So how do criticals work?

[EastbySoutheast]

Okay so I was talking to my DM earlier and according to what he was saying I've been doing things wrong since day 1 and that kinda worrys me. Also from what he said it completely invalidated the build I was planning but anyway...
So a character with a weapon with a crit range of 18-20 rolls a natural 18 to attack thus a Critical Threat.
No matter what the critical confirm roll is does the character still have a normal attack against the opponent because of this?
Obviously you need to get a roll plus attack modifier to score an actual critical but Im just trying to clear up if getting a critical threat means you've made a hit no matter what?

[Jeraa]

Okay so I was talking to my DM earlier and according to what he was saying I've been doing things wrong since day 1 and that kinda worrys me. Also from what he said it completely invalidated the build I was planning but anyway...
So a character with a weapon with a crit range of 18-20 rolls a natural 18 to attack thus a Critical Threat.
No matter what the critical confirm roll is does the character still have a normal attack against the opponent because of this?
Obviously you need to get a roll plus attack modifier to score an actual critical but Im just trying to clear up if getting a critical threat means you've made a hit no matter what?

Doesn't matter what your critical threat range is. Only a natural 20 on the die is an automatic hit.

[OldTrees1]

First you need to hit (Attack total vs AC). Natural 1s always miss and Natural 20s always hit nothing else is automatic regardless of crit range.

If they hit (rolled a 20, or sufficient attack) then check if the roll was within the crit range(18-20 in your example).

If it was in the crit range, roll another attack roll(called a confirmation roll). If successful then they crit.


Summary: Did they hit? -> Was it a crit threat? -> Did they crit?


It is possible to roll an 18(inside the crit range) but miss your attack(attack total less than the AC). Likewise it is possible to roll an 18(inside the crit range) and hit and yet still not crit.

[Douglas]

On a related subject, even a natural 20 can miss due to concealment or other sources of miss chance.

To put the main subject another way, expanding your crit range does nothing at all to reduce the relevance of your target's AC. Doesn't matter what your crit range is, to score any hit at all you have to beat AC or get a natural 20.

[Abd al-Azrad]

On a related subject, even a natural 20 can miss due to concealment or other sources of miss chance.

To put the main subject another way, expanding your crit range does nothing at all to reduce the relevance of your target's AC. Doesn't matter what your crit range is, to score any hit at all you have to beat AC or get a natural 20.

That said, if you are consistently missing your foes while rolling 18+ on the die, something is seriously going wrong with either your build or the game world. Or at the very least, your choice of foes.

[Zaq]

That said, if you are consistently missing your foes while rolling 18+ on the die, something is seriously going wrong with either your build or the game world. Or at the very least, your choice of foes.

. . . Or you're on your fourth iterative against a high-AC opponent.

[atemu1234]

. . . Or you're on your fourth iterative against a high-AC opponent.

Maybe this.

[Chronos]

Eh, if you're high enough level to have four iteratives, then you should probably have enough odd assorted bonuses that a natural 18 will still hit. There are a lot more bonuses to attack than to AC.

[SiuiS]

So a character with a weapon with a crit range of 18-20 rolls a natural 18 to attack thus a Critical Threat.
No matter what the critical confirm roll is does the character still have a normal attack against the opponent because of this?
Obviously you need to get a roll plus attack modifier to score an actual critical but Im just trying to clear up if getting a critical threat means you've made a hit no matter what?

No. You do not hit no matter what on a critical threat. You c annoy get a critical unless you hit.

If you roll an 18 (a critical threat) and miss the opponent because your total Attack was too low, you do not hit them and you do not roll to confirm the threat. You just miss and move on.

[Eloel]

Eh, if you're high enough level to have four iteratives, then you should probably have enough odd assorted bonuses that a natural 18 will still hit. There are a lot more bonuses to attack than to AC.

Hitting with 18 on a 4th iterative is equivalent to hitting with 3 on the 1st iterative. If you're hitting with a 3, you're probably not using enough PA.

[Chronos]

Ah, true, I forgot about Power Attack. I was thinking of the clerzilla I played a while back, who hit pretty reliably on all of his attacks, but I didn't have room in the build for Power Attack.

[Douglas]

Eh, if you're high enough level to have four iteratives, then you should probably have enough odd assorted bonuses that a natural 18 will still hit. There are a lot more bonuses to attack than to AC.
Depends on your level and optimization. There are a few big and easy to get bonuses to attack, but there are a great many more bonuses to AC available, and at a certain level of optimization the sheer number of AC bonuses you can combine will overwhelm attack bonus.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Depends on your level and optimization. There are a few big and easy to get bonuses to attack, but there are a great many more bonuses to AC available, and at a certain level of optimization the sheer number of AC bonuses you can combine will overwhelm attack bonus.

I've always experienced the polar opposite

[Douglas]

I've always experienced the polar opposite
The level of optimization I'm talking about is pretty damn high, and also generally requires a fairly high character level to have enough room to fit all the different things into one build. For one example, I once made a character for a level 50 gestalt arena that had I think 300-something AC but I had a hard time getting his attack bonus into the upper one hundred range. For another, see the Team Solars link in my sig - AC 121, attack bonus 73 for one character, and similar numbers for the rest, at level 18.

For one example of ways this comes to pass, do you have any idea how many ways there are to add intelligence, wisdom, or charisma to your AC in addition to normal bonuses, and how many of them can stack with each other? It's a very high number. Now, how many ways are there to add an extra ability score to your attack bonus in addition to the normal one? There are several ways to substitute a different score, but for this you specifically need adding on top. I can think of one offhand, and I think I found one or two more in my exhaustive search for building that level 50 gestalt arena character. That's 2 or 3, total. Pathetic by comparison.