Critical Hits for Undead, Constructs...

[Grazzt]

Re: Re: Vital organs....

Ditto. Heck, in many bad monster movies, if you shoot a zombie through the brain it stops functioning.
Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

Kill shot. Zombie was reduced to 0 or less hp...not really a crit. Now, if you remember movies like Night of the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead, etc..it took a head shot to kill a zombie. Even then, that's not really a crit, but more of a weakness that would require a called shot to execute.

 

[Ghostwind]

As Olgar already mentioned, Torn Asunder will offer a variant rule that can be employed against creatures immune to critical hits. Besides designing a new critical hits system, one of the things we did was an option that allowed "critical hits" an opportunity to affect specific body parts. So while a zombie may be immune to critical hits, it will still be possible to sever an arm, crush a skull, etc. should your GM elect to use this rule.

By the way, there is also a called shot mechanic that went through extensive playtesting.

 

[herald]

What if i flippen blast a flesh golem in the chest with a lighting bolt, dont you think it would do "Massive Damage". Maybe that could be a new house rule above and beyond Critical damage.....
A different type of damageing hit?

But then again I agree with Aeris...

On the contrary, I think you would make his day! Seeing that's how they can get healed.

 

[Aaron2]

Re: Re: Re: Vital organs....

Kill shot. Zombie was reduced to 0 or less hp...not really a crit. Now, if you remember movies like Night of the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead, etc..it took a head shot to kill a zombie. Even then, that's not really a crit, but more of a weakness that would require a called shot to execute.

The zombies from the Night of the Living Dead movies weren't D&D zombies. They weren't magically animated and couldn't be "turned" or "rebuked". They were simply reanimated flesh. Kinda like Yellow Musk Zombies (only without the flowers in their hair) and weren't immune to critical hits.


Aaron

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Not only does d20 modern provide for some vulnerabilities for undead, as Tak pointed out, but Urban Arcana *has* a feat in it that gives it's user the ability to make critical hits on creatures otherwise immune to critical hits.

I don't have my book in front of me, but I don't even think it's limited to one creature type each time you take the feat -- it's just an on-switch for critical hits against undead, contstructs, oozes, the whole nine yards.

Given that it's in Urban Arcana, we could imagine that there's a chance it'll appear in the 3.5 edition, althought I can imagine that it would be far too big a christmas present for rogues, who would also be able to use their sneak attacks on otherwise immune creatures.

-rg

 

[Gargoyle]

Aside from "realism" or logic of having no vital organs to strike, there are some gameplay reasons for making a particular creature type immune to critical hits, and I think that's the primary reason for the rule, not realism.

Undead are supposed to be scary. Game mechanics like immunity to critical hits and level draining are meant to make them more frightening to players, not just to characters. Undead are more frightening if they can't be brought down quickly with a lucky crit.

Undead and constructs are also a useful foil to the rogue's sneak attack ability. If you say that you can crit an undead or construct, then certainly a rogue should be able to sneak attack it as well. Sneak attack is just too good if it works on all types of critters.

Constructs being immune to crits is just a logical extension of the same immunity that undead get, but it also makes constructs a bit more scary. Finding the vital spot to attack on a construct does sound possible to me btw, but it also sounds like specialized knowledge of constructs that would require a feat to pull off. Useful for rogues that want to sneak attack constructs, but not much else I suppose.

 

[Gargoyle]

Not only does d20 modern provide for some vulnerabilities for undead, as Tak pointed out, but Urban Arcana *has* a feat in it that gives it's user the ability to make critical hits on creatures otherwise immune to critical hits.

I don't have my book in front of me, but I don't even think it's limited to one creature type each time you take the feat -- it's just an on-switch for critical hits against undead, contstructs, oozes, the whole nine yards.

Given that it's in Urban Arcana, we could imagine that there's a chance it'll appear in the 3.5 edition, althought I can imagine that it would be far too big a christmas present for rogues, who would also be able to use their sneak attacks on otherwise immune creatures.

-rg

Here's a link to the 3.5 updates that includes the new feat list:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rs/archive

No feat name that seems to fit such a feat.

And from what I've heard from WOTC in the past, the designers don't want undead to suffer from crits for reasons in my above post, but I can't remember who stated as much or when, so you'll have to trust me.

Personally, I agree that it would be a benny to rogues who don't need it.

 

[Grazzt]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Vital organs....

The zombies from the Night of the Living Dead movies weren't D&D zombies. They weren't magically animated and couldn't be "turned" or "rebuked". They were simply reanimated flesh. Kinda like Yellow Musk Zombies (only without the flowers in their hair) and weren't immune to critical hits.


Aaron

Yep. Well aware of that, but c'mon now...zombies are zombies. Magically animated zombies are reanimated flesh (reanimated through the use of magic). And I still don't think it was a crit.

 

[Larry Fitz]

A feat that allows critical hits on Constructs, Oozes and undead is akin to a feat that allows Spellcasters to ignore SR. It's unbalancing in my opinion. Of course players want it, because players are less interested in balance than they are in taking down their opponent. They will argue all sorts of reasons why "it makes sense" that they should be able to do this. It does not "make sense" however, what does is that the Iron Statue stays right where it is and doesn't get up at all, ditto the piles of corpses. Despite the plethora of combat feats, D20 is not a detailed realistic combat system, it is an approximation. If I try to vivisect a 19th level fighter on one table and a 2nd level wizard on another, it is not a more difficult proposition to cut into the Fighter. HP's do not represent actual physical damage. In fact according to the SRD, "All characters (and some items) have a certain number of hit points. Hit points represent a character's luck, health, and basic physical condition." Notice that they are not listed in alphabetical order and that Luck is listed first. To whit: How much damage would you say a scalpel does? D3? D4? Lets give it D4 and x4 crit, which is way too much. So if I have our fighter helpless on a table, all strapped down, and run the scalpel across his throat. I do 16 points of damage assuming I'm a weak little vivisectionist (STR 10) He makes a Fort Save (DC 26) which he makes easily (considering a modest +3 Con bonus he needs to roll a 4)In fact he only fails that save around 1 out of 7 times and since he probably has more than 112 HP it will be missing the save that gets him. Our Wizard on the other hand has the good sense to die weith my first cut. There is a 1 in 20 chance of him making the save, but the damage at that point leaves him bleeding to death anyway (if not out right killing him) Clearly this example shows the flaw in the realism of the system. The system is not designed to accurately reflect real world combat mechanics (that's why weapon speed was eliminated, it was a nod to real world mechanics in a system that wasn't about real world mechanics). All that being said, Constructs, Undead and OOzes do not exist in the real world. In the real world a Jellyfish is kind of easy to kill, Robots have not yet become indestructible kkilling machines(not yet anyway) and that pale guy in the black cape is just a disaffected teenager, not some sort of mysterious walking corpse. This is not a realism issue, this is a balance issue, undead are given a certain CR that considers the idea that they can't be critted or take sneak attack damage, allow that kind of damage and they are worth more xp than they should be. Somehow I doubt the other players would agree to losing a CR or 2 off of each undead or construct just so the Rogue can have yet another creature to shine against.

I used "To whit" and "Plethora" in this post... Yea me!

 

[jgbrowning]

Re: Vital organs....

I do agree with all of you who have posted.... and am aware of what the rule states.... I still have a hard time with it.... Considering the fact of what if I hit a zombie with a great sword... tore him open from shoulder to groin.... he may still be alive... I mean.. undead... but was a much more tremendous blow than just scrapping away some dead tissue from an arm....

instead of chipping away a fragment of rock from a stone golem, I fractue a leg which collapses beneath him....

Just because one blow does more damage than another, doesn't mean that blow was a "critical hit."

For it to be a critical hit it must have hit an organ or some other part vital to the functioning of the creature and do more damage only because it hit a vital area, not because it was a strong blow.

Do any of you have anything like that in your games? I do not want to seem difficult... but it still seems to me that you can critically hit something with out vital organs....

No. You can hit something very hard, but not critcally, because by definition, a critical requires a part of the creature to be vital to its functioning.

For example... a house may have no vital organs... but if I strike hard enough at a load bearing support.. the whole house may fall before I have spend days striking at it from every spot...

Very true. But a house that is held together only by magic (ie. constructs/undead) doesn't have to worry about load bearing supports because the "load" is spread evenly throughout the entire structure. The magic has removed any possible vital points because it is the magic, not the structure, that has to be "killed" before the creature dies.

Hence there are no vitals and no blow would justifiy doing increased damage because and only because a vital has been hit.

Your basically playing a word game. You have a picture in your head of very damaging strike to a construct/undead and they you're trying to justify such very damaging strikes by equating it to a critical strike. No, its just a damn good hit.

Now, if you were talking about non-magical construct. Of course you can critically hit them. Because they do have vitals. EX. hit the engine of a "mecha" and you've done additional damage based not upon the strength of your blow, but upon the location of your blow.

I hope this is clear, i didn't take a lot of time writing it.

joe b.