Monsters and Crits

[Amelia]

I've looked and looked though all three core books and I can't find an answer, so I thought I'd ask you all.

When a monster crits, what does it do for damage?? Max damage like a PC, or double base damage or what? Does anyone know, and do the books actually say. If so, where?

Thanks in advance.

[Shroomy]

I don't have the books in front of me, but a crit would do max damage unless otherwise stated in the stat block description.

[Matthew Koelbl]

Shroomy has the right of it. The monster simply does max damage. Some monsters will have more effect (typically those with high crit weapons), and they will list the crit damage in the entree to make it easy.

Since monsters typically don't have magic weapons and implements, this means their crits aren't nearly as bad for PCs (or nearly as likely to suddenly spike a PC straight to dead.) However, note this means you will need to account for the bonus damage if you do give a monster a magic weapon, for whatever reason.

But typically, they just do max damage, unless it specifies otherwise.

[FabesMinis]

The only monsters that would be different to this would be minions, I believe.

Otherwise, a crit is a crit is a crit.

[Amelia]

Thanks. I thought I'd read Wotc had tweaked it so that there was a chance a low hp PC could survive a crit instead of having it be a set amount. Guess I was wrong :)

[TheNewGuy]

Amelia wrote:

Thanks. I thought I'd read Wotc had tweaked it so that there was a chance a low hp PC could survive a crit instead of having it be a set amount. Guess I was wrong :)

You might be thinking of 3rd edition, then :)

Max damage on a crit is rarely fatal unless you are using monsters of much higher level than the PCs. Remember, a PC has to go down to his bloodied value into negative hp before he dies automatically. I've DMed our 4th edition campaign up to 6th level so far and there's only been one fatality and it was from a PC that fell 100 feet out of a tree after being knocked to zero hp. Basically, the PC was killed by the DM and not by the monsters.

The only time I've come close to killing a PC this way using monsters was when the PC was taking ongoing damage when he went below zero hp.

[Shroomy]

FabesMinis wrote:

The only monsters that would be different to this would be minions, I believe.

Otherwise, a crit is a crit is a crit.

Interestingly, the newest epic level Dungeon adventure features minions that deal more damage on a critical hit (I believe 2 more than the normal amount).

[FabesMinis]

Shroomy wrote:

FabesMinis wrote:

The only monsters that would be different to this would be minions, I believe.

Otherwise, a crit is a crit is a crit.

Interestingly, the newest epic level Dungeon adventure features minions that deal more damage on a critical hit (I believe 2 more than the normal amount).

Cool!