Question on critical and automatic hits

[keeper2161]

So my group has been playing that if you have 16-20 and roll a 17 its a automatic hit and critical. Now I just read the rules and it says that only a 20 is automatic hit. I have only played 3.0 and 3.5 is there a previous edition where the 16-20 range is a automatic and critical hit? I ask because my dad taught me d&d and I was wondering if he used rules from previous editions.

[georgie_leech]

That's a straight up houserule. The closest would be misunderstanding how the expanded critical range on, say, a Scimitar works, but even then that would be a 18-20, not 16+. That's a straight up 25% of all possible results; you may as well roll a d4.

[keeper2161]

The 16-20 was an example I came up in my head. The question was whether the 17 was an automatic hit and a critical hit.

[georgie_leech]

You are correct. To reiterate, expanded crit ranges increase the number of critical hits you threaten; it does not let you automatically hit on anything other than a 20.

[Douglas]

This is a common misunderstanding, but as far as I know has no basis anywhere in anything beyond the "common sense" assumption that "it threatens a crit, of course it has to hit to do that, duh!"

The way the rules actually work is that anything in the crit range other than a natural 20 still has to check for beating the target's AC (and miss chance, etc., if applicable). If the target's AC is too high, it just misses instead, and does not actually threaten a crit at all.

[manyslayer]

It could also come from someone having played the D&D miniature game where expanded crit ranges were rare but anything in the crit range was an auto hit (and confirm, for that matter).

[Chronos]

Is your dad a time traveler? Because it does work that way in 5th.