Mar 5, 2013 -- 10:02AM, entropiccanuck wrote:

Some questions on dragon breath damage types.  I'm confused because of the wording of Adaptable Breath, which says "only 1 damage type applies for a given dragon breath attack." 

Is the initial dragon breath damage type overwritten by Thundering Breath?  Argentum Alliance PP or Radiant Breath feat specifically mention addinga damage type, Thundering Breath doesn't.  (I know lightning breath is a pre-req, see question 4 and 5)

Thundering Breath changes your normal Lightning breath to be "Lightning and Thunder" and it has both keywords. If you have Radiant breath, then it is "Lightning and Thunder and Radiant" with all three keywords.
  If you also have Adaptable breath, to get access to say Acid breath, then Thunder is only added when using the Lightning breath, but Radiant breath still adds Radiant to both the Acid and the "Thunder and Lightning" breath options.  So with all three feats you could do:

a) Acid and Radiant, or
b) Thunder and Lightning and Radiant, plus the push from Thundering breath.

If you also have the Argentum Alliance PP, then both breath weapons would add Cold and the slowing effect.

2.  I assume the same rule would apply to Avatar of Io ED?

Yes, but by RAW, if you have Thundering Breath, Radiant Breath and Argentum Alliance PP, then the +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls doing the "same damage type as your Dragon Breath" would only apply to powers doing all of the applicable damage types.  So you would need a power that does "Thunder and Lightning and Cold and Radiant", etc.

3.Crown of Brilliant Sun allows you to do radiant damage instead of lightning.  Are other damage types unaffected? 

As written (at least in the online compendium, which I have access to), it would replace all damage types.  This is because it says "when you use a lightning power and do damage" (no type specified) "you can do radiant damage instead".  It doesn't specify what type the original damage has to be, or that you add radiant. Instead it changes all damage to radiant.

4. If I use Serpentine Bracers ) and trigger the poison damage , does that meet the prerequisites for the Toxic Breath feat ("dragon breath racial power that deals poison damage").  Similar for lightning + Thundering Breath, if there's an applicable item.

No, because the power itself doesn't do damage of the required type (similarly, if a sorcerer feat required powers that do a certain damage type, having a weapliement to apply that damage type would not qualify for the feat).   However, if you otherwise qualified for the feat, and used a different breath weapon through Adaptable breath, one target would still be weakened, even if you're not doing Poison damage, because the feat doesn't specify the creature has to be hit by your "poison breath attack", or take poison damage.

5. With Ancient Soul, Dragon Breath becomes eligilble for Arcane Admixture, right? Thanks.

Yes.
(Edited to try to fix formatting issues with double line spacing and quote blocks)

quick question about the warden's power guardian pounce. it is a reaction to an enemy moving adjacent to an ally. how does that work with a fly by attack? i am under the beleif that the triggering action is resolved then the reaction happens. is a fly by attack the one thing that the power won't work for?

Mar 4, 2013 -- 5:27PM, Alcestis wrote:

Mar 4, 2013 -- 4:55PM, DaPatman wrote:

Bugbears don't increase the size of a weapon's damage die, they wield weapons as though they were one size category larger - in their case a Large creature. There is a subtle difference - a Large creature (or one who counts as Large for the purpose of wielding weapons) can wield a 2-handed weapon scaled for a Medium creature in one hand. Hence your bugbear can wield a halberd in one hand that does 1d12 damage.

Can wield large weapons =! can wield weapons as if you were large. Effectively all it does is increase the die size by one. You can wield larger weapons, you cannot wield normal weapons as if you were large (i.e., one-handed). Subtle distinctions are important, but you have to get them right. A large Halberd wielded by a Bugbear is a 2her that does 1d12. A normal Halberd wielded 1-handed by a Large creature would still be 1d10. A Bugbear, however, cannot do the latter.

Yeah, I misread the description of the ability when I wrote that post. It wasn't until after I'd turned my laptop off that I realised, though.

Mar 5, 2013 -- 3:02PM, thespaceinvader wrote:

Your answer 4 is incorrect, rizingzan.  If a game element requires cold damage, you can use a frost weapon to trigger it.

Difficulties of timing arise if you have things which only change damage types on a hit, but in general, you're incorrect.

Except the Feat requires that you have a Dragon Breath Weapon that does Poison damage as a Prerequisite to take the feat, not to trigger the property of the feat.

Toxic Breath

Paragon Tier
Prerequisite: 11th level, dragonborn, dragon breath racial power that deals poison damage
Benefit: Choose one creature hit by your dragon breath. That creature is weakened (save ends).

Simply having a an item that could add poison damage as extra damage to your breath weapon in certain situations would not qualify for the feat.