Bloodclaw + Reckless = Megahertz:)

[Larry Hunsaker]

I am looking for anyone who knows if this has already been discussed or clarified, but my question is - do Bloodclaw and Reckless stack?

Not on the same weapon of course, but suppose I am a ranger who wields two weapons, one with Bloodclaw and the other with Reckless. Here are their power write-ups from D&DI:

Bloodclaw
Power (At-Will): Free Action. Use this power before making a melee attack on your turn. You take damage up to a maximum of the weapon’s enhancement bonus (a +3 weapon deals up to 3 damage to its wielder). This damage cannot be reduced or prevented in any way. If you hit, increase the damage your target takes by double the amount of damage you took, triple if you are wielding the weapon in two hands.

Reckless
Power (At-Will): Free Action. Use this power before making a melee attack against an adjacent target. You gain a power bonus to that attack’s damage roll equal to twice this weapon’s enhancement bonus. You take a –2 penalty to AC until the end of your next turn.

So am I reading this correctly:
Say I wield a Bloodclaw Fullblade +6 and a Reckless Fullblade +6 (as a Bugbear).
1) If I just used the Bloodclaw power, say, would I get a +12 damage to both weapon attack hits if I used a power like Twin Strike or some other power granting a primary and off-hand attack? Even though the other weapon is not Bloodclaw, would I get this +12 each time I hit?
2) Same situation but I just use the Reckless weapon, do I get a +12 to both hits?
3) Now I use both, they grant different bonuses (one a power bonus and the other an un-named bonus) so do I deal +24 damage for each hit?

Thanks in advance.

 

[deleteme123456]

I would argue from AV 56 (which discusses that the property of an off-hand weapon cannot augment an attack made by a main-hand weapon) that you can't use them both.

I realize it says properties not powers, but I think it's certainly the spirit. RAW it might work, and that might be good enough if you're allowed to use Bugbears / oversized weapons in your campaign.

 

[ghearus]

On page 26 of the PHB the rules for an attack are pretty clear; an attack is a single d20 roll + appropriate modifiers.

I would rule that when you activate either of the abilities, they affect only a single attack roll as they are both activated before making a specific attack roll.

Contrast this with the text for Action Surge that says You gain a +3 bonus to attack rolls you make during any action you gained by spending an action point.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

At the WotC CharOp Boards the following ruling applies:

Reckless and Bloodclaw stack. They apply both to the same attack if both powers are used.
You can use both powers any number of times during your turn. The penalty of reckless does not stack with it self.

And to make your headache worse: Add in Spiked Gauntlets.

And by RAW that is right.

 

[Prism]

I3) Now I use both, they grant different bonuses (one a power bonus and the other an un-named bonus) so do I deal +24 damage for each hit?

Yes thats right. For the cost of 12 hit points damage to yourself and -2 AC you do an extra 48 points of damage. Two things I think need some sorting out here in the form of errata - the AC penalty should stack or the reckless power should be limited to once per round, and both powers should only work on a hit with that weapon

 

[Oni]

Technically it works, it's digustingly broken IMO and should done away with though.

 

[Larry Hunsaker]

Thanks for the comments. I know it is broken, but I just want to understand how it works in its brokenness Is what Prism said correct, that to gain the +12 from bloodclaw for each hit I need to suffer the 6 points of damage twice? I read the power as requiring that I suffer this 6 points once, and then gain a +12 damage bonus to all hits I make thereafter in melee. So does anyone know how this has been ruled?

I understand that the -2 AC from reckless does not stack, since penalties always stack unless they come from the same source, so I wanted to see how bloodclaw would work here in this regard. I am not sure if this stacking issue even matters for reckless as written, since it seems also to suggest that you activate the power once, then you gain the benefit, a +12 damage in this case, for all subsequent melee attacks you make that turn. If this is true, then it should work the same for bloodclaw, suffering the 6 points only once to gain the benefit for all melee hits that turn. That is how I read it at least.

I agree that this combo is horribly broken and if they errata the Veteran's Armor, I cannot see how they could miss an errata on these powers.

Furthermore, if I put, say, Bloodclaw on a pair of gauntlets, as it seems to work just as well this way, since the bonus does not apply to the weapon itself but to all melee attacks you make, then I could free up one of my weapons for a different power, like Radiant for example, which would increase the damage output even more for that particular weapon's attacks. Obviously this would be amazingly expensive to pull off, but just in theory, I think it could be done, right?

So I would be suffering 6 points of damage (from the bloodclaw gauntlets +6) and a -2 AC each turn to do +24 damage with my off-hand attack (the one with reckless on it) and a +30 with my primary attack (the one with radiant on it). This sounds amazingly broken, but do you think it is technically RAW?

Larry

 

[Prism]

I read the power as requiring that I suffer this 6 points once, and then gain a +12 damage bonus to all hits I make thereafter in melee. So does anyone know how this has been ruled?

For a bloodclaw weapon you decide before each attack if you are to take damage yourself and then if hitting deal more damage. If you make two attacks you need to decide per attack and also take damage per attack. This is not related to the reckless -2 AC not stacking as that is covered by the enhancement/penalty rules.

 

[deleteme123456]

For a bloodclaw weapon you decide before each attack if you are to take damage yourself and then if hitting deal more damage. If you make two attacks you need to decide per attack and also take damage per attack. This is not related to the reckless -2 AC not stacking as that is covered by the enhancement/penalty rules.

Just for the record, there's no official ruling that's how that works, and the CharOp boards (who will stretch RAW to its limits mind you) rule that you damage yourself once before making any attacks on this turn and it applies to all of them. Since you use the power before you made a melee attack on your turn, it applies, according to them.

In my games, bloodclaw applies for the duration of an action/power (we've ruled that "attack" = "power" which is very ambiguous in the RAW but works for our group), so it can be very good with multi-attack powers, but it's not hideously broken when you go make 18 attacks in one turn using Follow-up blow, action points, free actions, and martial recovery (among other tricks).

 

[Prism]

Just for the record, there's no official ruling that's how that works, and the CharOp boards (who will stretch RAW to its limits mind you) rule that you damage yourself once before making any attacks on this turn and it applies to all of them. Since you use the power before you made a melee attack on your turn, it applies, according to them.

I have not seen anyone on the CharOp claiming this to be honest. I have seen a number of discussions about the risks of taking over 60 points of damage from multiple attacks in a round during a nova. I didn't think it was a debated subject

In my games, bloodclaw applies for the duration of an action/power (we've ruled that "attack" = "power" which is very ambiguous in the RAW but works for our group), so it can be very good with multi-attack powers, but it's not hideously broken when you go make 18 attacks in one turn using Follow-up blow, action points, free actions, and martial recovery (among other tricks).

I agree there is often a debate over what an attack is however this doesn't apply to bloodclaw since it is an action you use before a 'melee attack'. A melee attack is defined as a single attack against one opponent. When an attack power lets you make multiple attacks then you are making multiple melee attacks PHB 270. Each use of bloodclaw only applies to the hit from a single melee attack and therefore using a multi attack power like blade cascade requires you to take the damage multiple times