>50 damage: Where every weapon is vorpal

[Rainbownaga]

Vorpal weapons have a flat 5% chance per hit (not attack) of decapitating vulnerable enemies. They are naturally thrown in alongside SoD's as anticlimactic and unpredictable.

And yet a dc15 Fortitude save has a flat 5% chance of killing anything with a fort of 14 or greater, and more for anything that has less than that. And all it needs is dealing 50 or more damage with a single hit.

50 damage seems like a lot, but from the forums it seems that this is the thing that 2 handed fighters should be doing reliably in higher levels (way before vorpal weapons are affordable).

So how come the instant death from maximised fireballs and lucky power attacks never comes into it? Do people ignore the massive damage rules, is it subsumed in all the instant-kill effects that other characters are dishing out, or is there something else going on?

[true_shinken]

Vorpal is seen as underwhelming not because it's unpredictable, but because it's too expensive.

[Urpriest]

I thought that saves don't autofail on a 1?

[HunterOfJello]

Many groups ignore the massive damage rule or create house rules so that it exists in a different format. They may ignore the constant value of 50 damage and use the scaling damage amounts based on size. Also, some groups don't use the auto-failure rule of rolling a 1 on a save.

I think that each of these is likely to be ignored if the group in question isn't fully aware of all of the rules.

I thought that saves don't autofail on a 1?

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Saving_Throw

Automatic Failures and Successes

A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on a saving throw is always a failure (and may cause damage to exposed items; see Items Surviving after a Saving Throw). A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a success.

[The Glyphstone]

I thought that saves don't autofail on a 1?

Saves and attack rolls fail on 1's. Anything else does not by default.

[true_shinken]

I thought that saves don't autofail on a 1?

They do. That's the reason why Steadfast Determination and Diamond Mind save replacements are so good.

[Sine]

Do people ignore the massive damage rules?

Mostly this. I can't remember ever playing a game where we actually rolled massive damage saves.

[Telonius]

Vorpal weapons have a flat 5% chance per hit (not attack) of decapitating vulnerable enemies.

It's not even that good. For Vorpal to activate, you have to both roll a 20, and confirm the critical hit. (Lots of people forget that second part).

[true_shinken]

It's not even that good. For Vorpal to activate, you have to both roll a 20, and confirm the critical hit. (Lots of people forget that second part).

I think that's exactly what he meant with 5% per hit.

[Gralamin]

It's not even that good. For Vorpal to activate, you have to both roll a 20, and confirm the critical hit. (Lots of people forget that second part).

Confirming the critical shouldn't be hard, but it drops it from a 5% chance down to maybe a 4% chance (assuming 80% chance to confirm). It's small enough not to matter. However, it obviously doesn't work on Undead, Constructs, Slimes, Elementals, or anything without a discernible head. Very weak.



Massive Damage can make things a Save or die, but it's a very weak save or die: You have to hit and they need to fail against a small save DC. Add in some common ways to not fail on a 1 (Steadfast Determination, Diamond Mind), and it's negated. Not to mention that if you just aren't hit they can't kill you (Miss chance, high AC, Flight, etc.), or if you reduce the damage it won't effect you (Ironguard, Stone Skin, DR, etc.). You are generally better off betting on killing things with damage then Massive damage.

Massive Damage is also like the rules for damaging items if you roll a 1 on against a damaging spell: Very few people actually use them, because they matter in play so rarely.

[Runestar]

My group largely ignored it because it slowed down the game with near-pointless die rolling (as noted, you will make it 95% of the time, so why bother?)

[Eldariel]

So how come the instant death from maximised fireballs and lucky power attacks never comes into it? Do people ignore the massive damage rules, is it subsumed in all the instant-kill effects that other characters are dishing out, or is there something else going on?

I'd like to remind you that massive damage rules are specifically a variant, not the default. And they're pretty "meh" for all intents and purposes in my books.

[Claudius Maximus]

I'd like to remind you that massive damage rules are specifically a variant, not the default. And they're pretty "meh" for all intents and purposes in my books.

I'm afraid not. Massive damage is RAW.

Personally I decided to cut the massive damage rule just last session, since my PCs were calling for (and rolling their own) massive damage saves like every round. And the only result of a failure would be an anticlimax.

[Eldariel]

I'm afraid not. Massive damage is RAW.

Oh yeah, the "slightly more sensible" variant of it (account for size) is the variant. My bad. Lulz.

EDIT: Apparently I somehow succeeded in doubleposting with a server fail

[Rainbownaga]

Confirming the critical shouldn't be hard, but it drops it from a 5% chance down to maybe a 4% chance (assuming 80% chance to confirm). It's small enough not to matter. However, it obviously doesn't work on Undead, Constructs, Slimes, Elementals, or anything without a discernible head. Very weak.

Just as a nitpick

I've done the maths, except in very rare scenarios, it is a 5% chance per hit; the more likely you are to hit, the more likely you are to confirm and vice verca.

[true_shinken]

I've done the maths, except in very rare scenarios, it is a 5% chance per hit; the more likely you are to hit, the more likely you are to confirm and vice verca.

In a vorpal case, you are as likely to hit as to crit. Your confirmation roll is like the normal attack roll, since vorpal only triggers on a natural 20 anyway.
The OP is correct. It's 5% on a hit, because the confirmation is the hit.

[drakir_nosslin]

Just as a nitpick

I've done the maths, except in very rare scenarios, it is a 5% chance per hit; the more likely you are to hit, the more likely you are to confirm and vice verca.

Out of curiosity, how did you do it?

[true_shinken]

Oh yeah, the "slightly more sensible" variant of it (account for size) is the variant. My bad. Lulz.

You already said that, dude.

[Claudius Maximus]

Out of curiosity, how did you do it?

I haven't done any math, but it stands to reason that since any natural 20 will hit, the probability of Vorpal snicker-snacking is equal to 5% of your chance to hit, since you use that as your confirmation roll.

[Akal Saris]

Eh, my group is aware of the massive damage rule and doesn't use it because it's a stupid rule.

[Gralamin]

Just as a nitpick

I've done the maths, except in very rare scenarios, it is a 5% chance per hit; the more likely you are to hit, the more likely you are to confirm and vice verca.

Well, not necessarily. The Warblade, for instance, has abilities which increases his chance to confirm criticals, but does not increase his chance to do a normal hit. However, I was using 80% as a nice low "worst case" chance number, knowing 3.5 accuracy levels. Taking that you need to roll a 20 (5% chance) and then confirm the critical (which is a separate roll) we have:

0.05 * 0.8 = 0.04, or a 4% chance.

However, in 3.5, you can achieve up to a 95% hit chance (A natural 1 is always a miss), which gives us a maximum of:

0.05 * 0.95 = 0.0475, or a 4.75% chance

If we wanted to look at the very worst case, someone we had no chance against and relying on 20s to hit, we would have:

0.05*0.05 = 0.0025, or a 0.25% chance.

As you might expect, this can be generalized based on the number you need to roll on the d20 to confirm:

If you require X (Max 20, min 2) to confirm on a d20 roll, you have a:
(20-X+1)/20 chance of confirming. You also need to roll a 20 in the first place:

(20-X+1)/20 * 1 / 20 = (21-X)/400 = 0.0525 - 0.0025*X = 5.25% - 0.25%*X.

At least, if you want the rigorous maths

[J.Gellert]

Massive Damage can make things a Save or die, but it's a very weak save or die: You have to hit and they need to fail against a small save DC. Add in some common ways to not fail on a 1 (Steadfast Determination, Diamond Mind), and it's negated. Not to mention that if you just aren't hit they can't kill you (Miss chance, high AC, Flight, etc.), or if you reduce the damage it won't effect you (Ironguard, Stone Skin, DR, etc.). You are generally better off betting on killing things with damage then Massive damage.

While I agree with the general idea that damage is negated easily... Allow me a point of nitpicking: The ways to not-fail a save on a 1 are not common. There are... "not many" monsters in the tons of released monster books that have steadfast determination.

Just saying, since 2000, it hasn't even come up once in any game I've played.

[Alleine]

Honestly, massive damage saves aren't amazing. I don't remember anyone failing one in my group, and people like to make hard hitters all the time. At the end of one campaign the Barbarian faced off with a double of himself and they basically traded massive damage saves each round. Both made it easily. No one seems to roll ones on those, ever.

[Gralamin]

While I agree with the general idea that damage is negated easily... Allow me a point of nitpicking: The ways to not-fail a save on a 1 are not common. There are... "not many" monsters in the tons of released monster books that have steadfast determination.

Just saying, since 2000, it hasn't even come up once in any game I've played.

If you just used published monsters yes. However, these feats / abilities are not exactly uncommon choices - for PCs or custom NPCs. Obviously how good your custom NPCs are depends on your PCs optimization levels. Also some creatures, such as undead and constructs, automatically ignore Death Effects, which is an equivalent ability in this context (IE: having no chance of dying from an instant kill ability).

[drakir_nosslin]

Math stuff

Thanks, I had a feeling that 5% was a bit off, but I didn't have time to confirm it (exams take a lot of time, especially when you actually have to study in order to make it )

[ffone]

Thanks, I had a feeling that 5% was a bit off, but I didn't have time to confirm it (exams take a lot of time, especially when you actually have to study in order to make it )

Chance to hit = chance to confirm (given a threat), since it's the same attack mod vs the same AC.

If this chance is 'p', then prob of vorpal is

P(nat20) * P(confirm | nat20) = 0.05 *p

In any situation where your character's threats are always hits (for example, he threatens on 19-20 and 19 is a hit) ,the % of hits which crit is the threat range width / 20.

It's basically a clever way to have a certain % of hits be crits, without rolling a second die every time.

If you don't actually hit with your full threat range (more likely with a keen kukri/scimitar/rapier), the % of crits will be lower (at whatever width of threat range you actually hit).

[grimbold]

Many groups ignore the massive damage rule or create house rules so that it exists in a different format. They may ignore the constant value of 50 damage and use the scaling damage amounts based on size. Also, some groups don't use the auto-failure rule of rolling a 1 on a save.

I think that each of these is likely to be ignored if the group in question isn't fully aware of all of the rules.




http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Saving_Throw

yes a lot of groups ignore this and i feel that it weakens melee classes. Also don't forget the clobbered rules in chapter 2 (i think) of the DMG which are handy at lower levels

[Zergrusheddie]

I just never understood the point of it. If you are doing 50 damage a hit consistently enough for the rule to actually make a difference, you are going to be clearing enemies away fast enough for the rule not to matter. If a level 7 is doing 50 damage per hit with 3 hits, that's pretty much enough to kill your opponent. Past those levels it just seems like it's penalizing the target 5% of the time.

I can see how it would be annoying having the big uber dragon go down because of a bad roll but so many spells/abilities are like that anyway. Failing against a Save or Suck/Die/Lose or Disintegrate is likely to put you in a position where winning becomes infeasible.

I always considered the Massive Damage rule alongside the 20-20-20 rule. The odds of it happening are too slim to actually happen and all it is going to do is end in headaches for everyone at the table.

[SoC175]

In a vorpal case, you are as likely to hit as to crit. Your confirmation roll is like the normal attack roll, since vorpal only triggers on a natural 20 anyway.
The OP is correct. It's 5% on a hit, because the confirmation is the hit.

No, it's two seperate rolls. You can roll a 20 to score a hit and a threat and then roll a 2 to not confirm the threat.

[Runestar]

While I agree with the general idea that damage is negated easily... Allow me a point of nitpicking: The ways to not-fail a save on a 1 are not common. There are... "not many" monsters in the tons of released monster books that have steadfast determination.

Just saying, since 2000, it hasn't even come up once in any game I've played.

Considering that steadfast determination is PHB2, I won't expect any monster to have it. That doesn't mean I can't give it to my monsters though, and I do in fact do it quite often to shore up their will saves.

That said, there are enough things to keep track of in dnd at mid+ lvs already. I am always on the lookout to simply/streamline combat, and rolling extra dice after every hit is definitely not a solution.