| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
So I am confused to the point of my head hurting. Under the verminous hunter's vermin focus, I'm confused on the woriding of the leech.
Leech:The creature gains a +2 competence bonus on grapple combat maneuver checks, and deals 1 point of bleed damage every time it succeds at a grapple to damage an opponent(this bleed stacks with itself). These benefits increase to a +4 bonus and 3 points of bleed at 8th level, and a +6 bonus and 5 points of bleed at 15th level.Bleed damage from this ability does not stack with itself.
So, which is it? Is it another typo in the new book, or does it only stack at one stage of progression, but not at other levels of progression?
At first I thought that this was a typo too. After reading it a few more times I think I get it. They are saying that the initial points stack, but the damage from the impending bleed damage doesn't stack on top of that. So for instance, first round a grapple check is done and thus 1 point of bleed damage is applied. At the beginning of the grappled creatures turn, that point of bleed damage does a point of damage to the creature, but the new amount of "bleed damage" as far as the condition is concerned stays at 1 point. The grappler's next turn he then succeeds in a grapple check, and applies another point of bleed damage. This type does stack. At the beginning of the creatures turn it then takes 2 points of damage from the bleed, but as far as the condition is concerned, the creature still has only 2 points of "bleed damage".
It's confusing, but since bleed almost never stacks they wanted people to realize that it's not an exponential growth in bleed damage. Hopefully that makes sense.
So, same principle with later damage? Say you're 8th level. First successful grapple that damages is 3, second damaging grapple takes it to 6, and keeps going on like that, so the next successful damage from a grapple would take it to 9? Or did I miss something?
It sounds like you've got it.
It's the damaging grapples that stack, not the bleed damage that results during the creatures turn.
What DOESN'T happen:
First successful grapple that damages is 3. Opponents turn, they take 3 damage, stacking with the 3 it already has, for 6 bleed total. Your next turn, another successful grapple attempt, bringing the total up to 9. The creatures turn starts, it takes 9 bleed damage, bringing the total up to 18 bleed. Your next turn, another successful grapple attempt brings the total up to 21. The creatures turn starts, it takes 21 bleed damage, bringing the total up to 42 bleed damage (yikes)...
See how crazy that got? The way I read it, that's what they are trying to say doesn't happen.
Ok. An exponential growth system should never really show up in damage dice. Thanks for the explanation.