Vorpal Crits

[Hypersmurf]

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.

I'm not arguing that crits allow rerolls. I'm asking what the maximum damage a non-critical attack with a vorpal weapon can deal is.

Let's use a hypothetical power as an example. Call it "Reversal of Catastrophe", say.

The power deals 1d8 damage on a hit. Special: If the d8 comes up '1', the attack deals +8 damage.

How much damage does the power deal on a critical hit?

-Hyp.

 

[hamishspence]

put me in the "if dice are not rolling, dice are not vorpalizing" camp

My question is more Do only (W) dice count for vorpalization (so the 6d12 critical, the 3d12 bonus dice used with daily power, etc, don't?)

By the fact that it says explicitly: Weapon die, and when you look it up in the back of the book, it directs you to Weapon damage Die, expessed as (W), that would appear to be the answer.

Is there anything in the book that would contradict this definition of Weapon die being only (W) dice?

 

[Zurai]

I'm not arguing that crits allow rerolls. I'm asking what the maximum damage a non-critical attack with a vorpal weapon can deal is.

Sorry, Hyp. I didn't see your post on this earlier - like I said, I havn't been paying that much attention to this thread (except when DLichen specifically asked for my input). I was mostly skimming and must have just skimmed right past your post.

I see what you're saying - critical hits don't say that you roll the maximum damage, but rather that you determine what the maximum damage you could deal would be. In your hypothetical, that would be 9, rather than 8. I agree with that.

I also see what you're pointing out, that vorpal weapons don't have a maximum damage - their damage is theoretically infinite. So I guess someone actually was saying that vorpal crits deal infinite damage.

For my sanity, I'm going to say if it ever comes up in one of my games that the "maximum damage" clause comes up before considering vorpal's unique property. It's a cop-out, but there are few things I hate worse in games than infinite loops.

 

[DLichen]

My question is more Do only (W) dice count for vorpalization (so the 6d12 critical, the 3d12 bonus dice used with daily power, etc, don't?)

By the fact that it says explicitly: Weapon die, and when you look it up in the back of the book, it directs you to Weapon damage Die, expessed as (W), that would appear to be the answer.

Is there anything in the book that would contradict this definition of Weapon die being only (W) dice?

You are making the assumption that damage die as referenced by vorpal means weapon damage die through the glossary. While reasonable, it not necessarily the case since vorpal doesn't imply weapon damage die, only damage die.

You could interpret damage die as any die the vorpal weapon provides, including the d12s from the crit and the powers, or limit it to [w] only. Judgement call, but I prefer the former.

 

[hamishspence]

Concerning non-critical hits with a vorpal weapon

The wording is "If a reroll results in another maximum damage result, roll it again and keep adding"

So, with 2(W) greatsword, it could look like this:
(10, 10) rr (10, 10) rr (9, 10) rr (10) rr (9) stop rolling.

so, yes, theoretically infinite. Not much chance of it actually happening though.

 

[DLichen]

If you're willing to get lax with the rules to accept the crits count as rolling max damage, which I still disagree with btw, then you can also rule that the extra die from vorpal are granted by the critical, and by the extra damage rule, does not get auto maxed.

"Extra Damage: Magic weapons and implements, as
well as high crit weapons, can increase the damage
you deal when you score a critical hit. If this extra
damage is a die roll, it’s not automatically maximum
damage; you add the result of the roll."

 

[hamishspence]

the definition of damage die

the index directed me straight to weapon damge die, not sure what the glossary says.

 

[DLichen]

Vorpal does not link to the back.

It also states "Whenever you roll the maximum result on any damage die for this weapon" - which implies that some weapons have multiple die.

Since weapons only have one damage die, the vorpal damage die is not necessarily the more common weapon damage die.

Again, this is not foolproof, I am just saying that there is room for interpretation in this one, unlike the vorpal crit rule.

 

[Hypersmurf]

so, yes, theoretically infinite. Not much chance of it actually happening though.

How likely it is isn't the issue.

When you roll a critical, you determine what the maximum damage of the attack (excluding crit-only effects) is, and that's how much you deal. Then you add crit-only effects on top.

The maximum damage of an attack with a Vorpal Weapon (excluding crit-only effects) is infinite, however unlikely it is that you'd roll that on ∞d8. So the damage dealt by a critical with a Vorpal Weapon is infinite... +6d12.

This isn't based on assuming that you rolled an 8, which you then rerolled and got another 8, which you then rerolled and got another 8. It's not assuming you roll any dice at all, because the critical doesn't involve rolling dice.

What the critical does involve is determining the maximum damage you could have dealt if you did roll. And the maximum damage you could have dealt if you did roll would be if you rolled an 8, which you then rerolled and got another 8, which you then rerolled and got another 8, and so on forever.

-Hyp.

 

[DLichen]

Damge roll:
Roll the damage indicated in the power description.
If you’re using a weapon for the attack, the damage is
some multiple of your weapon damage dice.

The vorpal bonus is not strictly speaking, part of the damage roll that is counted when a critical hit triggers. So when you maximize, it's clearly without the vorpal, no matter what camp you are in about rolling more [w] after.