All Bets Are Off: Secondary Attack Crit

[Jhaelen]

irregardless! (take this, kitten!)

 

[Saeviomagy]

Where's that power from? The compendium does not know it. I only found garrote strangle, but there's nothing like "light blade" in it.

My guess is that you copy-pasted my spelling in, which is incorrect. It's in the PHB, 15th level rogue daily, and it shows up in the compendium for me.

Irregardless the point is that it's a power which grabs your target, strangles them to unconsciousness and uses them as a body shield, and it absolutely cannot be performed without wielding a light blade. Actually a lot of rogue powers are like that: think you can perform knockout with a sap? Nope: you knock people out by stabbing them, thank you.

 

[Bagpuss]

Yes, the secondary attack is described in the flavor text as a punch with a fist, and the base damage is expressed as 1d6 instead of some number of [W]s, but nothing in the power implies that it loses the weapon keyword.

Fine but the weapon keyword also includes unarmed attacks. A fist is a weapon.

From the Compendium

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.

As this isn't [W] you aren't using a weapon in the traditional sense, you are most likely using your fist.

This means that any benefit that you get for using a weapon keyword power should apply, including adding your magic weapon's enhancement bonus to the attack roll and damage roll, bonus damage on a critical hit, other applicable magic weapon properties, and extra [W] damage on a crit if you are using a high crit weapon.

Only you can argue perfectly well within the rules that the weapon for the secondary attack is your fist, and so no enhancement bonus to damage, or even attack, and no crit bonus either.

If this bothers you, you could house-rule the power to make the flavor fit more closely with the mechanics.

It doesn't need a house rule, it just needs a DM to make a judgement call.

You could rule either way and be correct within the rules of D&D.

 

[Lord Ernie]

Fine but the weapon keyword also includes unarmed attacks. A fist is a weapon.

From the Compendium

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.

As this isn't [W] you aren't using a weapon in the traditional sense, you are most likely using your fist.

There is nothing in the rules that says this, and the clarification on weapon damage rolls does not mean that the attack does not count as a weapon attack. There are other weapon attack powers without a [W] damage roll (off the top of my head: Knockdown Assault). That doesn't mean anything for the power itself, which still gets your main weapon's enhancement and proficiency bonuses, and any properties will apply, along with any extra damage should you crit.

There is nothing in the rules that says you use anything but your main hand weapon for the secondary attack - only in the fluff.

 

[eamon]

The secondary attack is a bog-standard weapon-attack with all relevant modifiers.

I find consistency in fluff very important; but that's not an issue here - it's easy to fix the fluff (which, if mechanics are really wonky, is not easy).

Playing it any other way is rather pointless: this is a non-retrainable power; and by late paragon it's attack bonus would fall behind by up to +1(talent) +2(expertise) +3(proficiency) +5(enhancement) - which means it wont be hitting almost anything despite the +2 bonus pretty soon, and will miss even on a natural 20 (which is resolved as automatic non-critical hit). Of course, damage will be similarly meaningless.

The rules simply don't make sense if you interpret them as if lacking the weapon keyword.

So, from a balance & intent perspective, common sense suggests this is resolved as usual, as a weapon attack that happens to deal less damage than usual. Fluffing such an attack is trivial - you can call it a strike from a surprising angle, or a dirty trick that hits often but weakly - fitting for a pitfighter, or a strike with the flat of the blade or whatever - use fluff such as is common throughout the entire game - but at its heart it's just a plain weapon attack.

And, obviously, from a rules perspective, this is a power with the Weapon keyword and the rules concerning these are crystal clear; all the obvious bonuses apply. It's equally clear that the the damage die isn't a weapon die, so things like "brutal 1" etc. don't apply.

It's a bit annoying that the fluff and the mechanics don't line up; but this is a pretty minor infraction of that sort; and the PHB was the first 4e rulebook of its kind after all: it's not surprising to find a few odd descriptions here and there, after all.

 

[TheClone]

My guess is that you copy-pasted my spelling in, which is incorrect. It's in the PHB, 15th level rogue daily, and it shows up in the compendium for me.

Irregardless the point is that it's a power which grabs your target, strangles them to unconsciousness and uses them as a body shield, and it absolutely cannot be performed without wielding a light blade. Actually a lot of rogue powers are like that: think you can perform knockout with a sap? Nope: you knock people out by stabbing them, thank you.

Okay. Makes totally no sense in a simulationists way. Considering that, "All Bets Are Off"'s secondary attack has to use the weapon properties. 4e is purely gamist and will always be