Vorpal vs fortification armor

[Infiniti2000]

The critical cannot be negated until it is a critical.. that is, after you roll to confirm. Once you have rolled to confirm the crit the critical itself is negated, but the vorpal effect only relied on confirming the critical roll, not it actually being a critical hit.

Well, the vorpal ability IMO does say it is a critical hit. It doesn't even mention a critical threat (the term for what you mean by critical roll). "Upon a roll of natural 20 (followed by a successful roll to confirm the critical hit)..." The phrase the critical hit indicates to me, quite clearly, that the attack with the vorpal weapon is a critical hit.

 

[Scion]

Well, the vorpal ability IMO does say it is a critical hit. It doesn't even mention a critical threat (the term for what you mean by critical roll). "Upon a roll of natural 20 (followed by a successful roll to confirm the critical hit)..." The phrase the critical hit indicates to me, quite clearly, that the attack with the vorpal weapon is a critical hit.

Note that a natural 20 'always' requires a confirming roll for a crit. It asks for a natural 20 and then confirm the crit, not that vorpal is a crit.

I see them as seperate and distinct, given the wording. It definately does not say that it is a critical hit effect, merely that the critical that it already is must be confirmed for it to trigger. It even works against creatures immune to crits, which seems to be even more evidence that it isnt a critical hit effect.

 

[KarinsDad]

I say the Fortification does not protect versus Vorpal. Now this may come from playing too much Magic the Gathering but ....

Roll to hit. Result is a threat
Roll to confirm. Result is confirmed
Trigger two events: Critical Hit and Beheading
Fortification negates the critical hit, not the confirmation or the beheading ...

... waits for FAQ/Errata to sneak attack contradict him ...
Note: This is how I read it ... not how I think it should work ...

Unless you view it as Fortification negates the roll to confirm. If you cannot do the critical hit (by definition, an attack where the threat confirms), you cannot confirm.

 

[Cabral]

Likewise, Cabral. I'm not generally a big fan of auto-kills, be they death spells or vorpal weapons. They strike me as being terribly anti-climactic.

I'm actually thinking of taking a note from Scion's post above, and instead of having Vorpal being 'oops, your head's off', being a further augmentation to the weapon's critical threat and multiplier that stacks with other, similar effects, thus making it extreemely deadly, but not an instant win.

Actually, apparently I took too long posting. He snuck in under me
It really sounds pretty good and I'd like to here his take on it .../nudges Scion

 

[KarinsDad]

PS. Undead and constructs are not immune to critical hits. They are:

"Not subject to critical hits"

whatever that means.

 

[Scion]

It really sounds pretty good and I'd like to here his take on it .../nudges Scion

I have left it as an option at +2 to threat range and +1 to the multiplier, and in my games improved crit and keen stack.

So, a normal 18-20/x2 range weapon could go to 10-20/x3, but as the majority of creatures at this level are resistant or immune it hasnt been a problem.

This is obviously better for some weapons than for others, and I havent seen it in play often enough to tell if it is balanced or not, but just about anything is better than the normal vorpal ;/ Whenever possible I prefer to keep options open instead of shutting them down entirely.

I could create a thread in the houserule forum if someone would like to run the numbers on it and/or help with overall balancing for it

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I believe Fortification trumps Vorpal. Heavy Fortification negates critical hits. The description of Vorpal itself says it requires a confirmed critical hit to fire.

If Vorpal were meant to be completely unconnected to a critical hit, I believe that it would have been made into an entirely separate roll, so that one might confirm the crit but not confirm the vorpal effect. Two die rolls after the intial auto-hit.

That isn't what we have, though. It always uses the same roll as the critical hit, because it's a part of that. The only difference here is that, for balance purposes, its effect has been further restricted to only become active on a crit threatened on a natural 20, removing effects such as a large threat range, keen, or Improved Critical. Aside from that "natural 20 only" restriction, it's just like a flaming burst.

No crit, no vorpal.

 

[Cabral]

I disagree, I believe the language is seperate enough. It doesn't matter that the critical hit is negated, it was still confirmed and vorpal pilfers your head.

 

[Peter Gibbons]

I certainly see a difference between immunity to crits, and a 100% chance of negating the crit.

If you're immune to crits, the crit still happens; you just don't take the extra damage. Crit-triggered effects - like Vorpal, Flaming Burst, etc - still trigger and have their normal effect.

If you have a % chance of negating the crit, and that chance arises, the crit never actually happened. Crit-triggered effects remain quiescent, because the critical that would trigger them was negated.

I don't buy the distinction between immunity to crits and negating a crit. It leads to bizarre results.

Consider the warforged. He has light fortification (25% chance to negate a crit). So Hyp would say he has a 25% chance of negating a vorpal strike. Okay. That's sensible enough. But now, at 6th level, he picks up the Improved Fortification feat, which makes him immune to critical hits. Now he's subject to vorpal strikes?

Okay, I realize that technically, the Improved Fortification doesn't replace the light fortification, so you could rule that the warforged is immune to crits and has a 25% chance of negating crit-dependent effects like vorpal strikes (and energy bursts), but I think it's pretty clear from the name of the feat (if nothing else) that 100% fortification is considered the same thing as immunity to critical hits.

Frankly, I don't think this is a question that can be answered unofficially. The rules are simply too ambiguous.

 

[KarinsDad]

I disagree, I believe the language is seperate enough. It doesn't matter that the critical hit is negated, it was still confirmed and vorpal pilfers your head.

So then, which magical defense protects against Vorpal?

The Fly spell?

The language is sufficiently obscure that there is no one right answer, otherwise, we'd all be agreeing to it by now.

So, it then comes down to preference. My preference is that the defense that was probably entered by WotC into 3E to address this specific issue is the one that defends against it. Otherwise, Vorpal swords are not just potent, they are artifact level. YMMV.