Adent Champion. Rules lawyers required

[Montague68]

So all the normal rules regarding crits (natural 20 is a crit is can hit, natural 20 is the only automatic hit, yada yada) are very clearly worded and I am glad we understand them, but they are the General Rules.

Therefore, given Holy Ardor is a specific rule (as defined by the fact that it pertain to a much narrower game subset) that conflicts with these, the rule of specific trumps general applies, and therefore the two rolls hit regardless of whether it would naturally have been a miss.

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

 

[BobTheNob]

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

You know, I posted that Precision was the general rule twice already and you are the first person to acknowledge it. Once precision is defined as the general rule, the debate is over, because its automatically trumped.

I repeat (third time) the rules of natural 20 and precision are general rules. It doesnt matter if they are specifically or exactly worded. It doesnt make a lick of difference. They are rules that cover the broadest set of scenarios (99%+) and are therefore, by definition, general.

Specific trumps general. Therefore, the hit applies.

And now it appears that Cust Serv agrees with my interpretation. You wouldnt have a referenece to this cust service on the web would you?

 

[Marshall]

On page 276 in the PHB It has rules that state that a natural 20 roll may not be a critical hit. On page 278 it defines what a critical hit is and how you get them. They even go to the trouble of giving a critical hit another name (crit) to prevent this type of absurd argument. The games uses terms some of these terms are made up of more than one word. Splitting up the words in the terms is a mistake. If this feature had used the language crit as opposed to critical hit no one would be having this debate and since the terms are interchangeable i do not see what the issue is. The specific trumps general is in cases of contradiction but there is none of that here. Critical Hit and Automatic Hit are terms and as cannot be separated into the component words. Precision refers to Critical Hits and only to Critical Hits. The part about only 20 being an Automatic Hit is just a reminder of a different rule which is why it is in parentheses.

'automatic hit' is not a defined game term.

The lack of the word 'can' and the presence of the 'two ones' rule signals that its meant to be an automatic hit. If doubles dont auto hit, than 'two ones' is wasted space since you auto miss on either die result.

 

[DracoSuave]

[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.

 

[Mirtek]

Once precision is defined as the general rule, the debate is over, because its automatically trumped.

Only if there's a specific rule specifically contradicting the general rule. Holy Ardor doesn't say that it contradicts the general rule.

If doubles dont auto hit, than 'two ones' is wasted space since you auto miss on either die result.

Since you can easily buff your attack high enough to get a high enough number on a rolled 1, the 'two ones' is needed to clarify that this doesn't matter.

15 (lvl) + 6 (enchantment) + 3 (proficieny) + 3 (expertise) + 8 (ability) = 35
Average AC of level 30 monsters: 45

Flank with your leader buddy giving you a +8 to hit (righteous brand cleric anyone?) and you would get a sufficiently high number on a every roll. The 'two ones' is indeed needed to clarify that you don't.

If anything the 'two ones' indicates that rolls that are no sufficient to hit are not turned into a hit, because otherwise there were no real need to not just let them hit on a double 1 too.

 

[BobTheNob]

I think this is where we are not going to agree. I have both books open and am looking at the paragraphs in each. Im trying to consider your position whilst doing so, but as much as I do, I still come to the conclussion that Holy Ardor and Precision conflict with each other.

If we look at dagger master it sais "you can score a critical hit on 18-20". Its wording is ambiguios ("can" is a non definitive word) in regards to this debate and therefore does not conflict with Precision. My understanding would be (and I think this is very clear cut) Precision applies in this case

Holy Ardor explicately states (with no ifs, butts or maybes) that a double roll is a critical hit. There is no ambiguity or uncertainty in the syntax and therefore (by my understanding) Holy Ardor does conflict with precision. In cases of conflict, specific over general.

 

[Montague68]

[quoite]'automatic hit' is not a defined game term.

And how did tier 1 tech support explain this, exactly?

[/quote]

"Jason" said simply that the ability overrides precision. I didn't have a horse in the fight so I didn't really press him on it. I don't have a web reference because this was over the phone.

 

[DracoSuave]

I think this is where we are not going to agree. I have both books open and am looking at the paragraphs in each. Im trying to consider your position whilst doing so, but as much as I do, I still come to the conclussion that Holy Ardor and Precision conflict with each other.

If we look at dagger master

Here's the rub. We are not talking about daggermaster. Daggermaster is not relevant to the conversation. Whether it says 'can' or not is irrelevant to the conversation.

Holy Ardor explicately states (with no ifs, butts or maybes) that a double roll is a critical hit.

And then Precision explicitly states (with no ifs, butts or maybes) that scoring a critical hit does not mean an automatic hit with 20s.

What Holy Ardor does NOT do is state that critical hits from it actually automaticly hit. In the -absense- of an explicit exception, apply the original rule.

This is the -exact- same argument form you present:

'Fireball says you deal 3d6+Intellegence modifier damage. No, you can't reduce that damage with resistance, or immunity! You do that much damage, no more, and no less. Outside rules cannot modify it, because the power does not explicitly allow for modification from outside rules. It is specific, and therefore trumps general. It doesn't say you -can- deal that much damage! It says, flat out, that creature takes that damage. No, it doesn't matter that the rules for how damage works tells you you can do it. Specific beats general.'

That argument form is thusly defeated, proof by contradiction.

Precision's language doesn't -care- if the ability is 'optional' about the critical hits. It says, without ambiguity, that features that allow non-20 critical hits do not automatically hit. Which means that the onus to prove that it doesn't goes back to the original ability to show that it -explicitly- gets to break the rule on how to govern 'scoring a critical hit.'

All you've established is that Holy Ardor scores a critical hit. No one is arguing that, that IS unambiguous. Now, you need to establish that it gets to break the rules on how abilities that allow you to score a critical hit work. This what you haven't done, just like the above Fireball argument hasn't actually established how Fireball breaks the rules on how damage work.

And it can't do so, because it -doesn't- break those rules.

 

[pascalnz]

wow I'm away for a day, good debates.

mirtek your argument is slightly odd.

you are aware that rolling a natural one on a dice is an automatic fail no matter how much of a bonus you have?

so the miss on double ones could only be there to say the ability lets you cirtically "hit" on any number. except on natural ones. because the clause at the end is there.

I don't want to seem a pain but I'm just not getting that part of your argument, unless you think you can hit on ones if your bonus is high enough

 

[DracoSuave]

wow I'm away for a day, good debates.

mirtek your argument is slightly odd.

you are aware that rolling a natural one on a dice is an automatic fail no matter how much of a bonus you have?

so the miss on double ones could only be there to say the ability lets you cirtically "hit" on any number. except on natural ones. because the clause at the end is there.

Or it could simply be reminder text. Reminder text -does- exist in fourth edition, you know. It isn't a contradiction to the Precision rule, however, nor does it indicate that it is.

I mean, the words 'the attack automaticly hits and' isn't rocket science. If they wanted the ability to automaticly hit, don't you think they'd have blatantly said so?

The argument 'The ability says, clearly, that you can miss in this particular case, so therefore, all other cases where it could miss do not apply' is so flawed I don't feel the need to pick it apart.

But I will, because apparently, it IS necessary.

Set A is the set of occurances where rolling doubles is not an automatic hit. p(x) is the situation where the number x is rolled on both dice.

The natural 1 rule on Holy Ardor says that p(1) is in the set.

Now, how, -exactly- does that say that other members of the set cannot exist?

I don't want to seem a pain but I'm just not getting that part of your argument, unless you think you can hit on ones if your bonus is high enough

They wanted it to be clear that the missing on 1s rule (which isn't a rule governing critical hits) clearly works on this ability, due to the fact that the critical hit rules, and the missing on 1s rule never actually interact due to Precision kicking in anyways.

Clarification is often a good thing in these games. They wanted to make something -clear-.