Level Up (A5E) Changes to Crit and auto-success

[TheSword]

The issue with here is a basic one: We are looking for systems that are compatible with 5e. Currently, a critical gets you an extra die of damage.

Crippling, blinding, and such... are all typically much worse than one die of damage. How bad do you want critical to be?

A round of blinding per proficiency modifier, speed reduced by 5 x proficiency modifier.

Crittting does a lot more for some classes, Paladins, rogues etc.

 

[Charlaquin]

If the goal, as @Morrus suggested, is that a 5e character can be played in Level Up, then I don't see an inherent problem in changing how some of the rules 5e work, including critical. I think we may be limiting ourselves too much in what we can change, while remaining compatible by those standards. What rules do you think are ok to change for this game, even if we haven't yet figured out implementation?

I think if you can’t play an A5E character in 5e, then we’ve failed in the goal of backwards compatibility. That would mean any changes the player-facing options - races, backgrounds, classes, subclasses, feats, etc. should be fair game as long as they don’t drastically affect game balance. System-level changes I think will require a lot more care. Expanding the skill list and giving players more ways to gain half or double proficiency could work, but changing to a skill rank system probably wouldn’t. Allowing advantage and disadvantage to stack would probably work, but changing what they do or getting rid of them entirely probably wouldn’t. Changing the effect of a crit might work, but changing how a crit is determined probably won’t.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Having experienced this rule in PF2, I don’t like this idea at all. Furthermore, in my experience, it doesn’t widen the design space, it shrinks it.

First off, if implemented, the designers must commit to a laser-like focus on the possible bonuses on attacks. The game just isn’t as fun if your character has a 5% chance to crit while another character has a 20% chance.

“But,” you may ask, “ isn’t it already the case that all players who max their main stat have the same attack bonus?” Ah, but you have to consider circumstantial bonuses and how easy it is for each class to get them. And you’d better ensure that all characters get magical weapons at the same time (or not at all), because no one wants to be the only character who is critting rarely in the party.

Second, well I “second” the comment about additional arithmetic slowing down the game. In 5e, if you roll a 15-19, you pretty much know you hit, no arithmetic needed. On a 1-5, you pretty much know you missed (barring oozes and zombies). Anything else, you’re doing the arithmetic, and some people just aren’t as quick as others. With 4 players, the extra arithmetic is tolerable, but with a large group (or a DM that is slow), it can quickly become unbearable.

Finally, the flipside. If beating AC by 10 or more is a crit, the range of character ACs narrows dramatically. In my PF2 game, I quickly realized that 3 of the 5 characters had the same AC. The leather-armored rogue? The same AC as the heavy-armor 2-weapon fighter. Last place? The wizard in cloth (with a +1 due to Mage Armor) at 3 AC less than either of them. This ruins verisimilitude for some players, and reinforces the “gamist” feel of the system for others.

TLDR: a +10 crit rule (or a -10 crit fail rule) ensures that the DM has to pay a lot more attention to keep bonuses and ACs within a tight range to ensure that certain members of the party aren’t overshadowed. This tight range can restrict design space and can stretch verisimilitude when a wide range of concepts end up having similar mechanics.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think if you can’t play an A5E character in 5e, then we’ve failed in the goal of backwards compatibility. That would mean any changes the player-facing options - races, backgrounds, classes, subclasses, feats, etc. should be fair game as long as they don’t drastically affect game balance. System-level changes I think will require a lot more care. Expanding the skill list and giving players more ways to gain half or double proficiency could work, but changing to a skill rank system probably wouldn’t. Allowing advantage and disadvantage to stack would probably work, but changing what they do or getting rid of them entirely probably wouldn’t. Changing the effect of a crit might work, but changing how a crit is determined probably won’t.

I think how much we can change is certainly something we must discuss. I just remember hearing @Morrus specifically saying that 5e to LE is necessary, but LE to 5e is less so. If I have that wrong, please let me know.

 

[Umbran]

Crittting does a lot more for some classes, Paladins, rogues etc.

Is "paladins and rogues get more out of critical hits" a design problem you are trying to fix? If not, then you don't add these extra options on criticals in general (which would then nerf the paladin and rogue, relatively speaking, by lifting everyone else up). You'd add that as special options on subclasses or the like for their critical hits.

 

[Morrus]

I think if you can’t play an A5E character in 5e, then we’ve failed in the goal of backwards compatibility.

It’s the other way round. You can play any 5E material in Level Up. That will generally mean the reverse, too, but the former is what we mean by that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No, thank you. This just makes to-hit math more complicated and slows the game down for no real benefit in my opinion. I also think changing crit rules would go against the goal of complete 5e compatibility. If you like this as a house rule, by all means use it in your games, but I don’t think it would be a good choice for A5e.

This.

I agree, as long as it happens to the PCs as well.

IME most are bummed out enough about taking the big damage, so I don't know if extra bad stuff would make players happy or not.

I really don't like restricting design with the requirement that any benefit PCs get is also available en masse to the NPCs. I'd rather crits in general be a special feature for some NPCs in a game where Bounded Accuracy makes crits unecessary for mooks to hit you.
Mooks that do 1d6+2 with their whole round don't need to ever waste my time with an extra 1d6 because I rolled a 20.
When I want my NPCs deadlier, I just increase their Ability scores, proficiency bonus, and give them better gear. When that isn't enough, they get special abilities. But the basic mook should be as dirt simple as possible. I'd get rid of their ability scores alltogether if that wasn't too much of a departure, and just give them an Action Bonus that is their proficiency + 2, 3, 4, or 5, depending on CR.

Personally, that seems like a minor enough addition to the math load that players would hardly notice the extra effort. And for that added effort you get:

• to cleanup the language around crits and nat 20's being the same across all roll types
• add more definition to weapons so that there are fewer that have the same stats
• open up design space for new feats, class features, spells, or even racial traits

I'm not sure why the first needs cleaning up, the second can more easily be done without this change, eg; brutal (reroll 1s on damage dice), high crit (add a die of damage or add proficiency to damage when you crit), penetrating (reduce target AC? bypass damage resistence? depends on what sorts of AC tags exist, tbh), and others can be added without changing the basic crit rules, and the third is also fully available without such a change.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think how much we can change is certainly something we must discuss. I just remember hearing @Morrus specifically saying that 5e to LE is necessary, but LE to 5e is less so. If I have that wrong, please let me know.

He may well have done, and in that case my expectations are probably off-base. But if so, I’ll stand by my earlier post as what I would prefer to see out of the project.

 

[Charlaquin]

It’s the other way round. You can play any 5E material in Level Up. That will generally mean the reverse, too, but the former is what we mean by that.

Fair enough.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I really don't like restricting design with the requirement that any benefit PCs get is also available en masse to the NPCs.

I don't really mean giving them exactly the same, but IMO there should be something, especially for higher CR foes.

For example. In our house-rules, a nat 20 with a bludgeoning weapon can stun the target if they fail a STR save. Well, we were were facing Hill Giants, not only did the DM have them deal maximum damage (instead of rolling) of 29 points, but we had to make a DC 16 STR save or be stunned until the end of our next turn. All I will say is "OUCH!". Most of are party was not proficient in STR saves, like my PC with--oh--a STR 8! At the time that was about half her HP IIRC as well.

So, while I am all for making critical hits "cooler" and "more unique", sometimes those things (or similar ones) will hit the PCs... and then you have to ask, "Is this really more fun for the players?" Some will say "Yes, I love it!" while others will not.

All that being said, class features that improve critical hits are different from general rules (such as our "critical = possible stun"). I agree, class features don't need to be represented in NPCs any more than every NPC feature has to be represented in a class somewhere.