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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jessemock" data-source="post: 1301538" data-attributes="member: 15694">The feats obviously demonstrate that no knowledge of anatomy is involved on the attacker's part:  it is not the case that I know anatomy better when I attack with the punch dagger for which I have the Improved Crit. feat, than when I attack with a plain ole dagger, for which I don't.Knowledge of anatomy is meaningless.  Mindless creatures may cause critical hits; they have no knowledge of anatomy.Incorrect:  I have no idea what I'm hitting when I hit.  If I hit, I cause damage.  If by chance I hit someplace special, then I cause extra damage.  The branches of a tree are someplace not-so-special, but still pretty good.  The stem of a plant is someplace special.The better analogy to your ponytail would be the leaves.  I must have missed that in the plant definition.  Could you point it out to me?  What you're offering here has no value except as a rationalization for the rule that's in question.  You're not justifying the rule; you're trying to envision what the consequences of it would be, if it were valid.I'm asking:  is it valid?I'm not.  A critical hit doesn't mean anything except for an increase in damage.  It has no other effects.Targetable vital organs is, once again, not the question, and actually has nothing to with critical hits.  There are no targetable vital organs in D&D, except in certain very specific cases, of which critical hits are not one.  A critical hit comes from luck, not from targeting.Anyhow, as you've said, it shouldn't count as much if I hit the branches as it does if I hit the trunk.  But you are incorrect in suggesting that any damage to the branches is meaningless.  An attack against one of its branches hurts a tree; an attack against its trunk hurts it more.  No; it's like saying that a humanoid body has vital areas all over it, which it does.Yes; actually, it can and does.  I can kill a tree by cutting off all of its branches or by stripping off its bark or by poisoning it or by digging up its roots and hacking them off or by one mighty blow to its trunk or by several good shots to its trunk.  It's not my fault that the trunk is so huge and so vulnerable, but neither is it my fault that a helpless humanoid is so vulnerable.  The automatic critical hit that I get from a coup de grace against a helpless humanoid perfectly parallels the relative ease with which I cut down an immobile tree.  I think that, if I'm fighting, say, an animated tree, and it's attacking me with its branches and whatnot, then I'll be lucky to get in there and take a good whack at the trunk.  Why, I bet I would only be able to do it, oh, 5% of the time.Can you think of a good way to represent that lucky shot at a tree's vital area?I can.</blockquote>

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