Why are things immune to crits?

[jessemock]

Naw if I'd meant "don't", I would have said "don't". Like I said, that stuff doesn't impress any of us.

Trying to correct grammer just to be snarky doesn't win you any points around here. It just makes you look like a twit.

I'm not trying to win points; I'm simply pointing out that, if you want to correct someone's style, you can't make any mistakes of your own while doing it, which you did by conjugating the verb 'to do' incorrectly.

It's 'grammar', by the way.

No particular part of the trunk is more vital than any other. So you don't do any extra damage by hitting it in one part of the trunk as opposed to the other. Thus, hitting the trunk is just normal hit point damage, not critical damage.

I didn't say that any part of the trunk is more vital than any other; I said that the trunk is more vital than any other part of the tree, meaning that a hit against the trunk is more important than a hit against a leaf.

The trunk is also readily available to be hit. This does not mean that every hit is necessarily a critical one, nor did I ever suggest that this should be the case.

Quite the contrary, I suggested using a modified form of the critical hit system that would allow for slashing weapons to cause critical hits against plants.

This would make critical hits against plants possible.

Making something possible does not mean that it is so in every case. Just possible.

Why should magically animated rock be vulnerable to critical hits? Other than you wanting it be vulnerable?

Because rocks have vital areas, points of weakness that are more vulnerable than other parts of the rock.

That's why.

What parts does a golem have that are vital? You can lop it's head off, it doesn't care. You can lop a limb off, it keeps on coming. You can blow a gaping whole in it's chest, it's not even slowed down.

The rock part, if it's a stone Golem; the trunk part, possibly, if it's a flesh or iron Golem. I would suggest that cutting a Golem in half at the middle would diminish its effectiveness as a combatant.

A car on the other hand would be what I call a "complex device" - you take out the the fuel line, the black box, or any of a dozen other components, and the car might stop working or show a degraded performance.

Yes, yes; it just might.

 

[jessemock]

Naw if I'd meant "don't", I would have said "don't". Like I said, that stuff doesn't impress any of us.

Trying to correct grammer just to be snarky doesn't win you any points around here. It just makes you look like a twit.

I'm not trying to win points; I'm simply pointing out that, if you want to correct someone's style, you can't make any mistakes of your own while doing it, which you did by conjugating the verb 'to do' incorrectly.

It's 'grammar', by the way.

No particular part of the trunk is more vital than any other. So you don't do any extra damage by hitting it in one part of the trunk as opposed to the other. Thus, hitting the trunk is just normal hit point damage, not critical damage.

I didn't say that any part of the trunk is more vital than any other; I said that the trunk is more vital than any other part of the tree, meaning that a hit against the trunk is more important than a hit against a leaf.

The trunk is also readily available to be hit. This does not mean that every hit is necessarily a critical one, nor did I ever suggest that this should be the case.

Quite the contrary, I suggested using a modified form of the critical hit system that would allow for slashing weapons to cause critical hits against plants.

This would make critical hits against plants possible.

Making something possible does not mean that it is so in every case. Just possible.

Why should magically animated rock be vulnerable to critical hits? Other than you wanting it be vulnerable?

Because rocks have vital areas, points of weakness that are more vulnerable than other parts of the rock.

That's why.

What parts does a golem have that are vital? You can lop it's head off, it doesn't care. You can lop a limb off, it keeps on coming. You can blow a gaping whole in it's chest, it's not even slowed down.

The rock part, if it's a stone Golem; the trunk part, possibly, if it's a flesh or iron Golem. I would suggest that cutting a Golem in half at the middle would diminish its effectiveness as a combatant.

A car on the other hand would be what I call a "complex device" - you take out the the fuel line, the black box, or any of a dozen other components, and the car might stop working or show a degraded performance.

Yes, yes; it just might.

 

[AuraSeer]

I'm not trying to win points; I'm simply pointing out that, if you want to correct someone's style, you can't make any mistakes of your own while doing it, which you did by conjugating the verb 'to do' incorrectly.

And if you're going to post a correction at all, make sure the aspect you're trying to correct is actually an error.

The relevant part of Caliban's post said: "a bunch of big words that really doesn't impress any of us." This is grammatically correct. In this construction, the phrase starting with "that" is a modifier of the noun "bunch." Since "bunch" is singular, the verb "does" is in the correct form to agree with it. The prepositional phrase "of big words" also modifies the noun "bunch," not the rest of the sentence.

In connecting the plural form of the verb, "do," to the plural noun "words," you are turning everything after "bunch" into a single prepositional phrase. This is also gramatically correct, but it changes the meaning of the sentence.

The original version means: there is a bunch (of something) that doesn't impress us, and that bunch happens to be made up of big words.
Your version means: there are some big words that don't impress us, and those words happen to come in a bunch.

In short, Caliban's text was correct as written, and your attempt to pick nits only showed off your own shortcomings.

Did you really want to lose a grammatical argument this afternoon, or were you just trying to distract attention from your total lack of anything useful to say?

 

[ruleslawyer]

urk.

 

[ruleslawyer]

ack.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I've always thought there should be somesortof differeniation should be made between Hard To Crit (Undead), Nearly Impossible To Crit (Golem), and Completely Impossible to Crit (Ooze).

This distinction should really be seen as "hard to damage really effectively" vs. "nearly impossible to damage really effectively" vs. "completely impossible to damage really effectively." As such, there already is a model for this: Extra hit points. Both the "nearly impossible" and "completely impossible" categories get them, while the "hard" category doesn't. Additionally, the "impossible" category gets a Con score (even MORE hit points).

jessemock: I think you're missing the operational principle behind critical hits in D&D, or at least confusing it with the idea of damage in general. A tree trunk is no more a vital part of the tree than my torso is of me. Is someone who wants to kill me better off aiming at my torso than, say, my fingers or my ponytail? Yes. Will a sufficient number of hits to my torso kill me? Yes. Will any single hit to my torso that does not target an exceptionally vulnerable system in that torso (my heart, my lungs, my kidneys, my liver) constitute a "critical hit"? No.

As the rules stand, a skilled woodsman (fighter) can place hits more accurately on the tree's body (namely, on its trunk) than an unskilled woodsman (fighter). A skilled woodsman (fighter) can even choose to make a "called shot" to inflict extra damage (Power Attack). Someone who really hates trees, or who's really good at cutting them down compared to more general axe-wielders of similar skill, can do still more damage (favored enemy). What none of these folk can do is target vital systems on a tree's trunk or rock's surface to inflict additional damage (critical hits). Why? Because they don't have vital systems. QED.

The point is that if you're not targeting a tree's trunk or a rock's stress point, you're not doing real damage at ALL. Critical hits represent a special form of damage to vital organs, of which trees and rocks have none.

 

[jessemock]

jessemock: I think you're missing the operational principle behind critical hits in D&D, or at least confusing it with the idea of damage in general. Critical hits represent a special form of damage to vital organs, of which trees and rocks have none.

No; critical hits do not represent a special form of damage to vital organs alone; they also represent damage to points of weakness, of which both plants and rocks have some, if not an abundance.

The confusion results in part from the abstraction of the combat: I have no idea why something I've killed has died.

In fact, I have no idea why my critical hit has occured; I simply know that it has and that this is because the thing I hit had vital organs or points of weakness which I happened to hit.

Furthermore, it seems that the critical hit system relies on the qualities of the attacked, rather than the attacker, when determining whether or not a critical hit is possible. Critical hits occur due to luck, not knowledge of anatomy.

Mindless creatures have just as much of a chance to hit critically as thinking creatures, and the improved critical feat gives a bonus for a certain weapon--the exact opposite of an anatomy-based effect.

Now, it is in fact the case that a tree's trunk is more vital to its functioning than yours is to yours: forgive me the grotesque image, but you can survive being cut off at the waist, while a tree never can.

Analogously, fault lines run through stone that, once struck cause irreperable damage to the stone.

Plants actually split rocks by pressing their roots into precisely these faults.

Why can't I do that?

Keep in mind, too, that the critical hit system takes absolutely no account of the effect of critical hits on any particualr vital organs or points of weakness: a character may have his vital organs stabbed a dozen times and show it absolutely not at all.

Why, then, can't a DM say, "you confirm the crit: you take a super-sized chunk out of the tree's trunk" or "you hear a loud crack deep in the body of the golem," just as readily as "um...I don't know...you hit the goblin in the spleen?"

 

[Caliban]

No; critical hits do not represent a special form of damage to vital organs alone; they also represent damage to points of weakness, of which both plants and rocks have some, if not an abundance.
[/b]

This is an incorrect assumption. Critical hits in D&D do in fact represet damage done to vital organ, as has been pointed out over and over again, with direct quotes from the 3.5 books.

And the trunk of a tree is not a single vital organ, it's composed of many lesser subsystems that are dispersed. A tree can take many more ax blows than a human can. Doing damage to the trunk of a tree is not the result of a single lucky axe blow, it takes multiple blows and strength and skill matter do the damage, not lucky shots.

 

[Anthron]

This is an incorrect assumption. Critical hits in D&D do in fact represet damage done to vital organ, as has been pointed out over and over again, with direct quotes from the 3.5 books.

And the trunk of a tree is not a single vital organ, it's composed of many lesser subsystems that are dispersed. A tree can take many more ax blows than a human can. Doing damage to the trunk of a tree is not the result of a single lucky axe blow, it takes multiple blows and strength and skill matter do the damage, not lucky shots.

Though that tree is not immune to those lucky shot, they are not only susceptible to more damaging hits they are susceptible to exceptionally damaging hit.

It is rather hard to try and think through this when the HP system is so abstract to begin with, with there being no real hit locations there would have to be a more or less an abstract 'vital organ' which twice as much damage is take that comes with comes with any creature with organs. Not only that but its random chance that you can find that organ unless you are a rogue.

If any other organ were hit there would be many more problems then simply more damaging, most organs being struck with a sword or and axe would be lethal, if not immediately then eventually (and not every critical is healed by divine means).

I think the system is far to abstract to try and bring something such as reality into it on either side of the argument. This may be one of those rules that just has to be, changing it would cause more problems then it is worth and even then wouldn't be totaly right.

 

[Caliban]

It's actually not all that hard. I can see a lucky axe blow killing any human with one shot. A hit to the head, throat, heart, lungs, spleen, etc can theoretically kill any human.


A single axe blow will not kill a tree (unless done with massive force or the tree is a sapling), no matter where you hit it. There is simply no single part of the tree that is vitally important for it to live.