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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 4878819" data-attributes="member: 7635">Currently, the crit-immune things consist ofElementals (no anatomy; basically animated pools of element)Plants (foreign anatomy because their sentient salad)Undead (not alive, thus no soft-spots)Constructs (not alive, thus no soft-spots)Ooze (no anatomy, just puddles of snot)Incorporal Creatures (commonly undead, but also some ethereal beings as well)(In additons, SA's are foiled by concealment from any source). Crit-immune creatures fall into two camps: No "organs" (plant, undead, construct) and amorphous form (elemental, ooze, incoporal).The former is easy to justify removing: anything that can be hit with a sword can be hit "harder". A skeleton can be hobbled by breaking some ribs, or a golem have a weak spot in his armor chinked and a lucky blow on a plant-based monster cuts deeper than a normal blow could. This group is easy to justify half (or full) SA against, as well as crits (save for the lower hp totals on undead and on constructs). The latter group presents an interesting quandry; if an elemental or ooze has no real facing or anatomy; what are you hitting in the first place? Is the fighter chopping off puddles of goo with every swing? What, exactly, does a fireball do to an air elemental? This begins the long debate on what hp represents and what each "blow" really does. In fact, the whole "anatomy" rule seems pretty weak to justify anyway; a sneak attack doesn't actually target a foes vital organ (no rogue backstabbing an orc punctures a lung or breaks a femur) it just abstracts an attack for purposes of widdling down a foe to the killing blow. In that case, what difference does it make if the foe has an anatomy or not? Unless fireballs cause blisters or sneak attacks puncture lungs, anatomy doesn't factor into D&D combat. (I purposely left out incoporal creatures because they form a second quandry: how do you hit something that isn't even "there"? By the rules, 50% of all magical non-force/ghost touch attacks hits a ghostly foe.)This returns us to the original point: It seems odd to have a group of foes immune to crits/SAs based on a simulation-style ruling when in no way, shape or form does simulation play into D&D combat (if it did, we'd have lasting injury tables). It seems tailor made just to chuck...AND YETAs Obryn said, removing these immunities weakens those foes; particularly undead who suffer for a sever lack of hp as it stands. Perhaps the half-dice SA would be enough of an incentive to allow rogues to want to try and set up SAs (of course, oozes and elementals are immune to flanking as well) but without the insta-splat of a full-on SA attack. At most, a 20th level rogue is adding 5d6 damage to his SA vs. said foes, roughly what a 10th level rogue is doing to his normal foes. Crits are another matter. Since any class can crit (and no class is built around critting, though some character builds can be) leaving well-enough alone seems perfectly reasonable. Of course, so does ignoring the anatomy rule and stating "if you can hit it, you can crit it". Choices, choices...</blockquote>

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