D&D (2024) Just make critical do double damage. Period.

[Charlaquin]

I have seen many implementations of crit fumble rules. They all resulted in slapstick combats where fighters came out looking like idiots. (And, as others have noted, multiple attacks make high-level fighters look dumber than low-level ones.) Hard pass from me.

As for critical hits, I think a crit should be guaranteed to be the highest damage you can do. To achieve this without changing 5E's combat math, have crits deal "max plus one" on each die; so if you're attacking with a scimitar for 1d6+5, a crit deals 12 damage, as if you had somehow managed to roll a 7 on that d6.

"Max damage" is simpler but depowers crits a bit relative to the 5E baseline; "max damage and roll again" is a bit more complex but also more impactful; both would also work fine IMO.

“Max damage +1” is the same as average crit damage by RAW, so this is pretty solid

 

[MichaelSomething]

No one suggesting rolling on a random table?? Pffff....

 

[Horwath]

“Max damage +1” is the same as average crit damage by RAW, so this is pretty solid

max damage and +1 per die of attack damage

 

[glass]

The max damage plus dice thing is bad design. Players never remember the correct extra dice to roll so play slows down at the most exciting moment for a few extra points of damage. Either embrace the consistency (max damage) or embrace the randomness (roll normally and double it).

I played a full 1-30 campaign in 4e (as well as a few other bits and pieces), and that was literally never an issue. Even the super-casual players were fine, not least because it was right there on the character sheet.

 

[Charlaquin]

The max damage plus dice thing is bad design. Players never remember the correct extra dice to roll so play slows down at the most exciting moment for a few extra points of damage. Either embrace the consistency (max damage) or embrace the randomness (roll normally and double it).

Huh? If you know what damage your weapon does, you know what extra dice to roll, since they’re the same. If you don’t know what damage your weapon does, that’s a problem no matter what crit rule is being used.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

The max damage plus dice thing is bad design. Players never remember the correct extra dice to roll so play slows down at the most exciting moment for a few extra points of damage. Either embrace the consistency (max damage) or embrace the randomness (roll normally and double it).

I honestly don't see how it slows play. There are no extra dice. You would roll the exact same dice whether you hit or crit. That is less complicated than rolling extra dice, or even having to switch your brain function to decide whether you roll or not. With this rule you can even always roll damage dice with the attack roll, because that damage roll would always be useful, even if you crit. Below is an example:
.

• Let's say if you hit with a longsword, you normally roll 1d8+4 damage
• If you crit with that longsword, you are still rolling 1d8+4. But you are also adding 8 on top of that.

Now...

• Let's say you are a dagger rogue who hits with a sneak attack. You deal 1d4+4 for your dagger plus 5d6 for your sneak attack.
• However if you crit with that sneak attack, you still deal 1d4+4 for your dagger plus 5d6 for your sneak attack, but then you also max out the damage dice for the bonus crit damage, and add 34 damage on top of that. That is another benefit because it lets the dagger rogue be a better killer with their small weapon.

I will iterate my earlier observations about maxing and still rolling on a crit:

1. We roll the same number of dice whether we crit or not, so we don't need more dice. It removes the slowing aspect of play where we are picking through our dice hoards to find the right number of extra dice.
2. Many people love seeing the randomness of rolling at least some math rocks. Just max damage is boring.
3. A crit is always impactful and feels nice because we never roll double low numbers.

 

[glass]

Huh? If you know what damage your weapon does, you know what extra dice to roll, since they’re the same. If you don’t know what damage your weapon does, that’s a problem no matter what crit rule is being used.

Not necessarily. @soviet was responding to my bringing up the 4e model, where the crit dice you roll are not the same as the basic weapon dice (other than occasionally by coincidence).

There is, technically, a slow down compared with a regular damage roll, if you do the normal damage roll alongside the attack roll (although lots of people do not do that in which case the speed is basically the same). But it is a pretty tiny slowdown especially considering with how infrequently it comes up. Personally I am fine with taking a little time to savour a crit when it come up!

 

[aco175]

Is part of the problem the point that a roll of 20 is a critical hit. It is a 5% chance each time one attacks that they crit, be them a 1st level mage or a 20th level fighter. I get that the champion gets 19-20 for a 10% chance to crit, but looking at it in general I might be fine with letting some crits roll for double 6s or double 8s with a longsword. The same crit rolls for double 1s.

Is looking at the crit roll for damage as something for potential to do massive damage and potential to just do slightly more than what would have been done a viable way to look at it? Rolling a 20 and thinking potential for big damage over must deal massive damage.

 

[CleverNickName]

Instead of just adding more numbers to more numbers, let's just take this to it's logical conclusion, and roll out this old house-rule from the early 2000s: skip the damage altogether, and go straight to save-or-die.

On a critical hit, the target must make a Fortitude save (DC = 10 or damage dealt, whichever is higher). On a failure, the target dies from massive damage.

Reskinning that for 5E:

On a critical hit, the target takes damage as normal and must make a Constitution save (DC = 10 + your Proficiency bonus). On a failure, the target drops to 0 hit points.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not necessarily. @soviet was responding to my bringing up the 4e model, where the crit dice you roll are not the same as the basic weapon dice (other than occasionally by coincidence).

Oh, that makes sense. That’s what I get for not checking the context.