Bleed: "take the worse effect"

[Rozberry]

Yes, it's another question about bleed, but I haven't seen this one asked before.

There is a clause in the description of the bleed condition that states:

"When two or more bleed effects deal the same kind of damage, take the worse effect."

Let's say the PCs are fighting 2 monsters with a HP bleed effect on their natural attacks (1d6 bleed). If a PC is hit by one of those attacks by each of those enemies, how does it work (I know that they don't stack)?

Do you roll 1d6 twice at the start of the PC's turn and take the higher number? What if there is an enemy rogue with these monsters and hits the PC with a bleeding sneak attack, doing 3 bleed damage? Do I roll the d6s and take that roll, but only if it is >3?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

[Themetricsystem]

I am not sure on the RAW, but I can tell you how I ran it.

I rolled bleed exactly ONCE for every effect, it does that same amount of damage every turn/round. If another (Different) creature with the same exactly effect strikes, I roll for that instance and if it's higher, then I use the higher number. If they attack again and land the strike that causes bleed, I roll for it and either ignore the result or apply the new higher bleed damage every round.

AFIK there is no reason to continue rolling every turn, it only creates messiness and slows things down and once I max out on the bleed damage I don't bother rolling at all anymore.

[Rozberry]

There is an errata/clarification on the SRD that you do roll bleed every round instead of carrying over the roll.

[MrCharisma]

Yes you are supposed to roll bleed every round, but if rolling it once speeds things up I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Quote:

Do you roll 1d6 twice at the start of the PC's turn and take the higher number?

Yes.

Quote:

Do I roll the d6s and take that roll, but only if it is >3?

Yes. If it's not greater than 3 then you do 3 bleed damage instead.

[zazzenfuk]

Rozberry wrote:

Do you roll 1d6 twice at the start of the PC's turn and take the higher number? What if there is an enemy rogue with these monsters and hits the PC with a bleeding sneak attack, doing 3 bleed damage? Do I roll the d6s and take that roll, but only if it is >3?

Bleed is a fun subject. If bleed damage is expressed as a die roll, you roll it each round. If one monster does 1d6 bleed and the other monster does does 1d6 bleed, your only rolling 1d6 and determining the damage that way since they are both 1d6.

You could argue that since it specifies you take the worse result, then by all means roll 2d6 and choose the higher. The problem with that is that Bleed by itself doesn't stack, so a creature getting hit by 2 different creatures that deal 1d6 bleed damage each, the subject would have the bleed condition for 1d6 and couldn't sufferer from a second bleed condition also dealing 1d6.
I would argue that if you were to have the sneak attack scenario where one monster does 1d6 and the other does a flat 3; I would roll the 1d6 and treat it as a 3 if I rolled less then that on the 1d6. but again this would contradict the rules of bleed to begin with. If you suffer from bleed you need to have something that inflicts more bleed then what you currently have. you can suffer attacks that inflict 1d6 bleed all day but still only roll 1d6 per round; if something walked up and smacked you for 2d6 bleed, now your dealing with 2d6 per round and so forth.

Lastly the way bleed is worded I've adopted a less then popular interpretation. In my games Bleed damage stacks from different sources of damage types in regards to weapons. So a fighter with weapon versatility and ability to cause bleed can stack 3d6 bleed onto someone by switching their weapon around to do bleed with piercing,slashing and bludgeoning damage respectively with each attack.

Bleed is not powerful, at all. At low levels, sure but when you have 50+hp, losing 1d6 automatically 1x per round... is nothing.

[Cavall]

Bleed isn't powerful... unless it can't heal.

You can do bleed of 1 to a mammoth and fly away.

[zazzenfuk]

Cavall wrote:

Bleed isn't powerful... unless it can't heal.

You can do bleed of 1 to a mammoth and fly away.

wow...just wow. With that statement, the character can fly meaning one of two things, they're a strix or are high enough level to have a magic item allowing them to fly and thus would probably be according to the PC wealth table, level 5 or higher. Having this at your disposal you choose to go out to, find a mammoth, stab it once to inflict bleed and "fly away". What a wonderful hypothetical.

Heal is an untrained skill, so perhaps the mammoth decides to rub its bleeding wound on things or lick it or try rubbing mud on it...something to convey that it took a 20 on its heal check to stop the bleeding.

Or maybe the Mammoth Rider Orc wakes up when his mount is attacked,slaps a cure light wounds potion in its mouth and then makes it his life long goal to hunt down the villain and stab them to death.

[Cavall]

I meant fly as more Gandalf "you can run now, fools" than use flight.

But... ok. Good rant. Flight isn't hard to get, and should be available by the time bleed options kick in. So even I'd meant flight... it's still an option. I mean... it's a cr 10 creature. You don't have flight by then? Dimension door?

But either way you've stopped a mammoth for 20 rounds (who still bled for 20 rounds) or used up resources of the orc (dont know why they just didn't deal with a sleeping orc right there but sure!). So that's still win win.

Great rant!

[zazzenfuk]

I mean, I can't even argue that point. Why didn't they deal with the Orc in the first place?

[Cavall]

Well, because he didn't exist until you made him up, to be fair.

[Michael Sayre]

Themetricsystem wrote:

I am not sure on the RAW, but I can tell you how I ran it.

I rolled bleed exactly ONCE for every effect, it does that same amount of damage every turn/round. If another (Different) creature with the same exactly effect strikes, I roll for that instance and if it's higher, then I use the higher number. If they attack again and land the strike that causes bleed, I roll for it and either ignore the result or apply the new higher bleed damage every round.

AFIK there is no reason to continue rolling every turn, it only creates messiness and slows things down and once I max out on the bleed damage I don't bother rolling at all anymore.

This is typically how I do it in my home games. When there are multiple bleed effects in effect, it can become really obnoxious to have to figure out whether the 3 bleed, 1d6 bleed, or 2d6 bleed is the "stronger effect", so I roll each one once and then lock it in at that value until the next time a value that could exceed that is applied. A lot easier than tracking three separate sources of bleed and trying to figure out which one has precedence that round, especially if the bleed effects are being applied to more than one creature.

[Talonhawke]

I like this ^

[Scott Romanowski]

Rozberry wrote:

There is an errata/clarification on the SRD that you do roll bleed every round instead of carrying over the roll.

Could you please post the URL?

[Azothath]

the original question was about comparing effects and 'stacking'.
1d6 is the effect, not the actual number rolled. So 1d6=1d6, equivalent effects.
Now 1 pt of bleed vs 1d6 of bleed, clearly the 1d6 is the worse effect (so sayeth the mathematical average).

yes, you should roll each round but it's the GMs option not to. {that's 1d6 in the original example, not highest of 2d6}
When you have 5 attacks 2@(2d6+12), 2@(1d6+12), then 1@(1d4+6), adding the average of 1d6 (either 3 or 4 points every other round) of bleed will satisfy Fortuna.
shoulda spent 3400gp on that cracked pearly white ioun stone
... and now I'm thinking about press on nails made of blood crystal...

[Azothath]

bleed condition
you'll have to scroll down a bit. A comment by J.Jacobs is listed. The citation link is broken. messageboard rules forum >link< posted by J.Jacobs, Aug 2010.
I'll also note that this topic is an infrequent recurring thread.

[Diego Rossi]

Rozberry wrote:

There is an errata/clarification on the SRD that you do roll bleed every round instead of carrying over the roll.

JJ post isn't a rule. It is only an opinion of the creative director.

SRD-Conditions

[Scott Romanowski]

Thanks Azothath. That post has "3 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ." but I couldn't find it in any FAQ. I think the Bleed entry in Bestiary 6 is worded to support the "roll every round" interpretation though.

Bestiary 6 wrote:

The amount of damage each round is specified in the creature’s entry.

Format: bleed (2d6); Location: Special Attacks and individual attacks.

So that creature's bleed would inflict 2d6 points of damage each round, not a fixed amount.