Really nasty crit, or bad ruling?

[Wraithdrit]

I was NPCing a Frenzied Berserker Grimlock Barbarian Fighter last game session.
He was using a Great Axe.
I rolled a crit.

Str 34 (strength bonus to damage +18)
Power Attacking for Max: 14 points = Damage of +42 due to Improved Power Attack from Frenzied Berserker.
+2 keen great axe (2d6+2 base, x3 crit).

So does that equate to 6d6+186 points of damage, or am I off my rocker?

SRD:

"Critical Hits: When you make an attack roll and get a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), you hit regardless of your target’s Armor Class, and you have scored a threat. The hit might be a critical hit (or “crit”). To find out if it’s a critical hit, you immediately make a critical roll—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the critical roll also results in a hit against the target’s AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit. It doesn’t need to come up 20 again.) If the critical roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit.

A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is x2.

Exception: Extra damage over and above a weapon’s normal damage is not multiplied when you score a critical hit."

I believe the exception is referring to things like holy damage, or fire damage. The part of "with all your usual bonuses" indicates that you would use your str and power attack damage with each roll of the weapon dice, in this case a massive +62!

Just looking to make sure that I was correct.

 

[Gnimish88]

Well, without knowing the class levels or the specific text of Improved Critical, it looks right to me. Who did you vaporize?

 

[Pielorinho]

Looks right to me, too. Frenzied berserker is from MotW, right? The only possible error I can see is that FB might not be designed for use with 3.5 Power Attack. If you're okay with that (and since it's a PrC, even if it hasn't been "officially" updated to 3.5, that's entirely your call as a DM), the math looks exactly right.

Daniel

 

[Wraithdrit]

Complete Warrior version. So its definately 3.5.

And Gnimish88... to get that answer you gotta wait for the story hour update. I'm REALLY hoping to get to that soon. But first I gotta put out some work fires and finish rebuilding MY character for another campaign that runs tomorrow.

 

[DanMcS]

I was NPCing a Frenzied Berserker Grimlock Barbarian Fighter last game session.
He was using a Great Axe.
I rolled a crit.

Str 34 (strength bonus to damage +18)
Power Attacking for Max: 14 points = Damage of +42 due to Improved Power Attack from Frenzied Berserker.
+2 keen great axe (2d6+2 base, x3 crit).

So does that equate to 6d6+186 points of damage, or am I off my rocker?

Well, the strength bonus for str 34 is +12, not +18, wait, two-handed weapon, yep, looks good. Brain fart.

Power attack should really be x1.5 for two-handed weapons, not x2. But that's a quibble with the rules, not your interpretation of them, which is spot on. Nice hit.

 

[Scion]

You did confirm the crit right? 14 points of power attack should cut into anyones chance to hit.. Your math looks fine though! These are the reasons I always try to have a displacement-like effect on at all times..lol

 

[Wraithdrit]

Of course I confirmed it. With to hit bonuses of +12 for str and +2 for weapon, against someone wearing breast plate and shield, it was not too hard to do.

Worst thing was the shield had fortification, but failed to save him.

 

[The Souljourner]

And this is just one of many reasons why frenzied berserker is overpowered.

How does the guy have 34 strength? That's a good part of your problem - without +12 to hit from strength, he'd miss if he power attacked that much.

And who wears a non-magical breastplate and shield when fighting against 14+ level characters? Strike that.. obviously they were magical due to fortification, but still...

Anyway, this is why I always give my characters heavy fortification at the soonest possible moment. Criticals at high levels are just way too dangerous. (low levels too, but you generally have fewer flat out bonuses to damage at low levels).

A guy in our 9th level campaign just did 4d8 +60 on a critical last session due to two handed power attack etc (and improved multiplier from Weapon Master). Sliced a guy right in half from max hitpoints.

-The Souljourner

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I was killed by a (friendly) Frenzied Berserker Critical hit myself not so long ago (90 points of damage when I had 8 hp left). Sucked.

AR

 

[jgsugden]

Everything was fine with your calculations.

Ask yourself this: Was the result any different than a failed saving throw versus a death spell? PCs die to 1 bad roll on many occassions. A DM may decide to limit these opportunities for disaster, but if he eliminates them, the game loses some of its sense of danger.

As long as this wasn't a casual encounter with the party, I don't think there was anything wrong at all ...