I have a simple question: Do monsters crit?
This seemed obvious to me at first since all the games I know let’s heroes and monsters crit. That said, I didn’t find any specific instructions on it.
The confusion for me stems from the mechanics being different for combat between heroes and monsters, ie: defense, target, hero coin, recovery, etc… That made me question if the crit was intended as a hero mechanic more than a blanket rule.
I think RAW, there’s nothing specifically about monsters being able to crit. I have GMed sessions though, where monsters crit on a natural 20.
If that seems too harsh for your table or if you want to reserve critical hits specifically for PCs, you can for instance have monsters destroy environment on a natural 20 raising the target or other fun things that don’t automatically inflict a ton of damage on the players.
Yes, Monsters crit. Everyone, DM and players, when a D20 lands on a natural 20, rolls ultimate effort for the attack (plus the normal attack damage).
This is how Hank plays the game, and how I have always played the game since it was invented. Somewhere, Hank talks about rolling in the open and how terrifying it is to have the DM’s monster attack roll tumble onto a Nat 20. It’s one of the best moments in ICRPG, so I strongly encourage folks to play that way. But. It’s ultimately (haha) your game.
I’ve always played with monster crits, but the suggestions by @kagozaiku and @M1rage to have special events - action surges, room target change, etc - are good alternatives! Especially the action surge is interesting, because adding a monster turn on 20 both shifts the action economy and has consequences for turn timers (I tend to prefer turn timers over round timers for monster effects, since they break the pace of the round and therefore stand out more).
