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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6016202" data-attributes="member: 2011">I don't disagree with you per se. The wording of the feat is clearer than the rod, possibly because the rod came out in AV and that book was one of the earliest books after the core three (the feat came out almost a year and a half later). In fact, the Dark Pact boon came out about the same time as AV and it too has ambiguous wording in the power (the II portion). The wording of the pact boon is pretty bad, but I think it's easy to determine designer intent there.Given this though, I would say that the feat and the item really don't do anything for the vast majority of the pact boons, so should they do anything for the dark pact where the wording of the pact combined with the wording of the rod is ambigous?If one assumes that the wording is unclear at best, and that the intent of both the feat and the item is to result in the exact same effect, and that the vast majority of the other warlock pact boons cannot really stack the effect, then the simpliest solution is to not allow the dark pact to do it either. It's the same effect, so it shouldn't stack. It is attempting to allow the PC to use the same "trigger" twice for the same effect.The designers did at least attempt to prevent the same effects from the same source from applying in most cases. I don't really see how this is any different. Dark Pact is effectively designed to allow a Warlock up to 5 aura points per encounter (assuming 5 foes) and one of those points is wasted if the Warlock takes a short rest. It's typically a max of about 18 more points of damage per encounter if the Warlock gets attacked, and the power is really intended as a protective aura for the warlock by being an incentive for the DM to attack someone other than the Warlock and/or by the Warlock using it to weakening attacks against him. It's not really meant to be a major damage dealer.The feat or the rod (assuming your interpretation) takes that up to a max of 10 aura points per encounter (average max 40 damage, the last point typically will be lost) and allowing both moves it up to a max of 15 (average max 63 damage). Granted, the warlock will not be the only one bloodying foes, so the average max for both is probably closer to 12 aura points per encounter (average max 50 damage).If the Warlock decides to not take a short rest (which technically, he could do and with certain types of adventures, would be forced to do), he could literally quickly collect several dozen aura points from multiple encounters (especially if he is tricked out to get 2 or more cursed foes per round) and could possibly kill an undamaged elite or even bloody an undamaged solo every time the warlock gets attacked. It goes from being a mild protective power to a major (beyond what other strikers can manage) offensive nova striker power. Nothing forces the warlock to actually use the interrupt earlier in the day or to use the weakening aspect of it.Do you really think that is balanced (course, the fact that here Defenders can do 60 plus points of damage in a nova round here these days isn't really balanced either <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> )? Given the ambiguousness of the wording of this, I would think that allowing this amount of nova strike power multiple rounds per encounter would be problematic and I do not think that this is designer intent. I think designer intent was to allow warlocks to double their pact effectiveness with either the feat or the rod (1.5 times at best with the rod), not to make it 2.5 times as effective with both. And I think that there is enough RAW ambiguity in both the wording of the pact boon and the wording of the rod that it would require a rules clarification here to get your interpretation accepted. JMO.Remember. As long as the interrupt does 12 or more points of damage and as long as the Warlock does not weaken his foe's attack, he does not lose aura points. This already gives a warlock heavy striker damage every encounter starting with the second encounter as long as he does not take a short rest. A warlock could ignore his encounter powers and this would give him a really big boom stick. The II could kill most standard foes (one per round if he hits) for merely attacking the warlock (even if they do not actually hit him) and the warlock wouldn't take any damage or effects from their attacks.Note: bloodying or killing a foe with the aura would also give the Warlock an additional aura point. It would become madness. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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