D&D 5E Critical Hits Appears to be Next in D&D Archive

[Xanaqui]

Fighter vs. Wizard

I don't think most people had issues with the damage done by high level fighters. When the Book of Nine Swords first appeared, and some people expressed concern at powers that allowed a warblade to do +100 damage as a standard action, other people pointed out how easy it was for fighters of an equivalent level to easily exceed 100 damage a round at that point.

I've found from 11th level upwards fighters are pretty consistently outdamaging the wizards.

Cheers

Perhaps against a single opponent, particuarly compared with a non min-maxed Wizard, but even with a non-min-maxed Wizard, assuming 6 opponents, negligible SR and no fire resistance:

Fireball (10d6, save for 1/2)
Assume 1/2 make their save.
Total damage = 3 * 10d6 + 3 * 10d6/2 = 45d6 = 3.5 * 45 = 157.5 points of damage. SR would reduce this by 30% to 110.25 on average (assuming their CR was 4 less than the Wizard's).

Of course, against a single opponent (or, at certain level ranges, even against multiple opponents), the non min-maxed Wizard is just going to use a save or die style effect (roughly 1/2 chance of death, ignoring SR; 1/4 with SR, assuming an equal CR to the Wizard's).

And this is comparing a non-min maxed Wizard to a min-maxed Fighter. I'd guess that in your games, any Wizard doesn't bother to min/max (since there's little need), or chooses to buff the rest of the party instead of completely dominating the combats at high levels.

On the other hand, a Fighter is much better against magic immune creatures (like Golems) than a Wizard who's unprepared for them.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's like winning a prize, and then maybe winning an even bigger prize a moment later.

I usually don't feel so. Most characters I played hit on a 20 anyway, so the first prize is not a prize with them. If they needed a 20 to hit, the whole combat was unsatisfying in the first place.

 

[med stud]

I also have a problem with natural 20's being auto crits, but by looking at the way the rules work, it should become clear that this will actually come up far less than it would in in 3e because of the monster creation rules and the way bonuses scale.

In 3e if you wanted a bunch of mooks to fight, you had to use lower CR creatures, meaning their attack bonus's would be much lower, often requiring close to 20 to hit, which, without conformation rolls, would be a problem (and occasionally the same problem in reverse when you create a BBEG), however, proper creation of minion and solo monsters in 4e should prevent this becoming a problem.

But what if you intentionally want to put the PC's up against some really crappy or really grubbly guys you ask? Remember that bonuses scale by +1 per two levels, meaning it's quite possible that by the time attack rolls require this amount, the disparity in hp, damage and other abilities will be so much that the difference in power may be significantly more overt than in 3e.

Well, that's pure speculation, but the minion thing is certainly going to help alleviate the problem.

If the "Aid another"- action is still in, weak creatures can potentially cooperate to bring each other's attack bonuses up. Something like 5 kobolds attacking AC 25; one of them attack, the rest Aid her so that she gets +8 to hit.

The kobolds still won't be a threat but it still is a reason to roll for them. If I was to run lots of weak creatures vs high level PCs anytime this is the method I would use, anyway.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

And I'm sure being critted against by a fireball with no way in the world to defend against it is exciting, too.

In the same way that being critted by a greatsword being wielded by that half-orc barbarian with no way to defend against it was exciting, yes.

Obviously, the power has to be in someone's hands. The power to determine if an ability works has been in the attacker for weapons and in the defender for spells. People accept it because that's the way it's always worked and they are used to it. However, there is no inherent reason why one is better than the other.

The only reason I can think of to favor the new method over the old one is that it changes area of effect spells to one roll instead of sometimes 20+ rolls. And it creates consistency, which makes it easier to understand for new players(when you do something, roll a d20 to see if it works, no matter what it is). When someone is doing something to you, hope your defense is high enough to defend against it.

 

[Khaim]

And if the "get extra damage dice as you level" theory is correct, then higher level characters could be getting more out of crits than before. Whereas in 3e, a crit with a longsword at level 15 might net you 2d8+20 (1d8+10 x 2) for a minimum of 22 damage and a maximum of 36, while a crit in 4e might be 5d8 maximized + 10 (from modifiers), for a minimum and maximum of 50 damage... plus, add in things like the bonus from certain weapons (I suspect since the war pick is listed as "d8" instead of any number that the bonus die for it from the "high crit" property is another d8) and magical weapons (another 1d6), and they could be even higher than before.

Don't forget your powers. The paladin smites all had "2x[W] + Stat", and I can't imagine only the paladin gets double damage on powers. In fact, I suspect that melee style powers will default to "double damage plus stuff", with the really good (high-level) ones doing triple or more.

Which feeds nicely into the "d8" damage. Normal attack? 1d8+Str. Smite? 2d8+Cha. Fighter smash attack? 3d8 + 2xStr. Or something.

 

[Gantros]

After reading through this thread, I see both some pros and some cons to this change in the crit rules.

Pros:
- Getting rid of confirmation rolls and extra damage dice speeds up combat
- Keeps max crit damage under control, and favors PCs over monsters by reducing randomness
- Natural 20 almost always provides some benefit to the attacker
- Simple math

Cons:
- Attackers that require natural 20s to hit are just as likely to crit as attackers that hit on a 2 or better
- Natural 20 doesn't always provide a benefit to the attacker, regardless of skill (since they can roll "pseudo-crits" on any successful attack)
- Crits are less exciting because the attacker doesn't get to roll any damage dice

However, this inspired me to think of a potential solution that could maintain all the pros while eliminating the cons...

On a natural 20, the attacker automatically hits, and gets a damage bonus equal to the amount by which they exceeded the required score to hit, or equal to half the maximum of their damage dice, whichever is lower.

Example 1: Attacker with 3d6 weapon, +3 attack bonus, and +4 Str modifier attacks AC25 opponent, and rolls a natural 20 (27 with modifiers). Damage is 3d6+4, +2 for the crit (27-25 = 2, half max of damage dice = 9).

Example 2: Same attacker attacks AC15 opponent, and rolls a natural 20 (27 with modifier). Damage is 3d6+4, +9 for the crit (27-15 = 12, half max of damage dice = 9).

This alternative doesn't require a confirmation roll but keeps the damage roll, provides a damage bonus that scales with the attacker's skill, keeps massive crits under control, and is still fast and simple (max crit damage bonus can be noted on character sheet).

 

[Cadfan]

2d6 damage was already better than 1d12. No its a bit... more better (?) than before.

In 3e, 2d6 averages to 7. 1d12 averages to 6.5. Both could obtain the same bonuses from their crit chances.

In 4e, on 1 out of 12 crits the 1d12 weapon would have achieved that damage anyway. The 2d6 weapon only has this happen 1 out of 36 chances.

Not that I expect odds this marginal to meaningfully affect people's gameplay decisions.

 

[demadog]

Well, I think it's already been explained extensively why confirmation rolls are an extra step that only offers frustration.

I disagree. In fact the confirmation roll is excellent game design. It makes sure that no matter what a player needs to hit, those hits always produce criticals at exactly the same rate.

For example, if a player who needs to a 20 to hit also has to confirm the crit with a 20, then 100% of all their hits are threats and 5% of all their hits are crits. If a player needs a 16 to hit and a 20 to threat, then 20% of all their hits are threats and 5% of all their hits are crits. If a player needs a 10 to hit and a 20 to threat, then 10% of all their hits are threats and 5% of all their hits are crits. if the player needs a 6 to hit and a 20 to threat, then 6.66 of all their hits are threats and 5% of all their hits are crits. If a player needs a 1 to hit and a 20 to threat, then 5% of all their hits are threats and 5% of all their hits are crits.

The bottom line is that for all players no matter what they need to hit, 5% of all their hits are crits. Other threat ranges work out similiarly with a higher percentage of crits, but get a little wonky on the ends (ie needing a 20 to hit, with a 19-20 threat range weapon).

Now wether that consistency is worth an extra roll is debatable, but the designers of 3e thought that is was. Can the 4e desingers pull of something better? I can't wait to find out.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Some points to consider:

• The "skill" issue: Now, I completely understand the logic of the confirmation roll to allow better BAB characters to crit more often than lower BAB characters. In fact, I house-ruled crits and confirmation rolls into my game way back in 2nd edition, and was very pleased when it was made official in 3E.

But now, it seems skill (counting magical augmentation as "skill", just like previous editions) is reflected in how meaningful the critical actually is. The more skilled character will be doing more damage (+ effects) than lower level ones. There's still a correlation between BAB and damage output. And I think it's quite likely that the fighter will have the lion's share of ways to make their crits more effective as they level.

• When only a 20 hits: Umm... can someone show me where 20 is still an auto hit as a confirmed rule? Right now this is pure speculation. Plus, this is an extreme corner case. How often do players come up against creatures which their BAB + d20 can't possibly touch? It's a mountain out of a molehill, an argument about verisimilitude which only actually comes into play rarely, if ever.

In 4E, there won't be wizards plinking away with crossbows anymore. For their area of expertise - their powers - I'm thinking each class will be on par with the fighter for their odds of striking in combat, or at least much closer than in previous editions. So the "only possible hit is on a natural 20" scenarios I think will be virtually non-existent in the new edition (unless the DM is particularly sadistic).

• Crits are less exciting: What the character is able to do with the crit is where the excitement comes in. I think the idea of creating a character whose criticals do max damage plus something different than all the other PCs in the party is going to add a lot more excitement and flavor than just the same ole multiple damage each time.

-There appears to be a buttload of ways to enhance damage, from powers to talents, feats and weapon type.

which is unfortunate, because too many can break back out into exploding damage rolls that made crits so ridiculous. Its just applied differently.

From the article, it doesn't seem to me that adding more damage is the only way crits could be enhanced. A fighter specializing in hammers might, for example, either knock back or knock down an opponent on a crit. A rogue might be able to hamstring an enemy on a crit, lowering their movement. The cleric's healing ability enhanced on a crit has already been mentioned. There's tons of things that might happen as a result of a crit other than damage.

Again, this article is just a tidbit which I think requires knowing alot more about the combat system, class abilities, magic items, ect. to really understand how it will work.

 

[Kesh]

All I can say is, I really like this design decision.