| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Hello everyone, it looks like my Pathfinder group is now getting back together again, and we're playing an evil campaign. Currently I will be playing a half-orc cleric of Zon-Kuthon, one who has the Loss and Murder subdomains.
He will be basing a lot of abilities around bleed effects and will be mostly front line, if he can. His first level feat will be Cruelty, which gives him +2 to hit & damage if he inflicts a bleed effect, among other things.
My question today is, is the 1st-level ability from the Death Domain a bleed effect? The name of it is Bleeding Touch, and the description of it is that "you can cause the living to bleed at a touch", and it even acts like a bleed effect. However, it still doesn't clarify if it's a bleed effect or not. Is there an official ruling on this? I've looked everywhere, but I haven't found any errata on it. I would really appreciate it if someone can point me toward an official ruling on this, and if that doesn't exist, please mark this as an FAQ candidate. I'm alright with the answer, no matter what it'll be, but I just need some clarification on this. Thank you, everyone.
If it quacks like a duck... it's a bleed effect.
Official ruling? Nothing I can think of. Ask your GM.
Already did, and we haven't come to a decision on it. That's why I've posted the question here, in hopes that someone can provide a clear answer.
bump
I'm with CBD. If it acts in all ways like a bleed effect, its a bleed effect.
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Keep in mind that rules text often gets copied from v3.5 (or earlier) when something hasn't changed. I haven't checked, but it seems likely that the text of this domain power was copied from earlier versions... and thus may well pre-date formalization of 'bleed' as a standardized effect. Heck, it could be one of the original sources of the concept.
In any case, the point is that the text does not always say, 'this is formalized special option XYZ'. Not because it isn't, but because the game evolved over time. Lots of things which are now standardized started out as unique or fairly rare options and thus had the full text spelled out, rather than just a quick reference to the standard rules.
In some cases this results in slight differences between the early unique case and how it was eventually standardized... and thus the GM has to make a call on how it interacts with other things. However, in this case the specific ability and the formal standard eventually adopted seem identical. So... why wouldn't it be treated as any other bleed effect?
That's quite true, and that's the argument I would make. But my GM is notoriously difficult to convince of RAI, he would rather have something resembling RAW instead. Hence the Search For Truth(TM).
bump of desperation
James Jacobs saying bleed is a new concept for Pathfinder
That's all I've got.
Thank you for looking, I appreciate the effort. Got a game in the next day or two and I'll bring it up with the GM.