Hi,
I have been looking at the vortex spells oracle revelation (wind mystery, also available for shamans with a wind spirit). It reads:
Vortex spells (Ex): Whenever you score a critical hit against an opponent with an attack spell, the target is staggered for 1 round. At 11th level, the duration increases to 1d4 rounds.
As we all know, attack spells are rarer on the oracle spell list than on the wizard list. But still, they are there. Now, I was wondering: what exactly constitutes "an attack spell"?
For example, would cure light wounds be one? After all, I can use it against undead, and have to make an attack roll.
I guess any spell is not necessarily an attack spell in itself, but becomes one when used in an offensive way, meant to harm another?
Next comes the question: when do I score a critical hit?
Is it essential that a spell actually deals damage, or is capable of dealing damage? Or is it enough that you have to roll an attack roll to hit, and confirm it if it is a critical threat?
For example, take disfiguring touch. You have to roll an attack roll, so you could potentially roll a critical threat, and try to confirm it. However, whether or not you succeed wouldn't matter for the ordinary spell result, since it doesn't deal damage. However, if you have spell vortex, it would matter.
Would you be allowed to roll to confirm a critical hit, even if the spell itself normally wouldn't call for it?
Thanks in advance,
Kroisos.
You can score a critical hit with any spell that you have to 'roll to hit'. Touch attacks and rays as far as I know. Spells have a critical threshold of 20 and you have to confirm the critical as normal. For spells that deal damage I.e. scorching ray the damage is doubled on a successful crit. Spells that deal ability damage also double the amount of damage inflicted. If a spell doesn't do some kind of numerical damage there normally isn't any advantage to scoring a critical but with spell vortex it looks like it would be worth confirming!
If you are rolling an attack, you can crit.