What's the rationale behind non-crittable monsters again?

[WayneLigon]

That's not entirely true. I learned in sculpture class that rock does indeed have weak spots. I accidently broke a piece of stone in two by hitting it in the right place. Stands to reason you could do the same thing to a Golem.

You're just hitting common rock. Golems are made of magically strengthened materials. So, it doesn't stand to reason that something you're spending thousands of GP to make is going to have weak spots in it that some swordsman can cleave apart just because he happens to get lucky.

 

[CleverNickName]

I happen to like the limitations on critical hits. It forces the players to try different tactics and abilities, instead of repeating the same thing every round like a parrot. "Squaaaak, sneak attack, sneak attack! Squaaak!" I also like damage reduction and spell resistance for the same reason.

If 4E removes this restriction, I will have to put it back.

That being said, I have been known to override it on a case-by-case basis, however. In one particular vampire-hunt adventure, I ruled that a confirmed threat on a vampire with a wooden piercing weapon (such as an arrow or a stake) might destroy the vampire outright, as if it were a disrupting weapon. Furthermore, I ruled that vampires could be affected by vorpal weapons.

In either case, the attack did not do more damage because of the critical hit...it just presented the opportunity to destroy the creature outright.

But that takes us back to the old "save or die" boilerplate. People would rather have buckets and buckets of damage instead, even when the alternative is superior in their own favor, and that makes me sad.

 

[tomBitonti]

Straying into house rules, but I've been thinking that the ability to crit something should be knowledge and feat based.

Lots of details to work out, but your ability to crit / sneak attack a particular target would depend on your knowledge of their anatomy. Different creatures would have a skill level requirement to crit them -- BAB for creatures of your own type; Knowledge: Stonework for stone golems; Knowledge: Engineering for many other constructs. That works even better if we treat "healing" as "Knowledge: Anatomy", and give dwarfs "Knowledge: Stonework" as a class skill (for example).

Improved Critical could be an automatic benefit of a favored enemy ability, and you could take favored enemy (type) to allow criticals against foes of a particular type.

And, particular foes could have a crit modifier that made it harder to achieve a critical against them. The simplest that I can think of is an extra critical confirmation role, very similar to the miss roll for concealment.

Letting this gel ... give particular creatures a "critical difficulty rating" and have an extra roll against this rating, modified by +1 for every 5 points of knowledge of the appropriate type and with a bonus due to favored enemy as well.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Interesting discussion. Thing is, since "normal" attacks in D&D basically are a character swinging at the general area of his opponent, trying his best to land a solid hit and do some significant damage, critical hits should be those rare "YES! I aimed for the head and HIT IT!" attacks that can happen in a fight through a combination of luck (rolling the Threat) and competence (rolling the Confirmation), and that simply damage something critical to the opponent's health (or in case of undead/constructs, their structural soundness ).

As such, I would only exempt the oozes from critical damage, but everything else does have some parts that, if hit strong enough, will lead to a faster demise.

Sneak attack, on the other hand, is expressively described as the rogue stabbing for the vital parts of some victim, which is why opponents without discernible or unknown anatomy, for example, are immune to sneak attack damage.

I'd prefer to have those two damage types treated differently, since they represent something different in the intention. Immune to crits should apply only to creatures that really don't have any more vulnerable spot on their body. Sneak attack immunity should apply to creatures where the rogue simply has no idea what to hit for greater damage, and should be remediable by offering feats based on ranks in Knowledge (Undead/Constructs).

Heh, and another idea that will probably fester into a houserule sooner or later.

 

[Shieldhaven]

I think the rationale behind critical hits will also see considerable reworking now that Fireball (and presumably other damaging spells) can strike critically. I have rather a hard time with "This area attack struck one of your vital organs," because "the face" as a vital organ breaks down in weird ways as a justification.

Haven

 

[Drammattex]

Perhaps a house rule that a DR'ed weapon can't do a critical may be a better approach. Sure, you can crit a skeleton with a club..but not a arrow.

I'm going to steal this and use it in my game. Great idea.

The two years I've played at D&D Game Day, there have been undead which effectively rendered the rogues useless.

 

[Celebrim]

If it bleeds, you can crit it.

It isn't the physical trauma that kills you. It's the deprivation of oxygen to your cells, and particularly your brain cells.

It doesn't matter if zombies still have brains. They don't have blood.

The whole system is abstract. The rationale behind 'non-crittable monsters' is, "This monster is somewhat harder to kill than its hit points indicate", or more to the point, "somewhat harder to kill than its skill in combat would indicate." You could do that with bonus hit points, but 'no crits' is just abit more flavorable.

The only problem with non-crittable monsters is rogues vs. undead, and only because it is a common situation. It hasn't been a problem in my experience, because generally where I have lots of undead I also have lots of traps and other things for rogues to do. However, I recognize that its a situation that sucks for a rogue player if it becomes to common.

My general feeling on undead is that if it isn't eligible for a CON bonus, its also immune to criticals. If that just sucks for the rogue, DMs have a responcibility to make sure that thier rogue players have something to do rather than sending nothing but critical immune monsters against them. Whether you intend this or not, it is almost the same thing as singling out a particular player for abuse. The occasional undead creature will remind them that they are a rogue and not a fighter. Nothing but makes them wish they were a fighter rather than a rogue. That's not fun.

Some other thoughts:

Bashing a skeleton's skull into peices will destroy it, but not more easily or effectively than breaking a bunch of its other bones. When fighting a skeleton, you are fighting a spell that is tied to the creatures physical form. As far as the spell is concerned, a bone is a bone. Merely cracking the skeleton's skull is no more effective than merely cracking a tibia or a rib. The same is not true of you.

Yes, you can learn how to exploit the weaknesses in rock to get good at bashing apart golems. This however is a feat based on an unusual skill at attacking inanimate objects, not a general ability of people hacking on rock.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I happen to like the limitations on critical hits. It forces the players to try different tactics and abilities, instead of repeating the same thing every round like a parrot. "Squaaaak, sneak attack, sneak attack! Squaaak!" I also like damage reduction and spell resistance for the same reason.

While I agree, there is in my experience a sad lack of creatures on which Squaaak! Two handed power attack charge! Squaaak!!! doesn't work but critting does. So finessed/crit monkeys/rogues get to try different tactics and abilities, which is cool, but why shouldn't the two handed tank? (and there are always challanges in how to get the sneak attack - sometimes feint works, sometimes you need the flank, etc)

 

[Celebrim]

While I agree, there is in my experience a sad lack of creatures on which Squaaak! Two handed power attack charge! Squaaak!!! doesn't work but critting does. So finessed/crit monkeys/rogues get to try different tactics and abilities, which is cool, but why shouldn't the two handed tank? (and there are always challanges in how to get the sneak attack - sometimes feint works, sometimes you need the flank, etc)

True enough, but there are a comparitively larger number of situations in which a rogues skills are helpful, compared to the skills a fighter have. So if a fighter is not great in combat, then they just suck. The same isn't true of a rogue. If you wanted to be great in combat all the time, perhaps you should have been a fighter.

 

[IceFractal]

The problem, at least in 3E, with making constructs crit-able, is that a number of other effects also run off the same variable.

For instance, a feat that let you cut an artery and cause a bleeding wound, in 3E, would probably have a line saying "this doesn't work on things that are immune to crits". So you make the Golem crit-able because someone could hit it at a stress point and make it crack, and suddenly you have people causing bleeding wounds on stone golems.

If they separated "crit-able" and "has a functioing anatomy", and said, for instance, that you could crit a zombie (representing cutting off a piece), but you couldn't hamstring it or give it a bleeding wound, that'd work for me.


For that matter, I haven't seen that much evidence that undead in general can be critted in 4E, just zombies. It could be a special quality of zombies, to represent their tendency to fall apart.