[Infinity engine] Critical hits and critical misses
Alonso
Member Posts: 806
How do critical hits and misses work?
This is what I know:
Critical hits: You score a critical hit when you attack and roll a 20. A critical hit always hits the target, regardless of your to hit number (assuming the target isn't immune to your weapon). Sometimes you also score a critical hit when you roll a 19. This happens when you are proficient in the two-handed weapon style or the single weapon style. A critical hit deals more damage than a normal hit. Helmets protect from critical hits. Some creatures are immune to critical hits.
Critical misses: You get a critical miss when you attack and roll a 1. A critical miss always misses the target, regardless of your to hit number, and your next attack is delayed.
Questions:
Edit: Fixed some mistakes in the questions.
This is what I know:
Critical hits: You score a critical hit when you attack and roll a 20. A critical hit always hits the target, regardless of your to hit number (assuming the target isn't immune to your weapon). Sometimes you also score a critical hit when you roll a 19. This happens when you are proficient in the two-handed weapon style or the single weapon style. A critical hit deals more damage than a normal hit. Helmets protect from critical hits. Some creatures are immune to critical hits.
Critical misses: You get a critical miss when you attack and roll a 1. A critical miss always misses the target, regardless of your to hit number, and your next attack is delayed.
Questions:
- How much is your next attack delayed with a critical miss?
- How much extra damage do you get from a critical hit? With magical weapons, do you also get a bonus to the extra magical damage?
- What else makes you score a critical hit with a 19?
- Is it possible to score critical hits with lower numbers (18, 17...)?
- Are there critical rolls in any other rolls, like saving throws or thieving ability rolls? If so, how do those work?
- Is there anything apart from helmets that protects from critical hits? And from critical misses?
- Anything else I need to know about criticals?
Edit: Fixed some mistakes in the questions.
Post edited by Alonso on
0
Comments
2) double
3) bonus pips to weapon style, some SoD weapons have this property also
4) yes
5) no for saves, yes for thievery (only stealing)
6) yes for hits, no for misses. There's a flag on each item (you can check with NI) that makes an item protect vs criticals. Helmets have this by default.
7) no creature is "immune" to critical hits. They have an undroppable helmet w/o animation.
1. cca?
2. (Originally I didn't write that question properly). If you score a critical hit with a magical weapon that deals extra elemental damage, like fire damage or electric damage, do you also deal double elemental damage?
4. How does that work?
5. How does it work for thievery?
has to be told that luck affects the to hit roll but it does not count for determining if the roll give a crit or not, only to compare thac0 and ac. a 20 obtained rolling a 19 and having +1 luck does not give a crit, unless there are conditions for having the 19 being a crit itself, like pips in single weapon or 2h sword.
this mean that the hla is the only way to be certain to hit, afaik in all the other cases there is always at least 1/20 chance to miss and 1/20 or 1/10 chance to hit, independently from how large is the thac0-ac spread.
1) approx
2) no, extra elemental is same
3) I don't understand. Do you want to know how do you mod it; or how does it work in game?
5) afaik whith pickpocket there's always a chance to fail, regardless of your pp score. Open locks and traps aren't subject to critical failures
And one thing about criticals - you cannot crit if you don't roll to hit. Meaning, any movement-disabled creature (Held, Stunned, Webbed, Sleeping, under Time Stop etc.) cannot be hit by a crit.
2. is crit damage calculated as a back stab with 2x multiplier, so also the str damage bonus is not multiplied, but only the physical damage and the damage from weapon enchantment and proficiency points are doubled? i always assumed that it works like that, but i am not sure.
4. i think that @Alonso want to create threads where some technical aspects of the game are discussed in depth, this is not the first one, the one on luck is a good example. so i assume that he want to know how it work in the IE games, not to have hints on about how to mod the games.
DamageMod: (op130 Bless, op73 Attack Damage Bonus)
HandBonus: (Offhand-only)
Melee Bonus: op285 Melee Weapon Damage
Single-Weapon Style: STYLBONU.2da (value changed to display effect)
Attack of Opportunity: target is Unarmed or Ranged while attacking with melee
Berserk: STATE_BERSERK (+2)
Hated Race: Racial Enemy (+4)
Strength: STRMOD.2da
Special Bonus: op179 Damage vs. Type Bonus
((4 + 3 + 1 + 4 + 4) * 2(backstab) + 7 + 4 + 2) * 2(critical) = 90
Priority order:
Saving throws don't have critical rolls, but do have critical scores:
A value of 20 in a saving throw will automatically fail, unless the save bonus to that specific effect is 20 or more (not possible by default, but modded).
I think stealth is also subject to critical failures.
can you please translate what you have told in terms that also someone that ignore what op xxx do or what a file .da, if ever is a file, mean?
probably who use nearinfinity and is into the technical details of how the ie work can understand you, but i think that is possible to explain the same things in terms that every player can understand.
op73 Attack Damage Bonus - Legacy of the Master (bracers)
op179 damage vs type bonus - Cavalier bonus vs dragons/demons
op285 melee weapon damage bonus - unused other than mods
years later in ToB i remember using greater whirlwind and i critical missed twice in a row, and i only got 3 more attacks afterwards before my greater whirlwind ended and normally i pump out about 7-8 attacks with greater whirlwind
so i would think that the time penalty does exist, although i dont know if the EEs have changed that
How it works in the game. In other words, how can you score a critical with a 17 or an 18?
Yep, you've summed it up pretty nicely
No, they haven't. From the Adventurer's Guide: "a critical miss imposes a short delay on the character’s next attack as they recover their balance". It just doesn't say how long (or short) it is.
@kjeron: As @gorgonzola said, we need a translation to the common language of Faerun, common mortals like us don't speak high elfic. It's nice that you have given us the meaning of a few high elfic words, but we still need a full translation to common to be able to understand...
2. Always doubled in BG. The extra physical damage on a magic weapon is basically doubled on a crit as well.
3. Certain weapon styles or certain weapons, such as two-handed style or Herdrin's Short Sword +2 (which gives a +10% chance, which is equal to critting on 18-20).
4. See above. Modding the weapon styles can also do this.
5. As already said, saving throws do not have automatic failure unless the creature is forced to save at 20 or higher, which makes it a good idea to get saves as low as possible to become outright immune to certain spells or abilities. Thief skills do have critical failure rolls that Luck can influence (see here).
6. Equipment that has the 'toggle critical hits' flag on it, like the Cloak of the Gargoyle from SoD.
7. If a creature can't hit you on a 19, it will crit you on a 20 if you're not immune to criticals. It will be reduced to a normal hit if you are. Corollary to this, if a creature has a crit range bonus, it will always hit on those numbers within the range. So if a creature can crit on 18-20 and rolls within that range, it will be a crit, even if it would normally miss on the 18 or 19. This is what makes Critical Strike so good, as it increases your critical range to 1-20, so you can't ever miss, even on a nat1.
Which of those do you need explained better?
The one where you talk about what damage is doubled with critical hits.
So, if you get +2 to damage from a Skald song, that gets multiplied. If you get +2 from proficiencies, that gets multiplied. If the weapon is +2, that gets multiplied. If you're wearing the Legacy of the Masters, that +2 damage gets multiplied. If you're under the effects of Emotion: Hope and its +2 damage, that gets multiplied. If you have 18 flat Strength, that +2 damage gets multiplied. But if your weapon does any elemental damage, that does not get multiplied.
Your thread on thieving skills covers how those work. The critical misses bit relates to pickpocket and stealth attempts. Even if there is apparently 100% chance of success from the formula, there is still a 1% chance of a critical failure. However, as explained in your thread on luck, that chance of critical failure is itself subject to luck - if you have 1 point of luck that reduces the chance of critical failure by 1% and hence means no chance of failure.
What formula?
There's apparently a 1% chance of failure for stealth and pickpocketing regardless of score, but we don't say "critical failure" I guess because we normally use that for 5% chances on 1d20 rolls instead of 1% chances on 1d100 rolls.
@Alonso the formulae in the link I gave, e.g. the formula for stealth is
Stealth: (HiS + MS) * Environment Multiplier / 2 + (1/100 MOD luck) vs. 100