Rune Giants crit too hard!

[Tamago]

A data point from my game last night:

Players were fighting the Rune Giants. One of them got a 20 to hit the party cleric. It had the Rune of Destruction up:

Spoiler:

Rune of Destruction The weapon gains the deadly trait with
three dice of the same die size as the weapon, and any armor
worn by a creature hit with the weapon takes 1 Dent (a
second Dent causes it to become broken) unless the creature
succeeds at a DC 32 Fortitude save.

The rune giant's weapon is a Gargantuan greatsword, which does 4d12 + 9 damage. On a crit, this doubles to 8d12 + 18. Adding three more sets of weapon damage dice from the Deadly trait brings the total to 20d12 + 18.

The cleric was dropped from full to dying in one hit!

I feel like having the deadly trait only add 1x the weapon damage dice would be more balanced.

[Captain Morgan]

You do know deadly dice aren't multiplied on a crit, right? So if it starts with 4d12, it should get up to 11d12.

[Tamago]

Captain Morgan wrote:

You do know deadly dice aren't multiplied on a crit, right? So if it starts with 4d12, it should get up to 11d12.

I wasn't multiplying the deadly dice on the crit. Those were added after.

That is, the weapon deals 4d12 damage. The Rune of Destruction adds "the deadly trait with three dice of the same die size as the weapon". That's 12d12. Plus the 8d12 from the crit, is 20d12.

[Edge93]

The die size of the weapon is d12. The "Three dice of the same size as the weapon" is emulating the Deadly trait on a Legendary quality weapon. it adds 3d12. Looking at the Deadly trait, which it references, makes this fairly clear. Just like Potency runes add one die of the same size as the base weapon per +1, so deadly adds x number of dice as the base size of the weapon.

It says "add three dice", not "add three sets of dice". That is also important.

[Tamago]

Edge93 wrote:

The die size of the weapon is d12. The "Three dice of the same size as the weapon" is emulating the Deadly trait on a Legendary quality weapon. it adds 3d12. Looking at the Deadly trait, which it references, makes this fairly clear. Just like Potency runes add one die of the same size as the base weapon per +1, so deadly adds x number of dice as the base size of the weapon.

It says "add three dice", not "add three sets of dice". That is also important.

I thought the die size of the weapon was 4d12, because it's Gargantuan. A regular Greatsword does 1d12, so I thought it went something like:

Medium: 1d12
Large: 2d12
Huge: 3d12
Gargantuan: 4d12

The weapon isn't magical, so 4d12 is the base weapon damage. I thought that's what the "dice of the same size as the weapon" was referring to. That is, use add three Gargantuan greatsword dice, or 3 x 4d12.

[Mudfoot]

This is the problem with the rule about PCs and NPCs being built differently rears its ugly head again. There's no explanation for the 4d12, except 'because'. Same problem about the boss gnoll's scimitar in Pale Mountain. Why does it do 2d6? Is it magic? Dunno.

[Edge93]

Okay, I can see how you would think that. Size doesn't alter weapon damage innately in PF2 though. Enemy weapons just have extra dice emulating Potency but not actually potency because player wealth would break.

Which I suppose is a good pro for making weapon extra dice level based, it removes that shenaniganry. I don't mind it but others do and I understand why.

[Lyee]

Tamago wrote:

Edge93 wrote:

Th...

I thought the die size of the weapon was 4d12, because it's Gargantuan. A regular Greatsword does 1d12, so I thought it went something like:

Medium: 1d12
Large: 2d12
Huge: 3d12
Gargantuan: 4d12

The weapon isn't magical, so 4d12 is the base weapon damage. I thought that's what the "dice of the same size as the weapon" was referring to. That is, use add three Gargantuan greatsword dice, or 3 x 4d12.

Yeah, nope, weapon size doesn't affect damage. Creature size apparently gives a +2 flat per size category, but definitely not more dice.

The Rune Giants are, effectively, using +3 weapons. They just don't say that because they don't want the PCs to loot the +3 weapons. It's yet another negative result of Potency runes being required for damage to keep up.

[Quandary]

Yeah I've noticed a few weirdnesses around +2 substituting for die increase above d12, yet no provision made to include that +2 for die-multiplying effects... Although question is open whether "1d12+2 etc" should be facto treated as "weapon die" and thus +2 should be mutiplied with die increases.

[Tamago]

You know, the ability in question was actually in the stat block for the monster. Instead of:
The weapon gains the deadly trait with three dice of the same die size as the weapon

Why didn't the ability just say,
On a critical hit, the weapon deals an extra Xd12 damage.

It's both shorter and clearer!

[Franz Lunzer]

Tamago wrote:

You know, the ability in question was actually in the stat block for the monster. Instead of:

The weapon gains the deadly trait with three dice of the same die size as the weapon

Why didn't the ability just say,
On a critical hit, the weapon deals an extra Xd12 damage.

It's both shorter and clearer!

Because the ability could be used on the greatsword (d12), fist (d6), spear (d6) or rock (d10).

[Fumarole]

Accidentally dealing an extra 9d12 damage to a player? Ouch.

[Kaelizar]

I seriously hope that in the final 2e that they fix the inconsistencies between monsters and PCs. It's only really come up in forums here (except the Pale Mountains Gnoll b/c that's as far as we've gotten)

Being able to disassemble a monster into it's working parts and applying those is important. Having weapon size be a factor in damage, applying consistent bonuses, etc are all very important. Hopefully this was overlooked for the playtest to keep things simple, but it seems to have caused more controversy than simplicity in the forums, and in practice.

I do believe Paizo has said they do intend to do something about it. but now sure exactly what or when they said it.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Tamago wrote:

A data point from my game last night:

Players were fighting the Rune Giants. One of them got a 20 to hit the party cleric. It had the Rune of Destruction up:

** spoiler omitted **

The rune giant's weapon is a Gargantuan greatsword, which does 4d12 + 9 damage. On a crit, this doubles to 8d12 + 18. Adding three more sets of weapon damage dice from the Deadly trait brings the total to 20d12 + 18.

The cleric was dropped from full to dying in one hit!

I feel like having the deadly trait only add 1x the weapon damage dice would be more balanced.

Yeah, that player got screwed by your math, since it functions like the weapon feature, and not some triplicate shenanigans like you just did.

The total damage dealt with that feature is 11D12+18. 4D12+9 Base doubled to 8D12+18 via critical plus 3D12 from deadly (like the weapon property). On average, that's 89.5 damage, which shouldn't drop anyone of appropriate level from max HP. (It still hurts though.)

I know it sucks to realize that you screwed up, but one of the GM's responsibilities is to admit he screwed up with the players/PCs and try to make it right.

[Rycke]

Mudfoot wrote:

This is the problem with the rule about PCs and NPCs being built differently rears its ugly head again. There's no explanation for the 4d12, except 'because'. Same problem about the boss gnoll's scimitar in Pale Mountain. Why does it do 2d6? Is it magic? Dunno.

As a GM, I treated that weapon as a +1 magic scimitar and gave it to my players as such after they beat the gnoll boss.