Skald Damage Reduction and allies: Double Stacking DR?


Rules Questions


Quote:
Damage Reduction (Ex): At 9th level, a skald gains damage reduction. Subtract 1 from the damage the skald takes each time he is dealt damage from a weapon or a natural attack. At 14th and 19th levels, this damage reduction increases by 1. Damage reduction can reduce damage to 0, but not below 0. Additionally, the skald grants this DR to all allies affected by his inspired rage.
Quote:
Increased Damage Reduction (Ex): The barbarian's damage reduction increases by 1/—. This increase is always active while the barbarian is raging. A barbarian can select this rage power up to three times. Its effects stack. A barbarian must be at least 8th level before selecting this rage power.
Quote:
Rage Powers (Ex): At 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter, a skald learns a rage power that affects the skald and any allies under the influence of his inspired rage. This cannot be a rage power that requires the creature to spend a standard action or rounds of rage to activate it. For example, the skald cannot choose terrifying howl (which requires a standard action to activate), but can choose knockback (which is made in place of a melee attack).

So since this rage power modifies the Skald's DR, it should change the ammount that is granted when he uses raging song on his allies and since it is also a rage power, the skalds allies would also receive it from the song, thus allowing them to double dip the rage power?

Would this even apply to the rules of Same source bonus stacking, since the DR is not a bonus but an untyped increase?


Pathfinder SRD, Damage Reduction wrote:
If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation.

This seems pretty clear.

Yes, your allies gain both sources of DR, but then they apply the benefit of the best one and ignore the rest.


But that does not seem how the Skald's Dr works.

The "source" of the DR is the DR the skald posseses modified by the rage power. Then number that the Skald's alles posess is then modified, cause they ALSO have the rage power.


DM_Blake wrote:
Pathfinder SRD, Damage Reduction wrote:
If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation.

This seems pretty clear.

Yes, your allies gain both sources of DR, but then they apply the benefit of the best one and ignore the rest.

I'm gonna respond to this again due to the site being down, thus preventing me from editing my post. But now that its back up, I can better articulate my point. (Hopefully with better grammar this time)

Quote:
Damage Reduction (Ex): At 9th level, a skald gains damage reduction. Subtract 1 from the damage the skald takes each time he is dealt damage from a weapon or a natural attack. At 14th and 19th levels, this damage reduction increases by 1. Damage reduction can reduce damage to 0, but not below 0. Additionally, the skald grants this DR to all allies affected by his inspired rage.

The "source" of the DR provided to allies the the ammount of DR that the Skald posesses.

Quote:
Increased Damage Reduction (Ex): The barbarian's damage reduction increases by 1/—. This increase is always active while the barbarian is raging. A barbarian can select this rage power up to three times. Its effects stack. A barbarian must be at least 8th level before selecting this rage power.

The Increased Damage Reduction rage power does exactly what it says it does, Increase your Damage Reduction. If a Skald has this rage power then his DR will increase, thus the ammount that is provided to his allies during inspired rage will likewise increase.

*It also says that it stacks with itself*
It is an increase to the ORIGINAL source of the DR, the Skald's.
Quote:
Rage Powers (Ex): At 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter, a skald learns a rage power that affects the skald and any allies under the influence of his inspired rage. This cannot be a rage power that requires the creature to spend a standard action or rounds of rage to activate it. For example, the skald cannot choose terrifying howl (which requires a standard action to activate), but can choose knockback (which is made in place of a melee attack).

Now when the Skald grants his rage powers to his allies, they are treated as if they have those rage powers, and since Increased Damage reduction only cares about increasing the DR that you have,It should increase the amount given to you by the Skald, which is already boosted by the Increased Damage Reduction rage power.

This is no a case of someone having DR from more than one source, it is an increase of the original source.


I'm going to give an example of how this could work, though keep in mind this build is not particularly practical or optimized.

Rage powers:
3rd: Animal Fury
6th: Intimidating Glare
9th: Dragon Totem
12th: Dragon Totem Resilience
15th:Increased Damage Reductuon
18th:Increased Damage Reduction

Skald 20 base DR is 3(base)+4(Dragon Totem Resilience)+2(Increased Damage Reduction), for a total of DR 9/-
(You could potentially wear a Heroes Hauberk and some Orange Shoanti War Paint for an extra 2 DR.)

That gives your allies from 9-11 DR base from Inspire Rage. Then the Rage Powers you Provide increase that by +6 DR, for DR 15-17. More if they are also wearing Shoanti War Paint and Heroes Hauberk.

Theoretically this can get up to DR 19/-.

(Forgive me if math is off, I am doing this by phone.


The DR/- 9-11 base is fine. The "double dip" you're talking about is a very tenuous reading, to the extent that I needed to re-read your first post three times to get the angle you meant.

You could possibly argue that you are correct, in that this specific instance is covered poorly in how Damage Reduction and Increased Damage Reduction interact on other party members. It's clearly not RAI and you'd need to really want it to even consider thinking it's RAW.


I think the reference to "this" in the DR means the DR provided by this ability, not the total DR that the Skald has. Thus increasing his DR doesn't carry over since it's not part of the ability.

This is similar yet different from Skald's vigor which gives Fast healing equal to the str provided rather than the str bonus of the song.


Yes, you do grant the DR provided by this ability, it is just Increased by those rage powers. They are a boost to its value just like the increase from leveling is.

They are not separate values that stack, they are modifications to the original value.


Deadkitten, you are reading of "this DR" in the Damage Reduction entry to mean "this DR and any modifications to it". It means the DR granted by the Damage Reduction 9th level ability, not that DR after being modified by other factors. I don't see why you think a "double dip" applies.


The DR ability is giving you 1 DR. While raging your DR is increased by 1. So for you you have 2 DR. Now your allies get the DR given by your DR ability, which is 1. Now they have 1 DR which is increased by 1 so they'll have 2 DR.


Whether or not you Skalds can give allies any bonuses to DR that they have is irrelevant to the original question, due to the following line:

James Risner wrote:
Core Rulebook p208 wrote:
Bonuses without a type always stack, unless they are from the same source.

So let's say you get that 11 DR/-, and share that among allies. Your allies also get your rage powers, including Increased Damage Reduction. This would give them an increase to their DR, but because they are already getting the same increase to DR from the exact same source, it has no effect. Their DR stays at 11 DR/-


Sean H wrote:

Whether or not you Skalds can give allies any bonuses to DR that they have is irrelevant to the original question, due to the following line:

James Risner wrote:
Core Rulebook p208 wrote:
Bonuses without a type always stack, unless they are from the same source.
So let's say you get that 11 DR/-, and share that among allies. Your allies also get your rage powers, including Increased Damage Reduction. This would give them an increase to their DR, but because they are already getting the same increase to DR from the exact same source, it has no effect. Their DR stays at 11 DR/-
Quote:


Increased Damage Reduction (Ex): The barbarian's damage reduction increases by 1/—. This increase is always active while the barbarian is raging. A barbarian can select this rage power up to three times. Its effects stack. A barbarian must be at least 8th level before selecting this rage power.

There is no language in Skald's damage reduction, nor the Increased Damage Reduction Rage Power to even suggest that the DR is, in fact, a bonus.Therefore it would not follow the bonus stacking rules.

The Rage power repeatedly states that it is an increase not a bonus.

saying that it would not stack is like saying that BAB does not stack with itself.

Also as a last note, the Rage Power explicitly states that it stacks with itself.


Deadkitten wrote:
Quote:
Damage Reduction (Ex): At 9th level, a skald gains damage reduction. Subtract 1 from the damage the skald takes each time he is dealt damage from a weapon or a natural attack. At 14th and 19th levels, this damage reduction increases by 1. Damage reduction can reduce damage to 0, but not below 0. Additionally, the skald grants this DR to all allies affected by his inspired rage.
Quote:
Increased Damage Reduction (Ex): The barbarian's damage reduction increases by 1/—. This increase is always active while the barbarian is raging. A barbarian can select this rage power up to three times. Its effects stack. A barbarian must be at least 8th level before selecting this rage power.
Quote:
Rage Powers (Ex): At 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter, a skald learns a rage power that affects the skald and any allies under the influence of his inspired rage. This cannot be a rage power that requires the creature to spend a standard action or rounds of rage to activate it. For example, the skald cannot choose terrifying howl (which requires a standard action to activate), but can choose knockback (which is made in place of a melee attack).

So since this rage power modifies the Skald's DR, it should change the ammount that is granted when he uses raging song on his allies and since it is also a rage power, the skalds allies would also receive it from the song, thus allowing them to double dip the rage power?

Would this even apply to the rules of Same source bonus stacking, since the DR is not a bonus but an untyped increase?

Before I answer I will ask a question to be sure we are on the same page.

Let's say the skald is providing DR 5/-. Then let's say the increased rage power is providing DR 2/-.

Are you asking if the damage reduced form an attack will be 7?

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