Can Monsters Critically Hit?

[Giant2005]

The question sounds stupid I know... But the option of using the creature's average damage rather than rolling makes me wonder if Monsters are supposed to critically hit at all.
If you are using the average damage and double it on a crit, the monster will be dealing too much damage due to that average factoring in damage additives like the creature's Strength bonus. Ideally you would subtract the additive bonuses, double the result and then add those additives back in to get a proper result but obviously that sounds clunky as hell - too clunky for me to be 100% sure that that is the intention.

[Malifice]

Might want to look a bit closer at the monster entries mate. They all have an entry called 'critical' in the damage section for critical damage.

[Giant2005]

Might want to look a bit closer at the monster entries mate. They all have an entry called 'critical' in the damage section for critical damage.

Are you sure?
After reading your message I have checked a few times and can't find anything (Although I seriously believe I could still be overlooking it). For example, the Zombie's only attack is listed as follows: "Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) bludgeoning damage."
I don't see any critical entry in there and my admittedly sucky searching skills aren't good enough to find anything else in the rest of the entry either.

[KorvinStarmast]

Might want to look a bit closer at the monster entries mate. They all have an entry called 'critical' in the damage section for critical damage. Which edition are you referring to?

[Malifice]

Which edition are you referring to?

Jeeze - you're right. What system am I thinking of?

[charlesk]

I can't imagine why they wouldn't. The average damage is just a short cut which doesn't take them into account.

There are a couple of monsters with special abilities that activate on crits.. such as the balor.

[ImSAMazing]

Jeeze - you're right. What system am I thinking of?

3rd edition D7D

[Giant2005]

I can't imagine why they wouldn't. The average damage is just a short cut which doesn't take them into account.

There are a couple of monsters with special abilities that activate on crits.. such as the balor.

The Balor seems pretty conclusive to me!
Monsters absolutely should be critting.

However, if we are using the average damages listed in the book, how exactly do we do the crits? Are we supposed to reverse engineer the crit damage, or do we just double the whole thing?

[MiKor49]

Rules lawyer to the rescue!
It's in dmg on page 248. Short version is that monsters CAN (and will) score critical hits, and when using average damage you add damage dice to the average. e.g. minotaur skeleton deals 17 (2d12 + 4), whe scoring critical hit he deals 17 + 2d12 damage

[Giant2005]

Rules lawyer to the rescue!
It's in dmg on page 248. Short version is that monsters CAN (and will) score critical hits, and when using average damage you add damage dice to the average. e.g. minotaur skeleton deals 17 (2d12 + 4), whe scoring critical hit he deals 17 + 2d12 damage

Good find!
That method seems a little less clunky than my seemingly ridiculous method of reverse engineering the portion of the average damage that is from the weapon, but not by much. I guess clunky is the wrong word for it but it does seem counter-intuitive to combine the average damage with some variable damage like that.

[PoeticDwarf]

The question sounds stupid I know... But the option of using the creature's average damage rather than rolling makes me wonder if Monsters are supposed to critically hit at all.
If you are using the average damage and double it on a crit, the monster will be dealing too much damage due to that average factoring in damage additives like the creature's Strength bonus. Ideally you would subtract the additive bonuses, double the result and then add those additives back in to get a proper result but obviously that sounds clunky as hell - too clunky for me to be 100% sure that that is the intention.

They can, because that's logic. They can roll a 1 and just miss because they closed their eyes. And they can roll a 20 and hit the PC's where it hurts.

[KorvinStarmast]

Rules lawyer to the rescue!
It's in dmg on page 248. Short version is that monsters CAN (and will) score critical hits, and when using average damage you add damage dice to the average. e.g. minotaur skeleton deals 17 (2d12 + 4), whe scoring critical hit he deals 17 + 2d12 damage This means he did thirty, since the avg 2d12 dmg is 13. :)

[ProphetSword]

Are there rules for monster critical hits when it comes to monsters that do more than one type of damage in a single hit? As an example, my party recently fought Displacer Beasts. When they hit with their tentacles, they did 7(1d6+4) bludgeoning damage and 3(1d6) piercing. How would any of you handle that (I just rolled an additional d6).

[MeeposFire]

Are there rules for monster critical hits when it comes to monsters that do more than one type of damage in a single hit? As an example, my party recently fought Displacer Beasts. When they hit with their tentacles, they did 7(1d6+4) bludgeoning damage and 3(1d6) piercing. How would any of you handle that (I just rolled an additional d6).

Technically you should roll 2d6. You double all dice from a critical attack.

[Socko525]

Based on the fact that Adamantine armor exists, I'd say yes they do. (Adamantine armor makes the wearer immune to critical hits)

[Balain]

we came across a spell criting and couldn't find where it talked about spells criting. we all agreed we had read somewhere that any spell that the caster makes an attack roll can crit. We could not find that passage again though. We agreed that spells rolled double damage. The damage from spell crits seems much higher than from weapons though. For example a weapon will roll something like 2d10 for crit damage, but the spell (I forget which one now) ended up rolling something like 6d8 for crit damage.

[MadGrady]

we came across a spell criting and couldn't find where it talked about spells criting. we all agreed we had read somewhere that any spell that the caster makes an attack roll can crit. We could not find that passage again though. We agreed that spells rolled double damage. The damage from spell crits seems much higher than from weapons though. For example a weapon will roll something like 2d10 for crit damage, but the spell (I forget which one now) ended up rolling something like 6d8 for crit damage.

There isn't anything specific about spells (that I recall) but if you make an attack roll for any reason, you crit. And yes, all damage dice are doubled. Beware the crit'ing fireball

[JNAProductions]

Fireballs are saving throws. They can't crit.

[MeeposFire]

Yea think eldritch blast and the like instead.

[Mr Adventurer]

4e had the critical-specific damage code. 3e just had a note on critical range and multiplier, if it was different to 20/×2.

[MadGrady]

Fireballs are saving throws. They can't crit.

Ahh yes, was AFB.