Mythic Vital Strike and Critical Hits

[Faelyn]

Okay, I've tried reading through all the MVS (Mythic Vital Strike) posts so far and I haven't quite found the answer. My question is this; when you confirm a critical hit using MVS is the "extra damage" added together via MVS and then multiplied by your weapon's critical modifier?

For example:

Standard Attack w/ scimitar 1d6+6 (+3 Ability mod. damage, +2 with Power Attack, +1 Weapon enchantment)

With MVS it would be 2d6+12. That's very straight forward, no problems there. So now.... with a critical hit would it be...

A) 3d6+18 (1d6 weapon, 1d6 critical, 1d6 MVS + 6 x2 from critical, +6 from MVS)?

Or

B) 3d6+24 (1d6 weapon, 1d6 critical, 1d6 MVS + 12 (MVS) x 2?

My understanding would be option 'B' because you're critically hitting with the MVS attack option, therefore you would modify your "extra" damage by your weapon critical modifier; however, there could be something that I am missing. Thoughts?

[Mojorat]

I believe B is correct.

[Faelyn]

Bump. Anyone else have opinion on this?

[NobodysHome]

I'm bumping this because we're having the same discussion and I've found a third interpretation.

Let's make this very very very simple, and not come up with broken builds or bizarre interpretations.

(1) Start with Faelyn's standard 1d6+6 scimitar.

(2) The character takes vital strike. It now does 2d6+6 on a normal hit and 3d6+12 on a critical.

(3) The character takes improved vital strike. It now does 3d6+6 on a standard hit and 4d6+12 on a critical.

(4) The character takes greater improved vital strike. It now does 4d6+6 on a standard hit and 5d6+12 on a critical.

(5) The character now takes mythic vital strike. Nothing else.

- On a standard hit, you "multiply the bonuses that would normally be multiplied on a critical hit by the number of weapon damage dice you roll". I think this has caused unending confusion. I think it's supposed to be, "By the number of times you roll your weapon damage dice."
By this interpretation, I'm rolling weapon damage dice four times, so now I'm doing 4d6+24 on a standard hit.
Would anyone like to argue with this interpretation?

- Now for the ugliness that is the critical hit. We know only the scimitar damage gets multiplied, so it's 5d6. Normally in Pathfinder, multipliers add. Since we already multiplied the damage by 4, the x2 multiplier from the scimitar adds one more to that. So a critical is a totally-reasonable 5d6+30.
Would anyone like to propose alternative math for this?

Thanks. It helped a lot to type it all out and wrap my head around it.

[maouse]

Spoiler:

Whenever you use Vital Strike, Improved Vital
Strike, or Greater Vital Strike, multiply the Strength
bonus, magic bonus, and other bonuses that would
normally be multiplied on a critical hit by the number of
weapon damage dice you roll for that feat.
Extra damage from sources that wouldn't normally be
multiplied on a critical hit isn't multiplied by this feat.

Str Bonus = multiplied.
Magic Bonus = multiplied.
Other bonuses that would normally be multiplied = multiplied.

In other words;
precision damage = not multiplied.
rider damage (electric, acid, frost, fire) = not multiplied.

Can't think of many others off the top of my head atm. The REAL question is - can you use this with a directed spell that does 20d6 "damage dice"? (they can score a critical, after all) Think about having ANY of those bonuses multiplied in that case... lol. (I know, it RAI means x2, as would be the damage dice multiplier for a directed spell, but RAW it says "weapon damage dice" which might be argued as "spell damage dice" since the spell is the weapon... it should really read "multiply by the multiplier for a critical hit"... RAI)

Imagine a directed touch attack in the scenario of "RAW" - 20d6, Str bonus, Dex bonus, Int bonus (possibly), ... all multiplied by 20? naw...

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Spells don't deal Weapon Damage, they deal Spell Damage, so don't even bother bringing in spells because it just won't work with Vital Strike.

As far as I'm concerned, it's fairly simple, and this is exactly how it's supposed to work, even if RAW is poorly-written.

You have a regular Vital Strike with a Large Bastard Sword, racking in 4D8 from a 2D8 base. For simplicity's sake, let's say he has a +9 Strength modifier to his Two-Handed Bastard Sword. So a basic attack does 2D8+9. A Regular Vital Strike turns it into 4D8+9, whereas with Mythic Vital Strike, that 4D8+9 just turned into 4D8+18.

Rolling and confirming a 17-20 with that Keen Large Bastard Sword via Vital Strike would result in multiplying that amount again by 2.

However, remember that when stacking multipliers (in the cases of Mounted Charges with Lances), you take the additional multiplier, subtract 1 from it, and then add that result to the original.

In this case, the critical multiplier (X2) combined with the Mythic Vital Strike multiplier (X2) results in an essential X3 to the base amount.

Taking 2D8+9 and multiplying that by 3 results in a grand total of 6D8+27.

Any other effects adding to your damage that aren't precision-based damage are factored the same way with a Mythic Vital Strike (but not with a regular Vital Strike feat).

[blashimov]

The way I do it is to keep all your vital strike damage separate, and don't multiply any of it on a crit. So if you have regular mythic vital strike and crit for x2 you get
([W]+flat numbers) twice for crit, and once more for vital strike, for 3 times total. A x3 weapon and improved vital strike would be
([W]+flat numbers) x 3 for crit, and twice more for vital strike, or 5 times total. If you have mythic power attack, it only affects the part that's multiplied in the crit, but I could see it applying for the whole attack.

[Cat-thulhu]

I see the sense in what your saying Blashimov. This is the approach I take, which I think is in line with yours?

I have a reapeating hvy crossbow gunlinger with MVS in our game. He does the following:

Normal standard attack: 2d10+12 --> I take this as base d10 + 6, MVS +1d10+6

A Critical (x3 mult) 1d10+6 x3 for base damage, plus 1d10+6 for MVS, it adds to the damage as basic, non-mythic vital stike suggests. This gives a total of 4d10+24. This is still a step up. Without MVS my crit is 1d10+6 x3, plus 1d10 fro VS --> 4d10+18.

I interpret this as the intent since MVS modifies the base damage that is ADDED with the standard attack it doesn't appear to override the qualifier for VS that says the dice are not multiplied but simply added to the crit.

With IMVS a standard attack is 1d10+6, then 2d10+12 from IMVS

A Crit (x3) 1d10+6 x3 base, then another 2d10+12 for 5d10+30

Again compared to non mythic which is 5d10+18, the feat buys you an extra 12 damage, very healthy and reasonable.

Finally with GMVS: standard is 1d10+6, plus 3d10+18

A cit (x3) 1d10+6 x3 base, then add 3d10+18 for 6d10+36

Once more compared to non mythic which is 6d10+18, your now getting an extra 18 damage form the feat tree. A reasonable and healthy addition.

It essence on a crit you adding to a multiplier to crit range.

with MVS my crit becomes essentially x4 form x3
with IMVS it become x5 from x3,
fianlly with GMVS x6 up form x3

If I just multiply the damage for example:

MVS standard attack does 2d10+12, crit at x3 does 6d10+36
IMVS standard attack does 3d10+18, crit at x3 does 9d10+54
GMVS standard attack does 4d10+24, crit at x3 does 12d10+98

These numbers seem too high to me.

I hope my numbers are good and that its not a garbled explanation.

[Lady-J]

lets take a longsword as an example and lets say you have a 20 str a +2 weapon and you are power attacking for a +6 damage total you get 1d8+13 damage, you vital strike and its a crit for 4d8+52 damage as the vital strike gives you an extra 1d8 damage die and adds in the multiply able factors to that damage b4 multiplying then you multiply that by 2 which is the weapons critical modifyer

[Cat-thulhu]

You see now that's slightly different to how I read it.

Vital strike etc lets you role extra damage dice in a standard action attack and adds these extra dice after mutiplying base damage on a crit.

Mythic VS etc lets you add static bonus damage when using a standard action attack. It specifies the "normally multiplied on a crit" to clarify you don't add extra sneak attack dice, flaming weapon dice etc. It doesn't add anything to override the basic rule from the non-mythic feat about adding the extra damage die AFTER multiplung for a critical hit. That said I can see it working like this:

normal --> 1d8+13

Vital stike --> 2d8+13 (2d8 since you role the dice twice, +13 bonus to damage)

Vital strike critical --> 2d8+26+1d8 (1d8+13 x2, plus the added extra 1d8 for VS)

Mythic VS --> 2d8+26 (2d8 since you roll dice twice and add them, +26 since MVS tells you to multipy the +13 bonus by two)

mythic VS critical --> 3d8+52 (1d8+26 x2, again the +13 is multiplied by 2 for MVS for +26, then this is doubled for the crit, finally you add the extra die for VS). Now its getting messy.

This mean GMVS with this weapon could be:

Mythic GVS --> 4d8+52 (4d8 since you roll damage dice four times and add; +52 since you multiply the bonus +13 by 4 with GMVS)

however a greater mythic strike critical would be:

mythic VS critical --> 2d8+104+3d8 (1d8+52 x2, since GMVS multiplies the +13 added by four; then add the extra 3d8 for GVS).