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Can Gallant Inspiration or Timely Inspiration (and there are probably a couple of other spells of like nature) negate a natural 1 auto failure? These spells have very similar wording about changing the result. Yet in both cases neither says anything about changing the natural roll.Both of those are bonuses added to a roll. As worded, surge is not a bonus to the roll. It increases the roll itself.Incorrect.
It modifies the result of the roll. Not the roll itself.
Actually correct.
The entire surge ability:
You can call upon your mythic power to overcome difficult challenges. You can expend one use of mythic power to increase any d20 roll you just made by rolling 1d6 and adding it to the result. Using this ability is an immediate action taken after the result of the original roll is revealed. This can change the outcome of the roll. The bonus die gained by using this ability increases to 1d8 at 4th tier, 1d10 at 7th tier, and 1d12 at 10th tier.
The abiliites you linked:
A word of arcane-empowered inspiration can snatch victory from seeming defeat. Cast this spell when a creature fails an attack roll or skill check. The target gains a +1 competence bonus per five caster levels (maximum +3 bonus) on the attack roll or skill check retroactively. If the bonus is enough to make the failure a success, the roll succeeds.
This word of arcane-empowered inspiration often ensures success of a crucial endeavor. Cast this spell when a creature fails an attack roll or skill check. The creature gains a +2d4 competence bonus to the attack roll or skill check retroactively. If the bonus is enough to turn the failure into a success, the roll succeeds.
Surge is far from a normal bonus. It's not even marked as a bonus as every single other bonus in the game is. The language of a bonus die is incongruent with regular bonus nomenclature easily illustrated, yet again, in your own examples. It could be worded to look more like normal bonuses but it's not. We have the rule as printed. It is a die rolled to improve the d20 roll. It's there in plain language: expend one use of mythic power to increase any d20 roll you just made. If you can't see that, then I got nothing for you.
Interesting debate. The existence of the Champion Path Ability "Always a Chance" seems to solve the question at the heart of this discussion. It specifically calls out the auto-fail rule, and it has a price.
That's fine- I think the auto-fail rule is sacrosanct, and this one ability is specifically written to overcome that. Not with Mythic Surge, just this one particular ability. Surge shouldn't impact the Nat 1, the game needs to maintain a level of failure.
Even epic heroes fail every now and then- that's why they become Epic Heroes, they overcome adversity (and nat 1 rolls)
Interesting debate. The existence of the Champion Path Ability "Always a Chance" seems to solve the question at the heart of this discussion. It specifically calls out the auto-fail rule, and it has a price.
That's fine- I think the auto-fail rule is sacrosanct, and this one ability is specifically written to overcome that. Not with Mythic Surge, just this one particular ability. Surge shouldn't impact the Nat 1, the game needs to maintain a level of failure.
Even epic heroes fail every now and then- that's why they become Epic Heroes, they overcome adversity (and nat 1 rolls)
The reason I think doing Surge as I suggest is well within the designer's intent is pretty straight forward. The Always a Chance ability is always on. You don't need to spend Mythic Power to do anything. It also creates a situation where you can literally always succeed and effectively increases all your abilities by +1. That's well worthy of a choice to spend leveling resource on. Otherwise, you have to spend a very limited pool of resources to negate what would otherwise be an automatic failure. This is well within the overall scope of what it is to be mythic. You can move and full attack, bypass all DR regardless of normal class abilities, ignore energy immunities, as so on. That's Mythic Power you can't spend to activate, say, augmented mythic friggin' wish or another ability to do things in my last sentence. That you can/could spend Mythic Power to negate what's otherwise an automatic failure while not necessarily securing a success seems like a minor ability in comparison to what else you can do.
Surge adds a value to the roll. This is exactly how bonuses work. Surge is simply an untyped bonus.
Bonus: Bonuses are numerical values that are added to checks and statistical scores.
And an example of showing a bonus as just adding to a roll (there are plenty of examples, this is just one).
Bonus: If used before a roll is made, a hero point grants you a +8 luck bonus to any one d20 roll.
What is a check? It is a d20 roll against a DC, an opponents AC, a target CMD, it's spell resistance, whatever. The bonuses is added to the check (roll).
The other half of that, statistical scores are things like AC, etc, and have no bearing on this particular discussion.
Numerous feats call out adding a +x bonus to attack rolls or damage. They do not call out a type. These are all untyped bonuses. If the rules do not call out a bonus type it is untyped.
Several also just say add +x to your dice roll.
Example:
Benefit: As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power. For 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. For every five caster levels you possess, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.
And in case you doubt whether something that gives a +1, but isn't explicitly called a bonus is really a bonus....
Let's requote the PRD
Bonus: Bonuses are numerical values that are added to checks and statistical scores.
Things that add are bonuses.
Things that subtract are penalties.
Penalty: Penalties are numerical values that are subtracted from a check or statistical score.
No where in Surge is the word bonus used except to explain the graduation of the die type. This is unlike every single other bonus in the game. This is why I do not call it a bonus, because the ability does not say it's one.
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Can Gallant Inspiration or Timely Inspiration (and there are probably a couple of other spells of like nature) negate a natural 1 auto failure? These spells have very similar wording about changing the result. Yet in both cases neither says anything about changing the natural roll.Both of those are bonuses added to a roll. As worded, surge is not a bonus to the roll. It increases the roll itself.Incorrect.
It modifies the result of the roll. Not the roll itself.
Actually correct.
The entire surge ability:
You can call upon your mythic power to overcome difficult challenges. You can expend one use of mythic power to increase any d20 roll you just made by rolling 1d6 and adding it to the result. Using this ability is an immediate action taken after the result of the original roll is revealed. This can change the outcome of the roll. The bonus die gained by using this ability increases to 1d8 at 4th tier, 1d10 at 7th tier, and 1d12 at 10th tier.The abiliites you linked:
I bold the relevant point of surge, which I had posted before.
The result of the roll is the point when you know if the roll is successful or not. After knowing whether the initial check is a success or not you are able to change the result via the surge ability. This is why it is an immediate action.
Also, a minor point. I linked no abilities. You are attributing your quote of another poster to me. I have no reference as to what the point of those abilities being used are.
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@OP: My personal ruling would be "no". To me, automatic failures (or successes) are such regardless of modifiers. I've always seen Mythic Surge as a way of turning narrow failures into successes, with the increase in die able to change correspondingly larger failures. An auto-fail, on the other hand, could never be Surged into a success.
Math-wise, I read it as [Original Roll] + [Relevant Modifier] + [Surge]. In practice, if the DC is 17 and the player rolls a 16 (that's not a natural failure), I might ask "You'll suffer X if that stays, but a Surge will change it. Do you want to use your power?"
For overcoming natural failures, I believe rerolls (i.e. Force of Will, as Adept mentioned) are the appropriate tool.
I find that the whole point of being Mythic is that you twist reality to your desire.
Knowing that your effort was just not good enough, but still being able to -just-get-it-done- through whatever means you use.
This does not change the idea that "1's" and "20's" are two numbers on the die that are special.
I find nothing written in the surge ability that would change the special rules set in place for those numbers.
No where in Surge is the word bonus used except to explain the graduation of the die type. This is unlike every single other bonus in the game. This is why I do not call it a bonus, because the ability does not say it's one.
You missed the part where I showed that not every ability that adds something to a die roll is explicitly called out as a bonus. And the part where the rules make a sweeping statement that bonuses are things that are added to die rolls, and penalties are things that subtract from die rolls.
The rules do not require that anything that adds to a die roll to be explicitly called out as a bonus for it to be a bonus. The fact that it is adding to a die roll inherantly makes it a bonus. This is based both on the rules, and by common definition in the english language.
Some interesting points made by all. It does seem strange that the wording of surge is different than the wording of other bonus regarding the die result. My initial question was more philosophical about the whole point of surging to change failures to successes. Wish we could get an FAQ on this one.
I think I will house rule that a character can change an auto failure into an non-auto failure by expending 2 surge points. I have always found the 5% auto failure of saving throws to be a bit harsh in high level campaigns.
The thread's been dead a while, but that (LazarX's) point has been addressed earlier by the fact that the path ability is passive (no mp expense), whereas the proposed interpretation/modification takes 1 or more mp.
I don't think Big Blue's option will end up causing problems. Have fun!
I see no reason why anybody would use the "Two MP to negate an auto-fail" option when "Spend 1 AP to re-roll entirely" is available.
Not high enough a tier? Though the point stands, as Big Blue was talking about high level play
Well, it technically has been addressed. Perhaps not up to your standards, but there has been at least a little discussion into why the phrasing is in question.
Frankly, I don't think its supposed to work that way either. However, the phrasing is qualitatively looser than similar phrasing used to describe what are presumably similar abilities.
People came in at the beginning with general-level dismissals of the idea... giving them again now isn't particularly moving.
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Do you see the inconsistency in that?
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OK, so to be clear:
There are two schools of thought on this:
School #1 says it is a bonus, added after the roll, and can't change the roll one iota, because, hey, an autofail 1 is still an autofail one.
School #2 says the RAI state "This can change the outcome of the roll" meaning, it is not just a bonus, but actually part of the roll itself. Thus you add it to the d20, and can get up to a 26 on a d20 roll, as a result of the roll itself.
There are two abilities,
#1 Always a chance, which nullifies autofails for attacks. Always on.(tier 1)
#2 Mythic Resolve, which allows multiple "quick re-rolls" of a saving throw. Take the best one. 1MP per additional roll. (tier 6)
Seems like the "interpretation" of the second school would be sensible to me. I mean, here we have an ability to nullify autofails as soon as you become mythic. But it takes a MP AND an Immediate Action (you only get one of these a round). Then we have a Tier 1 ability that turns it on continuously for attacks. Then we have a Tier 6 ability that basically allows "unlimited" rerolls of a save (note, each one of those could also be surged to a 28).
Those who say it is merely an "untyped bonus" are ignoring the part where it says it actually changes the outcome of the roll. Nowhere does any other bonus say "it can change the roll itself..." Well, that is my two cents anyway. In contrast: why have wording if it just works like a normal un-typed bonus? Things that just "add to a roll" don't modify or change the roll, they change the result of the action, not the roll.
The "no rules to support that surge cancels auto fails" is "built in" to the fact that you automatically roll a 2 or more on the roll (itself)....