Do monsters do extra damage on a crit?

[Markn]

What's *really* sad is critting with a minion...

Jay

I know. I've always felt that they should get +50% damage or something with a crit. I don't know how many times I've critted with a minion, telling the PC they got critted and then following that up with, take X damage where X is what they took every other time from that guy!

 

[Flipguarder]

The first time I crit with a minion I decided in .2 seconds that when minions crit they do double damage. one of the easiest and best houserules I've ever made.

 

[Markn]

The first time I crit with a minion I decided in .2 seconds that when minions crit they do double damage. one of the easiest and best houserules I've ever made.

Do you still do that with minions from MM2? Minion damage has increased though I haven't sat down to determine by how much.

 

[Flipguarder]

most of my monsters are home brewed, but I do base them of similar monsters in the MM1.

For instance I plan on using this attack from a level 12 minion sometime in the next few levels in my campaign.

crude lightsaber (standard; at-will) ✦ force
+16 vs. AC; 7 force damage.

On a crit it will do 14 damage.

 

[Markn]

crude lightsaber (standard; at-will) ✦ force
+16 vs. AC; 7 force damage.

On a crit it will do 14 damage.

Are you playing a D&D campaign or a Star Wars campaign?

 

[Logan_Bonner]

Hitpoints have different balancepoints between monsters and PCs. A crit on a monster with a huge swing of damage isn't as dangerous to the encounter as a monster with a huge swing of damage.


6d6 damage is more of a swing to a player than to a monster, in other words.

As Draco suggests, monsters aren't meant to have extra crit damage (aside from the occasional exceptional case). Magic weapon crit damage was intended specifically for PCs.

 

[Dr_Sage]

As Draco suggests, monsters aren't meant to have extra crit damage (aside from the occasional exceptional case). Magic weapon crit damage was intended specifically for PCs.

Agree here. Game design for shure. Has advantages and disvantages.

What I do as a house rule is giving Solo and Elite monsters a high critical proprety. Keeps things balanced and add some flavor as well.

Otherwise I leave things as they are. In my heroic style campaigns usually PCs have many things to worry about, and their own deaths are not the worst usually.

 

[Flipguarder]

Are you playing a D&D campaign or a Star Wars campaign?

It's DND but I have characters and organizations from all over media. My party killed voldmeort a few weeks back.

 

[Shin Okada]

IMHO, the fact that most monsters do not gain much benefit from crit is a good thing and a big improvement in 4e.

Once, in a low-level 3.5e game, I used a lot of first-level commoners with Scythe (just after the first DDM was released, and I had the Human commoner minis a lot). I nearly killed 2 PCs with full hps, due to my lucky rolls. Such incidents are no good for both players and DMs.

 

[Nifft]

IMHO, the fact that most monsters do not gain much benefit from crit is a good thing and a big improvement in 4e.

Once, in a low-level 3.5e game, I used a lot of first-level commoners with Scythe (just after the first DDM was released, and I had the Human commoner minis a lot). I nearly killed 2 PCs with full hps, due to my lucky rolls. Such incidents are no good for both players and DMs.

Yeah, I recall that in 3.x, a 1st level orc barbarian with a non-magical greataxe could trigger a save vs. death by massive damage on a crit.

Cheers, -- N