Technical question about damage

[Jay R]

A rat does 1d3 - 4 points of damage. A pseudodragon does 1d3 - 2. A cat does 1d2 - 4, and a raven does 1d2 - 5.

Given that there is a minimum of 1 point, is there any functional difference between these?

Yes, there are differences when affected by magic fang or some such, but other than that, is there any reason to roll the die at all?

[pabelfly]

Crits seem like they would be a rare reason.

[Maat Mons]

On a critical hit, 1d3-2 becomes 2d3-4, which has a 1 in 9 chance of dealing 2 points of damage. The others become 2d3-8, 2d2-4, and 2d2-10, which are all guaranteed to still be just 1 point of damage.

Edit: Ninja-ed.

[Bohandas]

It's kind of disappointing that the game does such a poor job of handling damage at small scales. These are all core rules familiars in this example, they're likely to see combat and they should have combat statistics that aren't just a collection of rounding errors.

[SangoProduction]

Yeah, in basically every case, they are the same, in effective terms.

Speaking on the issues of the system not handling small numbers: That's because the numbers are already so small as to not have any granularity remaining, for ease of by-hand calculation.
But you can, say, multiply the health and damage by 10. And have any underflow below 1 damage (before multiplication) is instead reduced from 10.
So if you rolled 1d3-4, getting a -2, the result goes back to 1. Multiplied by 10. Then down to 7.

And this does work... but is largely pointless, and is still basically a rounding error. The equivalent of losing 0.3 damage in the unmodified system, while having more complexity in damage calculations. For familiars who, in all likelihood, will not actually be using damage except in the most desperate of situations in which their lives are already forfeit.

Of course, you can simply inflate the numbers. Raise all HD and damage dice by 1 step. Then there will be occasional difference between those damages. There will be no unforeseen consequences to that. /s.

[Ashiel]

A rat does 1d3 - 4 points of damage. A pseudodragon does 1d3 - 2. A cat does 1d2 - 4, and a raven does 1d2 - 5.

Given that there is a minimum of 1 point, is there any functional difference between these?

Yes, there are differences when affected by magic fang or some such, but other than that, is there any reason to roll the die at all?

There is. It essentially serves as a buffer for buffs.

For example, if included as a target of good hope (which provides +2 damage), the pseudo-dragon's damage would increase, while cat would not. It also would reduce the the damage of bonus damage applied as part of the same source. For example, a cat with sneak attack would deal 1d2-4+1d6 (making the min/max 1-4). Same deal with things like magic fang.

Tl;dr, you're weak enough that even with buffs you're still weak.

[Telonius]

Animal Growth would be another one. The damage difference is negligible at regular size, but would show up on a larger version of the creature.

That's a weird thing I never noticed - is there really no spell that lets you increase the size of a Dragon? Enlarge Person for Humanoids, Animal Growth for Animals, but nothing for the other creature types.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Animal Growth would be another one. The damage difference is negligible at regular size, but would show up on a larger version of the creature.

That's a weird thing I never noticed - is there really no spell that lets you increase the size of a Dragon? Enlarge Person for Humanoids, Animal Growth for Animals, but nothing for the other creature types.

Most (true) dragons can cast cleric spells, including Righteous Might.

The ring of growth from SS is based off of Animal Growth but can be used on anybody 1/day.

[exelsisxax]

PF (and after checking, it was grandfathered from 3.5) has crits explicitly only multiply any bonuses, not any penalties to damage. Because of the jank way that works it is mathematically relevant in almost all cases at a low rate.

[KillianHawkeye]

PF (and after checking, it was grandfathered from 3.5) has crits explicitly only multiply any bonuses, not any penalties to damage. Because of the jank way that works it is mathematically relevant in almost all cases at a low rate.

Is this one of the few times that using the word bonus/penalty rather than modifier is actually a relevant distinction?

[Crake]

Guys, you're missing something.

Critical hits multiply your roll and bonuses:

A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together.

You do not multiply penalties. So if a rat's damage is 1d3-4, on a critical hit it would deal 2d3-4. If it had magic fang (+1), the bonus from magic fang would double, so it would be 1d3-3 on a standard hit, but 2d3-2 on a crit. It's -4 strength penalty is not multiplied by the crit.

Edit: ninjaed.

[ciopo]

Is this one of the few times that using the word bonus/penalty rather than modifier is actually a relevant distinction?

It's always a relevant distinction, most prominent example I can think of are turn undead and monk AC bonus. One uses charisma modifier, other uses wisdom bonus.

A more pointed question is if the wording on critical is intentional or an happy happenstance

[Khedrac]

Actually the rules are NOT CLEAR on this (emphasis mine):

Critical: The entry in this column notes how the weapon is used with the rules for critical hits. When your character scores a critical hit, roll the damage two, three, or four times, as indicated by its critical multiplier (using all applicable modifiers on each roll), and add all the results together.

A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.

Now, the sidebar on page 140 is definitely the primary rule location on this one (because the rules refer to it in several other locations for more details on critical hits) but it doesn't actually contradict the rules on p114 (saying "all bonuses" is not the same as saying "no penalties") so at can reasonably be argued that p114 modifies the p140 rules (for weapons if not for natural attacks).

The DMG doesn't help much either:

The reason that critical hits multiply all damage, rather than just the die roll, is so that they remain significant at high levels. When a high-level fighter adds +5 to his damage roll from magic and +10 from his magically enhanced strength, the result of the 1d8 damage roll from his longsword becomes trivial, even if doubled by a critical hit. Multiplying all damage, the roll and the bonuses, makes critical hits particularly dangerous.

So yes, I agree that P140 is the primary rule, but the rules are not clear (in my opinion the rules read as if the authors forgot there could be penalties...).

[Bohandas]

It strikes me now however that Maat Mons' earlier statement that the cat and raven just do one point of damage regardless is incorrect under both versions of the rule, as they both describe rolling damage multiple times and then adding the results up, which means that the minimum damage of a critical hit is the attacker's critical multiplier, since none of those individual damage rolls can be for less than 1 damage

[ShurikVch]

All those "minuses" for the example creatures are just for their respective Str penalties.
Bump their Str up enough - and there wouldn't be any penalties for damage
Or play as CE Soulborn Pseudodragon - this way, you wouldn't have any Str penalty ever (at least - outside of AMF and such)

[Maat Mons]

I’m not seeing anything suggesting that the minimum damage rule is applied multiple times on a critical hit. In fact, the wording on minimum damage suggests it applies on a per-hit basis. Since a critical hit is still just one hit, I can’t imagine “the hit still deals 1 point of damage” somehow triggering more than once for that single critical hit.

As a side note, I worry that any interpretation that makes minimum damage trigger two or more times per crit would also make DR apply as many times.

[Bohandas]

I’m not seeing anything suggesting that the minimum damage rule is applied multiple times on a critical hit. In fact, the wording on minimum damage suggests it applies on a per-hit basis. Since a critical hit is still just one hit, I can’t imagine “the hit still deals 1 point of damage” somehow triggering more than once for that single critical hit.

As a side note, I worry that any interpretation that makes minimum damage trigger two or more times per crit would also make DR apply as many times.

"roll the damage two, three, or four times, as indicated by its critical"

"you roll your damage more than once ... and add the rolls together

To me this sounds like the RAW is to make multiple seperate damage rolls and then total them up.

Given that you can't roll lower than a 1, this would make the minimum damage equal to the number of rolls

[Maat Mons]

But there isn't anything saying you "can't roll lower than 1." There's only something saying the "hit still deals 1 point of damage." Multiple rolls, one hit.

[Darg]

critical hit (crit): A hit that strikes a vital area and therefore deals double damage or more. To score a critical hit, an attacker must first score a threat (usually a natural 20 on an attack roll) and then succeed on a critical roll (just like another attack roll). Critical hit damage is usually double damage, which means rolling damage twice, just as if the attacker had actually hit the defender two times. (Any extra damage dice, such as from a rogue’s sneak attack, are not rolled multiple times, but are added to the total at the end of the calculation.)

Emphasis mine. From the glossary, it's pretty clear what the intent is.

[Jay R]

Thank you for all your answers. I'm still confused, but I'm confused on a higher, better informed level now.

[Bohandas]

critical hit (crit): A hit that strikes a vital area and therefore deals double damage or more. To score a critical hit, an attacker must first score a threat (usually a natural 20 on an attack roll) and then succeed on a critical roll (just like another attack roll). Critical hit damage is usually double damage, which means rolling damage twice, just as if the attacker had actually hit the defender two times. (Any extra damage dice, such as from a rogue’s sneak attack, are not rolled multiple times, but are added to the total at the end of the calculation.)

That clause at the end, "(Any extra damage dice, such as from a rogue’s sneak attack, are not rolled multiple times, but are added to the total at the end of the calculation.)" seems to be yet another contradictory rule on what gets multiplied

[InvisibleBison]

Or play as CE Soulborn Pseudodragon - this way, you wouldn't have any Str penalty ever (at least - outside of AMF and such)

How would being a CE soulborn stop you from applying your Strength penalty to damage rolls? The ability says "You gain immunity to any penalty, damage, or drain to your Strength." That stops anything from penalizing your Strength score, but it wouldn't do anything to prevent a low Strength score that you came by honestly from applying penalties to anything else.

[ShurikVch]

How would being a CE soulborn stop you from applying your Strength penalty to damage rolls? The ability says "You gain immunity to any penalty, damage, or drain to your Strength." That stops anything from penalizing your Strength score, but it wouldn't do anything to prevent a low Strength score that you came by honestly from applying penalties to anything else.

The "any penalty" means - "any penalty": even racial or size
Thus, Pseudodragon would be no weaker than Human

[Darg]

That clause at the end, "(Any extra damage dice, such as from a rogue’s sneak attack, are not rolled multiple times, but are added to the total at the end of the calculation.)" seems to be yet another contradictory rule on what gets multiplied

No, there is no contradiction about extra damage dice which are explicitly called out to not be multiplied no matter where you find rules for critical hits.

[Crake]

The "any penalty" means - "any penalty": even racial or size
Thus, Pseudodragon would be no weaker than Human

Considering racial penalties are applied as an instantaneous effect at character creation, I don't see this flying for any sensible DM. It's not an ongoing effect that can be negated.

[ciopo]

Are they even actually called penalties? In text and not just colloquially, I mean. I've always called them racial modifiers

[ShurikVch]

Are they even actually called penalties? In text and not just colloquially, I mean. I've always called them racial modifiers

penalty:

penalty

A negative modifier to a die roll. Penalties do not usually have a type, and always stack with other penalties (except those from the same source) unless otherwise stated.
Source:Â PHB

Thus - a negative modifier is a penalty by the definition
Racial penalty is a "penalty"
Size penalty is a "penalty"
Heck - even if you generated the character with naturally low Str - no additional modifiers - it's still a "penalty"

[Drelua]

I thought if your STR penalty brought damage down to 0 you did 1 nonlethal, but it looks like that's a PF thing.

That clause at the end, "(Any extra damage dice, such as from a rogue’s sneak attack, are not rolled multiple times, but are added to the total at the end of the calculation.)" seems to be yet another contradictory rule on what gets multiplied

That's not contradictory, no one's saying sneak attack damage gets multiplied. That line is about "extra damage dice," which has nothing to do with a STR penalty. The longer explanation at PHB 140 is worded a bit different though, it says "roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses," which seems to imply that penalties don't apply to crits? And the line about rolling twice is just telling you how to roll for it, not how to actually calculate damage, or DR would apply more than once as someone else said. That's just saying to roll for the extra damage, as opposed to multiplying your first roll.

[Malphegor]

Animal Growth would be another one. The damage difference is negligible at regular size, but would show up on a larger version of the creature.

That's a weird thing I never noticed - is there really no spell that lets you increase the size of a Dragon? Enlarge Person for Humanoids, Animal Growth for Animals, but nothing for the other creature types.

I suspect this was an intentional design choice so the size of a dragon is usually indicative of its power for its colour. If a wyrmling dragon can embiggen itself to the size of a colossal great wyrm it causes an extra layer of complexity identifying them…

and also is 100% something a dragon would do. Fear me, for I am mighty, my tiny baby wings will black out the sun!

[Darg]

There's the Wu Jen spell Giant Size which goes up to colossal or the Psychic Warrior power Expansion. Both are Target: Personal though.