D&D 5E Critical Hits: Why not x2 damage?

[delericho]

It's pretty close to, but more fun than, 4e's simple "max damage" crits.

 

[Li Shenron]

It could be done in many ways, and IMHO it wouldn't really change much in the game. But every player has a preference, and 5e does it this way probably just because it won the polls during playtest, when criticals were changed back and forth many times.

 

[BoldItalic]

In the last iteration of the DDNext playtest, critical hits were "max damage plus one weapon die", but this was before monster stats were finalized. It was rebalanced after playtesting against 5e monsters.

The 5e rule is more like "average damage plus one weapon die" which is the rule recommended in the DMG for monsters.

 

[mellored]

But then why don't we double the modifier also? The damage modifiers in 5E are really reigned in; on low level monsters, it's like +1 or +2 usually, but we also have low level monsters like Hobgoblins which can deal an extra 2d8 damage in certain cases.

By not doubling the modifier, which aren't out of control in this edition, certain classes are hurt more than others. It just seems kind of odd.

I think it's intentional that some classes crit harder then others.

It gives big weapon users (and rogues) a nice boost compared to other classes.


That said, i've never been a fan of crits in general.
Or the separate to-hit and damage rolls. Why not 1 roll?
1d20+proficiency+1d8+str - 16 AC = damage.
(Dis)advantage can still be roll the d20 twice.

 

[Mercule]

We houserule it; max damage plus the extra die. This way you never get a critical hit that does less than max damage +1.

Nothing worse than getting a crit and then rolling two dice and seeing a pair of snake-eyes.

I saw this suggested a while back, possibly by you. We've been doing the same thing for about two months. Before we did so, I cautioned the players that it applied to all crits, not just theirs.

The first three crits were from monsters, not PCs. To their credit, the players did not back down. This rule guarantees a bit a sphincter pucker anytime a crit comes up against the PCs. It also guarantees a bit of a cheer anytime the PCs score one.

Last session, my dice we really, really hot. The wizard cast blur and haste on the Fighter and sent her into a crowd of mooks. The disadvantage imposed by the blur saved her from 7 crits in the first two rounds of combat, alone. Considering the Fighter is played by my wife, it probably also saved me from a night on the couch.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I saw this suggested a while back, possibly by you. We've been doing the same thing for about two months. Before we did so, I cautioned the players that it applied to all crits, not just theirs.

The first three crits were from monsters, not PCs. To their credit, the players did not back down. This rule guarantees a bit a sphincter pucker anytime a crit comes up against the PCs. It also guarantees a bit of a cheer anytime the PCs score one.

Last session, my dice we really, really hot. The wizard cast blur and haste on the Fighter and sent her into a crowd of mooks. The disadvantage imposed by the blur saved her from 7 crits in the first two rounds of combat, alone. Considering the Fighter is played by my wife, it probably also saved me from a night on the couch.

Ha nice!

Yeah, my group's been playing for a while, so they're pretty aware of what rules like these mean. The PCs are subjected to so many more criticals than any individual monster, so anytime we review a rule like criticals and determine how to houserule it, we make sure to take that into account.

I think they just love the idea of an encounter-saving critical so much that they're willing to risk encounter-ending criticals.

If it ever got really rough in a given encounter, then I'd probably tone it down for the monsters by rolling rather than maxing the first damage die. And if I roll max damage on both....well then it was just that PCs time.

 

[DJCupboard]

We've been playing as double everything for a while, and no problems yet. Our sharpshooter has yet to crit during a -5/+10, though. I guess we'll see then.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

It makes sense from a balancing viewpoint. Double dice means that there is more point in using high base damage weapon times. It also means that if you go for a critical focused build you are better off using these weapons. It makes sense that for example a champion is using a Greataxe or Greatsword.

It also makes Rogue criticals more important due to Sneak Attack dice being affected.

 

[Paraxis]

You have a paralyzed target say from hold monster or hold person, all those melee attacks are criticals when they hit. So instead of the fighter getting 3 attacks that do 4d6+15 (greatsword, 20 str, gwf feat) you would get 3 attacks that did 4d6+45 each, more if they had buffs, magic weapon, or other things that add static bonus.

I think the doubling of dice is probably an overkill too, I would rather just do max damage on a crit plus a little extra like impose a temporary condition or add just a little extra damage.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think this decision was made more to protect PCs than to keep them from steamrolling a few monsters.