Earth's Embrace drives me insane

[GlassJaw]

I find the Earth's Embrace feat (from Complete Warrior) to be one of the most poorly worded feats ever. I fully understand the grappling rules and I'm planning to make a grappler character for an upcoming campaign bit I have never been able to comprehend what the intention is for Earth's Embrace.

Earth's Embrace essentially gives you an extra 1d12 damage while you maintain a pin.

Now I've always interpreted that to mean that if you pin your opponent and maintain that pin for a full round (i.e. your opponent doesn't break the pin before the start of your next turn), then you do an extra 1d12 damage ON TOP OF whatever other damage you may inflict from normal grapple checks. This makes EE a marginal feat at best as 1d12 extra damage gets increasingly less useful as your go up in level.

However, I've also heard interpretations of EE that you do an extra 1d12 damage EVERY TIME you successfully damage your opponent while they are pinned. This makes EE substantially more powerful.

I've heard other versions as well that I can't even remember. Can anyone shed some light on Earth's Embrace?!

 

[shilsen]

And here I was thinking it was completely straightforward. I see it the first way, i.e. whenever there is a round in which the pin is maintained, the opponent takes an extra 1d12 pts of damage on top of whatever other damage you cause. Since there is no mention of the d12 applying every time you do grappling damage or anything similar, I'd say a definite "No" to that argument.