Core Rulebook, chapter 7, pg. 174 under Breaking and Entering: "Immunities: Objects are immune to nonlethal damage and critical hits."
Side note: Yes, you add the masterwork bonus.
The issue hinges on what this actually means: ""Immunities: Objects are immune to nonlethal damage and critical hits."
If you read that as the object being immune to critical damage, then allowing the Crit itself to proceed makes some sense.
But it doesn't really say that, it says "immune to... critical hits" period, which means the critical hit itself doesn't work.
There are a few other CMBs which deal damage which could potentially Crit (Grapple: Damage option, Barbarian Knockback, etc)
@Bizbag: Assuming the Crit itself is allowed (i.e. going with reading that only Crit Damage is negated, which IMHO is not justified by conservative reading of RAW) I believe you need Grt. Sunder to deal 'spillover' damage to the wearer. You would actually need to bring the object HPs to zero, you wouldn't just be able to apply the Crit damage to the wearer (that the object is immune to) if the regular damage wasn't enough to destroy the object. Also note that other effects can trigger on Crits: bonus attacks and things like Flaming Burst which WOULD do extra damage vs. an object because it isn't "Crit Damage" per se.
That is also dependent on CMB checks like Sunder being Attack Rolls (which is explicitly stated to be true for all CMBs), and thus since Attack Rolls have Crits, so do CMB checks since they ARE Attack ROLLS.
SKR once weighed in that CMB checks as a general rule do NOT Crit, but he didn't really address that basic logic head-on, he just noted how CMB has separate wording saying how 20 is auto-hit and 1 is auto-fail - that of course is redundant with the identical rule for Attack Rolls, but many rules are redundant and stating a redundant rule does not logically mean that some valid rule that is unstated/unrepeated suddenly does not apply any more... I'm sure one can find many many rules cases where applying that type of logic would cause the game to fall apart (including if one arbitrarily starts considering CMBs as not being attack rolls for many other purposes). That was just a SKR post in the forums though, not official FAQ, and the RAW is pretty clear cut there.
Incidentally, I view Flaming Burst, etc. the way you do (that they can trigger even against crit-immune targets), but it's not really clear anywhere whether that's the case or not. The only real evidence is 3.5's Vorpal, in that it explicitly could affect crit-immune Vampires.
I think the best argument that Sunders can still Crit and have special Crit effects would be discerning what the actual target is: the primary target is the OPPONENT, not their gear. You are targetting and attacking that character, with their personal CMD (and Miss Chance, Sanctuary spell, etc), even if the special attack doesn't damage their personal HP pool but damages their gear instead. Your attack roll is not opposed to any stat of the object itself, even if the damage is applied to the object's HP pool. The rules do kind of get blurred at a certain level: what if the worn Object itself has a Sanctuary spell (Intelligent Item)? You should need to Save to overcome that, so in essence you are targetting/attacking BOTH the wearer and the object. And one but not the other (wearer/object) could be Immune to a Crit "as such" (more than just damage).
Speaking in a "conservative reading of RAW" sense, I think there's a strong argument to suggest that the rule for Object Crit Immunity means the Crit just doesn't happen... TO THE OBJECT, but per the above passage, the Sunder itself (and it's Crit as an attack roll) is happening to the WEARER of the Object. That reading would still tend to conflict/negate your citation of the 3.5 approach re: Vampires/Vorpal.
The issue comes back to the fact that Immunity to Crits is expressed identically to e.g. Immunity to Mind-Effecting magic. Whether or not the latter deals damage or not doesn't matter: it's damage or it's non-damage effects JUST DON'T WORK, and if they are worded the same, the same should go for Immunity to Crits. Similar to Immunity to Poison, whether or not the effect is dealing stat damage like a normal Poison, or has some other effect like Pseudodragon Sleep Poison or Cloudkill doesn't matter, Poison Immunity negates ALL Poison Effects. If the intent is for that to work differently, Immunity to Crits should be explicitly explained as working differently, i.e. actually only meaning Immunity to Crit Damage.
I WOULD welcome them to explicitly address that issue, just for clarity.
The way I look at it is that CMB is just a system for simplifying the maneuver rules in 3.5 - which explicitly WERE attack rolls. It's just, essentially, that PRG has you figure out your bonus ahead of time, and it assumes that the defender takes 10 on his 3.5-era "opposed" check (hence the base 10 of a CMD).
The current CMB text in Pathfinder also explicitly says they are attack rolls, there is no need to invoke 3.5 heritage here. That doesn't address how Crit-Immunity works here, but for non-Crit Immune targets it does open up some possibilities. (I like adding on a free Trip on Critical to Grapple Checks)
Correct.
Sunder is a maneuver that happens to deal damage, not an attack that happens to target a weapon. Even though it sort of is. Anyway, im not aware of any maneuver being able to crit.
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Sunder is a maneuver that happens to deal damage, not an attack that happens to target a weapon. Even though it sort of is. Anyway, im not aware of any maneuver being able to crit.
Core p184 just says when an attack rolls a natural 20 it deals more damage.
Core p199 makes it very clear every Combat Maneuver check is an attack.
Sunder is a maneuver that happens to deal damage, not an attack that happens to target a weapon. Even though it sort of is. Anyway, im not aware of any maneuver being able to crit.Core p184 just says when an attack rolls a natural 20 it deals more damage.
Core p199 makes it very clear every Combat Maneuver check is an attack.
To simplify it, yes. More specifically:
A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.
Since most maneuvers don't hurt, you're multiplying by 0, not just dealing more damage. Even more specifically, it says a nat 20 is a threat, not automatic more damage.
The important part however is:
You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent
A sunder attempt is made against a weapon, not an opponent, even though it uses their CMD. So the objects critical immunity would come into play before any transfer of damage to the wielder via a feat and even before damage is rolled at all.