D&D 4E Can monsters crit in 4E?

[Kzach]

Just played in an Fantasy Grounds game with all six of the pregens that were run through the Raiders of Oakhurst module (we kicked the dragon's ass ) and had an absolute blast.

Something came up though that I was positive I'd heard on a podcast but couldn't remember details of it and nobody else had heard of it. That being that in 4e monsters can't crit.

I've skimmed through posts and info everywhere and can't seem to find any reference to it. Am I imagining it or can someone else confirm that I'm not going loopy?

 

[Voss]

Yes they can.

It was mentioned in the 'Critical Hits' design article that they don't get a lot of the benefits from doing so (extra damage and so forth that pcs get). But that seems to have changed, as the human berserker can explicitly crit and gets the 'high damage' property from his greataxe. (which is why his crit is 1d12+16 rather than just 16)

 

[Stalker0]

How I've ruled it is that most monsters crit like normal (ie max damage). Some like the human berserker have special rules when they crit. But of course, that's not confirmed or anything.

I would assume minions can't crit, as they do specific damage, and maxxing it would mean nothing.

 

[Oldtimer]

Something came up though that I was positive I'd heard on a podcast but couldn't remember details of it and nobody else had heard of it. That being that in 4e monsters can't crit.

I've skimmed through posts and info everywhere and can't seem to find any reference to it. Am I imagining it or can someone else confirm that I'm not going loopy?

You're only remembering part of it. The discussion was that crits normally do max damage, but that some weapons (eg magical weapons) let you do even more damage on a crit. And since many monsters don't use manufactured weapons, they won't be able to take advantage of that.

They still crit normally, though.