Harm and critical hits...

[Hypersmurf]

Disagree. IMHO, they should have made this part "but it cannot reduce the target’s hit points to less than 1." Into it's own sentence.

Isn't that like:

"Magic Missile states 'Inanimate objects are not damaged by the spell.' So I can't destroy a potion with it. Agree? Disagree?"

"Disagree. IMHO, where they wrote 'Inanimate objects are not damaged by the spell', they should have written 'Inanimate objects are damaged by the spell.'"

The spell says one thing. People think it should say something else.

If there were a separate paragraph - "Harm cannot reduce the target's hit points to less than 1" - then yes, absolutely, it applies regardless of the save.

But the sentence as written states "If the target successfully saves, Harm cannot reduce the target's hit points to less than 1."

There's no suggestion or implication - save outdated historical versions of the spell that no longer apply - that Harm cannot reduce the target's hit points to less than 1 on a failed save.

-Hyp.

 

[Artoomis]

...There's no suggestion or implication - save outdated historical versions of the spell that no longer apply - that Harm cannot reduce the target's hit points to less than 1 on a failed save.

-Hyp.

True. The only question, really, is whether one thinks the editor did a sloppy job and they really meant Harm to not reduce hit points below 1. Certainly, as written, that's not how it reads.

 

[UltimaGabe]

You could always rule, right or wrong, that you can crit with Harm, but the damage cap applies even to the doubled damage.

Then it would be going against all other attack spells in the game. A shocking grasp, if I'm not mistaken, does a maximum of 5d6 points of damage (at 5th level)- but does this mean that a 5th-level Sorcerer rolling a natural 20 on his attack roll is only able to do 5d6 points of damage? That seems to be the cap.

Of course, critical hits are special and rare instances, and should be kept that way. It's not going to be too easy to abuse (unless you're giving out gloves of Keen Touch Spell and changing touch spells to 18-20, and all of your casters take Improved Critical: Touch at 18th level), so go ahead and let them deal 300 points of damage on a critical hit. After all, that's what critical hits do.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Then it would be going against all other attack spells in the game. A shocking grasp, if I'm not mistaken, does a maximum of 5d6 points of damage (at 5th level)- but does this mean that a 5th-level Sorcerer rolling a natural 20 on his attack roll is only able to do 5d6 points of damage? That seems to be the cap.

There's a difference between an explicit cap, and simply the most you can roll on 5d6.

If Shocking Grasp stated that it dealt 5d6 damage, but could never deal more than 20 points of damage, then on a critical you'd roll 5d6 doubled... capped at 20. An Empowered Shocking Grasp would deal 5d6 x1.5... but would cap at 20.

With the Empower Spell feat, you can roll more than 30 damage on 5d6... even though you've stopped adding extra dice at 5th level. But if there's an explicit limit, it doesn't matter that you can roll 45 on 5d6... you still have to come under the limit.

It's like an Empowered Mirror Image. Your number of images is 1d4 + 1/3 caster levels, x1.5... but there's still a maximum of 8.

-Hyp.

 

[mikebr99]

Somehow I don't think the writers of the PH (or any of the rulebooks, for that matter) had precise rules of written english in mind when they were writing the stuff.

Could harm kill in previous editions? I don't remember. If it could, then let the 3.5 version. If not, then don't. We're not splitting the atom here folks.

And we're also not suggesting that every DM have all previous editions of the rule books... just play how it's written now. Death on a failed save... assuming your hps suck.

Kind of makes Death Ward a kewl spell eh?


Mike

 

[buchw001]

Somehow I don't think the writers of the PH (or any of the rulebooks, for that matter) had precise rules of written english in mind when they were writing the stuff.

Could harm kill in previous editions? I don't remember. If it could, then let the 3.5 version. If not, then don't. We're not splitting the atom here folks.

Not to be rude, but I hope you are kidding. If someone takes on the task of writing a book (especially a RULES book), I would hope precise rules of the written language would be of utmost importance to BOTH the editors and the creator of the book to avoid ambiguity.

Furthermore, what if this is the first time I have ever played D&D? Do you really expect everyone to know the history of the game (let alone the history of this one specific spell)?

 

[Artoomis]

Not to be rude, but I hope you are kidding. If someone takes on the task of writing a book (especially a RULES book), I would hope precise rules of the written language would be of utmost importance to BOTH the editors and the creator of the book to avoid ambiguity.

It would be nice if that was true, but evidence shows that the use of English in the D&D rules is nowhere near as precise we would like it to be.

Furthermore, what if this is the first time I have ever played D&D? Do you really expect everyone to know the history of the game (let alone the history of this one specific spell)?

Sometimes that's waht it takes to try and figure out intent.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

I truly believe the spell was NOT intended to allow death; however, the sentence structure proves otherwise. As stated before, if there was a semicolon ( ; ) or period ( . ) after the word amount, then the interpretation would be different.

Yes, the text is poorly written. If read strictly, it doesn't say what we know (from independent sources, including but not limited to previous experience) was intended. You have to change the sentence construction (albeit not any of the wording) somewhat for it to be correct. That's what I was referring to earlier.

And yes, that's definitely a problem in a rulebook. You can't really expect players to read your mind. Just your book.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If read strictly, it doesn't say what we know (from independent sources, including but not limited to previous experience) was intended.

We "know"?

How so?

I can easily imagine a Revision session with a conversation along the lines of:

"Well, we've nerfed Harm's high-end power, getting rid of the uncapped damage potential and giving it a save for half. Is that too much? Should we throw something back in?"
"I think we need to keep it capped. What about letting it kill on a failed save?"
"... sure, sounds good to me."

Why should we assume that what they wrote isn't what they meant, given all the other changes to the spell compared to previous editions?

-Hyp.

 

[danzig138]

Then it would be going against all other attack spells in the game.

Yep. That's why I said right or wrong. Just threw it out there for the guy. Who knows, maybe they might decide that it can be different from the other attack spells. If the online community has taught me anything, it's that people will make, IMO, odd decisions concerning their games.