performance combat to auto-succeed at a performance combat check while the crowd is not helpful, or you can spend a VP to get the opportunity to make a performance combat check without a trigger, or you can spend a VP to make an opponent reroll their performance combat check.
The Gladiator archetype at 2nd level says this:
At 2nd level, when a gladiator begins a performance combat, he always starts with at least 1 victory point. If he already has victory points, he gains 1 extra victory point. At 10th level, the gladiator starts out with at least 2 victory points. If he already has victory points, he gains 2 extra victory points.
Outside of performance combat, is this ability useless in that VPs are never gained or used outside of performance combat? Or do you get a VP everytime you enter any combat with the Performance Combatant Feat since you basically treat every Combat as a Performance Combat? Being able to have 1 VP per combat to spend on auto suceeding a performance combat check to gain the effects of a feat or to make that performance comabt check without a trigger would be pretty cool. Without a crowd to be helpful you'd be unable to ever gain anymore VPs during that combat, but upon entering a new combat you would gain 1. However if unused, they could technically stack if you enter another combat and then gain 1 VP.
I believe the correct way of reading into this is that the Performance Combatant Feat simply only allows you to gain the benefits of a performance feat if you succeed on a performance combat check triggered from one of the listed triggers in Performance Combat and that regular combat does not count as Performance Combat so you do not gain nor can you use Victroy Points. Am correct in thinking this?
