It has just occured to me that I could get extremely nitpicky with the wording and completely break the whole thing.
Critical Hit says "as if the maximum result had been rolled". So I present to you the issue: Neither practically, nor theoretically, can you have ever just rolled maximum damage for a Vorpal hit. If you were keep rolling maximum, you would never stop. So you can never be at that stage where "the maximum result had been rolled".
Rofl.
Practically, you are correct, because any die roll takes some (positive) minimum amount of time, even on a computer. Theoretically though, die rolls don't have to take any time at all. Or instead, let's say the first die roll takes 1 second, then the next is 1/2 second, then the next takes 1/4 second and so on (obviously this is not practical, but I'm saying from a theoretical view). Then each die roll takes some positive amount of time, but it only takes 2 seconds to roll all infinity of them. Math is fun!
And since we're only simulating the dice rolls and not actually rolling anything, the theoretical version is the relevant one here.
You're right about one thing though; it would be extremely easy to rewrite Vorpal such that it is included in the Critical Hit calculation. e.g. "Whenever the result for any damage dice from this weapon is the maximum of that dice, add the result to the damage dealt and reroll the dice."
I'm not sure why this would change it in your mind? Based on your argument (as I understand it), there are no damage dice at all in determining base damage. You deal some fixed amount of damage based entirely on the power being used and any "extra damage" that may apply (like HQ or SA), and then treat it later as though it were a damage roll. Your re-wording doesn't require a "dice roll," but it still requires a "dice result," which still requires dice.
I guess what I'm nitpicking is that you've argued multiple times that a crit deals a fixed amount of damage, and this damage is calculated using a bunch of other information, but it is still just "damage" that is separate from any dice. It shouldn't actually be considered "the result" of any dice.
Plus, beyond that, you even say "reroll the dice" at the end there which is clearly wrong because we never rolled in the first place. You can't reroll something that you didn't roll. This works fine in my interpretation, because I'm saying that "hypothetically, if you did roll, then it would result in rolling again"...but your interpretation doesn't have any type of hypothetical rolling in your damage calculations, so to "reroll" a die can't really happen.
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.
Edit: Your example isn't physically possible. Just sayin'. Also, it doesn't happen in 2 seconds... You could say it happens within 2 seconds, but it would take infinity again in order to calculate the infinitessimal value away from 2 the calculations will finish.
Also, you're right about the Vorpal rewrite. I'll have to give it more thought before I just throw some random stuff on the page (obviously that wasn't exactly professional quality, haha).
P.S. will clarify Vorpal rewrite later on when I'm not on my iPad. Soft keyboard != pleasure to write with
Edit: Your example isn't physically possible. Just sayin'. Also, it doesn't happen in 2 seconds... You could say it happens within 2 seconds, but it would take infinity again in order to calculate the infinitessimal value away from 2 the calculations will finish.
I know it's not physical, that's what I meant when I said it was "not practical"...but theoretically, even if you insist that a simulated die roll must take some time, you could still theoretically construct it such that simulating infinite dice finishes in 2 seconds (or other values). But the more correct answer here is "Theoretically though, die rolls don't have to take any time at all."
Also, this is getting waaaaay off-topic, but you're wrong about the 2 seconds. The sum 1+1/2+1/4+1/8+... = 2. Not approximately. Exactly. Similar to how 0.99999999... = 1, exactly. Read up on it if you're questioning it.
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.
kenjoon: Everyone here is aware that Vorpal does not apply to the maximized dice.
Let me just say that this claim is based on facts not in evidence. If you think this is true, then you have failed to understand the entire thread. This is specifically what Ninja and I are disagreeing with you on.
What's being argued is that the value of the critical damage is equal to the potential of what the damage roll would be. The potential can not be defined as it doesn't have an intrinsic limit when Vorpal is a factor. There is no argument that Vorpal eventuates on the "maximised" dice, the argument is that Vorpal must be counted in the evaluation of maximum damage. It's an important difference.
By the arguments presented by Ninja, if I were to write Critical Hit such that Vorpal eventuates on the damage from the theoretically maximised dice, then you would have infinite damage AND Vorpal on top of that (the infinite damage comes from the evaluation of Vorpal's damage potential, and then Vorpal would apply again after that, if I wrote it to do so).
What Ninja has asked previously is for me to write a version of Critical Hit where it is implicit that Vorpal is included in the damage calculation, not that I write a version of Critical Hit where Vorpal actually eventuates (not possible without also changing Vorpal).
You're right about one thing though; it would be extremely easy to rewrite Vorpal such that it is included in the Critical Hit calculation. e.g. "Whenever the result for any damage dice from this weapon is the maximum of that dice, add the result to the damage dealt and reroll the dice."
The entire basis of your arguement appears to be that because infinite damage can't be RAI, that we are reading the "Maximum Damage" incorrectly. I counter with the position that "Maximum Damage" is correct, Vorpal can add to the maximized damage of a crit, and the rule that's in error is the Vorpal property (by virtue of being able to allow "infinite damage" because of a poor interaction with "Maximum Damage"). Please pretend for a moment that the following errata has been applied to Vorpal, and then reevaulate your post that I've quoted.
Vorpal ... No reroll granted by this property is ever automatically maximized by a critical hit (or any other ability that causes a damage die roll to be maximized).
Actually, I think that's exactly not what Ninja is arguing (unless I'm wildly incorrect). He said, in response to one of my earlier posts:
You're taking this all the way back to "um, I know vorpal doesn't actually trigger, I'm just saying you deal damage as if it did"...which I thought we had gotten past on like page 3.
The fact of the matter is, when you crit, you don't roll dice, so Vorpal doesn't grant you any rerolls (because Vorpal doesn't apply, and doesn't trigger).
Ninja's argument is that when you deal damage as if the maximum had been rolled, the maximum is infinite because Vorpal can make it infinite, but not because Vorpal procs. It's the potential, not the actual eventuation of the Vorpal element which causes damage dealt to be infinite.
The fact is that you don't proc Vorpal because you don't roll dice. Vorpal: "When you roll". Did you roll? No. Vorpal doesn't proc.
Like I said, the argument is that when you determine the potential of the maximum damage roll, in order to deal damage as if you had rolled that max, said maximum damage from a Vorpal weapon is not limited (again, no intrinsic limits to the Vorpal property).
Also, the part you bolded? That's not my argument at all. My argument has moved from "Vorpal instakills" to "Maybe Vorpal can't make damage infinite because Vorpal says when YOU roll, and Critical Hit says 'had been rolled' (not as if you rolled)", to "Vorpal inherently can only make rolled damage infinite, can't make damage determined by calculation (as opposed to randomization) infinite". My current argument is something along the lines of "Vorpal can only apply to rolls, and Critical Hit makes you calculate what a single roll can produce as opposed to rolling it". It's a lot more complicated than that and I don't really want to go through the whole thing again. To understand my argument as it stands currently, you'd have to have the context of all the posts between me and Ninja for a few pages now.
I can tell you, however, that my current argument AGAINST Vorpal infinite damage crits is NOT that is "against RAI". I was fairly sure I have been constant in my separation of RAW from RAI; obviously your misunderstanding is a failure to fully communicate that in my previous posts. My argument against Vorpal working RAW is as stated previously; there is no reason to argue the RAI, because it's goddamn obvious they did not intent Vorpal to produce infinite damage (that cannot be calculated practically).
Your misunderstanding of my argument may stem from the fact that recently, I've merely consolidated a few points from each side that I consider to be fundamentally correct regardless of counter-arguments, concluded that they completely contradict each other, and then said maybe we should turn to RAI to determine which outcome should be the correct one. This is because I'm starting to believe maybe both arguments are equally valid.
Lastly, because of the manner in which Vorpal makes critical damage infinite, your errata would be worthless. I'm sorry, but Ninja's argument is not that Vorpal eventuates, but instead the following: Firstly, if maximum damage was rolled for an attack with a Vorpal weapon, it would result in infinite damage. This is important because; Secondly, we are told to deal damage "as if the maximum was rolled", by the Critical Hit entry. Therefore; Thirdly, we deal infinite damage because we are told to deal this much damage.
Of course, if after all this time I have still misunderstood Ninja, I apologize sincerely. ThatWasTotallyNinja, feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
EDIT: It occurs to me that Vorpal does, in fact, eventuate on critical damage. It eventuates on its own critical dice. This is not an issue (and with almost 100% certainty is working as intented), because it is clarified that critical dice are not maximised, ever, meaning Vorpal only works as normal.
Here's a thought excercise. If you feel that the current wording of "Maximum Damage" does not allow Vorpal to apply on the maximized dice, then how would it have to be worded (for you) in order to work?
Reference:
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.
I know it's possible to make this work by changing Vorpal, but that's kind of kludgy. I would, however, add the following to Vorpal to keep away the "infinite" damage loop:
Vorpal ... No reroll granted by this property is ever automatically maximized by a critical hit (or any other ability that causes a damage die roll to be maximized).
i would errata it as folows
from Whenever you roll the maximum result on any damage die for this weapon, roll that die again and add the additional result to the damage total. If a reroll results in another maximum damage result, roll it again and keep adding.
to Whenever you roll the maximum result on any damage die for this weapon, roll a bonus damage dice of the same type and add the additional result to the damage total. If a reroll results in another maximum damage result,add another bonus dice. No bonus dice granted by this property is ever automatically maximized by a critical hit (or any other ability that causes a damage die roll to be maximized)
and sombody else asked if a vorpal blade should decapitate a creature. personly i say yes but in the folowing way: if a creature dies from any atack where you where alouwed to roll bonus dice from the vorpal property the head of the creature is severd from it's body.
from Whenever you roll the maximum result on any damage die for this weapon, roll that die again and add the additional result to the damage total. If a reroll results in another maximum damage result, roll it again and keep adding.
to Whenever you roll the maximum result on any damage die for this weapon, roll a bonus damage dice of the same type and add the additional result to the damage total. If a reroll results in another maximum damage result,add another bonus dice. bonus dice can not be effected by effects that change the result of the dice like scoring a critical hit.
This. It might not be as clear and generalistic as one would expect of a rules property but it works, and the idea is that the damage is extra damage. Making the rerolls from Vorpal into extra damage, as opposed to part of the damage roll, would go a long way towards making this issue clearer. Additionally one would be required to clarify this particular extra damage is not maximised on a critical, however, as extra damage you would be able to get with a normal damage roll is still maximised on a critical hit.
This could be a way of rewriting Vorpal so it is completely clear infinite damage cannot be dealt. If I were to write it in this manner:
Whenever you roll the maximum result on any damage die for this weapon, the attack deals extra damage equal to one die the size of the die you rolled. Extra damage dice granted by this effect are subject to this effect as well, but none of this extra damage can be maximised on a critical hit.
Food for thought. The specifics of the wording can be refined but the general idea is that it's extra damage as opposed to part of the damage roll, which means we can then single out this Vorpal damage as not maximised by criticals. This would put it smack bang in the middle of what we referred to as the middle ground earlier; I would say it is clear from that wording that Vorpal would proc once, but only once, and be rolled (in addition to its critical dice). Like I said, food for thought.
EDIT: Actually, I think that wording might just stop Vorpal from working altogether on a crit, meaning I could remove "can be maximised on a critical hit". Think: The Vorpal effect adds damage to the ATTACK. But when you're figuring out damage as if the maximum damage had been rolled, theres no attack involved to add extra damage to, there's only the real attack that the bonus can be added to. I'm not 100% sure. Any thoughts?
Forgetting about RAW for a minute, what does everyone perfer for the result of a Vorpal critical hit?
I prefer #1 because it seems more intuitive (i.e. it probably won't occur to players to reroll dice that aren't there). Plus it's quicker/simpler.
I acknowledge that your points are totally reasonable.
Ditto. Debating RAW seems pretty silly at this point. Anyone interested in discussing preferences and balance?
Ehh, it might be silly, but if people feel like doing something, who are you to stop them, especially on a public board? If you're not interested in debating the RAW, feel free not to participate.
That said I daresay I wouldn't mind if you debated your preferences, and balance, right here in this thread alongside the RAW debate; feel free to comment on either to your hearts content. I wouldn't mind participating in that discussion myself.
I'll start off with the following: I personally think it's entirely reasonable for Vorpal to provide an entire extra set of the power's damage dice (to be actually rolled, of course) when you crit. Being a rarer enchantment, as well as being 30-only, should afford it at least slight means of damage ahead of most, if not all other enchantments. Any thoughts?
Ehh, it might be silly, but if people feel like doing something, who are you to stop them, especially on a public board?
It was more of an observation rather than a condemnation. Indeed, I have supported the discussion from beginning simply for the fun of it. I merely felt (after 230+ posts) an obligation (since both sides are valid) to at least point it out. Carry on.
