D&D 5E Is there a way to negate critical hits without adamantine armour?

[pming]

Hiya!

Now, I'm just spit-balling here, and this suggestion is pretty far out there, but, uh, maybe talk to your DM?

Really, just ask him/her and explain your character concept. There is absolutely nothing stopping you and the DM from coming up with some cool back story to explain this. Maybe your character's mother was under a curse, or maybe you were accidentally baptized in diluted waters form the River Styx, or any number of other fantastic ways. Then all you and your DM have to come up with is the mechanics; maybe you get 2hp per level. Period. But you are immune to critical hits as nothing can "pierce your skin"; broken bones, bruised muscles, traumatized internal organs...yes, but you never "bleed" from this and your skin is never 'pierced' (re: you can't take critical damage...you can be criticaled for other effects, but you just don't take extra HP damage).

The bottom line is that for things that lay outside what the guidelines/rules in the game give you, you make up. That is the nature of the game. Imagination and creativity. Do that.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I dunno about other players, but if anyone in my party is going to be squishy, I'd rather it NOT be the guy who's likely to be the party healer. My group had an early session where our Cleric was knocked unconscious at least 3 times(pretty sure 2 of them were in one fight), and it was FRUSTRATING.

A tempest cleric is not the party healer. Actually, healing during combat is quite ineffective in 5th edition, if you are not the life cleric.

 

[Rhenny]

I dunno about other players, but if anyone in my party is going to be squishy, I'd rather it NOT be the guy who's likely to be the party healer. My group had an early session where our Cleric was knocked unconscious at least 3 times(pretty sure 2 of them were in one fight), and it was FRUSTRATING.

My group knows how to play without relying on in-combat healing, and our DM has given us access to some healing potions throughout our campaign (not a lot, but enough to save for emergencies...like giving my cleric a swig when they need me to shake off my wounds).

Our entire group was built by us rolling for ability scores in order, 4d6 drop one, no rearranging. I rolled a 13 Strength, 17 for Dex, 10 Con, 13 Int, 13 Wis, and a 11 Cha, took the Human Variant (adding +1 to dex and wis), and invented the back story taking the duelist feat to try it out and fit with the backstory. Since I was the only one in the group that had ability scores and the inclination to make a Cleric, I became the de-facto healer. The other players respect the fact that my PC is who he his, and they don't force him to be on call all the time to heal them. I generally wait until after combat to use healer feat, cure spells, etc.

If I were playing in a public venue with strangers, I would not try to play such a character, but with friends and people who understand how to roleplay and avoid combat when they can, it is a lot of fun.

 

[Duan'duliir]

Hiya!

Now, I'm just spit-balling here, and this suggestion is pretty far out there, but, uh, maybe talk to your DM?

Really, just ask him/her and explain your character concept. There is absolutely nothing stopping you and the DM from coming up with some cool back story to explain this. Maybe your character's mother was under a curse, or maybe you were accidentally baptized in diluted waters form the River Styx, or any number of other fantastic ways. Then all you and your DM have to come up with is the mechanics; maybe you get 2hp per level. Period. But you are immune to critical hits as nothing can "pierce your skin"; broken bones, bruised muscles, traumatized internal organs...yes, but you never "bleed" from this and your skin is never 'pierced' (re: you can't take critical damage...you can be criticaled for other effects, but you just don't take extra HP damage).

The bottom line is that for things that lay outside what the guidelines/rules in the game give you, you make up. That is the nature of the game. Imagination and creativity. Do that.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Thanks, Paul.
This seems like my best bet, and since its in the epic levels, he will be more than likely to allow this to happen.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The character will be a Follower of the Way of the Long Death, so they do actually have a death wish.

Wait. Just a follower, or an actual Monk of Long Death? Because a Monk of Long Death is essentially unkillable through HP damage and has no reason to worry at all about critical hits.

If you're really worried about running out of Lucky uses, find a way to impose disadvantage on enemy attacks. Since you're in epic levels, there should be plenty of options, starting with Dodge, working up to Otto's Irresistable Dance, Devil's Sight + Darkness, Foresight, etc. Though honestly I don't expect running out of Luck to be a real problem. Even without disadvantage, you'd have to average 60 attacks (on that PC) to get up to 3 crits, and if they are crits from weak creatures (CR 5ish or below) you can ignore them. No way are you going to face routinely 60 non-disadvantaged attacks per day from strong creatures (CR 12ish on up) on one PC unless you're in a solo game or are completely tactically inept.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

According to Crawford, cutting words cuts crits:

Q: Can I cancel a "Natural 20 Critical Hit" using Cutting Words?
A: Yes, You can.
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/672608353487470592

"...you can use your reaction to expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and subtracting the number rolled from the creature’s roll."
Sounds like if you roll say a 4 on a Bardic Inspiration die then the number on the d20 is not considered 20 but 16.

Bards are the masters of metagaming. lol

What? Really? Color me extremely surprised that this is RAI. I guess that means they can grant crits as well. But what happens if you accidentally turn an ally's attack into a 21 instead of a 20? Is it not a crit? Is it a triple-crit?

 

[Inconnunom]

What? Really? Color me extremely surprised that this is RAI. I guess that means they can grant crits as well. But what happens if you accidentally turn an ally's attack into a 21 instead of a 20? Is it not a crit? Is it a triple-crit?

As a DM i would say that If you managed to roll exactly a 20 (not a 21 or greater) I would allow it. Just like how vorpal sword triggers off of a 20 on the die, not just a "crit" like with a champions' improved critical.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As a DM i would say that If you managed to roll exactly a 20 (not a 21 or greater) I would allow it. Just like how vorpal sword triggers off of a 20 on the die, not just a "crit" like with a champions' improved critical.

That means that Bardic Inspiration actually gets worse at creating crits as you go up in levels, because the variance increases.

 

[Rhenny]

That means that Bardic Inspiration actually gets worse at creating crits as you go up in levels, because the variance increases.

Yeah...that's why I would rule that it doesn't affect the natural 20 roll. Someone should tweet Jeremy Crawford on this one.

I tweeted Mr. Crawford. I'll post response when I get it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah...that's why I would rule that it doesn't affect the natural 20 roll. Someone should tweet Jeremy Crawford on this one.

I tweeted Mr. Crawford. I'll post response when I get it.

Note that the Bless spell uses exactly the same verbiage as Cutting Words: it affects "the roll." If "natural 20" is interpreted to mean "after accounting for things that affect the roll, but before modifiers" then Bless will increase the incidence of critical hits.

It will be interesting to hear Crawford explain himself on this one, so thank you for asking him, but after thinking about it for a bit I'm pretty sure that I'm not ever going to use this interpretation of critical hits/misses. For me, natural 20 = crit, and nothing can affect that except things which explicitly manipulate the dice roll: disadvantage and being Lucky.