Can I make multiple extra melee attacks with one crit?

[Istar]

Can I make a extra melee attack with Harmony Blade and Two-Weapon Opening on the same crit?

Harmony Blade[DDI]: from item set Blade Dancer's Regalia - Critical: +1D6 damage per plus, and you can make a melee basic attack with your off-hand weapon.
Two-weapon Opening[DDI]: paragon feat from the two-weapon fighting chain - when you are wielding two melee weapons and you score a critical hit with your main weapon, you can make a melee basic attack with your off-hand weaponagainst the same target as free action. (PHB2)

 

[tiornys]

Technically, yes, this works. Harmony Blade's ability does not specify "free action", so the granted attack does not fall under the limitation on free action attacks in a turn. If you happened to be wielding the Harmony Blade in your off-hand and you were to crit on one of the granted attacks, you could make another attack with it. Theoretically, in this case, as long as you kept scoring crits, you could keep attacking.

If you happened to be playing in my game, I would house-rule Harmony Blade's attack to be a free action, but that would definitely be a house-rule.

t~

 

[Ferghis]

tiornys is correct, both as to RAW and as to his inclination to houserule.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

I'd like to offer a dissenting view here...

As with a Rending weapon (which I don't believe has been nerfed yet), how often does the multiple crit rolls event actually happen?

Point is, an event that would probable be remembered by a player as one of the "best things ever" is reduced to just another average crit event.

I've played 3 years in one 4e campaign and a few months in our second campaign, with as many as 9 players, all the way up into epic. I've yet to see a player just keep on rolling crits over and over...

I'm just saying, why take away the potential for a player to have one truly shining moment vs a slim chance of it happening very often?

Most I ever seen was a Half-Elf Avenger, dual wielding Rending War Axes, Twin Strike for the At-will, with Two-Weapon Opening, and another member of the party popped Anthem of Progress. Even then, the Avenger had one huge round, and one smaller one. Of course, that only worked for one encounter per day.

So my question is, from everyone's personal experience, is it really necessary to house rule it, because our group just not seen people roll crit after crit in the last 3-4 years of play...

Thanks.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

I agree with Darklord and would give ya a point but can't

 

[the Jester]

I agree with Darklord and would give ya a point but can't

Covered for ya.

 

[keterys]

For reference, the attack granted by these weapon isn't specified as a free action... or in any way whatsoever, even as a no action. Unfortunately, this means that it is up to the DM (or WotC, potentially, though they are unlikely to do so for everything printed) to decide on an appropriate action type.

In almost every instance, the correct answer is free action - just because any other action or no action alternative isn't very viable by the rules. (Ex: Is it intended to function while petrified or dead? Then "No Action" is inappropriate. Is it intended to not function at all? Then "Standard Action" isn't appropriate. Trigger only when it's not your turn? Then Immediate and Opportunity are not appropriate... leaving just Free Action).

Anecdotally, every instance where the action was unspecified in the Player's Handbook was corrected to "free action" in the Class Compendium, but none of those rewordings were called out as a change / errata / update.

This is not technically a house rule, nor can you cite it as "as written" because the rule is literally _not_ written, but it will see tremendous table variance and forum argument.

 

[Istar]

Werent the Rending Axe's changed to the extra attack being a free action ?
So that wouldnt work?

Is their not a Fighter Paragon feat that gives you a free action attack on a crit.

 

[SensoryThought]

If you listen/read sly flourish, he noted that high crit feats plus things that proc on crits are great for breaking late paragon/epic tier games in terms of pcs getting crazy powerful.

Daggermaster paragon path is another offender in the crit stacking game (you crit 15% of the time).

Rules as written with extra attacks I'm not sure if you can get an extra crit attack off of an extra crit attack. Not your question, but one of my own.

 

[Ryujin]

Sometimes a little common sense needs to be applied, when the text is lacking. Even if Harmony Blade doesn't state 'free action', unequivocally, it certainly reads like it. Since you are only allowed one free action attack per round, I would disallow multiples of this sort.