Vorpal VERSUS Fortification

[oweieie]

On the vorpal thing, it is like being FOD'd or PK'd........so magical effect lol

3E distinguishes between being hit by a sword that was guided by magic, and being hit by magic. It is 4E that doesn't.

[Seamonkeysix]

also, why does deathblock and deathward stop assassinate?

Assassinate is not magical at all, it is merely the rogue stabbing you in the heart.

If a barbarian walks up and adrenaline one shots you that isn't a death effect, but that barb would still be chopping your head off, or destroying some other important body part.

On the vorpal thing, it is like being FOD'd or PK'd........so magical effect lol

I am +1ing you here, because I have been saying this since I can remember.

The fact that a vorpal sword is magically sharp, doesn't discount the fact that it is simply lopping off your head...which should kill your average Joe. Same goes with assassination. There is no magic involved in stabbing somebody in the back and piercing their heart and brain stem. It will kill you...just not if it is looked at as "magical".

Deathward shouldn't protect you from physical damage. If that's the case, anyone who has deathward on should never die from physical attacks....

[kierg10]

3E distinguishes between being hit by a sword that was guided by magic, and being hit by magic. It is 4E that doesn't.

meh, I play pathfinder.

[kierg10]

I am +1ing you here, because I have been saying this since I can remember.

The fact that a vorpal sword is magically sharp, doesn't discount the fact that it is simply lopping off your head...which should kill your average Joe. Same goes with assassination. There is no magic involved in stabbing somebody in the back and piercing their heart and brain stem. It will kill you...just not if it is looked at as "magical".

Deathward shouldn't protect you from physical damage. If that's the case, anyone who has deathward on should never die from physical attacks....

Don't know how you can magically stop me from stabbing you in the heart with a spell designed for stopping magical effects that instantaneously cause death.

[oweieie]

meh, I play pathfinder.

The Pathfinder rules for fortification and vorpal are almost a cut'n'paste of 3.5E.

[Matuse]

Vampires are immune to critical hits.

Vampires can be vorpaled.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, SCENE!

[Derailment]

Vorpal doesn't require the crit to deal crit damage, just for a threat from a 20 to be confirmed. Fortification doesn't stop confirmation.

This is only your interpretation. Let's look at rules.

on Attack roll: "A natural 20 is also a threat—a possible critical hit."
on Critical hit: "To find out if it’s a critical hit, you immediately make a critical roll—another attack roll"
on Fortification: "When a critical hit or sneak attack is scored on the wearer, there is a chance that the critical hit or sneak attack is negated and damage is instead rolled normally."
on Vorpal: "Upon a roll of natural 20 (followed by a successful roll to confirm the critical hit), the weapon severs the opponent’s head"

So. You attack with your +5 Vorpal sword. a) You roll 20, this is threat. b) Now, by critical rules, you roll to confirm, and c) if it's confirmed, you deal damage and behead opponent.

Now, let's look what happens when you attack 100% fortified enemy. This time, critical hit is negated. It just didn't happened. And there was no confirmation roll, and Vorpal wasn't "followed by successfull roll".
Note that Vorpal by rules does not grant confirmation roll. It uses critical' one.
(On a side note, (any) Burst needs "successful critical hit" and would be negated too.)

On physical vs magical, I don't even wanna start. The only argument one can stretch is that, crafting Vorpal weapon requires knowing spell "Circle of Death", thus it's death magic releases and beheades enemy - but this is speculation and written nowhere in the rules.

[kierg10]

The Pathfinder rules for fortification and vorpal are almost a cut'n'paste of 3.5E.

was a joke, I know.

[oweieie]

This is only your interpretation. Let's look at rules.

I'm too lazy to google a rabbit with a pancake on it's head.

[Derailment]

I'm too lazy to google a rabbit with a pancake on it's head.

I don't know what to do with rabbit, so I'll try to explain in more simple wording.

All Vorpals ARE criticals, they both occur on 20. (But not all criticals are vorpals, obviously)
Vorpal and critical both use ONE (same) die roll to confirm. You don't confirm vorpal separately.
When critical hits 100% fortification, its negated. So, it isn't confirmed. As if there wasn't critical at all.
Vorpal's condition ("followed by a successful roll to confirm the critical hit") fails to trigger, so vorpal negated as well.

This is by 3.5E rules.
Cheers

[oweieie]

I don't know what to do with rabbit, so I'll try to explain in more simple wording.

All Vorpals ARE criticals, they both occur on 20. (But not all criticals are vorpals, obviously)
Vorpal and critical both use ONE (same) die roll to confirm. You don't confirm vorpal separately.
When critical hits 100% fortification, its negated. So, it isn't confirmed. As if there wasn't critical at all.
Vorpal's condition ("followed by a successful roll to confirm the critical hit") fails to trigger, so vorpal negated as well.

This is by 3.5E rules.
Cheers

It's directly counter to 3.5E rules which give several examples of crit immune mobs being vorpaled. This isn't rocket surgery.

[mowomp]

All Vorpals ARE criticals, they both occur on 20.

And this is the source of discontent.. no where does it say ALL vorpals are criticals.. it says on a roll of 20 - that of course is also natural hit and threat. It would be great if WoTC would just say, 'YEA/NAY' you have to be able to crit a mob to get vorpals to apply..

I actually thought fortification (or prevention of crit) would nullify a vorpal in both DDO and PnP just because thats how we played PnP.. great discussion!

[Derailment]

It's directly counter to 3.5E rules which give several examples of crit immune mobs being vorpaled. This isn't rocket surgery.

The other way around. It's those examples contradicts 3.5E rules, which I quoted.
By the way, nowhere in rules it says mobs are "crit immune". It says "not subject to critical", whatever that means.. Another ambiguous wording.

Anyway, in our case you have two options:
a) Specific beats general. Examples listed in vorpal allow "some" aberrations, oozes, golems, undead + vampires to be critted. This does not change way critical mechanics works, just remove immunity from those mobs listed.
b) Ignore examples which contradicts rules. Because, you know, they're just examples. Who cares, what happen to zombie when it lost its head, if that cannot happen by rules.

And this is the source of discontent.. no where does it say ALL vorpals are criticals.. it says on a roll of 20 - that of course is also natural hit and threat.

No disconnection here... I quoted rules, vorpal uses confirmation roll from crit rule, and iirc there is no weapon which doesn't crit on 20.

Disconnection actually is in fortification description. "Negates critical hit" could be read as: you roll to-hit, then confirmation, then apply vorpal, and THEN discard only critical effect and keep vorpal effect.. But that's too cheesy for my taste. This is ain't MtG

[bartharok]

This is only your interpretation. Let's look at rules.



So. You attack with your +5 Vorpal sword. a) You roll 20, this is threat. b) Now, by critical rules, you roll to confirm, and c) if it's confirmed, you deal damage and behead opponent.

Now, let's look what happens when you attack 100% fortified enemy. This time, critical hit is negated. It just didn't happened. And there was no confirmation roll, and Vorpal wasn't "followed by successfull roll".
Note that Vorpal by rules does not grant confirmation roll. It uses critical' one.
(On a side note, (any) Burst needs "successful critical hit" and would be negated too.)

On physical vs magical, I don't even wanna start. The only argument one can stretch is that, crafting Vorpal weapon requires knowing spell "Circle of Death", thus it's death magic releases and beheades enemy - but this is speculation and written nowhere in the rules.

Its a matter of wording that confuses you then. The roll is not a confirmation for a critical as such. Its just a roll that is identical to it. Namely another to hit roll. And fortification does not stop to hit olls either, does it.

[Derailment]

Huh? It's not me who confused by rules. Fortification negates the whole critical, including additional "kinda attack" roll, which exist ONLY when there is critical.

Fortification
When a critical hit or sneak attack is scored on the wearer, there is a chance that the critical hit or sneak attack is negated and damage is instead rolled normally.

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. The hit might be a critical hit (or "crit"). To find out if it’s a critical hit, you immediately make a critical roll—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made
Fortification

But actually I think its fine to play with whatever DM rulings or houserules you like, while it works for your group.
Cheers

[kierg10]

No disconnection here... I quoted rules, vorpal uses confirmation roll from crit rule, and iirc there is no weapon which doesn't crit on 20.

Disconnection actually is in fortification description. "Negates critical hit" could be read as: you roll to-hit, then confirmation, then apply vorpal, and THEN discard only critical effect and keep vorpal effect.. But that's too cheesy for my taste. This is ain't MtG

And this is the source of discontent.. no where does it say ALL vorpals are criticals.. it says on a roll of 20 - that of course is also natural hit and threat. It would be great if WoTC would just say, 'YEA/NAY' you have to be able to crit a mob to get vorpals to apply..

reading is good

[bartharok]

Huh? It's not me who confused by rules. Fortification negates the whole critical, including additional "kinda attack" roll, which exist ONLY when there is critical.



But actually I think its fine to play with whatever DM rulings or houserules you like, while it works for your group.
Cheers

Fortification negates the critical, but does NOT prevent other effects from processing on the same roll. The roll to confirm a critical is a normal attack roll (woith bonuses), that will activate the critical hit when it hits. Fortification will not prevent this roll from being made, it just prevents the critical damage. More or less the same way having DR does not prevent the attack from hitting you even if it prevents the damage from rpocessing.

[Derailment]

Fortification negates the critical, but does NOT prevent other effects from processing on the same roll. Fortification will not prevent this roll from being made, it just prevents the critical damage.

And yet, it will prevent. I already quoted rule already 2 times on this page:

"The critical hit is negated and damage is instead rolled normally"
Critical hit is negated AND damage is rolled normally.
Critical hit negated. Damage rolled normally.
It's not just "critical damage negated". It's "say no to critical hit". I hope we done with this part.

reading is good

Not sure what you mean, but I agree reading is always good.

I was answering on "no where does it say ALL vorpals are criticals."
In the critical rules, it says all 20's are (possible) criticals and have confirmation roll.
All vorpals also happen on 20's, and use critical's confirmation roll (not its own; one from critical rules).

See? Vorpal can't be on non-critical hit. QED

[bartharok]

And yet, it will prevent. I already quoted rule already 2 times on this page:

"The critical hit is negated and damage is instead rolled normally"
Critical hit is negated AND damage is rolled normally.
Critical hit negated. Damage rolled normally.
It's not just "critical damage negated". It's "say no to critical hit". I hope we done with this part.




Not sure what you mean, but I agree reading is always good.

I was answering on "no where does it say ALL vorpals are criticals."
In the critical rules, it says all 20's are (possible) criticals and have confirmation roll.
All vorpals also happen on 20's, and use critical's confirmation roll (not its own; one from critical rules).

See? Vorpal can't be on non-critical hit. QED

You are just arguing for its own sake arent you? You argue about wording while others explain the mechanics behind it. If you actually believe what you are saying, good. If you dont, hush.

[Derailment]

No sir, its actually me explaining mechanics behind it, while some others change wordings to fit their opinion. I'm arguing to help people understand rules better.

Basic case:
1. You make attacking roll
2. If you hit, you deal normal damage.

Critical case:
1. You rolled 20 on attack
2. By critical rules, you make another roll to confirm
3. If you confirm, you deal critical damage (if not, it's still autohit)

Fortification case: this is toughest of all.
1. You rolled 20 on attack
<- 100% fortification negates critical hit and critical damage
2. No critical, so rules does not grant you confirm roll anymore.
3. You deal normal damage (autohit)

Vorpal case is easy after that:
1. You rolled 20 on attack
2. By critical rules, you make another roll to confirm
3a. If you confirm, you deal critical damage (if not, it's still autohit)
3b. If you confirm, you vorpal enemy. It uses same confirm roll.

Combining Vorpal and Fortification
1. You rolled 20 on attack
<- 100% fortification negates critical hit and critical damage
2. No critical, so rules does not grant you confirm roll anymore.
3a. You deal normal damage (autohit)
3b. Vorpal doesn't trigger, there wasn't successful confirmation roll.


And just to illustrate, that all vorpals are crits, but not all crits are vorpals:
1. You rolled 19 on attack with 19-20 weapon
2. By critical rules, you make another roll to confirm
3a. If you confirm, you deal critical damage (if not, it's still autohit)
3b. Vorpal doesn't trigger, it's not 20 roll