Allow me to throw a monkey wrench into the works. The arguement is that you didn't actually roll damage, therefore Vorpal doesn't trigger. If this position is true, then a lot of other things become broken. The phrasing below is "the target takes damage as if the maximum results had been rolled".
RC 217: Maximum Damage When an attack scores a critical hit against a target, the target takes the maximum damage possible from the attack. Don't make a damage roll. Instead, the target takes damage as if the maximum results had been rolled for damage. However, attacks that don't deal damage still don't deal damage on a critical hit.
Let's look at something else that uses the common "as if" phrasing.
Collar of Recovery Property: Gain extra hit points equal to this item’s enhancement bonus when you spend a healing surge to regain hit points.
Cure Light Wounds Effect: The target regains hit points as if it had spent a healing surge.
Those that are saying that Vorpal doesn't trigger on a crit are also asserting that Collar of Recovery doesn't work with Cure Light Wounds. Both use the "as if" phrasing, and both should work.
That having been said, I would argue that conditional damage (like the extra damage you get on a crit from a magic weapon - and the Vorpal property) can never be part of "the maximum damage possible from the attack". If an attack does (for example) 2d10 + 20, then the maximum damage would be 30. Because that means you "rolled" two 10's, you can now trigger Vorpal twice by actually rolling 2d10. Either that or it requires errata. Even if this is not supported by RAW I would certainly run it this way at my table. Not getting the Vorpal trigger on a crit seems wrong.
Otherwise what the other side is saying is the following:
1. Crit gives me max damage on 2d10 + 20 = 30 2. Vorpal adds 2d10 more damage because I "rolled" max on both d10's. 3. Because the attack was a crit, those 2d10 are maximized - return to step 2 (ad nausium)
The 2d10 damage added in step two was never part of the original attack and thus cannot be maximized. This seems like it should fall under something, being an infinite loop and all. Bag o Rats or similar.
Chaosfang one thing with your argument, doesn't invalidate it but a natural 20 is never a miss. Read through it a few times and got very confused.
A natural 20 is never a miss, but if 20 + your attack bonus wouldn't hit, then it's not a crit, and its just a normal hit instead. I think that's what chaosfang meant, but worded it incorrectly.
The free re-rolls would, however, apply if you roll for max damage with any of your crit dice, or anything else that is triggered on a crit.
It could be argued that the crit dice would not get re-rolls because the vorpal property reads: "Whenever you roll the maximum result on any damage die for this weapon...", and Weapon Damage Die is expliicitly defined on RC223 as a [W] entry, which the critical dice are not. So you could reroll the dice from a high crit vorpal weapon, but not the +6d12 critical hit dice, or the +3d12 from the daily power (although that 3d12 would maximize on a crit). Now if Vorpal's crit line instead read "+6[W]", that would definitely get extra rerolls. Likewise Vorpal does not let you reroll other extra damage dice like sneak attack, hunter's quarry, etc.
I asked why a crit with a vorpal weapon does not trigger the vorpal effect, thus dealing extra (possibly infinite) damage.
Because no DM would ever allow that. I'm all for thought exercises, even moot ones... but this one seems especially moot.
I will be the first to concede that an auto-kill crit is almost definitely not what the designers intended, there's no need for RAI arguments about it. Just tell me why it isn't RAW
RAW is open to interpretation here. As is often the case, the literal wording of any text can often have multiple viable interpretations. Intent does matter, especially in cases where the intent is clear.
Allow me to throw a monkey wrench into the works. The arguement is that you didn't actually roll damage, therefore Vorpal doesn't trigger. If this position is true, then a lot of other things become broken. The phrasing below is "the target takes damage as if the maximum results had been rolled".
You need the first sentence. First sentence: You do not roll. Then "as if". The as if sentence is modifying the sentence that says you do not actually roll, instead you pretend that you rolled. The example is not applicable because those say "as if" without any restrictions. In this case there is a restriction. So you get to pretend you rolled in all ways except that you didn't actually roll. That is how a clause and sub-clause work.
I'm sorta with ThatWasTotallyNinja on this one and his strongest argument (imho) still hasn't been answered:
If the damage total from "as if the maximum result had been rolled for damage" doesn't include elements triggered on damage rolls (because no real damage roll took place), then why do we include the enhancement bonus of the weapon in the total?
Take note that "as if the maximum result had been rolled for damage" assumes that you treat the crit, well, as if the maximum result had been rolled for damage, without actually making any damage rolls.
Thus, you include the enhancement bonus in the total. So if you made an attack that normally does 2d8 + 16 damage (18 ~ 32 damage), when you crit, it simply becomes 32, plus anything that may add to it on a crit.
However, the Vorpal property explicitly requires that you *roll* for the damage first before you get the free re-roll, which you explicitly do not do so when you crit. The free re-rolls would, however, apply if you roll for max damage with any of your crit dice, or anything else that is triggered on a crit.
Think of it this way:
Hit... 1. Did you roll a natural 20? Y -> It might be a crit. N -> It might miss. Effect: Proceed to the next step.
2. Is the total roll equal to or greater than the target number? Y -> If 1 = Y, it's a crit, else it's a hit. N -> If 1 = Y, it's a hit, else it's a miss. Effect: Proceed to the next step.
3. Is it a crit? Y -> Base damage is maxed out ("as if the maximum result has been rolled for damage") instead of rolling for damage. Apply extra damage and effects granted by the crit, as well as other effects found in the power's "Hit" and "Effect" entries, if any. N -> Proceed to next step.
4. Is it a hit? Y -> Apply the effects found in the power's "Hit" entry. N -> Apply the effects found in the power's "Miss" entry, if any. Effect: Apply the effects found in the power's "Effect" entry, if any.
Vorpal... 1. Did you roll for damage? Y -> Proceed to next step. N -> Ignore the rest of this portion.
2. Was the result of your roll the maximum roll for your damage dice? Y -> Re-roll the damage dice, and add the new result. Re-check. N -> No re-roll.
- - - - - Honestly, with regards to the whole thing, the first question you really have to ask is "did I roll for damage?" Rules say that when you crit, you don't roll for damage and instead get the maximum result as if you rolled for damage, which again if it was a 2d8 + 16 it is 8 + 8 + 16 = 32. Because you don't actually roll for damage, you don't get any re-rolls.
AGAIN, Vorpal requires you to roll for damage. Critical hits explicitly don't -- regardless of how you interpret the line after the "You don't roll for damage" -- so it doesn't apply.
Thanks for breaking it down like that, it actually helped me see where the disagreement is coming up.
In your little flow chart there, you put vorpal at the very end. After we've done everything else, now we reroll the dice that were maxed. In this case, you would be correct, there wasn't any damage roll there so vorpal does not trigger.
However, what makes far more sense to me, is that vorpal kicks in much earlier. During that step where we calculate the base damage of the crit: in that step, we include vorpal as part of the calculation, because it is part of the normal damage we would do. There's no reason at all that vorpal should be calculated separately from where you do all the other damage calculations, that's never specified by the property, so we should do it at the same time as we calculate everything else.
So, during our step where we're figuring out the crit's base damage, we ask: how much damage would the target take if we rolled the maximum result for damage? The answer is how much base damage the crit does. In this case, the answer is infinity, because if we rolled the damage then vorpal would kick in, and the maximum result of vorpal damage is infinite. We didn't roll anything; we're not violating the crit rule. But vorpal still factored in, because for purposes of calculating damage, it says to act is if the dice were rolled in this particular way that would end up triggering vorpal.
You need the first sentence. First sentence: You do not roll. Then "as if". The as if sentence is modifying the sentence that says you do not actually roll, instead you pretend that you rolled. The example is not applicable because those say "as if" without any restrictions. In this case there is a restriction. So you get to pretend you rolled in all ways except that you didn't actually roll. That is how a clause and sub-clause work.
You keep saying this, and I keep asking, what is it about the vorpal property that suggests it's any more strict than a bonus to damage rolls in terms of this section?
A bonus to damage rolls is extremely specific: it only applies when you actually make a damage roll. Maximum Damage says you do not make a damage roll. You pretend you roll, but you didn't actually roll, therefore you do not get this bonus damage, because you did not roll.
If the wording for applying vorpal had some line about "you must physically roll these dice" then I could see how you'd interpret one to go one way and the other differently. The wording for the two is the same: you have to roll. What is it in the wording that, according to you, makes a damage roll bonus count but not vorpal?
Also, as I've pointed out repeatedly: I never say that you actually roll vorpal. So what you're saying does not apply. In fact, I specifically said that vorpal does not technically trigger. But it doesn't matter, because Maximum Damage says to determine the damage as if it did. If I had rolled the maximum result for damage, then vorpal would have triggered. I know that I never actually rolled anything, so vorpal didn't actually trigger...but for purposes of determining the damage of the crit, I behave as though I did, because that's exactly what the RC says to do.
One last time: the amount of base damage a crit deals is 100% independent of the fact that you are not making a damage roll. The damage you deal is what the maximum result would be if you had rolled it. It's not "if you had rolled it without making a damage roll," as you seem to be saying (which would also preclude damage roll bonuses from counting and is generally kind of silly). What that section says is "instead of physically rolling stuff, figure out the most damage you could've dealt by physically rolling stuff, and do that much damage." Which is supported by the actual first sentence (that you keep ignoring): "the target takes the maximum damage possible from the attack". The next sentence is a clarification on that.
I am okay with you saying my argument is stupid, or commits the munchkin fallacy, or any other bad thing you want. Particularly if you give a reason/explanation for it.
However, I will ignore any post that calls me stupid, or a munchkin, or what have you. Not because it bothers me; I've just found that people only start name-calling when that's the best argument they have left.
Allow me to throw a monkey wrench into the works. The arguement is that you didn't actually roll damage, therefore Vorpal doesn't trigger. If this position is true, then a lot of other things become broken. The phrasing below is "the target takes damage as if the maximum results had been rolled".
You need the first sentence. First sentence: You do not roll. Then "as if". The as if sentence is modifying the sentence that says you do not actually roll, instead you pretend that you rolled. The example is not applicable because those say "as if" without any restrictions. In this case there is a restriction. So you get to pretend you rolled in all ways except that you didn't actually roll. That is how a clause and sub-clause work.
The example I listed is exactly spot on in comparison.
Collar of Recovery: Recieve extra healing if you spend a surge. Cure Light Wounds: Recieve healing as if you spent a surge.
In this case you heal in all ways as if you had spent a surge, without actually spending a surge. The "as if you spent a surge" is what allows you to benefit from the bonus healing of the Collar.
Is no different from:
Don't make a damage roll. Instead, the target takes damage as if the maximum results had been rolled for damage.
In this case you do damage in all ways as if you had rolled max damage, without actually rolling.
This is just gonna be one of those times that you are wrong Alcestis.
You emphasized the wrong part. "As if you spent a surge" has no restrictions. This has a restriction. "You don't get xyz bonuses to t, otherwise you get all things that apply to t." Do you get xyz? No. Compared to "You get all things that apply to t." Do you get xyz? Yes. There is a critical difference you're completely ignoring... and when you ignore rules you're wrong, by default.
@Thatwastotallyninja: asked and answered (many times now). Vorpal requires rolling. You are explicitly not rolling. Bonuses to damage rolls do not require rolling, per the defininition of damage rolls (RC 222). Incidentally Vorpal is not part of the damage roll initially. It only becomes a part of the damage roll when you roll the max number on a die. Since you didn't do that, it never is. Period. Which is why Vorpal doesn't trigger. It isn't part of the maxmimum damage the attack can do, because it isn't even part of the attack till you roll max on a die.
Really, go read all the relevant sections and don't ignore sentences. Though at this point since you're clearly not an idiot I'm sort of forced to assume you're trolling.
Chaosfang one thing with your argument, doesn't invalidate it but a natural 20 is never a miss. Read through it a few times and got very confused.
Natural 20 is always a hit, but not always a crit (RC, p.216). If #1 (natural 20) is Yes, then determine if it's a crit (#2). If 20 + bonuses >= target number, it's a crit (#2,Y), but if not, it's only an automatic hit (#2, N).
I think you're missing the point. Part of that "2d8 + 16" attack is the enhancement bonus of your weapon, and that ALSO only gets added on damage rolls. So why, if you're not making a real damage roll, do you still get the full +16 damage modifier?
Reading through RC p. 280...
Magic weapons and magic implements grant their enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls only when the wielder uses powers through the weapon or the implement (or directly from the weapon or the implement, for items that have attack powers). A power's description indicates if it functions through the use of a weapon or an implement.
Example: Because a dragonslayer weapon is a magic weapon, its enhancement bonus applies to the wielder's attack rolls and damage rolls with the weapon.
RC p. 222...
A damage roll can be modified by a number of factors. Monsters' damage rolls are rarely modified by anything but temporary bonuses or penalties, such as those applied by powers. The following bonuses are the most common for an adventurer's damage rolls. * A specific ability modifier. A typical attack power used by an adventurer specifies an ability modifier to add to the damage roll. The ability modifier is usually the same one added to the power's attack roll. * An enhancement bonus (usually from a magic weapon or an implement). * A feat bonus. * An item bonus.
Unless I'm mistaken, as long as the power has the Weapon keyword, and you attack with the +6 Vorpal weapon, if you hit and make a damage roll -- regardless if it's an actual damage roll or "as if the maximum result had been rolled for damage" -- then you add the weapon's enhancement bonus.
Again, when you make an attack that does 2[W]+modifier damage, and you have a +6 Vorpal Longsword and a total damage modifier of +16, then when you hit, it's 2d8+16 (roll two eight-sided dice, then add 16, as written in p. 222). When you crit, the maximum of an eight-sided dice is 8, so instead of actually rolling the dice, you get the maximum result for the attack and use that instead.
Thanks for breaking it down like that, it actually helped me see where the disagreement is coming up.
In your little flow chart there, you put vorpal at the very end. After we've done everything else, now we reroll the dice that were maxed. In this case, you would be correct, there wasn't any damage roll there so vorpal does not trigger.
I placed it at the end because it's an exception to the rule. It applies regardless if it's a crit or a hit, because it only checks for two things: if you made the damage roll, and if the rolled damage resulted in the maximum possible for the damage roll (e.g. 6, for a 1d6 damage roll).
However, what makes far more sense to me, is that vorpal kicks in much earlier. During that step where we calculate the base damage of the crit: in that step, we include vorpal as part of the calculation, because it is part of the normal damage we would do. There's no reason at all that vorpal should be calculated separately from where you do all the other damage calculations, that's never specified by the property, so we should do it at the same time as we calculate everything else.
So, during our step where we're figuring out the crit's base damage, we ask: how much damage would the target take if we rolled the maximum result for damage? The answer is how much base damage the crit does. In this case, the answer is infinity, because if we rolled the damage then vorpal would kick in, and the maximum result of vorpal damage is infinite. We didn't roll anything; we're not violating the crit rule. But vorpal still factored in, because for purposes of calculating damage, it says to act is if the dice were rolled in this particular way that would end up triggering vorpal.
Again, I had to separate it because it's an exception to the rule, just as criticals are the exception to the rule.
Normal rule: Roll weapon's damage dice. Apply the result. Critical rule: Don't roll for damage. Damage = maximum possible damage for the weapon (as if the damage was rolled). Vorpal property: When you roll weapon's damage dice and get the maximum, re-roll and add the new result to the damage.
So apparently the issue is: when do you apply the Vorpal property?
For you, it's when you determine the maximum base result for damage: you max the dice roll, get the result, max the new dice roll because you crit, get the new result, repeat until infinity is reached.
For me, it's whenever you roll for damage and the result and get the maximum die roll, regardless if it's crit dice, normal dice, or whatever. You don't roll your base dice damage, then you don't get the reroll for your base dice damage.
I can allow for a bit of a stretch, that you got the maximum for the base damage as a result of the crit, and thus get your added dice *once*, although I'd rather keep it sweet and simple.
A bonus to damage rolls is extremely specific: it only applies when you actually make a damage roll. Maximum Damage says you do not make a damage roll. You pretend you roll, but you didn't actually roll, therefore you do not get this bonus damage, because you did not roll.
Actually, RC p.222 does not explicitly state that you only apply it when you make a damage roll, but then again there's no entry on non-rolled damage, so the simplest assumption is that if the power does not make a damage roll, it doesn't benefit from damage roll modifiers.
Criticals are again the exception to the normal rule: as written, you get the maximum result instead of rolling for damage.
One last time: the amount of base damage a crit deals is 100% independent of the fact that you are not making a damage roll. The damage you deal is what the maximum result would be if you had rolled it. It's not "if you had rolled it without making a damage roll," as you seem to be saying (which would also preclude damage roll bonuses from counting and is generally kind of silly). What that section says is "instead of physically rolling stuff, figure out the most damage you could've dealt by physically rolling stuff, and do that much damage." Which is supported by the actual first sentence (that you keep ignoring): "the target takes the maximum damage possible from the attack". The next sentence is a clarification on that.
"The maximum damage possible from the attack" normally does not take Vorpal into consideration, as the Vorpal property is an exception to the rule. Apparently, you consider the Vorpal property as an integral part of the "maximum damage possible from the attack"...
... but the consensus is apparently still the same, regardless of how much you shout "BUT IT'S RAW! IT'S RAW!": No, you don't get infinite damage because of the "maximum damage possible".
[ Even if it's RAW and even if the developers intended it to be "insta-kill on a crit/super-max-damage/whatever", unless everyone in the group including the DM would allow it to happen, it won't. ]
There is something that, legally, comes close, in spite of all the errata so far: Vengeance's End (Runepriest's Hammer of Vengeance Paragon Path, level 20 power), which effectively grants Brutal 2. Use with a +6 Vorpal Falchion for 50% chance to get free re-rolls. Even by how the community in general interprets the Vorpal property, if you crit with the power, that's 6d12+6d4+40+other modifiers at brutal 2, so expect the damage to easily reach insta-kill for the most part.
For a more at-will equivalent, Gauntlets of Destruction gets you brutal 1, so at least you have a higher chance of getting the max damage roll [at worst that's 4d4+modifiers, or 8+modifiers ~ infinite+modifiers. Otherwise, the community here in general would disagree with Vorpal doing infinite damage.
Although again, personally I would agree with the following interpretation: 1. When you crit, you determine the maximum damage as if you rolled for it 2. The Vorpal property nets you extra damage dice for getting the maximum damage roll 3a. The new damage dice are not inherently part of #1, but rather are added to #1, so they're not maxed. 3b. The new damage dice are extra damage granted by the crit, so they're not maxed.
Maybe they should errata Vorpal to remove the possibility of interpreting it as granting infinite damage, maybe: "Whenever you make an actual damage die roll with this weapon and get the maximum result for that die, you can roll that die again and treat it as extra damage. This property also applies to the extra damage die granted by this property."
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what you create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
If you're crossing the street and see a city bus barreling straight toward you with 'GIVE ME YOUR WALLET!' painted across its windshield, you probably won't be reaching for your wallet.
This is what I believe is the spirit of D&D 4E, and my deal breaker for D&D Next: equal opportunities, with distinct specializations, in areas where conflict happens the most often, without having to worry about heavy micromanagement or system mastery.
The arguments are strong on either side but I find myself leaning towards Vorpal actually causing the attack to instakill.
My opinion is that since Vorpal says you add the additional result to the damage total, the property is just adding more damage to the attack itself. This means that the property of Vorpal is capable of increasing the maximum damage of the attack itself.
Even though Vorpal doesn't trigger, it still has the theoretical capability to increase the maximum damage possible of any given weapon attack that uses it.
If we are going to pretend that we rolled, instead of actually rolling, then we pretend that we threw the dice and they landed on maximum. That means that we are pretending that all the conditions for Vorpal were just met, and therefore in the pretend scenario, Vorpal would trigger, increasing the maximum possible damage from the attack. Since the Vorpal effect adds more damage to the attack in the form of additional damage rolls, and it doesn't specifically only add them when you crit, it means that these dice aren't specifically required to be rolled (as per the Extra Damage section of Critical Hit in the PHB). This means that we pretend that we rolled them, and that they landed on the maximum possible value, which means that we just pretended that all the required conditions of the Vorpal effect were just met, which increases the maximum possible damage of the attack.
My point is that if we're going to go in to a pretend scenario where we rolled maximum dice, there are two results from that scenario. We go in to find the maximum damage, but while we're there, all the conditions for Vorpal are met (as a side effect). But we're going to act as if this pretend scenario was what actually happened, correct? That's how we take the maximum damage from the pretend event and use it in the actual game, right? If we're going to act as if what we just pretended actually happened, then we're going to act as if all the conditions for Vorpal were met, which means by all definitions that Vorpal will now trigger.
From my understanding, unless we can clarify that it is specifically stated the only thing we take from the "pretend you rolled maximum" is the total damage, and not anything else, then Vorpal shouldn't trigger. But the way I read it, we act as if the thing we pretend happened, did happen - that is to say, ALL of what we just pretended happened - and in this case Vorpal should trigger (and then pretend to be maximised since it isn't extra critical damage, rinse repeat ad nauseum).
