Vorpal Crits

[Zurai]

But allowing actual infinite damage on a crit would be a mistake.

The only people who are saying it would lead to infinite damage are misrepresenting the position of the people supporting rerolls on the base weapon damage for crits. No one "for" rerolls on crits has even suggested that the damage would be infinite. It's a strawman put up by the detractors.

 

[DLichen]

Each weapon enhancement of the same cost should be roughly the same value for money. i can live with +6 Vorpal being a little better than, say, +6 dancing.

But if its majorly, hugely, better than any other enhancement with same price tag, something is wrong.

I'm guessing the theoretically infinite damage possibility on non-crits should work, since it says any rolled damage die that comes up max gets rerolled and the re-roll added it, and if it keeps coming up max, it keeps getting added in. Might prefer it if no reroll dice can explode, but if it doesn't say that, it doesn't say that.

But allowing actual infinite damage on a crit would be a mistake.

Yeah, but nobody is arguing for actual infinite damage. It's just a loophole that opens up if you assume max damage counts as being rolled for a crit AND assume that max damage on a vorpal is infinite. It's a can of worms for the other side, but still not necessarily the definite case if they are correct.

Zurai, since you are here, could you respond to my claim? I am interested to see your take on it.

 

[Zurai]

Zurai, since you are here, could you respond to my claim? I am interested to see your take on it.

I'd be happy to, but I'm not sure which claim you're referring to. I've not paid overmuch attention to this thread, since I've already done this argument once before and no one was convinced either way.

 

[hamishspence]

ah, I see

I thought some were saying W dice on crit are maxed, and rerolled, and rerolls automatically maxed due to the critical max rule.

If thats not a serious position, it sems to me the questions are as follows.

1: When they say "damage die" do they just mean Weapon damage die, which is what you find when you use the back of the book to look it up, or can other dice be included?

2: if dice is automatically maxed on a crit, does that count as rolling maximum for the purposes of Vorpal?

3: When your reroll comes up maximum, does that automatically allow another reroll, and so on?

4: When Damage die consists of more than 1 die (2d4, for example) does the whole damage die have to be maximum for a reroll, or only one?

3(W) = (4-1)(4-4)(1-1): all 4s rerolled?
or, only (4-4) gets rerolled?

 

[DLichen]

Reposted for your convenience:

The definition of damage roll arises because as implied by the box in 276, bonuses only apply to damage rolls and not damage in general. That's mostly poor positioning than actual writing, but it's there. The argument is that if you don't make a damage roll, you can never apply bonuses.

This is because the gamey definition of a damage roll is only a name. When you crit, you determine what damage you can do without actually rolling, this does not imply that crits are not damage rolls, merely that crits don't roll die. If you're going to apply the gamey definition of damage roll, you have to separate it from the normal definition. As unintuitive as it is, you can have a damage roll without rolling because you're using the game definition of damage roll which is weapon dice + bonuses.

The maximum damage you can roll with an attack is its damage roll, the damage roll definition does not imply that you copy the state of the dice when you calculate max damage.

As I understand your argument, you are saying that crit rolls must be a damage roll, I agree.

I don't agree that a damage roll implies that you must have rolled dice since it's only a name and the rules text implies that it is more than just rolls in the first place.

 

[DLichen]

I thought some were saying W dice on crit are maxed, and rerolled, and rerolls automatically maxed due to the critical max rule.

If thats not a serious position, it sems to me the questions are as follows.

1: When they say "damage die" do they just mean Weapon damage die, which is what you find when you use the back of the book to look it up, or can other dice be included?

2: if dice is automatically maxed on a crit, does that count as rolling maximum for the purposes of Vorpal?

3: When your reroll comes up maximum, does that automatically allow another reroll, and so on?

4: When Damage die consists of more than 1 die (2d4, for example) does the whole damage die have to be maximum for a reroll, or only one?

3(W) = (4-1)(4-4)(1-1): all 4s rerolled?
or, only (4-4) gets rerolled?

No, the question is actually when a you get a crit, do you automatically get another x[W] roll for damage. IE: Do crits count as you having rolled max die or just a count of the damage.

I believe custserv has already answered that on a 2d4, any result of a 4 gets rerolled, but being custserv, it may not be 100% correct.

 

[Zurai]

Ah, I see.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Vorpal the only thing in the game that even refers to rolling dice past the "how to play the game" chapter?

I'll give you that "rolling damage" and "rolling dice" are not necessarily the same thing. However, I'm more inclined to think that the only reason they used "dice" in the Vorpal weapon text is that it's the simplest way to describe the function of the weapon, rather than restricting it to only when you physically roll dice. It's clear that the dice are still involved in critical damage, since the number and size of the dice are what gets counted for the auto-max damage. Since the rules make little sense if you aren't considered to have rolled the damage, and rolling the damage involves rolling the dice, I interpret critical hits as having rolled maximum damage on the dice in the damage roll.

 

[DLichen]

It's clear that the dice are still involved in critical damage, since the number and size of the dice are what gets counted for the auto-max damage.

I think that's the exact wrong assumption since critical hits specifically states not to roll die while vorpal triggers off die being rolled.

If it says specifically not that there is no dice roll and only a number (Maximum damage you could have done), I think it's unreasonable to assume that a critical hit also carries along the connotation of each die result being max, which is what Vorpal, as written, is supposed to check.

Without errata to Vorpal or critical hits, I think my interpretation of RAW is the only reasonable one.

 

[Zurai]

I think that's the exact wrong assumption since critical hits specifically states not to roll die while vorpal triggers off die being rolled.

If it says specifically not that there is no dice roll and only a number (Maximum damage you could have done), I think it's unreasonable to assume that a critical hit also carries along the connotation of each die result being max, which is what Vorpal, as written, is supposed to check.

Without errata to Vorpal or critical hits, I think my interpretation of RAW is the only reasonable one.

Actually, critical hits say nothing about dice. Nothing at all. They say not to roll damage, which is more general and more severe.

 

[DLichen]

It says Rather than roll damage, determine the maximum damage your attack can do.

The damage your attack can do is keyed off your damage roll, so it's still logically sound to take your damage roll and remove randomness.

It still opposes the any die results being made to trigger vorpal.