Absorb Blow Mythic Guardian Call

[Covent]

Hello everyone,

So I have some questions about the Absorb Blow ability from the Guradian path in mythic adventures.

Absorb Blow:

Absorb Blow (Su): As an immediate action, whenever you take hit point damage from a single source (such as a dragon's breath, a spell, or a weapon), you can expend one use of mythic power to reduce the damage you take from that source by 5 per tier (to a minimum of 0 points of damage taken). If you have another ability or effect that reduces damage (such as protection from energy), reduce the damage with the absorb blow ability before applying any other damage-reducing effects. For every 10 points of damage that this ability prevents, for 1 minute you gain DR 1/epic and 5 points of resistance against acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic damage. The DR and resistances stack with any other DR and resistances that you have.

1.) When I designate a source I assume it is meaning on one attack from that source, so if say an NPC strikes a mythic character with this ability for 20 damage and he is at tier 4 then all 20 damage would be prevented if the player choose to expend a mythic power. However if the same enemy struck again with the same weapon for again 20 damage, the only benefit the mythic character would receive would be the DR2/epic and Resistance 10 granted by the second part of absorb blow and thus would take 18 damage if the damage can be reduced by DR or 10 damage if it can be reduced by the resistances or even the full 20 if none of these apply, say in the case of force damage, correct?

2.) Multiple hit spells such as say magic missile or scorching ray, does absorb blow apply against the total damage from the spell or just against the damage from one hit?

3.) DR stacking, well it is obvious it stacks with itself but what happens if say a character is wearing adamantine heavy armor and thus has DR3/- and gains DR2/epic from absorb blow? Does he have DR5 against any non-epic weapon and DR3 against epic weapons? What if the original DR was say DR5/evil from a level 17 paladin's aura of righteousness ability? Does he have say DR7 against all non-evil, non-epic weapons, DR2 against evil non-epic weapons, and DR5 against non-evil epic weapons?

I find this confusing so some help is appreciated.

[goodwicki]

Stumbled across this while looking for something else and thought I'd give you my two cents. As I understand it:

1) Correct; the specific attack is considered the source. I suppose if a character had some method of gaining more than one immediate action in a given round, they could use the power again against additional attacks, but I know of no such method.

2) Total damage of the spell; much as a specific attack is considered the source, the specific spell is considered the source, not an individual missile/ray/what-have-you generated by the spell.

3) The DR gained stacks with any other DR the character might have, per the ability's statement 'The DR and resistances stack with any other DR and resistances that you have.' I believe all of your examples are correct. I don't know of any "epic trumps lesser DR requirements" rule such as for enhancement bonuses; in fact, in the Mythic Monsters section, it states in regards to adding DR/epic to monsters that "If the creature already has damage reduction, it adds epic to the qualities needed to bypass that reduction." This would imply that the epic quality doesn't trump any other quality requirements.

Hope this helps!