Vorpal Crits

[Caliban]

Yes it does.

And that's the debate in a nutshell.

 

[hong]

Onward to page 14!

 

[Victoly]

I also think that there was an attempt to better balance the magic items this time around. A crit from a vorpal weapon already gets +6d12 damage - this combined with its daily power and special property regarding damage dice puts it on par with other level 30 weapons without an extra free 2-5d10 or d12 damage. Sure, the vorpal weapon was stupidly powerful before, but that was, well, stupid. Just because the weapon has a history of having instant-kill crits in previous editions doesn't mean the trend has to continue in 4E.

 

[Victoly]

Because English doesn't have to conform to the rigorous standards of legalese.

You're talking about a rulebook... "rules" and "laws" are intrinsically similar concepts.

 

[Caliban]

As entertaining as it has been, it's pretty clear that no progress towards common ground has been made.

I wish I could say I understood your point of view Hong, but it still doesn't make any sense to me.

"A crit is exactly every other damage roll except you don't roll for damage, but you still trigger any effect that requires damage dice to be rolled."

I simply can't derive that statement from the rules in the PHB.

Have fun.

 

[hong]

You're talking about a rulebook... "rules" and "laws" are intrinsically similar concepts.

Nah. If you look at any RPG book out there, they all read very differently to the 3E core books. 3E was the game that took the legalist perspective to new heights.

 

[Caliban]

Nah. If you look at any RPG book out there, they all read very differently to the 3E core books. 3E was the game that took the legalist perspective to new heights.

This is not 3e

 

[DLichen]

And he's not interested in defending himself beyond because "I say so"

Let it go.

 

[Karui_Kage]

I have to say I disagree with Hong's ruling on a 'damage roll' and 'rolling damage' being one and the same.

To me:
Damage Roll = Total damage done, despite any actual rolling
Rolling Damage = Physically rolling for damage.

A minion's damage could be considered a 'damage roll', for example, but no one actually 'rolls damage'. Similarly, a critical hit damage can be considered a 'damage roll', but no one 'rolls damage'.

I admit it's somewhat bad English, and we can debate the meaning of 'damage roll' to the end of time and back. But when someone says 'X happens when you roll damage' and a critical hit says 'instead of rolling damage', it seems pretty obvious that this does not happen on a crit.

This is just RAW, as I see it. Not RAI or RAU or whatever. With Wizards and DnD, especially with their new 'keyword' system, it seems a lot of things need to be taken literally, unless they make little sense. As others have shown statistically in this thread, a vorpal weapon still does plenty of damage even if you don't reroll [W]s on a crit, so it seems like this is RAI as well.

 

[Zurai]

And he's not interested in defending himself beyond because "I say so"

Let it go.

I don't notice you responding to the point I made in hong's defence. The rules very clearly contradict themselves on how to handle damage on critical hits. The only sane way to resolve the contradiction is to take the approach that critical hits are treated in every way as a damage roll, except that you assume you rolled maximum damage.