[Draconomicon] Clinging Breath feat

[ForceUser]

Has anyone looked at this? Maybe I'm taking crazy pills, but I seem to have just read that according to this feat, a dragon can breathe and the effect lingers for 1 round after the initial assault. Doing so causes the reuse time of the dragon's breath weapon to go up by 1. Furthermore, the effect stacks with itself, essentially allowing the dragon - should it choose - to breathe once and apply extra damage every round...to infinity. As written, a dragon can choose to stack the feat, say, 600 times, adding +600 rounds of damage and +600 rounds to the reuse time (a mere hour)!

Now, let's see. I'm a dragon faced with fighting a party of adventurers that could kill me or wound me. I have Clinging Breath. Surprising the adventurers, I breathe a Clinging Breath attack that I arbitrarily choose will last...14,400 rounds (24 hours). I fly away much faster than they can pursue, wait a day until my breath weapon recycles, then fly back to the scene of the ambush and collect my loot.

Am I missing something?

 

[Matafuego]

By my reading... yes, you'd need 14399 feats =\ (and I seem to recall also you could "put out" the extra damage by roling on the floor or sth like that)

 

[Zoatebix]

Eep! That's scary!

It's not as bad as it could be, I guess. For one thing - it doesn't take too many iterations to get the the breath weapon damage down to 1 damage per round, as the breath weapon's damage keeps getting halved every subsequent round ("the clinging breath weapon deals half the damge it dealt in the previous round" is the exact text, I think).

That's still pretty nasty, but at least there's a way to dispel the effect, and plenty of time to abjure it. It's been a while since I've played a caster - there's an abjuration that gives a low energy resistance for a long period of time, right?

Or maybe there's a typo in Special section of the feat, and one has to take the feat more than once to get the breath weapon to last additional rounds.

Good catch, ForceUser!
-George

 

[Zoatebix]

You can't put out the damge by rolling - you only get +2 to your reflex save for your efforts.

And the text as written doesn't say you have to take the feat multiple times (though I'd probably interpret it that way) - it says, "You can apply this feat more than once to the same breath weapon. Each time you do, the clinging breath weapon lasts an additional round."

 

[ForceUser]

Two things: first, I read the "special" section as saying that if you take the feat once you could apply its effects multiple times to a single use of a breath weapon. Second, I don't read anywhere that the damage keeps getting halved each subsequent round, because it doesn't specifically describe subsequent rounds beyond the first subsequent round in the text.

Great idea for a feat, poorly written.

 

[Matafuego]

I read the same thing by "You can apply this feat more than once" as in "You can take this feat many times. It's effects stack", although the second one is, perhaps, better worded.
And I don't think that the damage keeps getting halved, if it does then I see no problem in letting him increase ad infinitum the rpunds it lasts without taking other feats.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Third sentence under Benefits.

"In the round after you breathe, the clinging breath weapon deals half of the damage it dealt in the previous round."

I don't think you need to take the feat multiple times to stack it.

 

[Roman]

The ultimate combination is a Shadow Dragon Great Wyrm with one extra level of sorcerer (to gain access to 9th level spells - specifically Mordenkainen's Disjunction and Wish) and the Quicken Breath, the Clinging Breath and the Lingering Breath feats. Of course, this leaves plenty of other useful feats available for the dragon such Combat Reflexes (depending on the dexterity it rolls + the 5 inherent points it inevitably grants itself with the wish spell), Large and in Charge and Quicken Spell.

Sample combat against a standard (1 fighter, 1 wizard, 1 rogue, 1 cleric) 20th level party (the dragon above is CR 25 - so it should be a very tough 'boss' fight, but not an impossible one):

Initiative:

Let's be generous and say that the party wins the initiative, but nobody is surprised or flat-footed.

Party's Turn on Round 1:

- Attack the dragon with spells, ranged weapons and melee weapons. Dragon gets AOOs against all who try to melee with it (due to combat reflexes) and with the large and in charge feat almost certainly ensures that they fail to close in and waste their turn + get damaged.


Dragon's Turn on Round 1:

- Cast Mordenkainen's disjunction to dispell any protections, disable magic items and disjoin other spells the party may have cast.
- As a free action use the breath weapon against the greatest concentration of the party members, but ascribing particular importance to the cleric and almost no importance to the rogue. These party members automatically lose 8 levels (save for half, but really high save required [I think it is 39]).

Party's Turn on Round 2:

Run away after loosing so many levels in one round!

Ok, ok, so the party now has several options. Those caugh in the area of effect of the breath must make a decision. They can keep on attacking the dragon or doing whatever they were doing previously, but this means they loose another 8 levels (save for half, but save almost impossibly high) for a total of 16 levels lost in 2 rounds! This would bring them down from level 20 to level 4!! Alternatively, they can spend the round to move out of the area of effect and loose only 4 levels (save for half...) [from the clinging breath] for a total of 12 levels lost. Another option is to roll on the ground or take other actions to get rid of the clinging breath, but therefore be forced to remain in the area of the lingering breath and again loose 4 levels (save for half). Whatever their action, at the very least their cleric is now useless and other party members are also useless if they were caught in the area of effect of the breath (I am betting at least one other character would be caught).

Those who were not caught in the area of effect keep on attacking the dragon or perhaps begin a withdrawal. Again, however, the dragon's combat reflexes and large and in charge feats make approaching the dragon for melee very difficult, so they are probably relegated to less damaging ranged weapons.

Dragon's Turn on Round 2:

The dragon is now probably quite damaged, but the party's state is nothing short of disastrous. The dragon can cast one 5th level or lower quickened spell as well as full attack the remanants of the party.

Combat over!

Yes, this is very simplified - I think it would actually be much worse in many other situations - especially out in the open - ouch!

 

[Zoatebix]

Yeah - sorry about the subsequent halvings mistake. The phrase I quoted above, "the clinging breath weapon deals half the damge it dealt in the previous round," would be grounds for a recursive halving interpretation, were the phrase not preceeded by the beginning of the sentance: "In the round after you breathe, the clingling breath weapon deals..."

Pooh.

Anyways it seems clear to me that the Metabreath Feats text, in the second and third paragraphs of the "Multiple Metabreath Feats on a Breath Weapon" subsection, that it's pretty clear that Clinging Breath can be applied multiple times to a breath weapon by a dragon who has taken the feat once.

Wow.

With a side of ouch.

-George

 

[Gez]

All feats that can be taken multiple times have an indentically-worded sentence:

This feat can be taken multiple times. Its effect [stack|do not stack. Each time you take this feat, you must select another <thing it applies on>.]​

The whole feat is written with the implication you make it last only one round, and then the Special section says you can make it last multiple time. I think the halving, logically, would be recursive.

You can't put out the damage by rolling - you only get +2 to your reflex save for your efforts.

Yep. But if you succeed on your Reflex save, the damage is put out. You need to take a full-round action, and make a successful Ref save, and you're free of the clinging breath. Too bad for that dragon that decided to make it last ten years.