Knife Mastery Question

[Nymaen]

In Knife Mastery, it says:

If you hit by 4 or more, you inflict the knife’s damage an additional time. If you hit by 10 or more, you inflict the knife’s damage two additional times. In both cases, roll separately each time you inflict damage.

Does this mean you get full knife damage again? Like if base knife damage is d6+4, do you roll 2d6+8 or 2d6+4 when you hit by 4-9 over the defense of the target? How does sneak attack damage get affected? Would you roll knife + sneak attack + damage bonus twice?

[The_Grand_User]

I beleive you just get the knife's damage again. So if you're doing 1d6+2 normally, then it'd be 2d6+2.


* So says the DM with the knife guy in the group *

[Nymaen]

By roll separately, does that mean the extra knife die damage have to re-penetrate armor again? So it really would not be 2d6 as a single set of damage, by d6 (apply) d6 (apply)

[Krensky]

You roll 2d6+8 in your example. It's representing getting two hits in instead of one. For the curious who didn't play SC2.0, it's the same mechanic as burst fire. Each hit is subject to DR seperately.

Sneak attack is not rolled again. A case could be made for rolling Edged Master's bonus again though, and I'd allow it.

[The_Grand_User]

Hmm, I guess it would mean that DR applies again to the additional rolls. Hasn't been a big issue in my case, since the knife player generally uses a stiletto with its AP of "Yes".

[paddyfool]

Does this mean you get full knife damage again? Like if base knife damage is d6+4, do you roll 2d6+8 or 2d6+4 when you hit by 4-9 over the defense of the target? How does sneak attack damage get affected? Would you roll knife + sneak attack + damage bonus twice?

You would roll the following:

(d6 + 4 + sneak attack if appropriate - DR) + (d6 + 4 - DR).  Everything applies to each hit except sneak attack, which applies only to the first hit.

[Takeru]

As a knifey-guy I am rather interested in this particular thing. The way I read the feat (as a DM of other games, but not FC, so grain-of-salt) was that you roll the damage die of the knife multiple times and add the damage together for the total damage of that one "attack". Sort of like how Sneak Attack Damage adds to the effective damage of that attack. I thought that if you inflict 1d6+3 damage per hit, if you hit by more than 10 you inflict 3d6+3 damage with that one knife attack, plus any other sources of damage that you might have, and DR/Resistance is applied once to the relevant attack.

Does this mean that you actually roll 1d6+3 three times, for an effective 3d6+9? Do the attacks count as separate attacks for purposes of the Table of Ouch and threatening Massive Damage? Which would I apply the Sneak Attack Damage too if they did count as separate? My sneak attack damage would get a bit obscene if they all count as separate attacks and thus get separate sneaks, but if they count as separate and only get one sneak, which do I apply the damage too to see if they have to roll on the Table of Ouch?

DR isn't as much an issue due to using said Stiletto with AP 10 ("AP Yes") when stabbing specials and merely using Shank when stabbing standard, but the big issue is the Table of Ouch and Massive Damage...and oh man, I don't even want to know how you apply the Gallants ability of "Roll damage twice against Specials" with that...

It seems too confusing to count each one as a separate roll of the damage... perhaps just turning 1d6+3 into 3d6+9 and applying DR three times?

[Bill Whitmore]

The sneak attack question it easy and is spelled out very explicitly under Sneak Attack.

Sneak Attack (pg 211): If a single attack generates multiple hits, sneak attack damage is only applied to the first hit.


I have always played it as follows:  With Knife Mastery, if you beat an opponents defense by 10 or more, you hit him 3 times.

Damage Reduction(pg 208): Gear, abilities, animal and monster hides, and other effects grant Damage Reduction (DR), which allows a target to ignore some or all damage from each hit.

DR is applied to each hit, so you inflict the knife damage 3 times, possibly applying Sneak Attack to only the first hit and applying DR separately to all 3 hits.

Threats and Criticals (pg 207): To gain the benefits of a critical hit, the character simply spends 1 or more action dice (when an attack hits multiple characters, the attacker chooses which to critically hit, spending 1 or more dice for each). This cost is paid separately for each hit, even when multiple hits are scored with a single attack or action.

If you roll a threat you can also spend an action die for each hit to make it a critical hit.

[Nymaen]

Thanks. That was a very clear answer.

I guess that same would hold true with unarmed and the kick mastery feat.

Side note: This board is amazingly active. And filled with people that respond quickly. You have no idea how cool that is!

[Big_Jim]

At my table we refer to the Blade Flurry trick as "multi-stab!" It's common for our knife guy to ask "Did I hit?... Did I hit by four?... How 'bout by 10?"

[Jake]

Here's Alex (one of the designers) on Multi-Shot, the bow version of Blade Flurry. Worth reading.

[Desertpuma]

Thanks. That was a very clear answer.

I guess that same would hold true with unarmed and the kick mastery feat.

Side note: This board is amazingly active. And filled with people that respond quickly. You have no idea how cool that is!

You're very welcome! We also have the Crafty guys stopping by at least once a day to answer questions and clarify things too.

[Takeru]

What about Massive Damage and the Table of Ouch? Do you add it all together as one 'attack', or is only the first one an actual chance due to sneak attack?

[aegis]

Nope, you don't. That's the essence of "roll separately each time you inflict damage" or "resolve each attack separately". You get to hit several times, but each hit is a distinct hit. So it's more effective versus standard NPCs (who must succeed with more damage saves) but less effective in terms of bleed or massive damage or other such things. (And logically so, you don't want characters armed with knives or bows to be inflicting more massive damage than, say, greatsword wielders.)

[Bill Whitmore]

That's been my experience, too.  Multiple hits per attack are extremely lethal to standard characters.  Forcing them to make up to 3 saves from 1 attack does wonders for bringing them down, even the ones with grades of Tough that need to fail multiple saves.

The other nice part about the Knife feats is you can carry multiple types of knives on your character and then just attack with whichever most suits the situation.  You can keep multiple poisoned knives, a stiletto and a regular dagger on you.  Since they are all ready, when it comes time to attack, you can decide on which blade to use depending on the target.