Why are things immune to crits?

[med stud]

To Pendragon: I will stop using the word logical if it offends you, but in my POV my line of reasoning is logical (otherwise I wouldnt defend it ).

I just think that all creatures/machines/any kind of matter that is not spherical have spots on them that are weaker then the rest. A good hit to such a spot is far more effective then a "regular" hit.
I also think that HP doesnt emulate the amount of actual damage it takes to kill something but that it is a relative measure on how hard the being is to take out (otherwise any critical would by defenition kill a creature). I also think (based on what I have read on bayonettes during WWI) that a hit to a knee or the neck is more effective in stopping an opponent than a hit in kidneys, liver etc.

Therefore strike to neck or knee = very good stopper = critical hit.

Thats my line of reasoning. That's at least how I think. If your premises is different I can see that you dont agree with me.

 

[Staffan]

I've always hated that rogues that have no knowledge of the anatomy of a creature can find a vital location on the creature and nail it. I've toyed around with rules that require the rogue to have sufficient levels of knowledge in the appropriate knowledge skill to find the vitals. Unfortunately, I have been unable to come up with a good balance that keeps the sneak attack ability balanced if I impose this penalty.

How about no more than one die of sneak attack damage per rank in the appropriate Knowledge skill?

 

[Metallian]

For all of the reasons stated in this thread, I always felt that there should be a feat for Critting/Sneak Attacking Constructs. I'd require many ranks in Disable Device as a prerequisite, though. I'd probably throw in another prerequisite as well, lest Rogues start wrecking Golems left and right.

Something similar could be done with Undead and Knowledge (Religion).

The Metallian

 

[Will]

I would interpret the issue in terms of specialized/centralized structures.

That is, a person has a brain to think with, a heart to distribute blood, etc.

Animals and, for the most part, outsiders are similar.

Oozes are just amorphous. Each part functions about as well as each other part. Now a certain amount of damage may cause vital fluids to leak out, or cause the whole to fall apart, but still, there is no specific 'dead now' portion.

Same with plants. An axe hitting a tree is damage, no question. But one part of the tree isn't particularly more vital than another. At the same time, do enough damage and the tree is dead.

I'd consider most undead and constructs much the same way. There is some sort of 'anima' keeping the thing moving and reacting to what goes on around it. Damaging the body will eventually scatter this anima, but there isn't any particularly special spot.

In conclusion... I think a robot should take criticals. It's function is tied to very specific, centralized, specialized parts. Unless you had a special nano-unit robot, that was really a cooperative swarm or otherwise decentralized.

I don't think any special knowledge would be necessary, since critical strikes and sneak attack don't require knowledge in any other case. Even aberrations and other weird creatures.

 

[Zerovoid]

I agree.The point being that golems don't have such weak spots.Based on what? You're talking about a giant hunk of metal moving by means of magic. It has no iron ligaments that can be cut. No iron kneecap that can be broken. It's simply not vulnerable in that fashion.You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I'm not sure how I feel about crits on constructs in general, but I think med stud has sort of a point here.

If you chop off a golem's legs, it can't walk anymore. Sure, it can kind of try to attack you by pulling itself toward you with its arms, but its ability to hurt you is sure going to be reduced.

Maybe you can't really ever "kill" a golem anyway, all you can do is hack off enough pieces that its harmless, so maybe this is what HP represents, and damage to a leg of limb probably does this better than damage to the torso or head? Or can you kill a golem? Does it die once it loses some critical amount of its body mass, and the animating magic leaves it. I'm not really sure.

In regards to the robots that the original poster asked about, they can certainly have a special rule saying they are susceptible to critical hits. It makes sense to me that a real robot does have critical areas like a power core or a CPU. Damaging these areas could destroy the robot without having to hack the whole thing apart. This is very different than, say, a clay golem. A clay golem is just made all of the same thing, and probably doesn't need any given chuck of clay more than any other chunk of clay.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I'm not sure how I feel about crits on constructs in general, but I think med stud has sort of a point here.

If you chop off a golem's legs, it can't walk anymore. Sure, it can kind of try to attack you by pulling itself toward you with its arms, but its ability to hurt you is sure going to be reduced.

D&D doesn't use hacking off of limbs. As far as the abstract model of combat is concerned, it doesn't happen at all save for vorpal weapons.

If you allow for a golem's legs to be hacked off, why not humanoids? And wouldn't there be movement penalties? A penalty to attack bonus for a lost arm? A penalty to dexterity for lost fingers? At the end of the day, D&D doesn't deal with these issues. It assumes that from your first hit point to your last, you get to keep all your arms and legs and fingers, and just take slashes and stabs until you die.

And since it is, for me, too much of a headache to try and come up with hit locations and penalties and track them during combat, I play it as is: no leg shots, no limb hewing.

Taking that into account, let us consider the golem. It's moving by magic. It has no organs, no ligaments, no bones. It's just metal moving and bending on its own. Sure, hacking off a leg would hurt it, but D&D doesn't deal with lost limbs, so nix that idea. What are you left with? Slashes and stabs. On a human, slash his Achilles Tendon and he's hamstrung. On a golem? No tendon. On a human, stab him in the kidney and poisons start leaking into the blood stream. On a golem? No kidney. No blood. On a human, stab him in the throat and he starts having trouble breathing, and blood starts to leak into his lungs. On a golem? Doesn't breathe. No blood or lungs.

I agree that an actual android/robot could be critted. It has the vital areas that a lucky swing might hit. And with enough knowledge, a rogue might learn to aim for such spots, and get his sneak attacks.

But golems, animated objects, oozes, undead... It's the magic moving them. And no matter what part of them you're slashing or stabbing, they're still going to keep coming until you pound them enough to put that magic out.

To Pendragon: I will stop using the word logical if it offends you, but in my POV my line of reasoning is logical (otherwise I wouldnt defend it ).

I'm not offended, med stud. I truly don't think you're using the word correctly. Your argument is certainly sensible, but not logical. dcollins already posted an example of a logical progression. Logic is a type of reasoning, not a synonym for "makes sense."

 

[Metallian]

Taking that into account, let us consider the golem. It's moving by magic. It has no organs, no ligaments, no bones. It's just metal moving and bending on its own. Sure, hacking off a leg would hurt it, but D&D doesn't deal with lost limbs, so nix that idea. What are you left with? Slashes and stabs. On a human, slash his Achilles Tendon and he's hamstrung. On a golem? No tendon. On a human, stab him in the kidney and poisons start leaking into the blood stream. On a golem? No kidney. No blood. On a human, stab him in the throat and he starts having trouble breathing, and blood starts to leak into his lungs. On a golem? Doesn't breathe. No blood or lungs.

There is a certain amount of structural matter in a golem that can be whittled away until the golem becomes nonfunctional. A Crit or a Sneak Attack against a Golem could be considered to be a blow that simply does more structural damage than a standard strike. It would be like chiselling a piece of stone in just the right way, at just the right angle, to cause it to fall to pieces. Inanimate solid objects may not have internal organs, but they can certainly have weak spots.

Basically, if you can whack chunks off of something in order to damage it, I don't believe it's too much of a stretch to say there's a way to whack chunks off of it more effectively. Since this is different than stabbing a guy in the organs, I think it's fair to say it requires a special ability (feat, prestige class, whatever), but I don't think it should be impossible.

The Metallian

 

[HeavyG]

But Metallian, that is modelled already by randomly rolling damage.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

But Metallian, that is modelled already by randomly rolling damage.

you could say the same thing for crits on people. Why geez you rolled an 8 on your longswords d8 that must mean you hit a vital part.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

you could say the same thing for crits on people. Why geez you rolled an 8 on your longswords d8 that must mean you hit a vital part.

Not really. The difference between random normal damage, and critical damage, is that in the first case the strike itself is more powerful, or better delivered, while in the second case the target of the strike is weaker, or more critical to the creature's functioning.

There simply is no "weaker" target when you're talking about a giant metal statue moved by magic. There's no weaker target that you can hit on an animated broom or table that will hurt it any more than any other part of it.

At least, this is how I see it. But I can see that others believe differently, so I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.