Critical Threats and Critical Immune

[JKTrickster]

Can you still make a critical threat against a monster that is immune to critical hits?

I tried asking this question in the Simple Q&A thread but the Pathfinder and the 3.5E threads got different answers.

In the Pathfinder thread I got

No, since you don't threaten a critical on any number against a monster immune to crits.

while in the 3.5E thread I got

A282:

Yes, unless the effect says otherwise. You still critically hit against immune creatures, it just doesn't usually do anything.

JaronK

Is this simply different rules in the different editions? I couldn't spot any rule changes on critical hits between Pathfinder and 3.5E so I am not sure....

[TroubleBrewing]

Jaronk has the right of it. Regardless, it doesn't matter; the creature in question is immune, so why do you need to know if you threaten?

[Keneth]

Huh? If it's not subject to critical hits then your weapon doesn't threaten it. How would it make sense otherwise?

[Cespenar]

Does this have anything to do with Lightning Mace?

[Keneth]

Since it's relevant, here's a similar entry from the 3.5 FAQ:

The flaming burst, icy burst, and shocking burst weapon powers require a critical hit to trigger the burst. What happens when you attack a foe that isn't subject to critical hits? What happens if your critical hit is negated by fortification?
In either case, the burst effect doesn't occur.
If an effect is negated, it is invalidated, prevented, or ended with respect to a designated area or target. That's true whether the negation is automatic (such as from immunity) or contingent upon a roll or check (fortification).
If another effect is contingent on the success of a root effect (like, say, any of the burst weapons in the DMG, which are triggered on a successful critical hit), and the root effect is negated, the contingent effect is also negated. In the case of these burst weapons, if the critical hit is negated so is the burst weapon's critical-dependent effect, since it is triggered on a “successful critical hit” (DMG 224 Flaming Burst entry and DMG 225 Icy Burst and Shocking Burst entries).
There are exceptions to this rule, but they are called out specifically in the effect's description. For example, some weapon properties in the MIC state “this effect activates even if the target is not normally vulnerable [or subject to] to extra damage from critical hits.” In these cases you would roll to confirm a critical hit, and with a successful critical confirmation you would apply the damage or effect for the special effect, though you would not add the extra weapon damage for the critical hit.
Here's an example of how this works: If a fighter with an 18 Strength with a +1 desiccating burst greatsword (MIC 32) rolled a natural 19 on an attack against a water elemental (and hit the elemental), you would roll to confirm the critical, even though water elementals are immune to critical hits. On a confirmed critical, the weapon does 2d6+7 plus 3d8 points of damage from the desiccating property to the water elemental.
Note: This FAQ entry is a correction of an older FAQ entry that allowed all of these types of weapons to burst even if the target was immune to critical hits or the critical hit was negated in some other way.

So no, unless it specifically says so, an ability will not trigger on a crit against monsters with fortification (if it's negated) or immunity (not subject to in the first place, so not threatened at all).

[utherphoenyx]

basically they are immune to the extra damage from a crit but in 3.5 and extra effects such as burst weapons and vorpal do trigger unless like aberattions and undead are immune also to instant death effects

[Keneth]

I've just pasted you the entry from the official FAQ that says they don't.

[Cog]

I've just pasted you the entry from the official FAQ that says they don't.

You pasted text that answered another question; that text addressed actual confirmed criticals, which is not what the OP was asking about.

A critical hit is a confirmed crit, and subject to immunities.

A critical threat is simply a result on the attack roll, and does not care about the target.

[Keneth]

You pasted text that answered another question; that text addressed actual confirmed criticals, which is not what the OP was asking about.

A critical hit is a confirmed crit, and subject to immunities.

A critical threat is simply a result on the attack roll, and does not care about the target.

That was a reply to the previous poster who said exactly the opposite of what the FAQ entry does and to the other poster who said you still score critical hits against such monsters which you don't either.

And you can't threaten a critical hit against monsters that are not subject to them, explain to me how that makes sense please. I can see how you can threaten a creature with fortification since it specifically negates criticals, but not a creature immune to them. How exactly would you critically threaten an ooze? The threat and the hit are part of the same mechanic to which your target may or may not be subject to.

Edit: Actually I gave it some thought, if I consider that a critical threat affects you instead of the monster as opposed to a critical hit which affects the monster and not you, then it kinda does make sense. In which case I'm not sure what the actual RAW are.

[JKTrickster]

Edit: Actually I gave it some thought, if I consider that a critical threat affects you instead of the monster as opposed to a critical hit which affects the monster and not you, then it kinda does make sense. In which case I'm not sure what the actual RAW are.

Yeah this is what I'm trying to find. It is possible to have a critical threat against a monster that is immune to critical hits? Obviously you can't critical hit them...but still have a threat?

Does this have anything to do with Lightning Mace?

I think this would be the most concrete example (although I'm not actually using this in any way, shape, or form).

Can you use Lightning Maces on Undead for example?

[tyckspoon]

Yeah this is what I'm trying to find. It is possible to have a critical threat against a monster that is immune to critical hits? Obviously you can't critical hit them...but still have a threat?

I don't believe the RAW actually addresses this, which is why there's a FAQ answer that explicitly notes 'yeah, we answered this a different way before, we changed our minds.' (I disagree with their answer, but this is one of the few times the FAQ actually serves its stated purpose of clarifying vague rules instead of either making up new ones or answering "reading the rules is haaaaard, tell me how this works!" questions.) It basically comes down to whether you think a crit is a special benefit the attacker gets or something that is inflicted on the target; if it's on the attacker's side, it doesn't matter whether or not the target actually takes extra damage or not- you made the crit, and any special benefits you get for doing so will trigger. If it's something the target suffers, then immunity to crits is the same as no crits, and crit-related properties will not trigger.

Me, I prefer having it be a benefit of the attacker, because if you don't have an attacker rolling that threat range then you don't have even the potential for a crit; it seems weird to take something that has to be initiated by the attacker and then saying 'no, that never happened' because of a trait on the defender (and that logic has some rather weird implications if you try to extend it to anything else- if you Fireball something that is immune to fire, did you never actually cast that spell? There's a lot of feats and class features that trigger on spellcast.)

[Keneth]

After a consult with some of the other veteran players we've come to a consensus that you do indeed critically threaten against any target since that's your character's ability, so you could use abilities that trigger on a threat (I don't know of any in Pathfinder though). You still couldn't use any abilities that trigger on a critical hit though, such as critical feats or burst weapons.

[Rubik]

The vorpal weapon property indicates that it works on undead, even though you have to roll a critical confirmation, and that undead are immune to both critical hits and death effects.

Though that could be a case of specific overriding general OR a case of using the rules as they were intended.

I say that you hit a critical threat even if a critical hit doesn't happen. If you confirm the roll, burst weapons and the like DO trigger, even if a critical hit doesn't otherwise happen.

Otherwise, it's yet one more nerf to martial characters (and do we really need more of those?).

[Keneth]

Well it's not a nerf if you never had it in the first place. If the creature is immune to or negates your critical hits then the abilities don't trigger (since you never get a chance to confirm the threat).

[Calanon]

Huh? If it's not subject to critical hits then your weapon doesn't threaten it. How would it make sense otherwise?

Actually the creature is still threatened by a critical but doesn't take the additional damage from being hit by a critical

[Keneth]

Yes, if you read the rest of the replies, you'll see that we've agreed to the fact that you can always critically threaten or rather you have the capacity to do so in a specific range (i.e. this depends on your ability and not the target) but you can't critically hit a target if it's not subject to critical hits (since this depends on the target and not your ability to crit).

[Douglas]

The vast majority of crit-immune creatures have language to the effect of "immune to extra damage from critical hits". As written, this is quite specific that they are immune to the crit's extra damage, not the crit itself - you can still crit them, you just don't get extra damage when you do. Normally this distinction is irrelevant because the extra damage is the only benefit, but if you happen to have a feat or special ability that triggers on crits and gives a benefit other than extra damage, that feat or ability would still work.

I think there are a very few creatures or ways of gaining immunity that actually are worded as "immune to critical hits", and these would prevent such special abilities from working, but there aren't many of them and I don't have an example on hand.

[Fax Celestis]

The vast majority of crit-immune creatures have language to the effect of "immune to extra damage from critical hits". As written, this is quite specific that they are immune to the crit's extra damage, not the crit itself - you can still crit them, you just don't get extra damage when you do. Normally this distinction is irrelevant because the extra damage is the only benefit, but if you happen to have a feat or special ability that triggers on crits and gives a benefit other than extra damage, that feat or ability would still work.

Agreed. This is generally how I play it in my games.

[Chronos]

If you rule that, say, a Flaming Burst weapon doesn't do its burst against something immune to crits, then what happens if you have a Thundering Flaming Burst weapon? Thundering says to roll for the crit anyway, even if the creature's immune, to do the sonic damage. If you get a crit for purposes of the Thundering, is it also a crit for purposes of the Flaming Burst?

[Fax Celestis]

If you rule that, say, a Flaming Burst weapon doesn't do its burst against something immune to crits, then what happens if you have a Thundering Flaming Burst weapon? Thundering says to roll for the crit anyway, even if the creature's immune, to do the sonic damage. If you get a crit for purposes of the Thundering, is it also a crit for purposes of the Flaming Burst?

Nope, Thundering is an exception. Burst effects say "on a successful critical hit",

[deuxhero]

Annoyingly, 3.0 Vorpal activated on a critical, but the example of a vampire of a character not killed by head loss was added in 3.5

[JKTrickster]

Hmm okay I think I have my answer!

And the rules didn't change on this matter between Pathfinder and 3.5E right?

thanks!