[quoite]'automatic hit' is not a defined game term.[/quote]
Actually, 'automatic hit' and 'you hit automatically' are, in fact, language pulled directly from the PHB rules that govern the general situation you automatically hit in, when you roll a natural 20. The game book disagrees that 'automatic hit' is not in the game, because it uses the term.
So yes, it -is- perfectly legitimate game terminology.
FWIW Cust. Serv agrees with Bob. I called about this very issue last week.
It seems that the editor(s) of the books are relying a bit too heavily on the specific vs. general thing with regards to rules. The simple addition of "the player scores an
automatic critical hit" would be far less ambiguous. Edit - Or basically what Nifft said
And how did tier 1 tech support explain this, exactly?
I'm sorry, but I find this entire thing to be addlecoved. I do not understand how Precision could not possibly apply. I do not possibly comprehend how the ability blows it off without it saying or refering to blowing it off in any way. I do not understand how 'you score a critical hit' does not get 'some abilities allow you to score a critical hit' applied to it.
It's -exactly- like saying that ongoing damage from two abilities stack because it doesn't say 'The target -can- take ongoing damage' or because specific powers trump
the very rules that tell you how to use that effect that is the exception in the first place.
So, -unless the feature says it is an automatic hit- then it is governed by the rules that tell you how to adjudicate when you score a critical hit. Those rules don't say 'If it tells you you score a critical hit, you automaticly hit, but if it only mentions the possibility, blah.' Not at all. They say, flat out 'Some abilities allow you to break the critical hit rules, and when they do, only a natural 20 is an automatic hit.'
The rule Precision is a rule governing specific exceptions to the critical rule.
If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins
is the rub of this.
So what does the path feature contradict? The rule about rolling 20s to crit? Yes. It does. So we use the specific rule.
But does it contradict Precision? Can precision be applied to this path feature without a contradiction?
The answer is yes, because Precision specifically calls out rules-violations of this type and says 'And this is how you get to work.'
The truly dumbfounding thing, is that Precision is -verbatim- about abilities that allow you to -score critical hits.-
So saying 'You score a critical hit' is how you get around precision is like saying the Fire keyword in Fireball means you don't get to add bonus damage from Astral Fire.
It. Doesn't. Make. Sense.