Arkhandus
First Post
....Maximize Spell says the spell deals maximum damage. It doesn't say "deals maximum base damage" or "deals maximum damage with its base damage dice" or any such thing. It's very simple and straightforward. How can this confuse you? A Maximized spell deals maximum damage on a critical hit, just as with a normal hit. The only exception is for Empower Spell, which itself states "All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by one-half." So Empower Spell specifically affects the variable part, the rolled damage, not the static Maximized damage. Maximize Spell states that "All variable, numeric effects of a spell modified by this feat are maximized.". The increased damage for Empowering the spell is not variable, it's a static 50% extra.
It may or may not make perfect sense, but Empower and Maximize are the only special case in the rules. The extra damage you roll for a critical hit is still part of the spell's effect, so it's covered by Maxmimize and Empower, it's not a separate effect, otherwise Damage Reduction wouldn't count it towards the primary damage dealt, nor would Spell Resistance apply if it weren't part of the spell's effect, and if it were separate, Fire Resistance or whatever would apply separately to both the base damage and the extra damage for a critical hit.
Now we all know that a crit's damage is part of the attack's damage, not separate, and that anything applying against the attack will count the critical damage as part of the attack, so someone with Cold Resistance 10 does not apply it twice against a critical hit from a Polar Ray, nor does a barbarian's Damage Reduction 4/- apply twice against weapon just because the weapon has the Flaming quality dealing an exrtra die of damage. Of course not. We know these things. A critical hit is just part of the normal hit, it's nothing more than an increase in the base damage. That's why extra damage dice aren't multiplied on a crit, like Sneak Attack, because they've already modified the base damage, just like the crit does.
It may or may not make perfect sense, but Empower and Maximize are the only special case in the rules. The extra damage you roll for a critical hit is still part of the spell's effect, so it's covered by Maxmimize and Empower, it's not a separate effect, otherwise Damage Reduction wouldn't count it towards the primary damage dealt, nor would Spell Resistance apply if it weren't part of the spell's effect, and if it were separate, Fire Resistance or whatever would apply separately to both the base damage and the extra damage for a critical hit.
Now we all know that a crit's damage is part of the attack's damage, not separate, and that anything applying against the attack will count the critical damage as part of the attack, so someone with Cold Resistance 10 does not apply it twice against a critical hit from a Polar Ray, nor does a barbarian's Damage Reduction 4/- apply twice against weapon just because the weapon has the Flaming quality dealing an exrtra die of damage. Of course not. We know these things. A critical hit is just part of the normal hit, it's nothing more than an increase in the base damage. That's why extra damage dice aren't multiplied on a crit, like Sneak Attack, because they've already modified the base damage, just like the crit does.
