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(Just asking this because a messagebase search doesn't reveal anyone previously asking this specific question, or at least not with the search-trigger words in their thread title. So, this will be helpful in future searching by others.)
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Situation: the monster has AC25 and my attack bonus is +20.
— If I roll a 1 on my attack, I obviously whiff, no matter what my attack bonus.
— But let's say I roll a 19 to score a threat with a longsword. During the confirmation roll, the die result is a 1. However, I have the Critical Focus feat granting a +4 circumstance bonus on attack rolls made to confirm critical hits. 1+20+4 = +25. This meets or exceeds the monster's AC, so is it a critical hit?
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No.
To find out if it's a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to "confirm" the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made.
Attack rolls miss on a natural 1.
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(Continuing devil's advocacy....) Here's the rub, though: we're not making "another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll (we) just made", we're getting bonuses, which takes us off the rails of the cited text into thar-be-monsters over the edge of the map.
With Critical Focus (and similar traits, class abilities, weapon properties, etc), we exceed "all the same modifiers". I.e., the "1" in the confirmation check isn't an actual attack roll (because that has already happened); it's just a theoretical exercise to see if we can rack up enough bonuses to hit regardless of whatever the second toss is, and in the example above, we do.
But it's still an attack roll. Nothing you've said stops it being an attack roll. The modifiers to critical focus would need to explicitly state that they stop the confirmation roll being an attack roll, and they don't.
Specific > General. The general rule is "all the same modifiers", the specific feat Critical Focus changes that.
But it's still an attack roll.
I agree with Chemlak and Val. Crit focus (and similar abilities). do not contain any language to suggest they change any of the normal critical rules beyond giving you a bonus to hit.
Nat 1 on an attack roll auto fails.
Critical confirmation rolls are attack rolls.
It's still an attack roll so still an auto-miss.
Look at it this way if a natural 1 can hit then a natural 20 can miss. If your character needed a natural 20 to even hit and you managed to roll the natural 20. Then on your conformation roll you rolled another natural 20, but your GM said it was not a critical hit how would you react? My players would be extremely upset.
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Look at it this way if a natural 1 can hit then a natural 20 can miss. If your character needed a natural 20 to even hit and you managed to roll the natural 20. Then on your conformation roll you rolled another natural 20, but your GM said it was not a critical hit how would you react? My players would be extremely upset.
So? They'll be almost as unhappy rolling back-to-back 19s and not getting a crit, albeit without the wow factor of 1-in-400-times 20+20s (which itself introduces the weird prospect that with sufficiently high AC, the only way to get hurt is to eat 20+20 crits).
<chuckle>
...I'm frankly amused that this hasn't been made air-tight explicit in the d20 rule-set through the course of two publishers over a span of going-on eighteen years, given that it's one of the more commonly occurring things in the game.
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For my next magic trick, I need to know the DC to jump a 10' pit.
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...I'm frankly amused that this hasn't been made air-tight explicit in the d20 rule-set through the course of two publishers over a span of going-on eighteen years, given that it's one of the more commonly occurring things in the game.
Critical Hits: 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"). To find out if it's a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to "confirm" the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit against the target's AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit, it doesn't need to come up 20 again.) If the confirmation roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit.
Attack Roll
An 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.Automatic Misses and Hits: A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also a threat—a possible critical hit (see the attack action).
Honestly, you cannot get more explicit than that. Well, unless you are shooting for regeneration.
that all depends on weather or not a natural 1 in your game means an auto miss if it is then no your confirmation doesn't succeed if it isn't then go for it
This is the Rules Forum, so a 1 is an automiss on attack rolls.
there are certain abilities that make it so a 1 is not an auto miss hence my statmentthat all depends on weather or not a natural 1 in your game means an auto miss if it is then no your confirmation doesn't succeed if it isn't then go for itThis is the Rules Forum, so a 1 is an automiss on attack rolls.
Really, okay, now you have me interested, I've not heard of this, what are some of them?
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there's one called there's always a chance it completely ignores results of natural 1's on attacks there's also others that ignore natural 1's on other things but i don't have their names memorizedReally, okay, now you have me interested, I've not heard of this, what are some of them?there are certain abilities that make it so a 1 is not an auto miss hence my statmentthat all depends on weather or not a natural 1 in your game means an auto miss if it is then no your confirmation doesn't succeed if it isn't then go for itThis is the Rules Forum, so a 1 is an automiss on attack rolls.
Alway's A Chance is a Mythic Path ability and thus not something a lot of people have access to.
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OK, that's CRB p184. Hold the thought.......I'm frankly amused that this hasn't been made air-tight explicit in the d20 rule-set through the course of two publishers over a span of going-on eighteen years, given that it's one of the more commonly occurring things in the game.Critical Hits: 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"). To find out if it's a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to "confirm" the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit against the target's AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit, it doesn't need to come up 20 again.) If the confirmation roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit.
CRB p178.Attack Roll
An 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.Automatic Misses and Hits: A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also a threat—a possible critical hit (see the attack action).
Honestly, you cannot get more explicit than that.
You can easily be more explicit: By placing relevant proscribing text in the confirmation section, where it is not presently.
-- Any rule which requires dancing off the currently-being-read paragraph to wander around elsewhere in the book in an attempt to extrapolate the meaning of part of the rule is, by definition, not "explicit". If it were indeed explicit, which it is not, this thread would not exist.
I do not expect that every rule be repeated ad nauseam throughout the book, but very important and commonly-encountered ones ought to be.
If showing the rules won't do it, fire and acid might.
You know what modifies an attack? Rolling a natural 1. Same modifiers apply.
CRB p178.OK, that's CRB p184. Hold the thought.......I'm frankly amused that this hasn't been made air-tight explicit in the d20 rule-set through the course of two publishers over a span of going-on eighteen years, given that it's one of the more commonly occurring things in the game.Critical Hits: 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"). To find out if it's a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to "confirm" the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit against the target's AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit, it doesn't need to come up 20 again.) If the confirmation roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit.Attack Roll
An 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.Automatic Misses and Hits: A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also a threat—a possible critical hit (see the attack action).
Honestly, you cannot get more explicit than that.
You can easily be more explicit: By placing relevant proscribing text in the confirmation section, where it is not presently.
-- Any rule which requires dancing off the currently-being-read paragraph to wander around elsewhere in the book in an attempt to extrapolate the meaning of part of the rule is, by definition, not "explicit". If it were indeed explicit, which it is not, this thread would not exist.
I do not expect that every rule be repeated ad nauseam throughout the book, but very important and commonly-encountered ones ought to be.
They don't put the rules for low light, BAB, cover and other such modifiers in the confirmation section either - that's all rolled into "another attack roll with all the same attack modifiers as the attack roll you just made."
I suspect the author of that section considered "a natural one is an automatic miss" to be another such modifier (that's certainly how it reads to me). That is explicit - there is just ambiguity in the term "modifiers".
The rules are not written in the style of a legal code or even a technical manual - they're written in conversational English. As such, from time to time moments like this will occur where your intuition as to language doesn't line up with the designers'. It's worth being alive to that possibility, I think - especially when it doesn't seem to be controversial within the community.
"A natural one is always a miss" is not a modifier to an attack roll, it is an inherent part of any attack roll. Without something specifically overriding it, on every attack roll, ever, a one will be a fail (and a 20 will be a success). Lady J's Mythic exception would be a modifier to the attack roll.
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(Just asking this because a messagebase search doesn't reveal anyone previously asking this specific question, or at least not with the search-trigger words in their thread title. So, this will be helpful in future searching by others.)
____Situation: the monster has AC25 and my attack bonus is +20.
— If I roll a 1 on my attack, I obviously whiff, no matter what my attack bonus.
— But let's say I roll a 19 to score a threat with a longsword. During the confirmation roll, the die result is a 1. However, I have the Critical Focus feat granting a +4 circumstance bonus on attack rolls made to confirm critical hits. 1+20+4 = +25. This meets or exceeds the monster's AC, so is it a critical hit?
If the die roll is 1 before modifiers, then you automatically miss.
If the Die roll plus modifiers is 1, you won't automatically miss, but you'll still probably miss.
I will note that on the Critical Confirmation roll, if you do not hit the target and fail to confirm the critical, but it still hits the target. So rolling a natural 1 to critically confirm will still be a regular hit, it just won't be a critical hit.
This is explained under the rules for Critical hits.
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No, Thugsalot. I completely disagree that its not crystal clear.It's crystal clearly six pages away, you mean.
It would be VASTLY worse to have the rules for 1 being an automiss under the critical conformation rules.Explanation for that being "VASTLY worse" arriving in 3..2..1..*poof*! Hey, where'd it go?
And repeating rules already listed 6 pages before It? Waste of space and paper. Which means extra money to print rules.There are three separate paragraphs in the critical-hits section on p184 that have four inches of unused blank space at the end of their last sentence. -- It would have cost nothing.
You don't need how to make a ranged attack roll rules under scorching Ray do you?
Given the amount of FAQs and errata involving that spell which have piled up over the years, it's probably not the idea choice for making analogies.
There are three separate paragraphs in the critical-hits section on p184 that have four inches of unused blank space at the end of their last sentence. -- It would have cost nothing.
Adding redundant text to a 576 page rulebook is a cost.
It hardly seems necessary to repeat themselves here - since nobody seems confused about it (even you are just 'playing devil's advocate' right?) It wouldn't surprise me if they limit the repetition of rules text as much as possible. Where that line is will be different for everyone, of course - yet this really doesn't seem to be a controversial issue.