Talk:Blood of Stone (3.5e Feat)

Ratings

	DanielDraco likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	It's a little stronger than most at-will swift actions tend to be, but (probably) not overly much. In any encounter with more than one enemy it shouldn't be too bad. It is in any case something that would be fun to have as a player and is a quick-and-easy way to gain some tanking ability.

	Foxwarrior likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	A steady rate of damage reduction per round, as well as the ability to sometimes weather really serious damage spikes? Neat.

You did notice that it still lowers damage by BAB on an unsuccessful save, right? That's better than most creatures' DR (though yes, DR applies to multiple attacks). --Ghostwheel (talk) 19:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I did. --Foxwarrior (talk) 19:17, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

	Aarnott favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	Gives you something worthwhile to do with your swift actions that also turns you into a bit of a tank. I really like the fact that it always does something even on a failed use. DC = Damage taken means at high levels it will probably just be -BAB damage, which is cool.

	Luigifan18 favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	Dude, I wish I knew about this when designing the Tran trio! It's totally cool for shrugging off physical attacks.

	The-Marksman favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	This is a really great feat, I love the concept of being able to shrug off some damage like that. Needed it explained for me at first because I havnt played a ton of campaigns, but I get the design now. Love it! :)

How fast do saves scale? Now how fast does damage taken scale? That's the reason for the auto-success (which doesn't even cancel out all the damage, or work against more than one attack a turn).

Add on that the only difference between a failed and successful save is that you might cancel out half instead of the damage (again, from a single attack when most creatures have multiple attacks at higher levels) rather than potentially half the damage.

It also interferes with both other immediate actions and swift actions in the following round, gives the interesting element of choice (should I use it against the attack that just hit me? But what if there's another attack that's going to hit even harder? Will that one miss me entirely?), and in truth, gives you 12.5% reduction in damage from a single attack once per round. --Ghostwheel (talk) 10:37, 2 December 2017 (MST)

Thanks for the reply! That makes much more sense now that I see how you laid it out. One of my initial concerns was that it might get used more than once per round. That clears up 2/3 of my concerns, I'll increase my rating to like. Now my only last concern is the failed save having potentially as much effect as the successful one. The successful save says reduced by half or reduced by your BAB, whichever results in you taking less damage. But on failed save is still reduced by BAB which might be the same amount you would have reduced it by if you had made a successful save. Can you go over that? The-Marksman (talk) 15:45, 2 December 2017 (MST)

At low levels, it's going to stop only a few points of damage a turn. Decent? Yes. But not truly terrible. At higher levels, you're being hit for 30-50 damage per attack fairly often, which means you're going to auto-fail the save 75% of the time, and not get much benefit out of it. Alternatively, you're getting his for more than that over multiple attacks, meaning this feat is even less good. Lastly, this is mainly a feat that tanks are going to take, so they're going to be attacked by multiple enemies at the same time constantly, and this feat becomes even weaker--not because its effect isn't as good, but because the multiple attacks mean that you can only defend against one of them.

Plus, there's still the risk vs. reward concept of the feat, where you need the gamble on stopping the first attack that hits you, or gamble that something else is going to hit you during the same round for even bigger damage, meaning you could have prevented even more, which I really like. Tactical, real-time options that can actually change the course of a battle. --Ghostwheel (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2017 (MST)

I see! So where as you can only use this once per round and you have so many attacks coming in, if you didn't have the partial benefit on a failed save then your only expended use of the feat for that round, along with your swift/immediate action would have been lost for nothing if you failed and you're likely to fail often given the crazy high DC that some of the attacks could create, therefore its necessary to have the partial effect on failed save so the feat remains relevant and you want to use your Swift/Immediate action on this as opposed to something else! :) I get it now, thanks for explaining! Rating updated. The-Marksman (talk) 17:01, 2 December 2017 (MST)

Other Effects

Hey Ghost, I think a specification is needed here. The description says any non-touch attack, which I infer to mean anything targeting your AC or flat-footed AC. But, as worded, it seems that area-of-effect spells as well as single-target spells can also be ignored. Is it supposed to be effective against a Cone of Cold? Quilliard 01:08, July 16, 2010 (UTC)

In D&D terminology, attacks are strictly effects that require an attack roll, so it doesn't work against those other things. --Ghostwheel 04:04, July 16, 2010 (UTC)

This and DR

How does this feat interact with actual damage reduction a character may have? Since the DC is based on the damage taken, I assume it simply stacks. --Sulacu (talk) 07:29, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

As written, it would reduce the damage before applying DR, I think. That's only a minor point, but it is also important to know in addition to whether it stacks. That is, 100 DR and 500 damage would give 500/2 - 100 = 150 damage on a successful save instead of (500-100)/2 = 200 damage. --Aarnott (talk) 19:52, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

A cat is fine too. --Ghostwheel (talk) 17:02, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Paragraph structure is confusing

This is a cool feat, but it's a little confusing as-written. It took me 3 read-throughs to completely understand what was going on. I think this could benefit from some rewording, adding a semi-descriptive line at the beginning and reordering the words so the whole process is chronological:

"As an immediate action, you can make a fort save to reduce damage you take from a non-touch attack. The DC is equal to the damage roll, and if you roll a 16 or higher your save is an automatic success. If you succeed at the save, halve the damage or reduce it by your BAB (whichever is better). If you fail, simply reduce the damage by your BAB."

Also, any plans for additional feats in this vein? Something that lets you tank more attacks or eat AoE damage would be nice. --YouLostMe (talk) 05:09, 2 December 2014 (UTC)