Can you crit with disrupt undead?

[Festivus]

I ruled that you couldn't because undead are immune to crits. The player's arguement was that the spell is designed to only damage undead creatures, and should be permitted to crit them since designed as such. To me it was pretty black and white, you can't crit undead but I wanted other opinions.

Also, I have to go dig up that other thread on when can a spell crit or not.... that question floated into my head as well.

 

[Infiniti2000]

No, you cannot crit undead without special feats (if any exist) or a class ability (if any exist). Just because disrupt undead and cure ___ wounds spells hurt them does not mean they hurt them especially more than acid arrow because undead still don't have "vital" areas to hit.

 

[the Jester]

Undead just plain aren't subject to crits. Your player is incorrect.

But yes, spells with attack rolls can indeed score critical hits. Heck, I got to roll 80d6 on a critical disintegrate in my epic game the other night.

 

[Klaus]

Can you roll for a critical hit? Yes. Will undead be affected by the critical hit? No.

But there are occasions where you roll the crit anyway (for instance, you roll a crit with a flaming burst weapon even against undead, because they suffer the extra 1d10 fire damage if the attack is a crit).

 

[RigaMortus2]

The question is answered veru simply really... What is the general rule for undead and critical hits? Does the Disrupt Undead spell specifically say anything to the contrary of this rule? The answer should be plain as day. What even lead you to beleive there would be a chance that this spell could crit an undead?

(Note: Yes, there may be specific feats/spells/PrC abilities out there that would allow a crit on undead, but they are the exception to the rule and plainly spell it out. Disrupt Undead certanly does not).

 

[Lucan_Desmond]

The rules clearly state that you cannot crit undead. So you were right and your player was wrong.

I however would allow the crit with this spell. This is because undead are animated corpses that are given false life through a connection to the negative energy plane. Since Disrput Undead is not targetting the creature's unimportant flesh, and instead directly attacking it's connection to it's life force, negative energy, I would allow that life force to be critically damaged.

The rules clearly state that you cannot crit undead, and so even Disrupt Undead cannot. I, however, would have allowed it.

Later,
Des

 

[Drowbane]

doublepost

err... see below

 

[Drowbane]

I ruled that you couldn't because undead are immune to crits. The player's arguement was that the spell is designed to only damage undead creatures, and should be permitted to crit them since designed as such. To me it was pretty black and white, you can't crit undead but I wanted other opinions.

Also, I have to go dig up that other thread on when can a spell crit or not.... that question floated into my head as well.

You can critical undead! They just don't take any extra damage from it (barring 'burst weapons, of course).

 

[wayne62682]

I would have ruled that yes it can... the critical rule against constructs/undead/oozes is silly anyways because a crit can represent a powerful blow, not striking a vital area (thats what Sneak Attack does). Why *shouldnt* you be able to do more damage to a skeleton if you strike it harder than normal? Just another example of a D&D designer fiat with no logical backing.

 

[KarinsDad]

But yes, spells with attack rolls can indeed score critical hits. Heck, I got to roll 80d6 on a critical disintegrate in my epic game the other night.

Just out of curiosity and off topic, did you roll all 80 dice, or did you average some percentage of them? I'd like my current campaign to get to Epic some day and was wondering if the players would enjoy taking out the time to get an accurate number when so many dice are involved.