Calculating Damage

[KoshPWNZYou]

Things like sneak attack, hunter's quarry, etc are all added after you've rolled damage, at the player's discretion.

But do you add those regardless of whether the weapon damage is being applied as a Hit or an Effect? I'm guessing this is not the case since those abilities specifically cite an attack hitting. Same for feat bonuses, power bonuses, etc. Under the Damage entry on 276, these are all listed as being contingent on a successful attack roll, but the Effect of Rain of Steel requires no attack roll.

 

[Oldtimer]

My understanding from a previous discussion on this topic is that everything is maximized on a crit except damage that you added because of the crit. So while the extra damage dice a weapon gives you for critting would not be maxed, sneak attack would be.

This!
Trying to turn the simple adding up of damage into a multi-step process to figure out when to apply the MAX() function, is quite un-neccessary. It's not a process. Crit? You get maximum payoff from your attack, and then maybe some random extra. Simple.