Stats that don't have + Stat mod

[Mezzer]

It seems weird to me that the design decision for splash damage is one roll to hit, compared against the primary target. And for all other area of effect attacks it is roll for each target.

I'll have to re-read that section, I had not thought about it during my initial read through.

Its a balance concern, since the damage adjacent targets take is often significantly lower than primary damage, although some similar effects do require attack rolls against adjacent enemies as well (such as from Acid Arrow).

Could I trouble one of you guys for the page# where it says all enemies in area take a critical if one of them does(if thats what you mean)? I looked under area attacks and under criticals and couldn't find it. What if you miss the first five enemies in an area and then critical on the sixth one? All of them take critical damage?

Since you roll an attack roll for each enemy, you only get max damage on the one you crit, using an area attack. That does not seem to be the case when using a splash attack, where you have only one attack roll and thus max all the damage. Sorry if any previous post got you thinking otherwise, but I was talking about Fiery Bolt, which has a splash effect and so works a bit different.

 

[jaer]

The additional damage from Cleave and the damage on a miss from Reaping Strike doesn't get weapon and feat mods?

In reading the PHB, I understood that static numbers did not get modified but that variables did.

If something said "this deals 5 ongoing damage" nothing added to that 5. That 5 is static and cannot change.

I took "does strength damage" has a variable and, therefore, was modified by anything that used the weapon keyword. I guess that was an inaccurate reading?

 

[Mezzer]

Well, I would treat anything without a variable effect, aka a dice roll, as static. If you don't, you get certain oddities, such as a Cleave doing up to 9 damage to the cleaved target at first level (the extreme being a 20 Str, Power attack and Weapon Focus), which just shouldn't happen.

Granted, this could all be in the FAQ and save us all a lot of trouble, but until then a little common sense should suffice.