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

[Celebrim]

Critical hits have always been bad for the game and punish the PC's more than they punish the NPCs. I suspect the developers are trying to minimize the impact of critical hits and getting push back from the "gambling" portion of the playerbase that loves the feeling of winning the lottery and wants it to be a "big event".

I've long ago given up and in my own house rules basically I just made critical hits be one of the main ways for martial characters to increase their damage so that they would be common enough to be something you could account for. Big explosive damage is just a martial thing, as is that if you are squishy you are a bit of bad luck away from being clove in twain by a frost giant with a battle axe. It seems to work out, but I do sometimes wish critical hits had never caught on.

 

[soviet]

Yeah I don't see why crits have to be symmetrical. They should probably be a PC-only thing, that way you can make them double damage or whatever and get the feel good of a 20 meaning something without the feel bad of sudden unexpected PC deaths.

Making them martial-only is an interesting idea. Aside from half-caster types like Paladins it's much less relevant to spellcasters anyway, and it gives fighters and thieves something cool to call their own.

 

[James Gasik]

If I were in charge of D&D, which I'm not (and that's probably a good thing, I have funny ideas), I'd have each weapon have a Critical Effect. And I'd make Spell Focuses have their own Critical Effect. You roll a 20 and you get that effect. Maybe it's more damage. Maybe it's a condition. Player can choose based on what they're holding. It's big and swingy, but it comes up only 5% of the time.

Monsters would have their own Critical Effects. Things you'd expect to happen once in awhile, like Giants launching you into the air with a swing of a giant weapon, big creatures swallowing you or grabbing you with their jaws/pincers.

Disarms, hamstrings, all that sort of fun. A dragon might grab with his bite and then you're grappled, and pray you can free yourself before you get a point blank breath weapon attack.

Yeah it makes monsters a little more complicated, but I don't think that's a big deal as long as there's guidelines for "what Critical Effects can do" and "what Critical Effects should not do" like vorpal bites or permanent effects. YMMV.

 

[John R Davis]

I'd just add two extra weapon dice of damage.
Stops Dex being the Uber stat as the heftier str weapons now look tasty.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am totally against it from the 3.x experience.

I'd rather have max damage + roll damage.

That’s what we do. Never disappoints.

 

[Vael]

I double damage for Monsters, but then I do not roll damage dice as a DM, I always use the average, or double it on a crit for speed of play.

This is something I see both sides on. I liked max damage in 4e (plus crit dice from magical weapons), as it was faster to resolve (especially for those new players with only a single set of dice), but there is that rush of rolling more dice with 5e crits. The way a Rogue players eyes light up when they get to pour out a fistful of D6s on a crit is a rush. OTOH, I've seen so many Fighters roll a 1 and 2 on their D10 crits and audibly made the sad trombone sound.

So, I dunno, I don't think the current Crit rules are bad, or bad enough to warrant changing. I've seen crits in three editions and ... it's fine. Crits remain fun events of heightened stakes, which is what's important.

 

[Staffan]

I also think that critical failures should be hard-coded into the game.

There are two main problems with critical failures:

• Having meaningful critical failures (i.e. with additional effects beyond the failure itself) on a natural 1 makes them way too common, turning the game into slapstick.
• The main way 5e shows martial skill, and lets martials do more damage, is through the Extra Attack ability. That means that martially skilled people make more attack rolls than those who treat actual fighting as more of a side thing. But making more attack rolls means more chances to roll a 1, which means that the people who are supposed to be good at fighting are more likely to eff things up.

Making them martial-only is an interesting idea.

If I were in charge of D&D, which I'm not (and that's probably a good thing, I have funny ideas), I'd have each weapon have a Critical Effect.

These two together are what Pathfinder 2 does. Most martial characters get a "Critical specialization" ability that let them do a special thing, dependent on weapon type, when they crit. This is almost always limited in some way so it only works when you're playing to type: rogues get it on attacks that qualify for sneak attacks, barbarians when raging, etc.

 

[James Gasik]

My players insisted on critical failures, so I made a chart of fairly minor effects like a penalty on your next attack, provoking an opportunity attack, stuff like that. The effects were apparently so minor that the players hated tracking them when they fumbled (apparently "-2 on your next attack" was too much to remember, lol) and they then asked me if we could get rid of them.

I guess they had visions of enemies stabbing themselves to death and thought this would be a massive nerf? I couldn't say.

 

[Lazvon]

If I were in charge of D&D, which I'm not (and that's probably a good thing, I have funny ideas), I'd have each weapon have a Critical Effect. And I'd make Spell Focuses have their own Critical Effect. You roll a 20 and you get that effect. Maybe it's more damage. Maybe it's a condition. Player can choose based on what they're holding. It's big and swingy, but it comes up only 5% of the time.
…
Disarms, hamstrings, all that sort of fun. A dragon might grab with his bite and then you're grappled, and pray you can free yourself before you get a point blank breath weapon attack.

Check out Rolemaster.

 

[Clint_L]

Aside from the mandatory failure at the intended task (so a miss, or whatever) I handle critical failures narratively, and usually let the players narrate and decide the consequences for themselves, which sometimes impose mechanical penalties, at their discretion. Sometimes I will ask if I can seize the narrative reins if I have a fun story beat in mind.