Swift Hunter vs Fortification

[Shin Okada]

Swift Hunter says,

In addition, your skirmish extra damage applies against any creature you have selected as a favored enemy, even if it is normally immune to extra damage from critical hits or skirmish attacks.

What will happen if, say, a character with this feat has "Dragon" as one of his favored enemy and using skirmish, but the dragon has Gemstone of Heavy Fortification and thus immune to critical hit damages?

My interpretation is that Dragon is not "normally immune to extra damage" and thus with or without this feat, the PC cay apply skirmish damage. But still, those extra damages are negated by 100% fortification.

Do you guys think this is a reasonable interpretation?

 

[Runestar]

I see no reason why "natural" crit immunity would be any different from crit immunity derived from an external source.

The idea seems to be to allow your skirmish damage to affect the same sort of foes as your favoured enemy damage. So yes, it should punch right through crit immunity of any sort, since FE damage affects crit-immune foes just fine.

 

[Darklone]

I'd say the same as Runestar. The swift hunter ability is pretty strong and bordering on the broken side of the rules, but if I allow it at all there's no reason why it shouldn't apply to any resistance or immunity to precision damage.

 

[Shin Okada]

My first post was not precise. Gemstone of Fortification (or Fortification ability of armor in DMG) is not actually using the word "immune".

Both of them says,

When a critical hit or sneak attack is scored on the wearer, there is a chance that the critical hit or sneak attack is negated and damage is instead rolled normally.

And Skirmish ability in Complete Adventurer says,

The extra damage only applies against living creatures that have a discernible anatomy. Undead, constructs, oozes, plants, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to extra damage from critical hits are not vulnerable to this additional damage.

So, maybe, even without swift hunter feat, Fortification does not protect someone from skirmish at all?

 

[Runestar]

I see it something like this.

1) Skirmish can only target foes not immune to crits.

2) Gemstone doesn't exactly make you immune, but its effects pretty much simulate the same thing, so I would just lump them together under the same category.

3) With it, a dragon would not be affected by a scout's skirmish (assuming the scout lacked the swift hunter feat).

4) The swift hunter feat allows a ranger/scout to ignore the gemstone's properties and affect the dragon with skirmish as though he did not have fortification.

So it is kinda like a rock-paper-scissors thing.

 

[moritheil]

It's offering a chance to be immune - but even if that chance takes place and it is immune, Swift Hunter bypasses that immunity.

 

[quaidbrown]

I tend to think a bit more about intention... when they said that skirmish affects your favored enemy even if they are normally immune to crits, it is taking care of those folks who chose undead or something as their favorite enemy.

It wouldn't be fair for them if they didn't get this bonus too.

That said, how often would undead be wearing fortification gear? It wouldn't make any sense since they are immune to sneak attacks and crits anyway.

But if they did... I would have it cover a case like this. Granted the player would probably be mad at me because why the hell was he wearing a helm of heavy fortification? He's undead!

But if the dragon is wearing one... then he should be able to count on being immune to crits. That's why he bought the damn thing. Be fair to the dragon!

That said, this is a feat and should do something cool. It is an awfully powerful feat to always be sure that you're going to get your special ability in every circumstance... but it is against only certain creatures.

I would let them crit the dragon. Imagine the dragon's surprise! That's what makes a truly epic encounter Sounds like fun.

 

[concerro]

I think the intent was to bypass natural immunity to crits. If the creature, for whatever reason fortification armor on I don't think it should work.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

But if the dragon is wearing one... then he should be able to count on being immune to crits. That's why he bought the damn thing. Be fair to the dragon!

And the dragon would remain immune to crits. He'd just be susceptible to the scout's skirmish damage.

I like the dead-end binary logic argument hinted at already. Fortification, when it works (% roll is success if not full fortification) is either: a) immunity to that critical hit or b) something else entirely. I'd like to see someone explain to me how it could not be one of these two options. Now then, let's examine:

a) It's immunity to crits! Swift Hunter says you can still Skirmish. End of argument.
b) It's not immunity to crits, but something else entirely not touched on in the rules! Note now, precision damage explicitly fails against things immune to crits. But, this isn't crit immunity. So there's no RAW basis for denying the skirmish damage, or for that matter...any precision damage, swift hunter feat or not! Sure, you could argue RAI and that it feels right to make it protect against precision damage as well since crit immunity does so, but the scout could also argue RAI that if this armor ability isn't crit immunity, then clearly the designers meant for it to not protect against SA/SS/Skirmish at all.

So...either way, Scout's getting his Skirmish damage!
(Option b) kinda entices me, actually. It really disturbs me that by level 30 or so every single armor wearing enemy will be immune to SA.)

 

[green slime]

I'd just ban the Swift Hunter.

This kind of crap just really ticks me off.

Sort of like Super hot fire damage that penetrates Energy Resistance (Fire), or even Immunity to Fire Damage.

Then you can invent a supplement selling Super Energy Resistance, that guarantees protection from Super Fire Damage....

It is just stupidly bad game design.