Weirdo |
Is there a difference?
Ran into this issue in another thread:
AFAIK a ability that allow you to re-roll an attack allow you to re-roll the d20 used for the attack, it has nothing to do with the miss chance for blur or rolling a low damage.
However, there are specific abilities that tell you to "reroll attack roll." (like the Preacher's Aggression) while other abilities tell you to "reroll the attack" if you miss (Second Chance).
Which is true?
1) There is no difference between an ability that says "reroll an attack" and "reroll an attack roll" - neither does anything if you miss due to miss chance.
2) An ability to "reroll an attack" allows you to reroll either the attack roll or the miss chance individually.
3) An ability to "reroll an attack" allows you to reroll the entire attack, both attack roll and miss chance, and you only hit on the reroll if both the attack roll and the miss chance are a success.
Diego Rossi |
Attack RollAn attack roll represents your attempt to strike your opponent on your turn in a round. When you make an attack roll, you roll a d20 and add your attack bonus. (Other modifiers may also apply to this roll.) If your result equals or beats the target's Armor Class, you hit and deal damage.
AFAIK Attack (in the context of Second chance feat ans similar abilities) is simply a shorthand for attack roll.
There are abilities that give you the possibility to reroll a miss chance ( Blind-Fight as an example) and I think there are abilities that allow you to reroll damage (but can't recall one at the moment).
As every one of those ability affect a specific part of the attack routine I don't think any of them can restart the attack routine from scratch if you don't like the result of the damage die.
Weirdo |
I'm not talking about if you don't like the result of the damage die - the Second Chance feat says you have to miss, which rules out "I hit but dealt minimum damage." The question is about whether a miss due to miss chance works with this ability.
But noted that you believe that the terms "reroll attack" and "reroll attack roll" are interchangeable.
Tarantula |
I agree that "reroll attack" is shorthand for "reroll attack roll". Otherwise, what about the attack are you re-rolling?
Its worth quoting the full text for the abilities also.
Second chance:
Benefit: When making a full attack, if you miss on your first attack, you can forgo making any other attacks for the rest of your turn to reroll that attack at your highest base attack bonus.
Aggression:
Aggression: The preacher may reroll an attack roll that she just made before the results of the roll are revealed. She must take the result of the reroll, even if it's worse than the original roll.
Its all with the phrasing. Second chance would feel wordy if it said "When making a full attack, if you miss on your first attack roll" because "full attack" is a game turn, and it sounds weird to then say "first attack roll."
Likewise, with aggression, it is referring to any attack roll the preacher makes, not specifically the first in a full attack action. It makes sense to be more specific by saying "attack roll" as it works with the language "before the results of the roll are revealed." They could have said "The preacher may reroll an attack that she just made before the results of the attack are revealed" and had the exact same meaning.
Diego Rossi |
I'm not talking about if you don't like the result of the damage die - the Second Chance feat says you have to miss, which rules out "I hit but dealt minimum damage." The question is about whether a miss due to miss chance works with this ability.
But noted that you believe that the terms "reroll attack" and "reroll attack roll" are interchangeable.
As I already said, there are abilities that allow you to reroll a miss chance and only the miss chance.
An ability that allow you to reroll the whole attack if you miss for failing a check to overcome miss chance or if you fail the attack roll if is vastly stronger than one that allow you to re-roll only if you fail ne of those checks as it allow you to try to overcome two different kinds of defense.
As we have abilities that are clearly limited to re-rolling either an attack check or a mischance checks I really doubt there is any ability that work as the sum of two different abilities.
Manimal |
Is it just me, or is the Aggression ability just stupid and utterly pointless? "Hmmmm...that roll didn't feel right to me...I'm going to reroll it before I even know what came up!"
It feels like whoever wrote it thinks they know how probability works, but doesn't actually know how probability works. You don't average the rolls, you can't choose the better one...how is rolling twice any different than rolling once in this scenario?
James Risner Owner - D20 Hobbies |
1) There is no difference between an ability that says "reroll an attack" and "reroll an attack roll" - neither does anything if you miss due to miss chance.
My vote.
But know this, there isn't going to be a definitive answer to this and arguing over what the definitive answer is would be a waste of all of our time ;-)
Xaratherus |
Weirdo wrote:1) There is no difference between an ability that says "reroll an attack" and "reroll an attack roll" - neither does anything if you miss due to miss chance.My vote.
But know this, there isn't going to be a definitive answer to this and arguing over what the definitive answer is would be the norm for the forums ;-)
FTFY :)
Jellyfulfish |
Is it just me, or is the Aggression ability just stupid and utterly pointless? "Hmmmm...that roll didn't feel right to me...I'm going to reroll it before I even know what came up!"
It feels like whoever wrote it thinks they know how probability works, but doesn't actually know how probability works. You don't average the rolls, you can't choose the better one...how is rolling twice any different than rolling once in this scenario?
It's not about probability, or rather not entirely. It's more about metagame.
case 1) You "know" the AC you are rolling against. Be that metagame knowledge of the monster stats, or because the roll of 10+6 from the fighter missed but his 16+1 did hit. Since you know your own modifier is +4, when you see the dice stop rolling with its 12 on top, you call for a reroll before the DM says it hits or misses. Yip, pure metagame.
case 2) You are the first attacker on a strange monster nobody identified yet. The first hit is very important because you want to apply XYZ debuff as a touch spell or whatever before the monster acts. You rolled a 5, and don't think you can even hope to hit touch AC. You select to use the reroll, in hope to roll higher. You have about 75% chance to do so.
Manimal |
Manimal wrote:Is it just me, or is the Aggression ability just stupid and utterly pointless? "Hmmmm...that roll didn't feel right to me...I'm going to reroll it before I even know what came up!"
It feels like whoever wrote it thinks they know how probability works, but doesn't actually know how probability works. You don't average the rolls, you can't choose the better one...how is rolling twice any different than rolling once in this scenario?It's not about probability, or rather not entirely. It's more about metagame.
case 1) You "know" the AC you are rolling against. Be that metagame knowledge of the monster stats, or because the roll of 10+6 from the fighter missed but his 16+1 did hit. Since you know your own modifier is +4, when you see the dice stop rolling with its 12 on top, you call for a reroll before the DM says it hits or misses. Yip, pure metagame.
case 2) You are the first attacker on a strange monster nobody identified yet. The first hit is very important because you want to apply XYZ debuff as a touch spell or whatever before the monster acts. You rolled a 5, and don't think you can even hope to hit touch AC. You select to use the reroll, in hope to roll higher. You have about 75% chance to do so.
Well see, this would make sense. I could just be misunderstanding what the text means when it says, "before the result is revealed." I was assuming that it meant before the result of the die roll, meaning what number came up, but it would make more sense (and actually be worth something) if it meant before the result of hit or miss was revealed. If that's the case, then the fault is on me for misreading.
bbangerter |
The two terms are definitely the same. In the same way a oracle of life's "Channel" ability is the same thing as a clerics "Channel Energy" ability is the same thing as a paladins "Channel Positive Energy" ability - when it comes to qualifying for feats or abilities that have a prereq of being able to channel (noted exception that a oracle or paladin would not qualify for something that specifically required channeling negative energy).
When two abilities, or terms in the game language, seem to be the same thing but the developers intend them to actually be very different they go out of their way to explain that they are different. (Or at least they try to, whether they always succeed at that...)
Scavion |
"reroll an attack" and "reroll an attack roll" sound like exacly the same thing to me.
The difference is the former would have you reroll your entire attack, including miss chance. The latter would not.
I'm for it, its not that strong and certainly wouldn't come up an awful lot unless your playing with loads of miss chance.
Scavion |
1.) sound correct
PRD Concealment miss chance wrote:Make the attack normally—if the attacker hits, the defender must make a miss chance d% roll to avoid being struck.Both abilities are not affecting the miss chance because the defender rolls it.
That makes it sound like if you can reroll your attack roll after the result, you could totally reroll the miss chance.
Rhatahema |
I believe there's a difference between an attack and an attack roll (I've argued this at length regarding the Gunslinger's Dead Shot deed).
With Second Chance, I would say you can reroll the attack roll whether you miss due to not hitting their AC or from miss-chance. For instance, if you missed their AC, you'd reroll the attack roll. If you hit their AC and then they dodged it through miss-chance, you'd reroll the attack roll, forcing the target to reroll their miss-chance as well (assuming you hit their AC on the reroll). Damage and other effects don't get rerolled simply because you haven't hit that step in the process.