4E Criticals - explain to me why they're less swingy

MerricB · Sep 27, 2008

One of the things I quite liked about the previews to 4e was how criticals were meant to be less swingy: you just did maximum damage and that was that.

Only, in actual play, it seems that there are ways of adding to that maximum, some fairly significant. High Crit weapons and magical weapons being the main ones I can think of at the moment.

It's probably still a lot less problematic than the orc with greataxe of 3e, but I was wondering what other people's impressions of 4e criticals were.

(Oh, and it's odd seeing how minions and criticals interact...)

Cheers!

Crothian · Sep 27, 2008

What is swingy? I'm guessing random, but in all honesty I heard Swingy and thought of a child's jungle gym.

Darkthorne · Sep 27, 2008

Minions & Crits

I was toying with adding a D6 or two (depending on the tier) if a minion crits. That way the pc's aren't sure if it's a minion or not and you don't get the "Quick place a Cloud of daggers over here!!!" bullseye immediately

MerricB · Sep 27, 2008

Crothian said:
What is swingy? I'm guessing random, but in all honesty I heard Swingy and thought of a child's jungle gym.

It's random, but in the sense of something that can swing a combat one way or the other quickly. Like when an orc deals 50 damage with a single attack and takes out your 4th level ranger...

Cheers!

vic20 · Sep 27, 2008

Crothian said:
What is swingy? I'm guessing random, but in all honesty I heard Swingy and thought of a child's jungle gym.

Random, with an emphasis on a sizable difference between the extremes.

GMforPowergamers · Sep 27, 2008

see the real problme is to make it not swingy, but still matter.

in 3.0 a cr 1 (maybe 1/2) orc with a great axe did 1D12+3 but on a crit did 3D12+9...a 1st level elvin Warrior with a long bow could do 1D8+4...or 3D8+12

Notice that the min is more then or equal to the maximum, but max could be deadly...

I remember one game in 3.0 that a PC of mine was 4th level and a Orc charged him with -2 power attack and a +1 Great Axe...crit did 3D12+33 damage...and my 40 something hp fighter died in 1 hit...

Now adays at level 1 aa crit is mostly just max...by level 3 you add 1d6

Umbran · Sep 27, 2008

MerricB said:
It's random, but in the sense of something that can swing a combat one way or the other quickly. Like when an orc deals 50 damage with a single attack and takes out your 4th level ranger...

It is called a critical hit for a reason. I am not sure why one would ever expect such a thing would be designed to not change the course of a battle.

charlesatan · Sep 27, 2008

Criticals in 4E, especially at higher levels, is actually swingy (then again, my players were using Vorpal/Vicious/Berserker weapons).

However, the caveat here is that it's one-sided. Players have awesome criticals. Majority of the monsters don't (the scimitar-wielding monsters are the exception but even then, they only have the high crit property, not all those extra damage from having magic weapons).

The only time I (as a GM) did much damage with a single attack was when I managed to dominate the Elf Ranger and he landed a crit on his ally (for 70+ damage in the upper paragon tier--the funny story there was that the player used Elven Accuracy only to roll another 20).

In the game, Player Crits might deal enough damage to bring down a monster down to its bloodied value. It's unlikely that the same can be said on the part of the monsters.

MerricB · Sep 27, 2008

Umbran said:
It is called a critical hit for a reason. I am not sure why one would ever expect such a thing would be designed to not change the course of a battle.

There's a big difference between a good hit and one that takes someone from full hp to dead...

Cheers!

Umbran · Sep 27, 2008

MerricB said:
There's a big difference between a good hit and one that takes someone from full hp to dead...

Yes. In my trial sessions, several critical hits ocurred. None of them came close to bringing the critter (or PC) from near max to dead.

And, given the generally higher hit point totals I've seen in 4e, how often is that actually likely to happen? You have an example where this happens when it really matters?