Vorpal Crits

[hong]

This is not 3e

Er, yes. That's why "roll the dice" can be interpreted in its vague English meaning, as opposed to a tightly defined term of art.

 

[Zurai]

I have to say I disagree with Hong's ruling on a 'damage roll' and 'rolling damage' being one and the same.

To me:
Damage Roll = Total damage done, despite any actual rolling

If you take this interpretation, then you also add weapon enhancement bonus, feat bonuses, and untyped bonuses to the extra damage you do from a Cleave or from a miss on Reaping Strike.

 

[Karui_Kage]

Huh? Cleave says "and an enemy adjacent to you takes damage equal to your Strength modifier".

Where in there does it say 'damage roll'? Heck, that's a plain as you can get it. "equal" to your "strength modifier". You can't really argue 'equal'.

I probably should have clarified my meaning as:
Damage Roll: Total damage done when dice could be rolled

Or something. To be honest, I really don't know. We've never questioned when it said 'damage roll' before in our group, we just added whatever to the damage unless the power said otherwise (in the case above, it's pretty clear the extra damage is 'equal' to the 'strength modiifer').

In the case of Vorpal, it says 'when you roll damage', which also seems pretty clear.

I guess you can argue vernacular to the heavens and back, but it just makes sense this way.

 

[DLichen]

I don't notice you responding to the point I made in hong's defence. The rules very clearly contradict themselves on how to handle damage on critical hits. The only sane way to resolve the contradiction is to take the approach that critical hits are treated in every way as a damage roll, except that you assume you rolled maximum damage.

I'm sorry, I don't see a contradiction in those rules. I'm not sure where in the topic you actually made your point since I haven't read the last couple pages but I'll go over the RAW. But since you provided a counterpoint I can actually argue against, it might be worthwhile to go over it and explore the differences.

Maximum Damage: Rather than roll damage,
determine the maximum damage you can roll with
your attack. This is your critical damage.

DAMAGE ROLLS
✦ Roll the damage indicated in the power description.
If you’re using a weapon for the attack, the damage is
some multiple of your weapon damage dice.
✦ Add the ability modifier specified in the power
description. Usually, this is the same ability modifier
you used to determine your base attack bonus for
the attack.
In addition, any of the following factors might apply to the damage roll:

Ok, so rather than roll damage, you determine the max damage you can roll with your attack. Attack damage is determined by a damage roll as previously noted 276. Which is weapon die + bonuses. You determine what your maximum damage roll without rolling die. This is pretty clear. Attack damage is almost never weapon die alone, since most attacks have +ability score.

This doesn't change the fact that you actually HAVEN'T rolled weapon die which triggers vorpal.

The contradiction only arises if you assume attack damage is purely weapon damage, a conclusion which has no backing by RAW.

 

[Karui_Kage]

Looking further into it, I'm not sure why the definition 'damage roll' was brought into this, other then to confuse the issue. The definition of the Vorpal weapon seems clear.

"Whenever you roll the maximum result on any damage die for this weapon, roll that die again..."

If they meant for you to reroll the weapon dice on crits, why not say
"Whenever you receive the maximum result on any damage roll for this weapon, roll the weapon damage die again..."?

Despite what some people think about how rules definitions and lawyering is the purview of 3.5, 4.0 seems to have quite the share. That this weapon clearly spells out the action of rolling seems to mean it intended the effect not to have you re-roll crit dice.

Then again, maybe it does. The beauty of this is, I or the posters of this thread may never know. It's wizards. One CS representative may say one thing, another may say the opposite. Are there really that may level 30 games being run right now that it's that large of a problem?

 

[Zurai]

The RAW clearly says "You do not roll damage". It also says only to add the modifiers if you roll damage. If you take the interpretation that you're not rolling damage, such as is required to rule that Vorpal weapons don't explode on critical damage, then you're not rolling damage and cannot add enhancement bonuses or anything other than ability modifiers. If you take the interpretation that you're rolling the damage but it's automatically maximized, then the intent of the rules works but the letter of the rules is bent or bypassed.

You can't add enhancement bonuses unless you roll damage. On criticals, you do not roll damage. You determine damage as if you had rolled maximum. Vorpal weapons give you an extra damage dice whenever you roll damage. 1 + 1 = 2.

 

[Karui_Kage]

It says you add enhancement bonuses on 'damage rolls', not on 'rolling damage'. One seems to be a definition of something you can get, the other one seems to specify an action you physically take.

The distinction seems, to me at least, to be important. I could easily see arguing the other side as well. I don't know, it just seems to feel right this way.

 

[DLichen]

The definition of damage roll arises because as implied by the box in 276, bonuses only apply to damage rolls and not damage in general. That's mostly poor positioning than actual writing, but it's there. The argument is that if you don't make a damage roll, you can never apply bonuses.

This is because the gamey definition of a damage roll is only a name. When you crit, you determine what damage you can do without actually rolling, this does not imply that crits are not damage rolls, merely that crits don't roll die. If you're going to apply the gamey definition of damage roll, you have to separate it from the normal definition. As unintuitive as it is, you can have a damage roll without rolling because you're using the game definition of damage roll which is weapon dice + bonuses.

The maximum damage you can roll with an attack is its damage roll, the damage roll definition does not imply that you copy the state of the dice when you calculate max damage.

If you're going to argue in legalese, it's bad form to assume anything in the real world.

 

[Karui_Kage]

Just to be clear, DLichen, you know I'm on your side, yes?

 

[DLichen]

Sorry Karui, I was typing it up before you responded.