Why are things immune to crits?

[Mordax]

Hello, just been reading this fairly crazy thread, thought I'd answer the original question about why things are immune to crits or not:

D&D is about approximating cinematic reality, not real-life reality. It is *specifically* not for use as a way to simulate our physical world. I would think this would be obvious to all present: in real life, I can't zap people with lightning bolts from my fingertips. An ordinary guy, no matter how skilled, can't fight off a whole army in an open field.

All of the creatures listed as being immune to crits are immune for thematic reasons. To preserve genre.

For example: when have any of you, (I'm looking at you in particular, jessiemook), read a book where the brave hero used his knowledge of woodcutting and botany to fell a magical animated plant monster with a single mighty swing to its proposed trunk-related super weak spot?

I'm willing to bet never. My count is certainly zero. Every time I've seen magical animated plant monsters, the answer was to chop them into tiny pieces, or maybe burn them. (Read, no exploitable vital areas.)

If it doesn't happen in the genre of fiction we're simulating, it is *not* physically possible in the world of D&D. That just isn't how magical plant monsters work, regardless of the physiology of actual trees (which is handled just fine: *every* skilled hit with an axe being critical sounds about right - the tree can't move out of the way).

Very, very simple.

As for how a person is supposed to describe killing something with no vital organs, go with the genre: the players have to hack it to pieces. Eventually, whatever spirit animated it just won't have enough connected matter to work with anymore, and must go back to wherever it came from.

BTW: I'm not saying a person should only game in this particular set of fantasy conventions. If there's a world where zombies are dropped by being decapitated, or there's a corps of brave TreeBane Rangers or something, by all means, redesign the crit system. I'm simply explaining why things work the way they do by default.

 

[Hypersmurf]

(which is handled just fine: *every* skilled hit with an axe being critical sounds about right - the tree can't move out of the way).

Doubled, not critical - an axe has a x3 crit, but doesn't deal x3 damage against appropriate objects.

-Hyp.

 

[Marius Delphus]

Doubled, not critical - an axe has a x3 crit, but doesn't deal x3 damage against appropriate objects.

Keeping in mind, of course, that since damage is doubled on *every* hit, and not just tripled rarely (when you roll a critical), over a few rounds the average total damage is *much* higher.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Keeping in mind, of course, that since damage is doubled on *every* hit, and not just tripled rarely (when you roll a critical), over a few rounds the average total damage is *much* higher.

That doesn't make it a critical hit, though.

A flaming burst, for example, will still only trigger on a confirmed attack roll within the threat range of the axe.

-Hyp.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

To the original poster, I have one guideline on assigning if something is immune to critical hits within the standard D&D system. Can you point to a spot, at least the size of a grapefruit, that hitting with an attack causes a severe reaction (and possibly death)?

Humans are filled with these. The heart, the brain, the lungs, we're just full of squishy things we need to survive within the next 30 seconds. We've also got all these clusters of nerves that make us feel more pain.

Though, it should be noted, I disagree with criticals generally, except as a device to go way overboard with a description of an attack.

 

[Felon]

Well, one thing to bear in mind about constructs and undead is that they have no Con score, and thus often suffer from low hit points relative to their CR. Since these creature types are supposed to be tough to kill (or destroy, whatever), immunity to crits helps represent that toughness that they otherwise don't actually possess.

I noticed with oozes in 3.5e that they addressed the lack of Con scores by simply giving oozes more hit points based on their size. I, for one, think was probably a better way to represent the toughness of an unliving creature type rather than simply declaring all creatures of that type to have a blanket immunity to critical hits.

Blanket immunities in general are bound to seem unreasonable in many situations. For instance, all constructs and undead are immune to mind-affecting effects. That makes sense for creatures of those types that are automotons, but not all are. Some have minds, so it seems sensible for them to be vulnerable to mind-affecting effects.

 

[Felon]

Hello, just been reading this fairly crazy thread, thought I'd answer the original question about why things are immune to crits or not: D&D is about approximating cinematic reality, not real-life reality....All of the creatures listed as being immune to crits are immune for thematic reasons. To preserve genre.

Your attitude is more patronizing than is really justified by most of the comments in the course of this thread. I doubt you are telling the vast majority of folks anything they don't already know.

In "cinematic reality", characters do often figure out the weak points of the creatures they're fighting. In fact, they do it all the time in horror movies. How many times has someone shouted "aim for the head" against a zombie? I've seen plenty of instances where otherwise-indestructable constructs are stopped by hitting some critical area (like Adam from Buffy tVS).

I haven't slogged through this entire thread, but has anyone brought up the 3.5e rules for cutting the heads off a hydra yet? I think that was an interesting way to simulate "called shots", and I'm a little disappointed that we haven't seen this idea expanded upon.

 

[Gantros]

The fundamental flaw in critical hit/sneak attack immunity is that it ties critical hits together with the idea of hitting an important part of the opponent (vital organ or other weak spot), thus causing more damage. Because of the abstract nature of hit points, there's really no way to rationalize the survivability of high-level characters unless you accept that a "hit" does not necessarily mean a solid blow was landed, even on a critical hit with high damage rolls. No matter how skilled an attacker is, it's not going to be possible for them to kill a 10th level fighter with a single blow from plain old dagger, or even reduce his combat effectiveness in any way (due to pain, bleeding, etc.). Therefore, a critical hit cannot translate into a hit on a vital organ. Yet a host of other feats and abilities, including critical hit immunity, sneak attacks, improved critical, stunning fist, quivering palm, coup de grace, etc. assume that this is the case.

So why is this a problem? Because it means all the rationalizations for how these vital-organ dependent abilities actually work start to fall apart. How do you kill something without vital organs? Hack it to pieces? Then how can an ooze or a plant, which doesn't even bleed, take as much damage from a non-critical dagger blow as a human? How can it be possible to dispatch a zombie with a couple of good, non-critical warhammer hits? Even if I somehow hit it hard enough to take off its head, it can't be vital, so why should that stop it? After taking one dent too many, what makes an iron golem just keel over and die?

Frankly, I'm surprised that more people don't seem to run into this problem during the course of their regular gaming. How do you describe your greatclub-armed barbarian's defeat of the gelatinous cube? "After whacking the quivering 10-foot mass of jelly the eighth time, it jiggles its last jiggle then lies still"... I mean I know this is fantasy, but how can anyone take that seriously??

So what is the point of having critical hits in an abstract combat system anyway? Clearly the suggestion that they make combat more realistic is pretty tenuous. Presumably the real reason is to add a little extra excitement to combat by having something special happen on a natural 20 roll. It also opens up a set of special abilities that can make fighters, rogues and monks more deadly at higher levels, as they should be. If this is the case, then what game reason is there for taking the excitement and deadliness away for some subset of opponents? If the goal is to make certain types of opponents tougher, then why not just give them more hit points than normal for their size? After all, that seems to work just fine for elephants and other large non-magical beasts - they still pose the suitable amount of danger to low-level adventurers without contrivances like critical hit immunity.

 

[jessemock]

So what is the point of having critical hits in an abstract combat system anyway? Clearly the suggestion that they make combat more realistic is pretty tenuous. Presumably the real reason is to add a little extra excitement to combat by having something special happen on a natural 20 roll. It also opens up a set of special abilities that can make fighters, rogues and monks more deadly at higher levels, as they should be. If this is the case, then what game reason is there for taking the excitement and deadliness away for some subset of opponents? If the goal is to make certain types of opponents tougher, then why not just give them more hit points than normal for their size? After all, that seems to work just fine for elephants and other large non-magical beasts - they still pose the suitable amount of danger to low-level adventurers without contrivances like critical hit immunity.[/size]

I think you're pretty near the mark here: it's clear that the critical hit system amounts to no more than a lucky hit system, the only distinction being the restrictions placed on the target creature: it must seem at first glance not to have any vital areas, and we should not take a second glance at it.

I really don't know why the game designers bothered with this extra stipulation. They'd already decided to ignore any realism in the consequences of a critical hit--damage to a vital area is in no way differentiated from normal damage, so why throw in the vital area routine at all?

I guess that it makes the development of other attack modes easier--sneak attacks, crippling strikes, quivering palms, etc. But why not simply restrict all these modes to humanoid targets and call it a day?

 

[jessemock]

I'm not saying a person should only game in this particular set of fantasy conventions. If there's a world where zombies are dropped by being decapitated, or there's a corps of brave TreeBane Rangers or something, by all means, redesign the crit system. I'm simply explaining why things work the way they do by default.

No; actually you are not: you state quite clearly that there is one (and only one) way to play the game and that this is the reason the rules have been developed the way they have:

D&D is about approximating cinematic reality, not real-life reality.

News to me. I must have missed the section of the PHB that requires all players to watch a bunch of movies (all the same movies, of course) and then base all of their gaming around that experience.

It is *specifically* not for use as a way to simulate our physical world.

Then why is there a chart for carrying capacity?

Why, then, are there critical hits?

All of the creatures listed as being immune to crits are immune for thematic reasons. To preserve genre.

Preserve genre from what? The encroachment of housing developments?

For example: when have any of you, (I'm looking at you in particular, jessiemook), read a book where the brave hero used his knowledge of woodcutting and botany to fell a magical animated plant monster with a single mighty swing to its proposed trunk-related super weak spot?

Before anything else, allow me to complement you on the charming word-play you've used here--the only mystery: why misspell jesse?

Second, wait a minute: books? I thought it was movies. Let's go back and check:

D&D is about approximating cinematic reality, not real-life reality.

Yes; it used to be movies for you. Why the change, all of a sudden? You haven't gone snob on us?

Every time I've seen magical animated plant monsters,

Oof. I guess not. Myself, I've never seen magical, animated plant monsters, but I do remember that the one portrayed in Resident Evil had a weak spot through which your character could kill it (rather than going to the trouble of poisoning it), although that is a video game and likely out of bounds (although it was made into both a movie and a book!).

If it doesn't happen in the genre of fiction we're simulating, it is *not* physically possible in the world of D&D.

Again with this. Hm. Could you provide a list of all the works of this perfectly unified genre of which you speak and show me, point for point, how D&D adheres to each and every one of their conventions, without ever deviating from them, even once? Would you mind doing that?

Very, very simple.

Simple. Yes.