Nat20 with Negative Modifiers: Still Double Damage/Dice?

[Nikushimi]

My question is rather simple, and the answer is probably staring me right in the face.

If I roll a Natural 20, and for some reason I have a -4 to my attack (Making it technically a 16) with the targets AC being 17 or higher...I still hit, right? But, would there still be double damage cause "technically" you didn't hit the AC.

So while you hit, it wasn't "good enough" to do double damage? Or is it double damage regardless. Well, double the dice anyways.

Or would this be some kind of home rule?

Just looking for some insight. The answer is probably "Yes, it is still a crit and thus you roll twice the dice/double the damage" but I wanted to be sure.

Thanks!

[JNAProductions]

Attack rolls auto-miss on a nat 1.
They auto-hit and roll double dice on a nat 20, no matter what your modifier or target AC is.

This does not apply to checks or saves, though. Checks and saves only care about the final result, not the number on die.

[EggKookoo]

Notably, this means a spell like shield has no effect on a nat-20. Nor does partial cover.

[OldTrees1]

Just looking for some insight. The answer is probably "Yes, it is still a crit and thus you roll twice the dice/double the damage" but I wanted to be sure.

Yes, it is still a crit. Critical hits only care about the number on the d20, not the modified total.
Since it is a crit, you roll the dice twice.


If the d20 roll for an attack is a 20, the attack hits regardless of any modifiers or the target’s AC. In addition, the attack is a critical hit, as explained later in this chapter

In 3E it was more nuanced. A natural 20 hit and critical threats rerolled against AC to see if the hit was a critical or just a normal hit. So I could take a scimitar (18-20 crit range) against a really high AC. If I roll a natural 18 but miss the AC, then it was not a hit. Or I could roll a natural 20 (auto hit, ignore AC), and then reroll to see if I crit. On the reroll I miss the AC so it was a hit but no crit.

However 5E streamlined it. If your d20 shows a 20, then you hit regardless of modifiers. If the d20 shows one of your crit numbers (18-20 for a Champion Fighter) then your hit is a crit.

[Gtdead]

In 3E it was more nuanced. A natural 20 hit and critical threats rerolled against AC to see if the hit was a critical or just a normal hit. So I could take a scimitar (18-20 crit range) against a really high AC. If I roll a natural 18 but miss the AC, then it was not a hit. Or I could roll a natural 20 (auto hit, ignore AC), and then reroll to see if I crit. On the reroll I miss the AC so it was a hit but no crit.

However 5E streamlined it. If your d20 shows a 20, then you hit regardless of modifiers. If the d20 shows one of your crit numbers (18-20 for a Champion Fighter) then your hit is a crit.

The automatic critical confirmation abilities have caused so much confusion thanks to this system. A lot of people thought that it made the scimitar autohit (and autocrit) on a 18 (or 15 with keen/improved critical). This confusion also bled into 5e too, with a lot of people thinking that champion's increased crit chance increased the autohit range too.

[EggKookoo]

The automatic critical confirmation abilities have caused so much confusion thanks to this system. A lot of people thought that it made the scimitar autohit (and autocrit) on a 18 (or 15 with keen/improved critical). This confusion also bled into 5e too, with a lot of people thinking that champion's increased crit chance increased the autohit range too.

FWIW, JC says Improved Critical auto-hits on a nat-19 (https://www.sageadvice.eu/only-20-hit/) (and nat-18 eventually).

[Chronos]

Champions do increase their auto-hit range. If a champion rolls a 19, then the description of the class feature says that's a critical hit. It doesn't say "If you roll a 19 and your total roll is above the target's AC", or anything like that. Just, if it's a 19, it's a critical hit. And it can't be a critical hit without being a hit, so it's that, too.

Not that this is very relevant, of course, because with bounded accuracy, if you have a 19 or even 18 on the die, and any sort of sane modifiers (say, +2 proficiency and +3 ability score), then you darned well should be hitting any realistic AC.

[Gtdead]

I see. Seems that the joke's on me here ^_^, but I'm not going by that definition no matter what JC says because there are problems in his explanation. For example, differentiating between the "theoretical crit range increase" and Improved Critical, which I don't see how it can happen since obviously he equates Critical hit with Automatic Hit, otherwise Improved Critical can't possibly work the way he rules.

The phenomenon where "if the roll is 20, it autohits" is called a critical hit. Any other interaction between these descriptions is interpreted. Why for example should we rule that critical hit is an autohit, and not that an autohit is a critical hit?

Scoring a critical hit doubles the dice.
Improved Critical scores a critical on a 19. It still doubles the dice, just there aren't any dice to be doubled. Unless it modifies the autohit range through specific text, I don't buy it.

To me, this makes perfect sense.

I won't try to argue this anymore though. It doesn't make much difference anyway due to bounded accuracy. It will only make some difference in homebrewed monsters with 40+ AC

[EggKookoo]

The phenomenon where "if the roll is 20, it autohits" is called a critical hit. Any other interaction between these descriptions is interpreted. Why for example should we rule that critical hit is an autohit, and not that an autohit is a critical hit?C

Obviously whatever works for you at your table is good. Not looking to convince you otherwise. But it's not irrational to say critical hit is a subset of automatic hit, so that any critical hit inherits automatic hit, but not all automatic hits extend into critical hits. It's only a problem if you're insisting that automatic hit == critical hit universally. While circumstantially most automatic hits result in critical hits, it's not required (whereas it appears the reverse is not true -- all critical hits force an automatic hit).

[PhantomSoul]

Obviously whatever works for you at your table is good. Not looking to convince you otherwise. But it's not irrational to say critical hit is a subset of automatic hit, so that any critical hit inherits automatic hit, but not all automatic hits extend into critical hits. It's only a problem if you're insisting that automatic hit == critical hit universally. While circumstantially most automatic hits result in critical hits, it's not required (whereas it appears the reverse is not true -- all critical hits force an automatic hit).

And a nice bonus is that the apparent "exceptions" that comes to mind (Attacking a Paralysed Target, Assassin Rogue's Assassinate Feature) that don't give the autohit are upgrading Hits (so they apply at the point of the procedure where Hit is already determined).

Our tables do interpret increased Crit Ranges as increasing the auto-Hit Ranges too. Makes sense to me that way, and it seems like a reasonable and fun way to parse the different rules (Critical Hit = Get to add dice [PHB 196], Rolling a 20 [PHB 194], and the Improved Critical Feature) even if I have now discovered the rules don't require that reading, but the definition on PHB 194 suggests a core part of Critical Hits is that "the attack hits regardless of any modifiers or the target's AC" ("This is called a critical hit" being the following line) for me... and most importantly I think for what has been more fun at our tables. :)

[Sigreid]

I think the increased crit range also equaling increased auto hit actually fits rather nicely with the idea of the champion fighter. Where a normal character has a 5% chance to hit no matter how high the target's AC is, the champion fighter has a minimum 10% or whatever it is (not looking it up right now). That to me fits in perfectly with the concept of the champion fighter and goes some way to make his features compare with other subclasses.