Confirming crits, good idea, bad idea, or worst idea ever

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Bohemian Ear Spoon

First Post

• Feb 16, 2012

• #1

I never understood the use or need for crit confirming. it adds a second roll that turns "awesome!" into "WTF!" and really, all it does is make it go from a 5% chance of occurrence to a 3-4% chance, what is the point, use, or value in this rule? It seems like a math fix where there wasn't a problem. i ran crits on nat 20s for years and it never seemed like "I need to confirm!" The whole idea seems alien and weird.

The reason I bring it up is because I read in a report that they have crit confirmation in the 5e playtests, and i would like to put in a vote for executing this mathy, unneeded complexity with fire.

 

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Hassassin

First Post

• Feb 16, 2012

• #2

Make it full damage before confirmation and let the roll add even moar damage or cool things like tripping.

 

steeldragons

Steeliest of the dragons

Epic

• Feb 16, 2012

• #3

Bohemian Ear Spoon said:

I never understood the use or need for crit confirming. it adds a second roll that turns "awesome!" into "WTF!" and really, all it does is make it go from a 5% chance of occurrence to a 3-4% chance, what is the point, use, or value in this rule? It seems like a math fix where there wasn't a problem. i ran crits on nat 20s for years and it never seemed like "I need to confirm!" The whole idea seems alien and weird.

The reason I bring it up is because I read in a report that they have crit confirmation in the 5e playtests, and i would like to put in a vote for executing this mathy, unneeded complexity with fire.

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100% Agreed. "Alien and weird" is a great way of putting it.

Utterly pointless.

Never used it. Never will.

 

Grazzt

Demon Lord

• Feb 16, 2012

• #4

steeldragons said:

100% Agreed. "Alien and weird" is a great way of putting it.

Utterly pointless.

Never used it. Never will.

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Agreed. Nat 20 = crit. Done.

 

JeffB

Legend

• Feb 16, 2012

• #5

Not a fan,especially for the "wtf" reason mentioned in the 1st para of the OP. Agreed also with gist of Hassassins post.

 

Cassander

First Post

• Feb 16, 2012

• #6

Going back to the time before 3e came out, I had always been against critical hits before because I thought it was ridiculous that someone with a high chance to hit would have the same chance to crit as someone with a low chance to hit. For example, if you could hit a weak monster on an 11 or more, then only 10% of your hits would be crits. But facing big, bad, armored monster, where ya need an 18 or more to hit, then suddenly 33% of your hits would be crits. Huh?

3e sold me on crits by adding the confirmation roll, which did away with this problem.

Nowadays, that issue isn't quite as important to me, though I still like confirming crits due to 1) tension/excitement and 2 nostalgia. Definitely preferred crits in 3e to 4e.

 

delericho

Legend

• Feb 16, 2012

• #7

I prefer rolling to confirm, but only marginally - it's certainly not something I'm going to take a big stand over.

In particular, I quite like the idea that the character, on rolling a 20, could choose - roll to confirm the crit (and get more damage) or instead make an attempt to sunder/disarm/trip his opponent.

 

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Hassassin

First Post

• Feb 16, 2012

• #8

Bohemian Ear Spoon said:

I never understood the use or need for crit confirming. it adds a second roll that turns "awesome!" into "WTF!" and really, all it does is make it go from a 5% chance of occurrence to a 3-4% chance, what is the point, use, or value in this rule?

Click to expand...

BTW, the problem the confirm attempts to solve is that someone with 10% chance to hit should be critting a lot less than someone with a 90% chance. Without confirm both have a 5% chance. With the confirm, the former becomes a 0.5% chance and the latter a 4.5% chance.

If you don't have something like that, you are going to make combat against a lot of weak monsters more swingy than combat against a single strong monster. You can't really do x3 critical damage and expect reasonable results. Hence, max damage in 4e.

Edit: TL;DR - what [MENTION=8838]Cassander[/MENTION] said.

 

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Dausuul

Legend

• Feb 16, 2012

• #9

I understand the reasoning behind confirming crits, which Hassassin lays out pretty well; it removes the extreme case where every hit is a crit because you need a natural 20 to hit in the first place. With confirmation rolls, 5% of all hits are critical, instead of 5% of all attacks.

If we had a computer doing all the math for us and rolling the dice, I'd be in favor of confirming crits. However, since we don't (and I wouldn't want to), I find it's more trouble than it's worth. I'd rather just have crit on a 20 and accept the slight wonkiness.

 

Bedrockgames

Legend

• Feb 16, 2012

• #10

Never liked this rule. A twenty should be a crit.