Critical Hit Confusion


Rules Questions


OK. I still have trouble getting my head around this.

I have a fighter with a +1 Great Axe. 18 strength. BAB +1.
Power Attack is up.

Normally his damage is 1d12+10 (1.5Xstrength+PA+magic enhancement on axe)

Now, what happens if I roll and confirm a critical hit. I was always under the impression you multiply the hit dice by the critical value (here X3). So, it would be 3d12+10.

But, I have been told this is incorrect. Can somebody please walk me through the numbers using simple words? And type slowly.

Many thanks.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

Close. You multiply the base weapon dice and all the non-rolled bonus damage as well, so in your example it should be 3d12+30.


Sweet zombie jebus! That.....is alot of damage. So, my first level fighter could possibly do 66 points of damage on ONE hit?!

Wow. All these months I missed ALOT of extra damage with my dwarven barbarian. Oh well, live and learn.

Thanks.


On which note, can anyone explain what this sentence from the PRD means? It's on the Equipment page, weapon qualities, critical:

PRD wrote:
Extra damage over and above a weapon's normal damage is not multiplied when you score a critical hit.

There's no mention of its referring to precision damage or bonus dice, which does make it somewhat odd.

Silver Crusade

That would be for things like Prayer giving you a +1 on damage, paladin Smite Evil, anything that gives you a bonus to damage that isn't just part of a good ol' swing of the sword.


Hold on there. Let's look at the rule for critical hits from the Combat section:

A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together.

The general rule of thumb is all static bonuses to damage, such as the +1 from prayer, a ranger's favored enemy bonus, and the extra damage from a paladin's smite evil are multiplied on a critical hit. Extra dice, such as sneak attack damage or the fire damage from a flaming weapon are not multiplied.


Dazz wrote:
That would be for things like Prayer giving you a +1 on damage, paladin Smite Evil, anything that gives you a bonus to damage that isn't just part of a good ol' swing of the sword.

No, it's not. Criticals multiply all damage including weapon dice, and ALL damage modifiers.

That line about extra damage over and above not being multiplied should read extra damage DICE over and above...

Silver Crusade

I've been doing it wrong, then. Guess I've been missing out on some extra damage, too.


That's the bad news, yes.

On the other hand, good news! You'll be doing so much more damage in your next game!

Scarab Sages

They way I have precieved it, and the way a lot of people I game with see it, the damage dice from the weapon itself, plus the static DMG (+N) gets multiplied. However, additional dice, such as sneak attack, does not. A lot of times when you read these decriptions, they also tell you if it stacks with critical hit damage. This is the case with the rogue Sneak Attack, and with weapon augments like the Flaming special enhancement.


Mudfoot wrote:

On which note, can anyone explain what this sentence from the PRD means? It's on the Equipment page, weapon qualities, critical:

PRD wrote:
Extra damage over and above a weapon's normal damage is not multiplied when you score a critical hit.
There's no mention of its referring to precision damage or bonus dice, which does make it somewhat odd.

"Critical: The entry in this column notes how the weapon is used with the rules for critical hits. When your character scores a critical hit, roll the damage two, three, or four times, as indicated by its critical multiplier (using all applicable modifiers on each roll), and add all the results together.

Extra damage over and above a weapon's normal damage is not multiplied when you score a critical hit."

The bolded passage gives an important piece of info; applicable modifiers are considered joined to the dice rolled. So you don't consider damage dice as segregated from static bonuses such as Prayer or weapon enhancement bonus; these bonuses are joined at the hip to the damage dice. If you have a total of +10 static damage bonus and the weapon's normal damage dice is 1d12, then your "normal damage dice" is (1d12+10) taken as a single unit. Critical damage will multiply the whole unit so you're getting (1d12+10) + (1d12+10) on a x2 crit. Then you add in precision damage and damage "over and above" such as Flaming bonus dice as these are bonuses that are not considered part of the weapon's damage dice.


I did know about the precision damage and extra enhancement damage (such as flaming) as just being icing on the cake when you hit; not multiplied.

Looking forward to next session.

Shadow Lodge

Is that +10 on the 1d12+10 right? I can't see where that's coming from.

+1 for the greataxe enhancement bonus (at level 1? how did you get that?)
+2 for power attack
+6 for 1.5x str (4+2 from the 18 str)

+1 on BAB doesn't add to damage, only attack


Power Attack with two hands give a +3 to damage.

+1 weapon was a lucky magic item roll. 10% chance at 1st from my DM.

Score.....


Avatar-1 wrote:

Is that +10 on the 1d12+10 right? I can't see where that's coming from.

+1 for the greataxe enhancement bonus (at level 1? how did you get that?)
+2 for power attack
+6 for 1.5x str (4+2 from the 18 str)

+1 on BAB doesn't add to damage, only attack

It's a 2H weapon (greataxe), so the Power Attack gives +3 damage, not +2.


Just a little update and clarification about this topic...

From my Second printing CRB pg. 179 under Damage, and Multiplying Damage:

"Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon's normal damage are never multiplied."

Also, on pg. 184 under Standard Actions, Attack, then Critical Hits:

"Exception: Precision damage (such as a rogue's sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon qualities (such as flaming) are not multiplied when you score a critical hit.

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