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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, one easy solution is to rule that, in most cases, things like Crippling Strike, Impeding Attack, Staggering Strike, maybe even Headshot, all work against many things that cannot suffer extra damage.

Actually I think, in most cases this is not correct. don't know what Headshot is (mechanically speaking), but I am pretty certain that Crippling and Staggering Strike don't work against most non-crittable creatures either. (It might be a separate immunity to ability damage in most cases, but I think the pairing is very common).

 

[Li Shenron]

It started with golems, which are essentially big blocks of solid matter. Things went a little nuts from there... tell me whacking a skeleton on the neck isn't critical.

Doesn't have to. It could just be a lucky roll that did max damage.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Or maybe losing those extra ribs from a critical hit means nothing to a skeleton, thus it's really immune since it doesn't destroy it faster.

If losing those extra ribs doesn't matter, why did losing the first couple ribs matter? This interpretation leaves skeletons indestructible, even after you've reduced them to malevolent bone dust.

 

[DM_Blake]

If losing those extra ribs doesn't matter, why did losing the first couple ribs matter? This interpretation leaves skeletons indestructible, even after you've reduced them to malevolent bone dust.

Good point.

I created a spell that essentially does this to skeletons and had a necromancer use it on a few skellies. Gave the party fits.

But, we're dealing with a magical world here. Magic has funny rules. It's not a big stretch to say that the magical power that animates the unliving bones requires a significant continuous structure and that breaking enough of the structure, or more specifically, breaking enough of it in different places, eventually dissipates the animating magic when the structure is sufficiently reduced.

This makes for some fun interpretations.

Suppose a fighter hits a skeleton in the wrist and severs the hand. Not enough HP damage to destroy it yet. The skeleton keeps advancing. So he hits it again in the same arm, near the writs, and severs a couple more inches of bone. This is essentially the same place, so the skeleton loses very little structure. Another hit to the same forearm, another little tiny bit of structure is lost. But hit the other forearm in the same place, severing that arm and hand, means a lot more structure removed.

I play them this way. I often tell a player who hits the skeleton for tiny damage that that is exactly what happened: he hit pretty much the same place as someone else just hit it and didn't really do much new damage.

I sometimes even describe a miss like this (much like I can describe missing a dragon as hitting it but bouncing off the hard scales).

I do other fun things with skeletons. They have no eye balls, so I figure they "see" their targets differently. Invisibility means nothing to them, as one of my players found out the hard way one day.

They have no need to move, ever, and can stand still as a statue indefinitely. So listening at the door will never hear a skeleton on the other side, even with a natural 20, unless it is under direction by its animator to do something. Open the door, and the skeleton who was animated with the order to attack anyone coming through the door will get complete surprise.

I have fun with the Monster Manuals. I put a little thought into each monster I use. Why it's there. What it's doing. How it goes about its day. And how the PCs are going to interact with it. Sometimes some pretty funny stuff comes up without breaking any boundaries of what makes sense.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I think another way to look at the "immune to critical" issue is that certain foes cannot feel pain, which can be seen as a critical component of the damage tracked by hit points.

 

[Klaus]

Well, Star Wars Saga has objects still be subject to critical hits. Since a lot of the ideas for 4e found their way to Saga (or vice versa), there's a good chance of crit-immunity going the way of the dodo in 4e.

 

[Fishbone]

Halle-mothereffin' lujah.
Such a stupid sacred cow, I'll be glad to have it gone.
If WOTC started dropping more things like this for 4E I'd definately give it a try, if not buy all the core books.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Good point.

I created a spell that essentially does this to skeletons and had a necromancer use it on a few skellies. Gave the party fits.

But, we're dealing with a magical world here. Magic has funny rules. It's not a big stretch to say that the magical power that animates the unliving bones requires a significant continuous structure and that breaking enough of the structure, or more specifically, breaking enough of it in different places, eventually dissipates the animating magic when the structure is sufficiently reduced.

This makes for some fun interpretations.

Suppose a fighter hits a skeleton in the wrist and severs the hand. Not enough HP damage to destroy it yet. The skeleton keeps advancing. So he hits it again in the same arm, near the writs, and severs a couple more inches of bone. This is essentially the same place, so the skeleton loses very little structure. Another hit to the same forearm, another little tiny bit of structure is lost. But hit the other forearm in the same place, severing that arm and hand, means a lot more structure removed.

Okay, then the fighters critical hit is actually a series of blows that hits multiple bones in various places, or that sunders multiple ones in a single strike.
There is nothing inherent about critical rules that require them to mean striking a specific, single organ (or bone in the skeletons case).

Maybe the Warhammer's approach is better. Rolling particulary well (on your damage, not on your attack percentile) leads to "Ulricks Fury", which deals more damage. Critical Hits happen if your hitpoints are reduced to 0 or less.

 

[hagor]

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).

It's almost scary how close this matches my own (humble) thoughts about this! I couldn't have said it better myself.

I have read other fine suggestions as well, such as crit (but still no sneak attack) with weapon that overcomes DR (even I have difficulty seeing how a skeleton can be critically hit by an arrow).

Hagor