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

[blargney the second]

Woo. Yes, that would do it!

Ow!! Yeah, imagine a critical on a brute monster's big one-use power...

This guy was an elite brute swordmage using something with a boatload of maximized dice. I count myself lucky that it hit my 18 Con fighter with Toughness at full hit points. I went well past bloodied in that one hit, but it would have darn near wrecked me if I'd already taken much damage. Even worse, it would have KO'd pretty much anybody else from full, or killed them from bloodied.

Crits are scary because full hit points are not an adventurer's typical state when most of the dice are being rolled.
-blarg

 

[Angrydad]

While it can be rather disheartening to have your 4th level whatever KOed in one round by a lowly orc, I find that the chance for really big crits makes the game a little more interesting and deadly. If the characters don't have to think about the possibility of a massive crit taking them out in a hurry they tend to lose the fear of death. Besides, it does swing both ways. I had a Huge/Colossal spider (175 hp or something) guarding a tunnel that eventually led to a vampire's hidden tomb. The half-orc fighter with a scythe managed to Cleave, crit, etc. for about 160 damage. I just ruled that it was dead by default. We were also playing where a nat 20 on the confirmation roll resulted in upping the crit multiplier by one point, so theoretically someone who got REALLY lucky could get a x10 crit. Doesn't happen often though. The half-orc managed to get a x5 multiplier with his scythe on that one.

To me, a big variable critical hit allows for more of those random-amazing-shot moments where the hero somehow manages to take out a villain, monster, or whatever in a spectacular blow/shot. It's like David vs. Goliath. How cool is that?

 

[Wik]

This guy was an elite brute swordmage using something with a boatload of maximized dice. I count myself lucky that it hit my 18 Con fighter with Toughness at full hit points. I went well past bloodied in that one hit, but it would have darn near wrecked me if I'd already taken much damage. Even worse, it would have KO'd pretty much anybody else from full, or killed them from bloodied.

Crits are scary because full hit points are not an adventurer's typical state when most of the dice are being rolled.
-blarg

Henh henh henh.

Now, for the stats:

Level 6 Lizardfolk Blackscale Bruiser, with the Swordmage NPC class added on. The power that did the damage was... Frost Backlash, which let him dish out something like 3d12+3 cold damage in response to an attack. (I say "Something like" because I only have the book nearby, not my notes). And yeah, he got the crit.

Later on, that same night, in an different encounter, the same NPC hit the group's rogue with the same power. She went from nearly full HP to unconscious. Gotta say, I enjoyed that.

***

On to the point at hand. Criticals favour the PCs more these days, and I like that. The game should focus upon the Players, and not try to favour some sort of equilibrium between fictional PCs and fictional NPCs. The PCs are the main characters of the story, and they should do more in a combat.

Why do Crits favour PCs? A few reasons:

1) PCs usually have items (weapons or implements) that will increase damage on a crit.

2) PCs can heal; most monsters are unable to (or, if they can, can really only heal a small amount). Thus, even if they do get a hit, they just have to fight on the defensive for a round or two. This is what happened the first time my lizardfolk Swordmage hit the PCs - he caused the group to collapse and try to keep their heads above water while the other lizard folk set up a flanking maneuver.

3) PCs will do more damage on an attack on average, since they will have more encounter powers and probably more daily powers than a monster. Monsters may do more damage on a basic attack, but PCs rarely do basic attacks. If I had a monster that dished out the damage per round that my group's archer/ranger did using Twin Strike, I'd have a riot on my hands. More damage means higher criticals (obviously).

 

[MerricB]

There have been some great posts on this thread - thanks muchly for the analyses.

Cheers!

 

[Wik]

I got to say, though, one thing I dislike about 4e crits is how they lose some of their specialness. While a PC critting still gets to roll the bonus from his magic item (and maybe from his high crit weapon), it still seems a bit flat. Mostly because, on wednesday, there were a few times where PCs were rolling max damage on normal attacks.

Still, I'll take that over a x3 great axe attack anyday. Even a character with a +1 d12 high crit weapon will only deal 2-18 damage more on a crit (about 10 points or so on average). A bit, but not a huge amount, really.

EDIT: Regarding Minions. Minions should not be able to crit. Blargney pointed this out to me a while back. Minions shouldn't be able to crit... because you can't crit them. Plus, there's usually so many more of them (and actions are worth more than damage in the D&D "action economy") that the odds of one of them rolling a 20 are much higher than the PCs.

If you put in a rule that let minions deal extra damage (say, 1d6 from 1-10, 2d6 from 11-20, and 3d6 from 21-30), you have to throw in something for the PCs. I'd suggest an extra basic attack if you hit one, sort of a free cleave.

 

[Benimoto]

Yup. Criticals tend to be less swingy for the PCs. Crit-focused PCs can still pull off pretty impressive criticals against the monsters.

However, on the monster side, this is further mitigated by elites and solos, which tend to have higher hit points, or larger numbers of monsters, so that even if a critical one-shots a standard monster, there still are four (or more) left.

I think that's generally how I feel about it. Monster crits are frequently only mildly impressive. They can threaten a character, but no monster in the PCs' league can take a character from full HP to dead in a single crit. The increased threshold for negative HP before death also helps ensure that.

The PCs crits, especially if they turn their characters to take advantage of them, can put the hurt on a monster, but that's okay. A crit can turn a battle around, but it won't directly win it for you.

Finally, they don't usually undermine the drama of an important battle as much, because important enemies are likely to be elites or solos, with scads of HP.