Telling Blow, Sneak Attack and Skirmish

[roguerouge]

Do sneak attack and skirmish damage get added to your damage when you get a critical hit? Consider this info from the PhBII feat, Telling Blow:

"When you strike an opponent's vital areas, you draw on your ability to land crippling blows to make the most of your attack.

Prerequisite: Skirmish or sneak attack ability.
Benefit: When you score a critical hit against a target, you deal your skirmish or sneak attack damage in addition to the damage from your critical hit. Your critical hit multiplier applies only to your normal damage, not your skirmish or sneak attack damage. This benefit affects both melee and ranged attacks."

Now, I've been assuming that if you critical with your short sword, you double the sword damage and then add the sneak attack or skirmish damage. Do you not add in the non-multiplied extra damage? Or do high level rogues pray to NOT sneak attack?

Any RAW info or telling logical insights would be appreciated.

 

[pawsplay]

Telling blow simply creates a situation where sneak attack and skirmish dice apply. So yes, you get the normal benefits of a crit. Then you get all your sneak attack and skirmish dice.

 

[Dross]

Do sneak attack and skirmish damage get added to your damage when you get a critical hit? Consider this info from the PhBII feat, Telling Blow:

"When you strike an opponent's vital areas, you draw on your ability to land crippling blows to make the most of your attack.

Prerequisite: Skirmish or sneak attack ability.
Benefit: When you score a critical hit against a target, you deal your skirmish or sneak attack damage in addition to the damage from your critical hit. Your critical hit multiplier applies only to your normal damage, not your skirmish or sneak attack damage. This benefit affects both melee and ranged attacks."

Now, I've been assuming that if you critical with your short sword, you double the sword damage and then add the sneak attack or skirmish damage. Do you not add in the non-multiplied extra damage? Or do high level rogues pray to NOT sneak attack?

Any RAW info or telling logical insights would be appreciated.

The general rule is that additional dice damage do not stack but strait modifiers do. Sneak attack or Skirmish damage is applied whether there is a critical or not (with the exeptions for undead etc).

So in the case of the short sword weilder;
for sneack attack to work foe must be flat footed, unaware etc,
for skirmish to work the weilder must have moved # feet (we don't use skirmish so details may be wrong)

normal: 1d6 + STR mod + #d6 SA/S damage (where you meet the pre-reqs to qualify for such an attck)
critical: (1d6+ STR mod) x2 + #d6 SA/S damage (where you meet the pre-reqs to qualify for such an attck)

But with Telling blow: You don't need your opponent to be flat footed or to have moved, you just need to have a critical hit and then the SA/S damage is added.

 

[Sejs]

Normal crit + normal sneak attack.

 

[glass]

Do sneak attack and skirmish damage get added to your damage when you get a critical hit? Consider this info from the PhBII feat, Telling Blow:

Just in case there is still any confusion:

If you have the Telling Blow feat, you add your sneak attack damage to your normal damage when you score a successful critical hit.

If you don't have that feat, then you add your sneak attack damage only if the oponent is denied their Dex bonus or flanked. Whether or not you crit is irrelevant to the SA damage, although it still affect the base damage as normal.

In any case, the sneak attack damage is never multiplied on a crit (and nor is any other extra damage in the form of dice), and you only apply it once, even if your opponent is denied their Dex, flanked, and you crit (with the feat).

Same applies with skirmish, except the normal condition for getting it is different.


glass.