| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
I thought I knew which damage got multiplied on a critical hit, and which didn't. Now I'm wondering if I'm still stuck in 3.5 mode on this.
The section on Critical Hits (p184) specifies sneak attack and weapon special properties damage is not multiplied. Thats fine and how I've always played it. Looking at the Power Attack and Deadly Aim feats however, there is no mention of it being precision damage, nor any exemption for it from crits. I was sure power attack damage was not multiplied on a crit. Is this something that I've overlooked in the 3.5/Pathfinder change over?
What about a Rangers Favoured Enemy bonus? Its no longer listed as precision damage, so does it multiply too?
I'd appreciate if anyone could clear this up for me.
Really The only thing that is not multiplied is Extra Dice most everything else is multiplied
even in 3.5 precision damage would multiply, just not extra damage dice (like sneak attack or a flaming sword), power attack likewise multiplies and did multpily in 3.5
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As a simple rule of thumb:
If you add a number to your damage, then that number is multiplied on crits. But if you roll extra dice and add that to your damage, then those dice are not multiplied on crits.
Off-hand, I cannot think of any exceptions to this rule.
As a simple rule of thumb:
If you add a number to your damage, then that number is multiplied on crits. But if you roll extra dice and add that to your damage, then those dice are not multiplied on crits.
Off-hand, I cannot think of any exceptions to this rule.
+1
1: Roll to see if you hit. A 20 always hits. If you hit, GOTO 2. Else, you miss.
2: Is your dice roll from Step 1 within your critical threat range? If yes, GOTO 3. If no, GOTO 4.
3: Roll to see if you hit. A 20 always hits. If you hit, GOTO 5. Else, GOTO 4.
4: You score a normal hit.
5: You score a critical hit.
... as you can see, there's no recursion. The roll to confirm a critical doesn't care if it's in the critical threat range or not, only if it hits. A 20 always hits and so always confirms a crit, but conveys no other special benefit.
|
1: Roll to see if you hit. A 20 always hits. If you hit, GOTO 2. Else, you miss.
2: Is your dice roll from Step 1 within your critical threat range? If yes, GOTO 3. If no, GOTO 4.
3: Roll to see if you hit. A 20 always hits. If you hit, GOTO 5. Else, GOTO 4.
4: You score a normal hit.
5: You score a critical hit.... as you can see, there's no recursion. The roll to confirm a critical doesn't care if it's in the critical threat range or not, only if it hits. A 20 always hits and so always confirms a crit, but conveys no other special benefit.
unless you have my limb loss houserules :D
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Our group's house rule is that if you confirm a natural 20 threat with a natural 20, then you threaten an instant kill. If you then confirm the third roll, you automatically kill the enemy. If you fail to confirm the third roll, you crit as normal. Keep in mind that this is firmly in the realm of house rules.
Our group's house rule is that if you confirm a natural 20 threat with a natural 20, then you threaten an instant kill. If you then confirm the third roll, you automatically kill the enemy. If you fail to confirm the third roll, you crit as normal. Keep in mind that this is firmly in the realm of house rules.
We use that one too, it was a 3.5 optional rule.
I'm not a fan of instant kill. I can, however, get behind the idea of the "exploding crit", adding an additional damage multiplier with each confirmed critical threat.
Say you have a keen scimitar and you hit on a 12 and up.
You roll a 17: x1 damage, critical threat. Keep rolling.
You roll a 19: x2 damage, critical threat. Keep rolling.
You roll a 20: x3 damage, critical threat. Keep rolling.
You roll a 14: x4 damage.
OR....
You roll a 20: x1 damage, critical threat. Keep rolling.
You roll a 15: x2 damage, critical threat. Keep rolling.
You roll a 10: x2 damage.
Instant kill with the 20,20,confirm rule isnt that bad really. Assuming an average of 10.5 on the die to confirm the last hit, that's 1 in 4200 die rolls for an instant death. Not something common but within the realm of possibility, it adds a bit of an extra danger factor to combat and if you see a 20,20, non-confirm as a DM you can really play it up as having cheated death that day, it does hurt the characters more than the pc's but it can make for some epic fight scenes. Latest one we had in our group was in my campaign where a lvl 12 monk went toe to toe with a Glabrezu. The monk was using his fists and having big problems with the DR, but the round before the Glabrezu would have finished him he pulls the Instant Kill out and carries the demon's head home with him (figuratively). Made for a great cinematic moment for the monk.
It really does add to the excitement and memorableness of the battles. We had an ancient white dragon matriarch get felled by a 20-20 crit (as we so affectionately call it) and it has been one of the most memorable moments at our table.
It really does add to the excitement and memorableness of the battles. We had an ancient white dragon matriarch get felled by a 20-20 crit (as we so affectionately call it) and it has been one of the most memorable moments at our table.
Excitement? I find that hard to believe.
Memorableness [sic}? Sure, I really believe that.
I am sure we all saw Avatar. Imagine if the final battle between Jake and Colonel Quartich went like: Jake walks up, aims, and shoots the colonel right between the eyes. Fight over, everyone rejoice.
Or in Star Wars, imagine if the final fights against Count Dooku had been: Obi-wan swings his lightsaber and kills the evil Count with a single stroke of good luck.
Or in the Lord of the Rings, when the fellowship met the cave troll in Moria, imagin if Legolas had dropped the troll in the doorway with a 20-20 crit through the troll's left eye.
Or pick any other movie with a climactic scene. Would any of them be more "exciting" with a two-second, one-lucky-shot final battle scene? No, not a chance.
Or worse, what if Colonel Quartich, Count Dooku, or the cave troll, or any other BBEG, managed to get off the lucky shot. Would any of those movies have been been more "exciting" if Jake, Obi-wan, or Legolas had been killed outright because the bad guy got in a lucky shot?
Or even worse, would any of those movies have been more "exciting" if anyone, good guy or bad guy, had tripped over his own feet, fallen prone, and been summarily gorked by the other guy, due to a bad fumble?
No, I doubt any of those movies would have been "more exciting" with stuff like this.
However, I do believe you're right. They would all have probably been more memorable - but that might not be a good thing...
It really does add to the excitement and memorableness of the battles. We had an ancient white dragon matriarch get felled by a 20-20 crit (as we so affectionately call it) and it has been one of the most memorable moments at our table.Excitement? I find that hard to believe.
Memorableness [sic}? Sure, I really believe that.
I am sure we all saw Avatar. Imagine if the final battle between Jake and Colonel Quartich went like: Jake walks up, aims, and shoots the colonel right between the eyes. Fight over, everyone rejoice.
Or in Star Wars, imagine if the final fights against Count Dooku had been: Obi-wan swings his lightsaber and kills the evil Count with a single stroke of good luck.
Or in the Lord of the Rings, when the fellowship met the cave troll in Moria, imagin if Legolas had dropped the troll in the doorway with a 20-20 crit through the troll's left eye.
Or pick any other movie with a climactic scene. Would any of them be more "exciting" with a two-second, one-lucky-shot final battle scene? No, not a chance.
Or worse, what if Colonel Quartich, Count Dooku, or the cave troll, or any other BBEG, managed to get off the lucky shot. Would any of those movies have been been more "exciting" if Jake, Obi-wan, or Legolas had been killed outright because the bad guy got in a lucky shot?
Or even worse, would any of those movies have been more "exciting" if anyone, good guy or bad guy, had tripped over his own feet, fallen prone, and been summarily gorked by the other guy, due to a bad fumble?
No, I doubt any of those movies would have been "more exciting" with stuff like this.
However, I do believe you're right. They would all have probably been more memorable - but that might not be a good thing...
Ahh, there's plenty of movie arguments both ways I'd guess:
LoTR: Isildur vs Sauron - 1 shot kill to the hand
LoTR: Boromir vs Lurtz( Or Uruk Hai if you prefer) - 3 shot (arguably the first one killed him, the other 2 were for evil embellishment)
300: Charging Rhinoceros - 1 shot kill with a thrown spear
13th warrior: Buliwyf vs Chieftain (at the end) - 1 shot kill
Indiana Jones (Raiders) vs Large Sword Wielding Arab - 1 shot kill
Seven Samurai - Kikuchiyo vs unseen gunman - 1 shot kill
Conan - Thulsa Doom vs Valeria - 1 shot Archery/snake Kill (this one could possibly be ruled poison)
Episode I - Darth Maul vs Qui Gon Jinn - 1 shot stunned kill
Highlander - Ramirez vs Kurgan - Throat slashed, good example for a 20,20, non-confirm
There's probably alot of others that are possible, that's just going from memory. Also, I'm not saying its the best rule ever, I've had characters fall prey to it, notably my first paladin character charging down an evil orc sergeant who gets an AoO and summarily skewered him, but it made some excellent role play fodder for other characters and didn't bother me all that much. It happens, adventurers lead lives of danger, death could be on the blade of any sword or behind the flight of any arrow and that's the point of the rule. If that's not for a DM's game then its simply not and I understand, I just like to defend the rule because I've seen many memorable moments come from it.
Ooh ooh, the end of Equilibrium: Bale vs Diggs - 1 shot (awesome btw cause it was setup to be awesome)
|
|
Our group's house rule is that if you confirm a natural 20 threat with a natural 20, then you threaten an instant kill. If you then confirm the third roll, you automatically kill the enemy. If you fail to confirm the third roll, you crit as normal. Keep in mind that this is firmly in the realm of house rules.We use that one too, it was a 3.5 optional rule.
We gave this a try in 3.5 but my dice karma is just too strong. I roll far too many 20's, and my players were sad panda's.
Ahh, there's plenty of movie arguments both ways I'd guess:
LoTR: Isildur vs Sauron - 1 shot kill to the hand
300: Charging Rhinoceros - 1 shot kill with a thrown spear
13th warrior: Buliwyf vs Chieftain (at the end) - 1 shot kill
Indiana Jones (Raiders) vs Large Sword Wielding Arab - 1 shot kill
Seven Samurai - Kikuchiyo vs unseen gunman - 1 shot kill
Conan - Thulsa Doom vs Valeria - 1 shot Archery/snake Kill (this one could possibly be ruled poison)
Episode I - Darth Maul vs Qui Gon Jinn - 1 shot stunned kill
Highlander - Ramirez vs Kurgan - Throat slashed, good example for a 20,20, non-confirm
There's probably alot of others that are possible, that's just going from memory. Also, I'm not saying its the best rule ever, I've had characters fall prey to it, notably my first paladin character charging down an evil orc sergeant who gets an AoO and summarily skewered him, but it made some excellent role play fodder for other characters and didn't bother me all that much. It happens, adventurers lead lives of danger, death could be on the blade of any sword or behind the flight of any arrow and that's the point of the rule. If that's not for a DM's game then its simply not and I understand, I just like to defend the rule because I've seen many good moments come from it.
Not all of those are correct. Sauron and Isildur fought for a while, so it was brief, but not one-shot, and it was backstory - what heroes of ages-gone-by did or didn't do is mere fluff and flavor text to the story being told at the moment.
Boromir was basically one-shotted by one of the uruk hai, but not before slaughtered a couple dozen before they got him. It was a drawn out battle with lots of action, excitement, and a sad ending.
And with Darth Maul and with Kurgan, both of those fights were quite long and drawn out before a victor was declared. And if I recall, Ramirez lost that fight, so hard to call that one a one-shot kill on Kurgan, confirmed or not.
Valeria was a plot device, the snake/arrow was hardly the "climactic battle". You would have been better off to point out that Conan one-shotted Thulsa Doom, though of course, that wasn't even a battle (the battle was the entire 2nd half of the movie just trying to get to him).
For Indy's one-shot on the scimitar guy, and the slaying of the rhinoceros as well, both of those were incidental scenes included for comic relief rather than epic climactic conflict.
I saw but I don't remember the 13th warrior and I haven't seen Seven Samurai, so I can't comment on those.
Memorable doesn't necessarily have to be a climactic end fight. The 20,20,confirm could come at an time in the fight, not necessarily at the very first shot, so all of them could be example or none really. As for plot device, they can all be plot device, a character death can be a great plot device, or the sudden death of a BBEG. That doesn't exclude them from being memorable deaths.
I was just pointing out Kurgan cause he was just 2 inches from dying on the blade of Ramirez's sword with a serious crit to the throat, not really a fair point I agree. :)
Pathfinder is not a movie, although they are very related and there is the real fault of both arguments, movies manipulate the audience in a direct manner using structure, characters, pacing, and a host of other well established means. Pathfinder uses many of the same items to make a story but has a large amount of randomness due to its nature as a game, sometimes this makes things memorable and sometimes the best laid plans fall flat. We dance at the whim of the dice.
I recommend Seven Samurai to anyone above the age of 13, one of the greatest movies of all time.
The Tarrasque need not use the 20-20 crit rule since it is but a houserule. Ignore it. Don't argue about it. My table likes it. Yours might not. The end.
As a simple rule of thumb:
If you add a number to your damage, then that number is multiplied on crits. But if you roll extra dice and add that to your damage, then those dice are not multiplied on crits.
Off-hand, I cannot think of any exceptions to this rule.
Thanks for clearing that up. Power attack Great Axe crits just got a whole lot scarier :)
Our group's house rule is that if you confirm a natural 20 threat with a natural 20, then you threaten an instant kill. If you then confirm the third roll, you automatically kill the enemy. If you fail to confirm the third roll, you crit as normal. Keep in mind that this is firmly in the realm of house rules.
Yeah - I've run things like this at the table before.
20 = roll to confirm.
20 on confirm = roll again.
Hit = instant death check (something like 10+damage dealt vs. Fort Save)
Alternatively, we've also just done 20 ==> 20 ==> Automatic "max damage" on the damage check. It's just much more simple this way, honestly. It's also my preferred method as the "insta-death" is *almost* like just granting Vorpal outright ... *almost* ...
Alternatively, we've also just done 20 ==> 20 ==> Automatic "max damage" on the damage check. It's just much more simple this way, honestly. It's also my preferred method as the "insta-death" is *almost* like just granting Vorpal outright ... *almost* ...
Yeah, but Vorpal only requires one 20 (a 1 in 20 chance.) Insta-death requires two 20s (a 1 in 400 chance.)
Back to the orriginal post: power attack and favored enemy multiplied on a crit in 3.5. Precision damage multiplied, but sneak attack did not, even though it was considered precision damage... This was confusing. They cleared it up by making no precision damage multiply, and everything else does unless otherwise stated. Bonus damage dice from things like flaming, shocking, or holy do not because in the magic items section it specifically says they do not.
The general rule someone posted above is good. I can't think of any damage that does not follow this rule.
Power attack and Favored enemy multiplied, sneak attack no.
On the critical confirmation thing read The Dungeons Master Guide v3.5 page 28, the variant:instant kill.
On a natural 20 you roll the confirmation to score critical. On a natural 20 confirmation you roll the instant kill confirmation. If the third and final confirmation hits then your target instantly dies.
We go 20 20 20 to instant kill but a 1 1 1 also instant kills the attacker
Do you all have the bad guys get the same benefits as the players. If so probably a lot of dead players. You as the dm have countless bad guys who can roll crits and such. The players are more finite. I could be wrong.
You're not wrong.
These rolls are rare. Three consecutive 20's will only happen 1 time in 8,000 rolls. That's a lot of combat to kill just one player. Add in another 1-1-1 death and that's an average of 1 PC death in 4,000 d20 rolls. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking about 40-50 attack rolls per fight (obviously that number will vary widely from table to table), so that's roughly 1 PC death per 80-100 encounters. Give or take.
And it's also roughly 1 enemy death per 80-100 encounters.
So it won't happen very often.
However, the down-side is exactly what you were concerned about. Each time it happens to a PC that's a dead PC. Statistically speaking, each melee PC should probably die at least once due to this rule by the time he's 8th-9th level. If it happens when he's really low level, he probably doesn't have a diamond on hand, so the player will probably have to roll up a new character, unless the DM intervenes with a kindly wandering cleric who helps out of the goodness of his generous heart (somewhat the opposite of the DMing attitude that incorporates these kinds of rules; usually they want combat to be deadly and scary, and rezzing people after a bad roll is counterproductive to that goal).
On the other hand, each time it happens to a monster, well, no big deal - that monster was going to die one way or another, right?
Do you all have the bad guys get the same benefits as the players. If so probably a lot of dead players. You as the dm have countless bad guys who can roll crits and such. The players are more finite. I could be wrong.
We've been using the rule since 2nd edition in one form or another and have had 2 character deaths from it that I recall, oddly enough they were both within the past 3 years. Many more monsters fell to the rule than characters, but perhaps we have just been lucky.
My group used the 20>>>20>>>confirm = death rule for a long time till we discarded it. Way too many PC deaths. Although we played rather often back then, sometimes 4 or 5 times a week. (Everyone being poor and married and childless = lots of gaming.) So even though it meant maybe 1 in 8,000 die rolls that something would die to that rule, when you're rolling a thousand attack rolls a week among everybody it seems to happen rather often.
I had a character die to this rule in the surprise round. The party was attacked by some large burrowing creatures that sprung up from the ground to attack us. My poor wizard's flatfooted AC + mage armor was not even close to staving off the instant death confirm. And not only did I have no chance to participate in the combat, the creature swallowed my wizard and destroyed all his possessions in his stomach, so that when he was brought back he had to recreate his spellbook on top of dying. Needless to say, it seemed a rather severe situation to find oneself in simply because of a couple unfortunate die rolls.
Since then we've been doing 20>>>20>>> confirm = increase critical multiplier by 1. And this could go on indefinitely, so a 20>>>20>>>20>>>confirm would increase the critical multiplier of a weapon by 2 points, so say a greataxe would then have a multiplier of 5 after such a hit, which can often lead to instant death anyways, but at least it makes it much less likely that a character will die in one shot.
I like the idea of max damage though for the 20>>>20>>>confirm. That seems a lot simpler, and doesn't risk getting damage into the stratosphere.
My group used the 20>>>20>>>confirm = death rule for a long time till we discarded it. Way too many PC deaths. Although we played rather often back then, sometimes 4 or 5 times a week. (Everyone being poor and married and childless = lots of gaming.) So even though it meant maybe 1 in 8,000 die rolls that something would die to that rule, when you're rolling a thousand attack rolls a week among everybody it seems to happen rather often.
Mathematically, 20-20-confirm will happen far more often than 1 in 8,000 (which is 20-20-20). They are identical if, and only if, all 8,000 attacks require a natural 20 to hit. But, given that most monsters and bad guys seem, usually in my games, to need around a 15 or 16 to hit the melee PCs (whom they attack more often than the other PCs), that puts in in the ballpark of happening once in about 1,500 attack rolls, more or less depending on the specific encounters, play styles, etc. Sure, the boss types and the more melee-heavy singles hit much more often, but the mooks and minions hit much less often, so maybe it balances out in the 15-16 range, give or take. I certainly haven't tracked it, so this is a wild ballpark figure.
My group used the 20>>>20>>>confirm = death rule for a long time till we discarded it. Way too many PC deaths. Although we played rather often back then, sometimes 4 or 5 times a week. (Everyone being poor and married and childless = lots of gaming.) So even though it meant maybe 1 in 8,000 die rolls that something would die to that rule, when you're rolling a thousand attack rolls a week among everybody it seems to happen rather often.Mathematically, 20-20-confirm will happen far more often than 1 in 8,000 (which is 20-20-20). They are identical if, and only if, all 8,000 attacks require a natural 20 to hit. But, given that most monsters and bad guys seem, usually in my games, to need around a 15 or 16 to hit the melee PCs (whom they attack more often than the other PCs), that puts in in the ballpark of happening once in about 1,500 attack rolls, more or less depending on the specific encounters, play styles, etc. Sure, the boss types and the more melee-heavy singles hit much more often, but the mooks and minions hit much less often, so maybe it balances out in the 15-16 range, give or take. I certainly haven't tracked it, so this is a wild ballpark figure.
Wouldn't 20,20,15 be 1 in 6,000? That's 20x20x15 if I remember my math correctly.
Wouldn't 20,20,15 be 1 in 6,000? That's 20x20x15 if I remember my math correctly.My group used the 20>>>20>>>confirm = death rule for a long time till we discarded it. Way too many PC deaths. Although we played rather often back then, sometimes 4 or 5 times a week. (Everyone being poor and married and childless = lots of gaming.) So even though it meant maybe 1 in 8,000 die rolls that something would die to that rule, when you're rolling a thousand attack rolls a week among everybody it seems to happen rather often.Mathematically, 20-20-confirm will happen far more often than 1 in 8,000 (which is 20-20-20). They are identical if, and only if, all 8,000 attacks require a natural 20 to hit. But, given that most monsters and bad guys seem, usually in my games, to need around a 15 or 16 to hit the melee PCs (whom they attack more often than the other PCs), that puts in in the ballpark of happening once in about 1,500 attack rolls, more or less depending on the specific encounters, play styles, etc. Sure, the boss types and the more melee-heavy singles hit much more often, but the mooks and minions hit much less often, so maybe it balances out in the 15-16 range, give or take. I certainly haven't tracked it, so this is a wild ballpark figure.
No, your mistake is in multiplying by 15. If you need a 15 to confirm, that doesn't mean your chance of confirming is 15x harder.
Confirming on a 15 would mean you have a 6 in 20 chance to confirm (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20). Since you have a 1 chance in 20 to roll the first natural 20, and one chance in 20 to roll the second natural 20, then six chances in 20 to roll the confirmation, you multiply 1/20 x 1/20 x 6/20:
1 x1 x6 =6
-- -- -- --
20 20 20 8000
Which = 1 chance in 1,333 attacks.
Confirming on a 16 would work out to 1 chance in 1,600 attacks. My initial "once in about 1,500" attacks was the average of those two values rounded to the nearest 100 to keep it simple and generic.
No, your mistake is in multiplying by 15. If you need a 15 to confirm, that doesn't mean your chance of confirming is 15x harder.
Confirming on a 15 would mean you have a 6 in 20 chance to confirm (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20). Since you have a 1 chance in 20 to roll the first natural 20, and one chance in 20 to roll the second natural 20, then six chances in 20 to roll the confirmation, you multiply 1/20 x 1/20 x 6/20:
1 x1 x6 =6
-- -- -- --
20 20 20 8000Which = 1 chance in 1,333 attacks.
Confirming on a 16 would work out to 1 chance in 1,600 attacks. My initial "once in about 1,500" attacks was the average of those two values rounded to the nearest 100 to keep it...
Cool, thanks for the refresher, my math fu is pretty bad to start with.
Yeah I wasn't paying attention to the math. Someone above had said 8,000 and that stuck with me when I wrote the post. An instant kill threat would be 1 in 400 (20x20); the confirm would be 8000 divided by [however many possible d20 results equal a hit], or (20 x 20 x 20/Y), depending on the AC of the target. Or, there is a Y in 8000 chance of an instant kill, where Y is (21 - target's AC + attackers attack bonus) and where any value of Y thats below 1 is adjusted up to 1, and any value of Y thats above 19 is adjusted down to 19.