D&D 5E Replacing Crits wwith Exploding Dice

[FitzTheRuke]

Nice math on it.

You might want to either leave out or revise GWF if you were to use it.

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[ccs]

Slows the game down.

Not by a lot, but every extra roll adds up.

Having played with exploding rolls, any such lag is completely countered by the fun when you obliterate a target.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

D&D 5e seems already deadly enough as it is. If it only works vs. monsters then maybe. Or you can only continue rolling damage until the target's HP drop below 0.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I think I prefer the idea of exploding dice as part of a feat or something, or perhaps a particular weapon quality (yeah that would be awesome - but in addition to the usual crit damage?)

As for crits overall, I prefer crit dmg = auto max + level. So whenever you crit, you know you're doing awesome damage. Nothing worse than a crit - yay! - but then rolling double 1s

 

[UngeheuerLich]

An interesting variant i habe seen in a homebrew system is exploding dies when you roll minimum damage on a roll. A bit like great weapon fighting style only that you add the perviously rolled 1s and 2s to the total damage.

 

[reelo]

How about:

When your attack roll crits, instead of double rolls for dmg, you automatically deal max weapon dmg PLUS one roll of weapon dmg.
I always find it disappointing when you crit, but then roll low on dmg dice. Thos way, you are sure to deal *at least* "max weapon dmg +1" on a crit.

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[jaelis]

I like just having you deal max damage. Keeps it simple and quick.

 

[jasper]

Basically what it says on the tin. What do you think of replacing critical hits on the d20 with exploding* damage dice?

*For those unfamiliar with the term, it means if you roll the highest number possible on the damage die, you get to add another die. If that additional die is the maximum possible roll, then you add another die until you fail to roll the highest number on the die.

GREAT IDEA if you hate pcs.
Mr pop star " I roll for my 5th level wizard 19 Whoo hoo hit! dagger 4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4 40 pts of damage deal with it amosdeus.
DM "The orc with a great axe d12 AC 13 HP 15. Nat 19 hit Shroiken 12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12 120 hit pts. Your 9th barbarian only had 100 hp. The orc does a happy dance on your corpse and steals your moon pie!".

 

[Horwath]

It's a nice idea.

But let's put limit on one re roll only. for both 1/2 rerolls of greatweapon style and exploding dice.

Also lets take 65% hit rate and +3 str bonus on damage.

and use greatsword for 2d6+3 damage(reroll 1/2, reroll 6's for one extra damage dice(no rerolls))

So, out of 20 attacks 12 are hit for 11,33 damage on average and one crit of 19,66.

that is 7,78 damage per attack roll.

for exploding dice it's 13 attacks for 12,5 damage

that is 8,125 damage per attack roll

That is for relative high hit rate. Now for low hit rate of only 30%, +5 attack vs. 20 AC damage would be,

3,82 with normal critical and 3,75 damage for explosive dice.

and for medium attack hit rate of 50% it would be;

6,08 for regular crits and 6,25 for exploding dice.


Damage goes slightly towards exploding dice, but difference is marginal. It maybe offset by extra crit chance with advantage.

now for expanded crit range of 19-20 let's use exploding reroll of 5 and 6's on d6 damage die.

at 50% hit rate(8 hits, 2 crits) it's 6,5 damage per attack roll and for exploding dice it's 8 damage. That is a lot more. 1,5 damage on average is 23% more damage. So champions are out of the question here.

 

[cooperjer]

I currently use the max damage plus one die roll, i.e. 2d6 greatsword crit is 12 + 2d6 + strength bonus. When looking at class balance I found this change causes the Champion fighter to exceed the Barbarian in damage at level 20. It also gives a step bonus to the Champion fighter through all levels but one that I didn't think made a significant difference.