I've designed for a campaign a duo of rogues. My character is as Sniper, and his follower is a Knife Mistress. Couple of question about them.
Our party is about to ambush several trolls. My Sniper will hide near their camp, and shoot the weakest one when fight begins. His follower will then rush the troll and slice him in several pieces.
My Sniper has the Bleeding attack feat:
Bleeding Attack (Ex)
Benefit: A rogue with this ability can cause living opponents to bleed by hitting them with a sneak attack. This attack causes the target to take 1 additional point of damage each round for each die of the rogue's sneak attack (e.g., 4d6 equals 4 points of bleed). Bleeding creatures take that amount of damage every round at the start of each of their turns. The bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or the application of any effect that heals hit point damage.
Emphasis mine. Thus, a normal enemy would bleed every turn, until he get cleaned of the bleeding effect. However, troll have a special ability, which is regeneration 5 (acid/fire)
Regeneration (Ex)
A creature with this ability is difficult to kill. Creatures with regeneration heal damage at a fixed rate, as with fast healing, but they cannot die as long as their regeneration is still functioning (although creatures with regeneration still fall unconscious when their hit points are below 0). Certain attack forms, typically fire and acid, cause a creature’s regeneration to stop functioning on the round following the attack. During this round, the creature does not heal any damage and can die normally. The creature's descriptive text describes the types of damage that cause the regeneration to cease functioning.
So, the troll will automatically get rid of the bleeding effect during his first turn.
My question is: Does the bleeding effect apply before the regeneration, or get neglected, because the troll will heal during his turn?
Am I right to assume that, Bleeding attack effect getting triggered at the beginning of the troll turn, it will deal him the damages before the wounds heals?
Best Answer
I'm surprised I've never noticed that it's a little vague here, but I'm going to guess that's because I played the editions previous to Pathfinder and likely made the same assumptions the rules do. In DnD 3.0 and 3.5, regeneration worked different, but regenerating creatures were explicitly immune to bleeding. I think with the new way regeneration works, it should prevent bleed damage unless you shut off their regen for the round - the healing is probably meant to apply at the start of the troll's turn, with the troll taking the more beneficial order, letting the regen stop the bleed before it hits.
You are right that nothing - not even the SRD entry for fast healing - specifically states when regeneration or fast healing actually triggers, so my answer is statement of what I believe to be the intent, based on past versions of the game and my understanding of the abilities involved, not a strict rules-as-written citation.
Regardless, you have a follower, so it's easy enough to have them hit with a torch every turn to keep your bleed damage going, or a flaming/corrosive dagger if they can afford it. Good luck sniping those trolls!