D&D 5E Mitigating Critical Hit Devastation

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Syntallah

First Post

• Oct 17, 2014

• #1

A couple of weeks ago, I rolled three critical hits in one night, two of them resulting in a PC death (the third was against the raging barbarian who made it through). This caught my players by surprise as we had very few deaths in all of our 4E playing time, and brought to the fore something that has been bothering me since 5E's release: a 20 is always a critical hit, no matter the skill > AC involved. To assuage the mob, I told them I was exploring ways to mitigate the critical hit:

- 3E's Threat / Confirm mechanic; simple and effective, but the DM does most of the work since I roll more dice than the players in any given night
- an Armor Check concept [ (d20 +(AC - 10)) vs a static DC ] that somebody on these boards mentioned (forgive me, I don't remember who). I like this one because I roll a 20/critical , and the player rolls a defensive roll giving some interaction to the situation.

The problem is, I don't have the math skills to compare these two mechanics. Is one clearly better than the other? Are they about the same? If you were DMing for a group that wanted such a mechanic, which would you choose?

Thanks for any insight..!

 

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billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)

• Oct 17, 2014

• #2

I'd probably use the 3e confirm mechanic since it's pretty well known and doesn't involve any additional stats to track or calculate like the AC-10 needed for the armor check concept.

 

Sacrosanct

Legend

• Oct 17, 2014

• #3

We've always played since 33 years ago that a 20 is a crit unless you need a 20 to hit. Then it's just a hit. no extra math or fiddling involved.

 

P

Paraxis

Explorer

• Oct 17, 2014

• #4

It isn't the frequency it is the amount of damage and the way death works. Remove the instant death at negative h.p rule at least for the first few levels and most of this issue will go away.

 

Plane Sailing

Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!

• Oct 17, 2014

• #5

I'm interested that you didn't have any 4e deaths - I saw loads when I was running it (about 12 characters died in 6 months).

From third edition onwards a bad crit at the wrong time could be fatal - especially for lower level characters.

One of the reasons why the crit process was turned into just rolling a 20 was so that PCs didn't have the satisfaction of rolling a 20 and then the problem of not confirming. A bit of a downer when that happened (which was often!)

I'd be tempted to persuade the players to continue to run with it. If you are committed to doing something then you might as well use the threat/confirm mechanic, as it is well known and well tested.

Cheers

 

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

• Oct 17, 2014

• #6

In my experience 4e PCs were tougher then earlier editions, and 5e seems to be returning to that earlier balance. (This isn't an edition war - I've enjoyed all versions of D&D!). So the increased risk and lethality at 1st level might be of a bit of a shock for your group if you're used to 4e. It's quite a difference.

1st level is the fragilest - with 2nd so close in terms of XP, it might be just that this problem will clear up by itself. At the very least the swinginess of crit damage vs. total HPs will drop greatly as they level up.

If you and your group as a whole enjoy the more robust PCs of 4e, it may be time for a house rule. If you just have one or two PCs, they may instead find that they can fill their requirements with feats like Durable or simply a high Con score.

 

Sacrosanct

Legend

• Oct 17, 2014

• #7

Also remember that levels 1-3 in 5e were meant to emulate/support those gamers who preferred the "zero to hero" model of TSR days. If you like the more robust 4e PCs, you may want to start at level 3, where most classes have their subclass extra abilities

 

K

KarinsDad

Adventurer

• Oct 17, 2014

• #8

Plane Sailing said:

I'm interested that you didn't have any 4e deaths - I saw loads when I was running it (about 12 characters died in 6 months).

Click to expand...

Even with a lot of difficult encounters, I had the opposite experience. A TPK on night one, a few "most of the party unconscious" scenarios, but virtually no actual deaths once players got familiar with the game system. There are just too many ways to heal, control, etc. and a plethora of forced movements, conditions, etc. from most PCs in 4E encounters. Nearly every PC has a few tricks up his sleeve or some big guns they can pull out when necessary.

Things got a bit hairier once monster damage was increased, but before that, even tough encounters tended to be non-threatening.

 

Thank Dog

Banned

Banned

• Oct 18, 2014

• #9

Any rule that works for the PC's will also work against them. I bet your players aren't complaining when they roll high on their crits against enemies.

5e is a very swingy edition. Mitigating crits isn't really the right answer to that "problem" in my opinion. What you might want to do instead is simply make crits more stable and use average damage rounded up instead of rolling. So a d8 would do 5 points of damage on a crit, not 1-8 damage.

 

D

Dausuul

Legend

• Oct 18, 2014

• #10

What level are the PCs? And what were they fighting?

I share the general view that the existing crit rules are fine, but you asked for advice on a couple of options. If I had to pick one, I would go with the second one. (Don't bother subtracting 10 from AC, though; just roll 1d20+AC, and pick a higher DC, say 25. Less math that way.) The reason I prefer the second option is that it's independent of the monster's attack bonus. The monsters where you most want to reduce crit damage are the big nasty ones, which likely have a high attack bonus; thus they are more likely to make a confirmation roll, whereas your average goblin probably had to roll in the upper teens to hit at all.

A third option to consider: When a monster crits, roll the bonus damage separately. The PC can then, if he or she chooses, roll any number of hit dice and add Con mod to each, just like on a short rest. However, instead of adding the result to the PC's hit points, subtract it from the crit damage. If the crit damage is reduced to zero or less, the crit is negated and it's a normal hit.