CharOp? Enlarging the Crit area

[Mirtek]

* Take the Ardent Champion paragon path. The feature "Holy Ardor" makes it so that whenever you roll the same number on your two oath dice, as long as they're not 1s, you crit.[/IMG]

Actually it's "whenever you roll the same number on your two oath dice, as long it's a hit, you crit"

A double 1 is the most obvious miss, but if you need a 10 to hit, a double 9 is still a miss and thus not a crit.

 

[Saagael]

Actually it's "whenever you roll the same number on your two oath dice, as long it's a hit, you crit"

A double 1 is the most obvious miss, but if you need a 10 to hit, a double 9 is still a miss and thus not a crit.

I said as much on my next bullet point about the Lord of Fate ED

As long as you hit the enemy on a 10, both your dice are 10 and you crit (automatic hits are explicitly only on a natural 20).

 

[Saagael]

Hm, as DM I'm not sure if I'd let that count as "roll exactly 10" for crit purposes. Sounds like quite a fun late-game cheese though. I think the way 4e is designed, having some game-breaking stuff at the very highest levels could be regarded as a reward for slogging through 20-something levels of 'balanced' encounters.

I think game-breaking stuff that kicks in at Heroic or Paragon is much more of a problem, though.

There was a long debate I read a while back on the CharOp boards, and yes, consensus is that there is no correct, RAW, ruling. I'm not intending to start another rules debate, but for the sake of letting everyone make up their own mind, I'll post the text in question:

Holy Ardor: Whenever you make two attack rolls because of your oath of enmity and hit the target of your attack, you score a critical hit if both dice have the same roll, except if both rolls are 1.

Golden Mean: The burst creates a zone of balanced fate that lasts until the end of your next turn. Each creature within the zone doesn’t make d20 rolls to resolve attack rolls, ability checks, skill checks, and saving throws. Instead, these rolls are resolved as if the creature rolled a 10 on the die.

The point of contention was in Golden Mean's text "... these rolls are resolved as if the creature rolled a 10 on the die" and whether that was compatible with "... if both dice have the same roll."

 

[S'mon]

"whenever you roll" vs "doesn't make rolls" - going by the words I'd not count is as auto-critting, then. And the intent of 'golden mean' seems pretty clearly to give a 'take 10' sort of 'average' result.

 

[Saagael]

"whenever you roll" vs "doesn't make rolls" - going by the words I'd not count is as auto-critting, then. And the intent of 'golden mean' seems pretty clearly to give a 'take 10' sort of 'average' result.

Fair enough, but there are people who see it the other way. Like I said, its one of the cheesier combos I've seen, and were one of my players to try it, I would drop a Tarrasque on their head.

 

[S'mon]

Fair enough, but there are people who see it the other way.

Oh sure. Were I the player, I'm sure I'd argue the other way.

 

[Matt James]

If you don't share the details you really aren't helping to move the conversation along very much.

Yah, I'm a turd like that. It's the same build I've been ranting about since Righteous Rage of Tempus came out. They provided errata for Divine Oracle, but it did not address the crux of the problem.

 

[Kerranin]

I believe that an explicit part of 4e design was to eliminate crit-stacking builds that essentially 'break the game'.

I agree with S'mon:

"whenever you roll" vs "doesn't make rolls" - going by the words I'd not count it as auto-critting, then.

But, if your GM allows it, by all means enjoy yourself.

 

[Bluenose]

There's a barbarian rage that grants crits on 18-20 rolls, that I'm aware of. Level 25, I think, but I can't remember which.

What sort of things can you do with a crit other than rolling high damage?

Recover encounter powers, knock enemies prone, reduce the targets defences till the end of the encounter, trigger healing surges, get a damage bonus against that enemy till the end of the encounter, some magic items have effects that trigger on a critical.

 

[DracoSuave]

Fair enough, but there are people who see it the other way. Like I said, its one of the cheesier combos I've seen, and were one of my players to try it, I would drop a Tarrasque on their head.

Actually it does work.

Oarth of Emnity alters how attacks work against the target. It will occur on every melee attack. And then Golden Mein will change those die-rolls into 10s. And Golden Mein is explicit: Instead, these rolls are resolved as if the creature rolled a 10 on the die.

So, you make your attack, you now must resolve that attack is if you rolled 10s on both dice.

If Holy Ardor does not kick in, then you have not resolved the attack as if the creature rolled a 10 on the dice, and therefore you are disobeying Golden Mein.


And yeah, it is cheesy, and a reasonable excuse to start upping the level of monsters.