D&D 5E Do you play without Critical Hits?

[Coroc]

Just curious if any groups out there play without the natural 20 is a critical hit mechanic?

I know certain features would have to be altered, such as Champion fighters.

Anyone?

(listening intently in the echoing silence...)

EDIT: Just to be clear this is simply a discussion, I am not advocating one mechanic over the other.

Nevah !!!!!!!!!!!!

I also use nat. 1s and that is my part of the fun as a DM bec. my rulings are not fixed about what happens then, and I e.g. let spells crit if save is a nat. 1

 

[ccs]

Yes.
I would like to use crit misses as well.... Or no crits of any sort. But it's not worth the hassle.

 

[Stoutstien]

So, your PCs can't be crited at level 1 and 2? But they can still crit monsters?

Pretty much. I only use lv1-2 for brand new players and getting knocked out during the very first encounter ever played is not exactly a positive experience.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It would be cool if a crit had something interesting happen instead

I agree. It would be cooler if a crit stunned an opponent, knocked them prone, or something else.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Pretty much. I only use lv1-2 for brand new players and getting knocked out during the very first encounter ever played is not exactly a positive experience.

But you are saying the players can still crit the monsters, right? Personally, I wouldn't do that then. I believe the game should be fair and what PCs can do, so can NPCs/monsters (as far as the mechanics go). But, that's just my preference.

I know it sucks when a new player has their PC die early. In fact, in our main campaign, we were all new to 5E, including our DM, so he didn't really know the balance for encounters yet. The first random encounter was 10 orcs, and an orc killed our dragonborn sorcerer in the first round. It wasn't a critical hit but was a max damage roll after he had already been hit by a javelin.

Getting him raised was a hook into our first adventure though and we all learned orcs are much stronger in 5E than in 1E.

 

[Stoutstien]

But you are saying the players can still crit the monsters, right? Personally, I wouldn't do that then. I believe the game should be fair and what PCs can do, so can NPCs/monsters (as far as the mechanics go). But, that's just my preference.

I know it sucks when a new player has their PC die early. In fact, in our main campaign, we were all new to 5E, including our DM, so he didn't really know the balance for encounters yet. The first random encounter was 10 orcs, and an orc killed our dragonborn sorcerer in the first round. It wasn't a critical hit but was a max damage roll after he had already been hit by a javelin.

Getting him raised was a hook into our first adventure though and we all learned orcs are much stronger in 5E than in 1E.

I try to build fair and play to win as a DM but level one especially is susceptible to just flat out bad luck and the lack of player options to mitigate those moments. IMO that isn't fair. Best bet is just jump into the game at lv 3 or 5.
First encounter of my first 5e game ended up with 3 downed PCs before a single player had a chance to act thanks to my hot dice.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I try to build fair and play to win as a DM but level one especially is susceptible to just flat out bad luck and the lack of player options to mitigate those moments. IMO that isn't fair. Best bet is just jump into the game at lv 3 or 5.
First encounter of my first 5e game ended up with 3 downed PCs before a single player had a chance to act thanks to my hot dice.

Bad luck happens, characters die. Without that, the game is boring. Rules to stop players from dying when they can still kill their opponents is not my cup of tea. Sure, low levels are challenging because PCs are squishy, that is the fun IMO. If you are only allowing the players good luck (they can roll crits) but not bad luck (they can't be crited), that isn't really fair.

Anyway, if I was a player, I would insist you could have monsters crit me if I can crit them. It's cool if you want to remove crits at low levels but then I would want you to do it both ways. But hey, if your players are fine with it, no skin off of my back. We can all play they way our groups want after all.

 

[Charlaquin]

1st level characters are super fragile. Fortunately, you hit 2nd level really fast - half a session, maybe one full session tops. If you’re worried about killing them off too early best to just softball the first few encounters.

 

[Dausuul]

We use the crit rules as written, plus a house rule: If you wish, instead of rolling double the number of dice, you may take the maximum value plus 1 for each die.

The average damage is the same either way, but "max + 1" means you don't risk the situation where you crit with a greataxe, then roll snake eyes on your 2d12 and it ends up being worse than most of your regular hits. If you want a crit to be guaranteed better than any normal hit, this is a good way to go.

On the other hand, for many players, the fun of a crit is gathering up a big handful of dice and letting 'em rip, so you get your choice of which method you want to use.

(You can even switch methods from one crit to the next. In theory, this allows for metagame strategy where you decide whether steady damage or the chance of a blowout is more valuable at this moment. In practice, I have never seen that become a concern.)

 

[Charlaquin]

We use the crit rules as written, plus a house rule: If you wish, instead of rolling double the number of dice, you may take the maximum value plus 1 for each die.

The average damage is the same either way, but "max + 1" means you don't risk the situation where you crit with a greataxe, then roll snake eyes on your 2d12 and it ends up being worse than most of your regular hits. If you want a crit to be guaranteed better than any normal hit, this is a good way to go.

On the other hand, for many players, the fun of a crit is gathering up a big handful of dice and letting 'em rip, so you get your choice of which method you want to use.

(You can even switch methods from one crit to the next. In theory, this allows for metagame strategy where you decide whether steady damage or the chance of a blowout is more valuable at this moment. In practice, I have never seen that become a concern.)

That’s a great house rule!