Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 FrankD20 Apr 14, 2015 12:18:33	In my games, a critical hit is max damage plus a regular damage roll.  We had a scenario this past weekend that I need a little help making a ruling.  The characters had laced their arrows with poison and were firing at a dragon.  One of the characters rolled a crit.  My initial instinct was to say the arrow did max damage, with the extra roll, but the poison damage would still need to be rolled separately.  I got a little resistance to that notion, and I relented and ruled that the arrow AND the poison did max damage, plus the extra roll for the arrow only (not extra damage for the poison).  That wouldn't have been so bad, but it happened again a little later with another poison laced arrow (this was some good assassin poison that does something like 7d6 of damage).   So I guess my question is, on a critical hit where the damage is stacked either through poison or spell or what have you, how do you adjudicate the damage?  What would you have ruled in this case?
#2 iserith Apr 14, 2015 12:29:52	Given that house rule, I'd have said that both the arrow and poison damage are maxed and all the dice are rolled again for bonus damage, plus the relevant modifier(s).   Having said that, I use the standard rules for critical hits in my games (Basic Rules, page 75).
(Reply to #2) MasterNamer	iserith wrote:
(Reply to #3) Alficles	iserith wrote:
#5 cowleymen Apr 14, 2015 14:31:15	Posion dice are not weapon dice. Critcal hits double weapon dice. Even things like elemantal weapon affect your sword. Its been imbued with magic that altered the sword. When you coat your weapon (or ammunition) in posion, the weapon is just a deliever system. Your weapon cant deliever more posion then what they are coated with.
#6 iserith Apr 14, 2015 14:40:43	Alficles wrote:
#7 ankiyavon Apr 14, 2015 16:15:31	What do you do with sneak attack? Whatever that ruling is, I would use the same one for poison or any other source of bonus dice.
#8 LorissaRennee Apr 14, 2015 23:06:03	cowleymen wrote:
#9 cowleymen Apr 14, 2015 23:30:28	LorissaRennee wrote:
#10 Byakugan01 Apr 14, 2015 23:40:33	ordinarily, the players would only have access to fairly weak poisons....Did you also make the mistake of giving them access to something dumb like wyvern venom?  At that point you are inviting problems because now a 7th level assasin rogue is looking at something close to 150 damage on a hit, guaranteed.   IMO critical hits are more or less detrimental to the characters...they get the occasional rush of excitement when they 1 shot something, but they have much smaller hitpoint pools than monsters do, and many of the monsters have attacks that stack damage dice which makes them much more deadly to characters.
#11 Imaculata Apr 15, 2015 2:56:30	Poison doesn't crit, only weapons do. By accepting this houserule, you open yourself up to severe balance issues. There would be no reason no to use poison all the time, because it would be insanely powerful. Thats the tricky part about houserules, you always have to take into account the most extreme situations where the players could abuse the system.
#12 Barky Apr 15, 2015 3:12:43	I would rule the poison crits as well.   Consider what a crit really is: you've made a wound that is particularly deep or hits in a particularly vital location. In such a situation, it is much more likely that any poison would certainly be deadlier than a scratch or a flesh wound.
#13 NamelessHero Apr 15, 2015 11:09:03	Alternatively, you could bybass this issue by giving all your monsters immunity to poison. It's not that far-fetched, considering half the monsters in the game already resist poison.
#14 DigitalEccentric Apr 15, 2015 11:16:49	P196 of the Player Handbook states that Sneak Attack dice would also be rolled twice, as it uses it as an example.    In fact, the specific ruling is "If the Attack involves other Damage Dice..." which would suggest that, on a critical, anything that involves die-roling is doubled, while pure +# modifers arn't.   To me that's where the distinction seems to be anyway.   Granted, it feels kind of weird letting a Poison 'Crit', but then if you'd stuck to the rules as is you wouldn't be in this situation as the damage range would be more in balance.   But then if you look at the poisons on P257-258 of the DMG, it shows that nearly all the poisons require con saves, so really the posion dice should be rolled seperatley, and then the con save is done, and then you work out the damage from there, so THAT would suggest you roll the attack first (w/ crit), and then you work out how much damage the poison does seperately.   You could rule either way, really.
#15 Coredump00 Apr 15, 2015 11:16:54	By the rules, poison crits.... it is not a house rule.     The Crit says you double "all damage dice", it does not say "weapon damage dice"  Which is why Smites double, and Sneak attack double, etc.   There are some abilities that deal with "weapon damage dice", but crits is not one of them.
(Reply to #14) Coredump00	DigitalEccentric wrote:
#17 LorissaRennee Apr 15, 2015 11:34:28	cowleymen wrote:
#18 FrankD20 Apr 15, 2015 12:21:35	I ruled the poison did max damage, but not rolled for additional damage.  The poison was taken off some assassins the party had defeated, so that's where it came from.  In any case, it didn't overly affect things too much, since the dragon can automatically make it's save 3/day.  But, the situation did create lots of conversation.  Thanks for the responses!
#19 Barky Apr 15, 2015 15:07:49	DigitalEccentric wrote:
#20 paulstrait Apr 16, 2015 12:13:44	LorissaRennee wrote:
#21 LorissaRennee Apr 16, 2015 15:04:37	paulstrait wrote: