Adent Champion. Rules lawyers required

[Artoomis]

...This is incorrect. Nowhere in the rules that I have in my PHB, or that you have quoted from your PHB or the Compendium, actually indicate that scoring a critical hit allows you to apply the damage. ...-Dan'L

Indeed I have. I shall do it again, just follow the bold text below:

Natural 20: If you roll a 20 on the die when making an attack roll, you score a critical hit if your total attack roll is high enough to hit your target’s defense. If your attack roll is too low to score a critical hit, you still hit automatically.

Precision: Some class features and powers allow you to score a critical hit when you roll numbers other than 20 (only a natural 20 is an automatic hit).

Maximum Damage: Rather than roll damage, determine the maximum damage you can roll with your attack. This is your critical damage. (Attacks that don’t deal damage still don’t deal damage on a critical hit.)

Extra Damage: Magic weapons and implements, as well as high crit weapons, can increase the damage you deal when you score a critical hit. If this extra damage is a die roll, it’s not automatically maximum damage; you add the result of the roll.

Note that "scoring a critical hit" is a two step process.

Step 1: Roll an attack die and have it be high enough to possibly score a critical hit.
Step 2: Check to see if your total attack roll is high enough to hit your target’s defense.

If both Step 1 and Step 2 are true, then you score a critical hit.

Step 3: Apply critical damage.

Step 3 happens if, and only if, you "score a critical hit." Also, Step 3 happens every time you "score a critical hit" (well, excluding interrupts and the like).

Holy Ardor creates a new situation that, as written, lets you "score a critical hit" based upon an entirely new new mechanic, rolling doubles, vs. the general rule based upon rolling an attack die.

Also, note that before step 2 you have not "scored a critical hit."

All that said, so far CustServ disagrees with me. Once it gets fully vetted and posted into the FAQs or rule updates, then, at that point, they (WotC) will have issued a formal clarification (or whatever you want to call it).

I can understand your confusion with this one. Let's say you roll a pair of 2's. Assuming your total of your attack bonus +2 does not hit, you would not crit the target. Your total still has to hit and then the hit turns to a crit, but it does not make a guaranteed hit; only a natural 20 does that.

I will happily pass this along for you and hopefully we can see an update to the FAQ in the future.

I have suggested the following update for WotC, assuming the intent is NOT to create a new crit rule:

Holy Ardor (11th level): Whenever you make two attack rolls because of your oath of enmity, you can score a critical hit if both dice have the same roll, except if both rolls are 1. The rolls must still be high enough to hit for one to score a critical hit in this manner.

The language may not be perfect, but there can be no doubt about how to use this rule this way.

 

[N8Ball]

N8ball, before we even need to define critical hit, I would need you to provide me any situation in which a critical hit is an automatic hit, without rolling a 20.

Without agreeing on what a crit is, any situation I provide involving crits will have different underlying assumptions by each of us, and I don't think will get us anywhere.

But I will talk about Automatic hits here in a minute.

 

[Dan'L]

Indeed I have. I shall do it again, just follow the bold text below:

Natural 20: If you roll a 20 on the die when making an attack roll, you score a critical hit if your total attack roll is high enough to hit your target’s defense. If your attack roll is too low to score a critical hit, you still hit automatically.

Precision: Some class features and powers allow you to score a critical hit when you roll numbers other than 20 (only a natural 20 is an automatic hit).

Maximum Damage: Rather than roll damage, determine the maximum damage you can roll with your attack. This is your critical damage. (Attacks that don’t deal damage still don’t deal damage on a critical hit.)

Extra Damage: Magic weapons and implements, as well as high crit weapons, can increase the damage you deal when you score a critical hit. If this extra damage is a die roll, it’s not automatically maximum damage; you add the result of the roll.

None of your bolded text says that you actually get to apply the damage of a critical hit simply because it is a critical hit. In fact, the parenthetical clauses of Precision and Maximum Damage make it clear that there are times when you do NOT get to apply the damage (I've gone ahead and bold-italicized the significant bits.) All you've pointed out is that your maximum damage amount can be enhanced by magic weapons and implements, but it doesn't create a condition for applying the damage to your target; only "hit" and "automatic hit" (and some "miss" and "effect" lines) do that.

-Dan'L

 

[CovertOps]

If you insist that you need new wording at least just point to the existing rules like so:

Holy Ardor (11th level): Whenever you make two attack rolls because of your oath of enmity, you can score a critical hit if both dice have the same roll, except if both rolls are 1. The rules for critical and automatic hits still need to be followed.

Even that is annoying as it shouldn't be needed. The lack of any overriding rule should make you use the general rules by default.

 

[FurryFighter]

I think it does allow you to hit with a critical hit rolling doubles, and double 1 is always miss. wouldnt expect less from a PP power. its not like that increases its chance of hitting so much anyway, from 4% to 5-6% or something? Might as well take it RAW/RAR

 

[CovertOps]

I think it does allow you to hit with a critical hit rolling doubles, and double 1 is always miss. wouldnt expect less from a PP power. its not like that increases its chance of hitting so much anyway, from 4% to 5-6% or something? Might as well take it RAW/RAR

Perhaps you missed the ruling from Customer Service above in the post by Artoomis who has been arguing that position for 10 pages of this thread and has now been ruled wrong.

 

[N8Ball]

A crit is when you roll a natural 20 and your total attack roll is high enough to hit your target’s defense you deal maximum damage.

This is for sure one way to GET a crit, but once you get there, what is it? It's a maximum damage hit. (sometimes with extras as applied by the crit rules and other features that do whatever "when you score a critical hit".)

Ok N8Ball...I see what you mean. Let me revise my definition of critical hit.

Within the context of the critical hit rules themselves the term refers to a hit that does max damage and whatever else is defined about the damage aspect of a crit. In this case the use of the word "can" does make a difference. Also in this context there is no such thing as a "crit" that "misses".

In ANY other location in the rules critical hit refers to the critical hit rules.

OK, now we're getting somewhere.

I would submit that what we mean by "Critical hit" should not change when we stop reading the critical hit rules (the context where you agree with me) and start reading the powers (the context where you do not).

I agree that critical hits are governed by the crit rules. But I see that governance as not to imply the possibility of a miss and a crit.

 

[N8Ball]

Perhaps you missed the ruling from Customer Service above in the post by Artoomis who has been arguing that position for 10 pages of this thread and has now been ruled wrong.

Well that just makes it 1 cust serv for and 1 cust serv against. Big surprise.

See the first post by Gearjammer on page 4.

 

[N8Ball]

OK, here goes.

Assumptions: (at least the most contentious ones)
- A Critical hit is a hit that does max damage (and extras)
- The permissive or definitive language used in the rules, feats and features surrounding Critical hits is meaningful and deliberate.

This is what I think precision does as written in the PHB. I really hope I can explain this clearly because this may take a bit. Please read each part in order because they build on each other. I will talk first lay out how I see the basic rules and then how feats and features have modified them.

In the beginning...(you know this is going to be a long one)
In the basic rules, there are 2 rules that talk about rolling a 20 on an attack roll. One is "Automatic Hit", the other is "Critical hit". Automatic hit referred to rolling a 20 and was a hit regardless of the defense attacked. "Critical hit" required not only a 20 but also an attack good enough to hit the defense.

Before feats and features enter into the equasion, there is no need for precision because it specifically talks about feats and features. I think we can agree that it's only relavent when those begin to change other aspects of the general crit rules.

We can see that with a 20 that is also successful attack roll, the Automatic Hit rules apply but are not really meaningful since the attack roll was already good enough.

Furthermore, when you got a 20 and POSSIBLE crit, you already knew that you had hit, because there was 100% correlation from critical hit-> automatic hit. (note the direction is important, because the reverse was not true).

One common error that people make is confusing correlation with causation. One might have erroneously assume that because you rolled a POSSIBLE crit, that it was at least an Automatic Hit. (the advent of 4E was filled with erroneous assumptins like this) That faulty cause->effect thinking would have resulted in no incorrect results just using the basic rules, because there was 100% correlation from crit -> auto hit. We know the possible crit was not causal, it was conincident because the 2 events were governed by 2 different rules that simply had some criteria in common.

It's also worth noting that any time that the Automatic Hit rule had any meaningful effect on the outcome, the possible crit had been already been denied because the other criteria had not been met (good enough attack roll).

Then come along feats and features that start to change the basic rules on what the POSSIBLE crit numbers are. But they only change the qualifiers for achieving a crit. The 100% correlation is no longer there because you can crit on a 19, but a 19 is not covered by the Automatic hit rules. The erroneous causation assumption made before now creates problems for the player who thinks that because he rolled a 19 that he gets an automatic hit because he can crit on a 19.

Enter Precision. It addresses feats and features that might allow you to achieve crits by other means (specifically rolling numbers other than 20). The mastery feats definitely fit this description and I am of the opinion that Holy Ardor does as well. It points out that while there may be feats that provide a looser criteria or other routes to the promised land of crits, that the Automatic hit rules are not changed by these crit enhancing rules.

So the guy who rolled a 19 and didn't get a attack score good enough to hit Orcus looks at this situation may think that Precision says he didn't hit, but all it really did was remind us that those "precision" feats and features don't change the automatic hit rules.

So what did Precision do? It clarified the scope of "precision" feats and features. The critical hit rules, even modified by mastery, say he didn't get a crit and the normal hit rules say he missed. Actually, it was the same criteria in both cases that denied him (not rolling a good enough attack).

Precision does not have any binding parts, actually. It simply and correctly applies the automatic hit rule as written on the previous page, but that is not the same as enforcing a miss. THAT was satisfied by the basic hit rules in the first place.

It's important to note that the term "Automatic hit" is a game term (defined on page 276) that only speaks to 20s being hits. The rule does not talk about missing or say when you miss. It just makes a special case that a 20 is always a hit.

Not having an "automatic hit" is not synonymous with missing, that much is clear. "Automatic hit" is essentially a "last resort" rule when the regular hit rules have called a miss. It denies nothing, it only grants a hit in a very narrow case.

I realize that several of you will disagree with some of my underlying assumptions, but as a whole I think that this way of thinking about thing is internally consistent, matches extremely well with the text as written and doesn't not require any terms to be contradictory.

 

[Dan'L]

It's important to note that the term "Automatic hit" is a game term (defined on page 276) that only speaks to 20s being hits. The rule does not talk about missing or say when you miss. It just makes a special case that a 20 is always a hit.

Right. It's just a little bit below that on p. 276, under the heading "Miss" where it explicitly states: "If your attack roll is lower than the attack score, the attack misses."

- The only exception found to this rule of "miss" is the aforementioned "Automatic Hit."

- There is nothing in Holy Ardor that says rolling doubles is a "Hit," only a "Critical Hit," and these have been shown to be explicitly separate, though related, game terms.

- There is nothing in the section outlining the details of "Critical Hits" on PHB p. 278 which allows a critical hit to be an automatic hit or to apply it's maximum damage without also meeting the criteria for a "Hit."

Not having an "automatic hit" is not synonymous with missing, that much is clear. "Automatic hit" is essentially a "last resort" rule when the regular hit rules have called a miss. It denies nothing, it only grants a hit in a very narrow case.

Correct. But also somewhat irrelevant. More relevant is that "critical hit" is not synonymous with "hit." The specific rules governing critical hits, found on p. 278, also reinforce that a critical hit is neither synonymous with "automatic hit," nor with dealing damage on attacks that don't deal damage (such as an attack that fulfills the "miss" requirements.)

-Dan'L