Anyone got any good house ruled crit system?

[Wisdom Penalty]

We've been tossing around the idea of fiddling around with the crit hit system in 4e. The auto-max damage thing just doesn't seem to do it for us. That said, we're having a hard time trying to find a replacement with the following principles in mind:

(1) Crit resolution needs to be fast. Not as fast as auto-max damage, per se, but we're not looking for tables akin to Rolemaster.

(2) Effects need to be confined to hit point damage. We've done the gory effects stuff, and now we're enamored by the fluid and swift play of 4e. We don't want to lose that.

(3) Mathematically, we want to keep it similar to the RAW. In other words, we could ramp up damage, but we'd want to see that reflected on both the monsters' side and the PC side of the house.

So those are some tall orders. Here's the two most common crit house rules we've seen that, given the above restrictions, just don't seem to work.

(1) Roll double damage: Mathematically, this is identical to the RAW. The average of two [W] rolls, after all, equals max damage on one [W]. This is all well and good...until Brutal weapons appeared. How do we reconcile them?

(2) Double the damage and max it: Quick and easy. Makes crit mean something. All good, too. But...that's a pretty significant change. Especially with the higher multiples of [W] that we begin to see. And how does this reconcile with the high crit property of certain weapons?

Let me end this plea with a brief rationale as to why we feel a change is needed. As it stands right now, to us, the auto-max damage of a crit doesn't have the "Nice!" factor that 3e offered. Granted, you don't have the chance of rolling snake-eyes on crit damage, but the trade-off...I dunno, it's missing something. Crits are great in 4e, but they're not great. We miss those tide-turning smacks we used to see.

Any ideas?

WP

 

[Sporemine]

I generally use the following critical hit system:

Roll all damage, rerolling all ones and two's (only ones on the D4), add modifiers, then double it.

This works out fairly well by giving that old "Wow" feeling from critical hits but not letting the hit one-shot whatever is being attacked.

Hope this helped.

 

[Gruns]

Let it be.

I don't see why this is something that needs changed at all. Once you get a magic weapon with some plusses to it, and possibly more special crit effects, crits are still pretty nice. And just because it's max damage as opposed to double damage, the crits in 4E still come close to the damage of crits 3.5 since there is no confirmation roll.

Sample 3.5 crit: Basic +2 Longsword with 18 Strength. We're just going to have to figure that you hit about 50% of the time in 3.5, even though we know this isn't as true as it is in 4E.
Take 4 samples of the 3.5 crit...
1) Confirmed max damage= 28 damage.
2) Confirmed min damage= 14 damage.
3) Unconfirmed max damage= 14 damage.
4) Unconfirmed min damage= 7 damage.
So the average "Natural 20" from 3.5 here is about 63/4 or 15.75 damage.

And a sample crit from 4E with a basic 1[W] power, 18 Str and plain vanilla +2 Longsword.
1) Max damage= 26 damage
2) Min damage= 16 damage
The average here is actually 42/2 or 21 damage.
As you move on to higher level magic items with more plusses, and especially when you move onto powers with more [W]'s, the effects get even better in 4E's favor.

What does this all mean? Not much since overall the damage dealt in 4E seems to be greater. I suppose if you wanted to, you could do a comparison of how much better a crit is when compared to a regular hit from the same edition, but there are far too many variables to take into account for the 4E side of the equation. In the end, I say just leave the crits as they are. The lack of confirmation roll adds quite a bit to their power.
Later!
Gruns

 

[DeadGod]

First thought that jumps in my head: make a system to increase the damage in such a way that it scales with level.

A simple system: On a crit, take the max damage and add half your level. Or, if that number isn't "wow" enough for you, add your entire level as damage.

Another simple system: On a crit, take the max damage and add +1d6. At each tier, increase the damage by an additional +1d6.

A final system idea: Instead of extra damage, apply an effect for the next turn. Maybe come up with a super-simple (and easily memorized) chart. Use the simple effects like Slowed, Weakened, Dazed, etc. Maybe even Ongoing 5 damage (save ends) to represent a bleeding injury.

 

[highleaf]

After reading DeadGods idea of using conditions as critical hit effects. I made this system. I know it might not be as simple as the OP initially proposed, but I like the idea and my group is using it now. It actually solved another problem for us. When a battle was heavily leaning towards the characters winning, you still had 10-15 mins of game time wrapping the fight up, but now the winner is far lest obvious all through the fight, as a monster might get in a crit or 2 and shift the balance of the fight considerably. That wasn't the initial intend of the system but a nice side effect.