Criting on Maneuvers

[Kesnit]

I asked this in the RAW thread and got two different answers. So I am creating a thread in the hopes of getting some discussion that leads to a solid answer.

If a Swordsage crits with a 3X weapon when using Insightful Strike, is the damage (Concentration check) tripled?

I am running a 3.5 version of World's Largest Dungeon. The party is 8th level. One of the minibosses in the area they are in is a Medusa.

The party was fighting the Medusa with their eyes closed (using rules for Fighting Blind) and doing very well. Each PC had overcome the 50% miss chance and hit the Medusa in the first round. The SS was at the bottom of initiative. She said she was using Intuitive Strike, rolled a 20, then confirmed the crit. Her Concentration check was 29, tripled to 87. The Medusa only had 62 HP left.

I let the crit stand and said the Medusa was dead. However, I told the SS's player that I was going to post here for future reference.

[Zaq]

Debatable. ToB pg. 64 says "extra damage you normally deal do[es] not modify this check (including extra damage from class abilities, feats, or spells)." That seems to be talking about additive damage rather than multiplicative damage (all the examples given are added rather than multiplied), but it doesn't explicitly say that. I don't think "extra damage" is ever hard-defined in the rules, and I don't think a critical hit is defined as being (or not being) extra damage. PHB pg. 140 talks about crits, and it doesn't use the term "extra damage" or the term "bonus damage" (it talks about extra damage in the sense of not multiplying dice on a crit, but it doesn't define a crit as being "extra damage").

You could argue that the damage expression on Insightful Strike is your Concentration check, and since a crit says you roll damage twice (or however many times) and add them together, you'd roll multiple Concentration checks and add them together. But you could also argue that Insightful Strike says "you do not do normal damage," and so the damage dealt with the Concentration check is not part of the normal damage that would be multiplied on a crit. And you could argue that a crit is a source of "any other extra damage," which Insightful Strike specifically bans.

Overall, I don't think the rules are ironclad either way, but I think the general wording of Insightful Strike means that the RAW leans more towards no extra damage on a crit. That said, I don't think it's unbalancing to allow it to work (crits are rare, and Swordsages especially can't really use that many Insightful Strikes per encounter [even though Warblades can use it a little more], so it's not like this is going to come up that often).

In rereading the crit rules, I noticed that PHB pg. 140 specifies that you roll damage twice rather than multiplying the one result you rolled; my groups have always multiplied rather than rolling multiple times, but I think that's an unintentional houserule rather than something we chose to do specifically. If your standing tradition in your group is to multiply rather than to roll multiple times, then by all means keep doing what you're doing (I don't think either method is necessarily better), but I think that by RAW, even if the crit is allowed to apply to Insightful Strike, the Concentration check should have been rolled multiple times instead of being multiplied. For what that's worth.

[Telonius]

That's a tricky one. I'd say the wording of the maneuver prevents it:


As part of this maneuver, make a melee attack. If this attack hits, you do not deal normal damage. Instead, you make a Concentration check and deal damage equal to the check result. Your Strength modifier, your weapon’s magical properties (if any), and any other extra damage you normally deal do not modify this check (including extra damage from class abilities, feats, or spells)

The wording specifically prevents you from dealing any extra damage other than your Concentration check result. It explicitly calls out class abilities, feats, and spells as not applying; but the language is pretty open. It "includes" that kind of damages, it's not limited to that.

Also, this is a strike, so the wording on page 43 applies:


You do not multiply extra damage from a strike with a successful critical hit. You treat it just as you would extra damage from another special ability, such as sneak attack.

For most strikes, the damage is an add-on to the usual weapon attack. But in the case of Insightful and Greater Insightful strike, the entirety of the damage is from the maneuver, and has nothing to do with the sort of weapon you're holding.

Unfortunately, I think the Swordsage is out of luck. Because it is a 20, it does automatically hit; but no extra damage from the crit.

[DarkSoul]

The wording of the strike itself seems to exclude the concentration check from the "extra damage" category. It mentions the Concentration check replacing damage, then goes on to mention "extra" damage not applying. Extra damage would be something like Strike of Perfect Clarity's +100 damage, or sneak attack dice, or any of the maneuvers that add additional dice of damage.

I've always ruled that insightful strikes could crit just fine, the strike just changes the damage roll to 1d20+Concentration modifier with nothing else being added. Regarding multiplying versus rolling x times, I always roll damage multiple times for critical hits, so the 29 tripled would have been three concentration checks added together instead of one check tripled.

[rrwoods]

The way I read it is that, instead of making a damage roll, you make a concentration check. If you would make two damage rolls, you make two concentration checks.

It's definitely ambiguous though.

[RolkFlameraven]

As its a damage replacer and not a damage modifier I would let it crit.

As a general rule of thumb its a flat number it gets multiplied, if its a dice roll it does not and this falls under the flat number part of that. It might not be purely RAW but its how I would rule it at my table.