|
I know that this is a basic question, but...
If the Special Abilities section of a creature says something like, "3/day—daze monster(DC16), death knell(DC16), inflict moderate wounds(DC16)", does it mean that each of the abilities can be used three timed a day, or that three times a day the creature can use one of these abilities? (A page citation would be appreciated.)
I inquired about this before.
Basically I got told by the authorities that it was three times each, without any rules citation.
This was clarified by FAQ in 3.5, so direct language never made it into the general rules. It's mostly "cultural knowledge". That said, this is what the rules say:
A spell-like ability usually has a limit on how often it can be used.
This is expressly singular, with no additional language about it applying as a collective usage.
There's also some good example statblocks out there that operate as 'proof' - things like a gnome (racial spell-like abilities) that has classes that grant spell-like's and they are all included together. Since the added spell-like is clearly useable independently, it makes it clear that they are all independent.
Proof by inference (as Majuba said): explain drow spell-like abilities in the stat-block format compared to the drow as characters section without suggesting that drow as characters are a special case. If you have to conclude that it's 1/day each, that's what the format means.