D&D 5E Critical Hits Appears to be Next in D&D Archive

[glass]

Has anyone noticed that the War Pick has a damage listed as "d8" rather than "1d8"? Maybe the number of dice of damage you do with an attack depends on your size now; for example, medium has 1 dice, large has 2, so on and so forth. Of course, I could be completely wrong, but that seems like a simple system for scaling damage.

That was my first thought, but then I realised that you would be up to 4 or 5d8 for medium characters, which seems a bit excessive.


glass.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The farmer can only hit for maximum damage. There's no middle ground.

Possible solution: No crits if you need a 20 to hit.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I'd be pretty confident that they are across the board trying to get rid of situations where only a 20 hits the AC. A 5% chance to hit something, in most cases, means that it's too hard to bother hitting.



The weapon qualities will differentiate, and can include increasing the threat range. This can still exist in 4e.



Why should crits be less common?

Late response to this due to inconsistent internet access over my Christmas vacation.

To the first point, given the information we have, we know that the basic mechanic of Bab+d20 vs AC still exists. While I am sure that level appropriate encounters will generally not have a 'only 20 hits' situations cropping up frequently, I am sure that they will legitimately happen. The way that I run games, I use alot of low HD cannon fodder, because I have found it gives me the most situational flexibility in encounters. The existence of 'minion' rules imply that such a style will be handled, but the exact mechanics of it are still a mystery.

My interests are purely selfish. I do not want to run encounters where every hit on a player is a critical hit. In 2nd edition, there were no formal rules for critical hits in the core. Even if my fodder will only score a hit on a 19, or 20, I could use enough that it works out. Simply put, I need to know more about how natural 20's are handled and how the minion rules work before I can be satisfied with the current critical hit information.

In 3rd edition, there are criticals, but they require a confirm roll. Hobgoblins with Longswords that are only hitting on 18, 19, and 20 are not going to be scoring criticals on 2/3rd's of their attacks.

In 4th edition, we know that criticals will generally maximize damage, possibly do other stuff, and only happen on a natural 20. I also know that it is not impossible for a character to get staggeringly high AC's compared to what is typical if they optimize for it. I do not want such a PC to be effectively invincible, which is the case if 20 is no longer an auto-hit. I also do not want to find myself dealing with All criticals All the Time against players.

As for the other points:

The weapon qualities point I will concede, but having more means to differentiate weapons is a good thing in my opinion. I liked how a weapon like a Sabre was balanced by having low damage but high crit rate relative to a longsword. It was a mechanical rule that fit the flavour perfectly.

As for why should crits be less common? Like I said, I use alot of minion type low HD monsters, so my chances to inflict them as a DM come up more often. It is not a question of the damage inflicted as much as it is the fact that having every hit from an opponent count as a critical hit damages my sense of immersion in the game.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Possible solution: No crits if you need a 20 to hit.

If you only hit on a 19, having 50% of all hits inflicted as criticals is not exactly what I call an ideal situation.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[glass]

I'm with you. It is dumbing down. And 3X crits don't remotely qualify as "doing math" to me. I sitting here with my hands up trying to think of a way to respond.
My 9 year old daughter doesn't miss a beat with this stuff.

Your 9 year-old does arithmetic for fun?

And yet people say it is insulting to them to suggest that it isn't hard.

No-one suggests it is hard (except perhaps for the DM with 20 other things to think about). Not fun != hard, necessarily.

I have absolutely no desire to insult anyone.

And yet you compare adults who disagree with you with 9-year-old children.


glass.

 

[glass]

"Not fun" has been the description of v3.5 ever since 4e was announced.

No, its been the description of a few small (and maybe one-or-two larger) elements of 3.5 since long before 4e was announced.


glass.

 

[Remathilis]

More specifically, how often does such a situation like your farmer example occur in 4e?

I remember playing BECMI. By the time that 'only hit on a natural 20' became an issue the situations where so 'edge' case that it was irrelevant.

BECMI has no Critical Hits either.

I don't recall if it was BECMI or 2e, but at some point we started playing 20 = x2 dice, normal bonus crits (so a 1d6+2 attack became 2d6+2). However, I cannot find anything in either BECMI or 2nd ed that discusses that as a rule, so I have NO idea where that came from...

It appears 4e is going back (partially) to my old (house?) rule, so I'm content.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Quite often if you're dealing with mooks swarming a fighter in full plate. Take 10 goblins with +2 attack against a level 3 fighter with full plate and a heavy shield +1 with Dex.

Them's 3e thinkin'. In 4e, those mooks will have a better chance to hit, but will drop faster and probably do less damage. 3e didn't do mooks very well, and 4e has aims to build them into the system from the get go.

 

[glass]

No. Once again someone is associating "critical hit == devastating blow". In 4e it doesn't mean that.

It didn't mean that in 3e either. The 'devastating blow' is the one that takes your hp into negatives.


glass.

 

[Wolfspider]

Yeah, I know. I couldn't resist making this point.

I've thought about it ever since my self-imposed (and very brief) exile, and what bothers me is the use of the word "critical" to describe what happens when a 20 is rolled in 4e.

The word "critical" means, among other things:

"of decisive importance with respect to the outcome"

and

"Fraught with danger or risk; perilous"

If a "critical" strike is not really a "devastating blow," as Plane Sailing has rightly pointed out, then why use a misleading term? Wouldn't it better to just say that a 20 causes maximum damage without calling it a "critical"?

Now, if rolling a 20 had additional effects, like causing the foe struck to lose a turn or become dazed or have to roll a Saving Throw to avoid going unconscious or dying or having a limb disabled or whatnot, then that could be called a "critical" strike. You have all very well shown that a farmer, even when he rolls a 20, is no threat to a hero. Why call such a blow "critical," then, when it is anything but?

It's just a max damage attack. Nothing critical about it, unless, of course, it reduces someone to negative hit points, as glass pointed out.

I am going to also freely admit, before someone thinks I'm being a grognard or whatnot, that this is a problem with all editions of D&D that used criticals that merely caused an increase in hit point damage, instead of some special, truly dire effect.