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Can you confirm a critical hit with combat maneuvers that use a weapon (e.g. disarm, sunder, trip) or confirm a critical hit with aid another? Both combat maneuvers and aid another use "attack rolls" (against CMD and AC 10 respectively) and use your weapon bonuses (e.g. enhancement bonuses), so I assume that you can do so, using your weapon's crit range.
However, a confirmed critical hit would NOT have any effect on the combat maneuver result or on the aid another bonus, as neither do damage.
My main concern is whether one can use these confirmed crits to restore grit points (Gunslingers) or panache points (Swashbucklers), or to use any other special abilities such as feats or traits that activate on critical hits that I may not know about.
Thank you!
Note: This is not a PFS question, as it is a pure rules question, so I have flagged it for movement to that forum.
On topic, since there is normally no effect whether a combat maneuver is a crit or not, other than an automatic hit on a 20, and miss on a 1, I have been playing it as no need to even try to confirm a crit-range CM attack on my PCs who use these abilities.
I suspect it is related to whether a trip or disarm attempt would, on a hit, discharge a held charge from a spell.
HSalgo wrote: Can you confirm a critical hit with combat maneuvers that use a weapon (e.g. disarm, sunder, trip) or confirm a critical hit with aid another? Both combat maneuvers and aid another use "attack rolls" (against CMD and AC 10 respectively) and use your weapon bonuses (e.g. enhancement bonuses), so I assume that you can do so, using your weapon's crit range.
However, a confirmed critical hit would NOT have any effect on the combat maneuver result or on the aid another bonus, as neither do damage.
My main concern is whether one can use these confirmed crits to restore grit points (Gunslingers) or panache points (Swashbucklers), or to use any other special abilities such as feats or traits that activate on critical hits that I may not know about.
Thank you!
I'm probably going to regret walking into this, since I'm just making it up as I go. But here's my thinking, based on the question.
First thought: Sunder does HP damage, just to an item instead of a creature, so I'd say you can crit for double (or more, depending on the weapon) damage.
Second thought: Why are you only including combat maneuvers with a weapon? If there's a question of whether or not a trip attempt that does no damage can crit, why wouldn't the same question apply to grapple or dirty trick?
Third thought: I just re-read the sections on crits and combat maneuvers from the Core Rulebook's combat chapter. There's nothing specific either way. However, the combat maneuver section does specifically say:
Quote: Rolling a natural 20 while attempting a combat maneuver is always a success (except when attempting to escape from bonds), while rolling a natural 1 is always a failure. The lack of further wording regarding crits would seem to imply that they don't apply to combat maneuvers. Which would also invalidate my thought #1, above.
So I'm leaning towards not allowing it, but I could be convinced otherwise. A ruling from Paizo would be appropriate. Flagging for FAQ.
Fromper wrote:
First thought: Sunder does HP damage, just to an item instead of a creature, so I'd say you can crit for double (or more, depending on the weapon) damage.
Objects are explicitly immune to critical hits.
kinevon wrote: Note: This is not a PFS question, as it is a pure rules question, so I have flagged it for movement to that forum. Sorry, I so rarely post, I didn't even realize I put this in the wrong place. Is there any way for me to be able to move it myself?
kinevon wrote: On topic, since there is normally no effect whether a combat maneuver is a crit or not, other than an automatic hit on a 20, and miss on a 1, I have been playing it as no need to even try to confirm a crit-range CM attack on my PCs who use these abilities. I'd agree that there is no additional effect when critting with a CM--the question is just whether or not abilities that DO activate on crits can get activated.
kinevon wrote: I suspect it is related to whether a trip or disarm attempt would, on a hit, discharge a held charge from a spell. I suspect they would. (See comment below.)
Fromper wrote: Second thought: Why are you only including combat maneuvers with a weapon? If there's a question of whether or not a trip attempt that does no damage can crit, why wouldn't the same question apply to grapple or dirty trick? I got this because the FAQ ruling on Weapon Finesse (which applies to Swashbucklers with Swashbuckler Finesse) allows the use of Dex instead of Str on the disarm, sunder, and trip maneuvers. As such, I assume that these include a weapon (as does Aid Another, since it uses your weapon's bonus), whereas other CMs don't use weapons and require Agile Maneuvers to apply Dex.
Fromper wrote: Quote: Rolling a natural 20 while attempting a combat maneuver is always a success (except when attempting to escape from bonds), while rolling a natural 1 is always a failure. The lack of further wording regarding crits would seem to imply that they don't apply to combat maneuvers. Which would also invalidate my thought #1, above. Hm, I missed this portion. I guess that could be important. However, the text under critical hits says something similar:
Quote: When you make an attack roll and get a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), you hit regardless of your target's Armor Class, and you have scored a "threat," meaning the hit might be a critical hit (or "crit"). While no mention of a "threat" is listed under Combat Maneuvers (which could make sense, given that it's against CMD rather than AC), Aid Another IS against AC 10. Does that not mean that Aid Another could theoretically qualify for critical hits?
Jeff Merola wrote: Objects are explicitly immune to critical hits. Thanks for the clarification!
Reposted and updated question here in the rules forum. Thanks again for your help, everyone!
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