Dragonblade
Adventurer
Yes. Even Mearls confirms it:
From ENWorld's front page and Mearl's twitter account.
D&D 5E Difference between critical hits and automatic hits.
Yes. Even Mearls confirms it:
From ENWorld's front page and Mearl's twitter account.
Or then there's the other way to look at it...
The actual rule on automatic hits has the subject header 'Rolling 1 or 20':
Sometimes fate blesses or curses a combatant, causing the novice to hit and the veteran to miss.
If the d20 roll for an attack in a 20, the attack hits regardless of any modifiers, or the target's AC. In addition, the attack is a critical hit, as explained later in this chapter.
If the d20 roll for an attack is a 1, the attack misses regardless of any modifiers or the target's AC.
Then, the rule in the subject header 'Critical Hits' is as follows:
When you score a critical hit, you get to roll extra dice for the attack's damage against the target.
Thus.. you can easily also parse it as that only 1s and 20s cause automatic misses and hits... since that is precisely the language they used to describe automatic misses and hits. A 1 is an auto-miss, a 20 is an auto-hit. The use of the term 'critical hit' occurs after the language describing the auto-hit, and doesn't modify the rule, it's in addition to it (since it states "In addition...") Thus, it is completely rational to believe that auto-hits and critical hits are in fact two separate states... and it just so happens that a 20 counts as both. But does not absolutely guarantee that other rolls that qualify under the term of "critical hit" also fall under the term "auto-hit"... since it specifically calls out the 20 in the subject header and the first line of the rule as the only number that auto-hits, and that "critical hits" are specifically called out in their own section as extra damage (and speaks nothing about actually hitting targets)
If all "critical hits" were absolutely 100% meant to be parsed as "auto-hits"... why doesn't the book write the header as "Rolling 1 or a Critical Hit", and start by saying that some hits are so powerful that they automatically are considered to hit and do extra damage, regardless of any modifiers or the target's AC? And then state that most characters do a critical hit when they roll an unmodified 20 on a die roll, but that some characters might have a larger critical range? And then they could describe the rules for the extra damage.
But they didn't do that. They started by calling out the '20' specifically as an "auto-hit" and then tacked on the addendum that this 20 was also a "critical hit" (which they later define only as extra damage dice".) Now yes... I know that they use the word "hit" within the term "critical hit". And if this was the very first edition of the game they ever wrote, maybe you'd have a point. But the phrase "critical hit" has existed in the game for decades, and as someone stated up above, that specific term has become a "term of art" in the game, and no longer meant to be taken as 'noun + adjective'. After all... the game uses the term "Armor Class"... but I don't see anyone stating that obviously Armor is describing a type of Class within the game, to go along with the Fighter, Rogue or Cleric. Nope... "Armor Class" has become its own specific term of art... just like "Critical Hit" has.
That being said... do I genuinely care one way or the other which way anyone rules it? Nope, not in the slightest. If Mike thinks that all critical hits are auto-hits... good for him. Any if anyone else feels the same way, hey, it's no skin off my nose, go nuts! But with all the talk of making sure we "parse the language"... I thought it was important to note that we weren't just pulling this opinion out of our asses... we were "parsing the language" too and just happen to come up with a different result.
Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
tragicjones
First Post
While I'm hesitant about the argument from tradition, it's very interesting. My only other experience is 4E and PF, so I'm wondering: in any edition of D&D, has it been possible for an attack to "score a critical hit" and also not hit?
Talath
Explorer
Oh no, I'm not falling for that again. You already have power of attorney.
Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
Well, I can't win them all, I suppose.
Speaking of which, the kids really enjoyed the Swiss ski trip from "Uncle" Talath.
Thaumaturge.
3rd edition specifically says that even if you have an expanded crit range larger just the '20', only the '20' is an automatic hit. Other numbers in the expanded range have to actually still hit the target's AC to qualify for the possibility of being a "critical hit".
Now granted, in 3rd edition... rolling a 20 or a number within an extended crit range does not in itself generate a "critical hit"... you merely threaten a critical hit. If you made that first roll, you then had to roll a second time and if the second roll would have also qualified as hitting the target's AC, then the threat was confirmed, and it became a true "critical hit".
I believe others have stated earlier in the thread that because a 20 was not considered a "critical hit" straight away in 3rd edition, but merely a threat of a critical hit... that is the reason why we didn't have the idea that auto-hit = critical hit. But since in 5E a roll of 20 is called out as an auto-hit and in addition a critical hit, that is why some folks have determined this to mean that in every case auto-hit = critical hit.
A valid way to look at it... but not definitively the only way to look at it, in my opinion.
Andor
First Post
No. But! In 3e weapons had something called a threat range. Usually a 20, but up to 18-20, and this threat range could be modified by feats and maybe class features. So, when you rolled in the threat range you had "threatened a critical." If the original to-hit roll was a successful hit, you then had to roll to hit again to confirm the critical. If you did confirm it your attack became a critical hit and the damage was multiplied by the weapons crit multiplier, usually x2 but could be up to x4.
Note that even in 3e a critical hit was a hit and doing damage by definition, however the fact that you could roll within a weapons crit range, yet still miss is probably what's throwing people off. In fact it threw me off until this thread made me take a closer look at the language.
Andor
First Post
Actually, to clarify my own position, I think that the Critical Hit is a subset of the class Hit, obviously an Auto-Hit is too. Therefore every critical hit is an hit by definition, but not every auto-hit is a critical hit. A Magic Missile for example is an auto-hit but cannot be a critical hit.
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