D&D (2024) 5.5 Nat 20/CritHit Rule in play

[OB1]

I suspect that, in a lot of groups, when other characters happen to roll a 20 while already having Inspiration in hand, there will be a tendency to 'feed' it to the rogue by preference, for exactly this reason.

And another side effect of this, which didn't come up in our session on Saturday but likely will next session, is that since everyone loses inspiration when they take a long rest (other than humans who get it back at the start of the day), a party that is maxed on inspiration may be more willing to push a little bit longer before taking that rest.

 

[MarkB]

And another side effect of this, which didn't come up in our session on Saturday but likely will next session, is that since everyone loses inspiration when they take a long rest (other than humans who get it back at the start of the day), a party that is maxed on inspiration may be more willing to push a little bit longer before taking that rest.

Musician will come into play there too, the ability to start a few people off with Inspiration at the start of the day may mitigate that impulse.

 

[CleverNickName]

I pitched the idea to my Friday gaming group, and they weren't interested in trying it out. I'll ask again this weekend, once they've had a chance to mull it over a bit longer.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Thundering Smite for the knock prone and then second attack at advantage was her go to tactic.

Interesting. Does blow your Bonus Action and require you to have the movement (and lack of nearby enemies to AoO you) to chase them, and is a big waste of damage if not using an L1 slot (as it weirdly doesn't scale with slots), but at least the damage sacrifice is pretty small.

 

[OB1]

So I went back to my Roll20 log from the game (which recorded crit hit damage that we ignored in the session) and got the following results from 7 rounds of total combat across 2 encounters with 4 PCs and 18 total enemies.

Monster Crit Damage lost due to new rule - 15 (3 crits)
PC Crit Damage lost due to new rule - 7 (only 1 crit of 3 lost damage)

@CleverNickName maybe that will help with convincing your group!

Not to jump to conclusions from such a small sample, but I wonder if the expected math of lost PC damage to Monster damage with this change is supposed to be 2:1? That doesn't even include the fact that the rogue got an extra sneak attack when he wouldn't have due to the Inspiration he got from the earlier nat20.

 

[Maxperson]

Interesting. Does blow your Bonus Action and require you to have the movement (and lack of nearby enemies to AoO you) to chase them, and is a big waste of damage if not using an L1 slot (as it weirdly doesn't scale with slots), but at least the damage sacrifice is pretty small.

Also, since you're using the bonus action you have to use it before you roll to hit, so you can miss. Then it's concentration so you can lose it or if the fight ends it's wasted.

When I played my paladin I didn't horde slots for crits, because those are few and far between. Meanwhile since I'm not using my smites, things live longer and do more damage to us in most fights. That's a much bigger cost to us than the rare crit smite would yield. I did use my smite if I happened to crit while I had slots, but wouldn't hold on to slots for that occasion.

I also didn't cast any of the smite spells for the above reason. It wasn't worth giving up the damage with those risks. If I could have decided to cast it after I knew the result of my attack, I would have used them more.

 

[OB1]

Also, since you're using the bonus action you have to use it before you roll to hit, so you can miss. Then it's concentration so you can lose it or if the fight ends it's wasted.

When I played my paladin I didn't horde slots for crits, because those are few and far between. Meanwhile since I'm not using my smites, things live longer and do more damage to us in most fights. That's a much bigger cost to us than the rare crit smite would yield. I did use my smite if I happened to crit while I had slots, but wouldn't hold on to slots for that occasion.

I also didn't cast any of the smite spells for the above reason. It wasn't worth giving up the damage with those risks. If I could have decided to cast it after I knew the result of my attack, I would have used them more.

In this case, the risk you mention was worth the reward of fishing for another inspiration die with the advantage against prone.

 

[Maxperson]

In this case, the risk you mention was worth the reward of fishing for another inspiration die with the advantage against prone.

I still wouldn't do it, but it's good to hear that she is, and that it's working well for her. If we all played the same the game would be fairly boring.

 

[OB1]

I still wouldn't do it, but it's good to hear that she is, and that it's working well for her. If we all played the same the game would be fairly boring.

It sure would! And back to the original point, she had gone into the game planning on hording smites for crits (which I agree isn't an optimal strategy anyhow) but changed her outlook once the new rule was in place.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

the fact that inspiration serves as a "free sneak attack" for a rogue does give an interesting balance. On the one hand, no more massive SA crits. On the other, more sneak attacks in general. An interesting trade off I had not considered.

I’d also note that it leaves a little more room mechanically for rogues to either do something else cool on a crit, or to have a limited use ability to nova that is more in the player’s hands.

The rule by itself does frankly need the already wonky assassin into the dirt. Even if you play exactly as an assassin needs to get the most out of its subclass, you will barely be doing more damage than any other rogue. In fact, a swashbuckler with mage slayer or sentinel probably does more damage.

Definitely a fixable problem, but it does mean I won’t be making any assassin rogues for playtesting until there is a playtest rogue!

I’d love it if rogues get a “when you crit, the attack can deal sneak attack damage even if the attack didn’t qualify for it” and in tier 2, “when you crit, choose from one of these [3, 4 at most] effects”, one of which is to move a short distance and hide or make an attack, another of which might be to slow the target if it survives, and another could simply be some sort of damage buff.

At tier 3 at latest, IMO rogues should add “make a single weapon attack” to cunning action. Maybe combine this with crit effects, and make one of the options just “use cunning action without using your bonus action”.

Last night was my group's first Spelljammer AP adventure, and I decided to ask if they'd be interested in trying out the new Nat20/Crit rules. 3 of the 4 players hadn't heard about the playtest, but after a brief discussion about it and ensuring them that we could go back to the 2014 rules after the first session, everyone agreed that it would be fun to try it out. One player (Warforged Paladin) was highly skeptical of the new rule (as was I when I first read about it) but was happy to try it out so she could give informed feedback on the survey. I thought the Rogue would also balk, but he was super into trying it out right from first mention. The other 2 party members, Fighter and Ranger, initially thought the rule sounded way better.

Nat 20 Results - 3 for PCs, 3 for monsters. Rogue had a sneak attack nat 20 lose it's crit damage, but also benefited from a Nat20 against him not getting critical damage. He then used his inspiration the very next turn after using his move and bonus to get close enough to a fleeing bad guy to attack (thus getting sneak attack) and took out the monster due to that. The Paladin also had a monster Nat20 and was thrilled to point out that my monster wouldn't get crit damage The fighter and ranger were the other two Nat20s, both on weapon attack rolls, so both got their normal Crit damage.

Session wrap up - I'd already guessed given the reaction at the table to the various Nat20s thru the session, but the group enthusiastically decided to keep the rule for the remainder of the Spelljammer campaign, and are interested in incorporating other rule changes throughout when it makes sense to do so. The three players who just learned about the playtest are all also going to download the materials and participate in the survey.

For me, my last bit of doubt about the new rules disappeared after seeing them in play, and my initial thought that the Rogue specifically, and some other classes would need some new features to make up for the loss of Crit damage is now gone. The rule works perfectly fine on it's own. For example, the Paladin had initially planned on only using Smites when she Crit, but with the new rules used 2 smites at other moments, both of them the bonus action before attacking variety.

Would love to hear about other tables tales from this rule!

I’m glad I read this post now, before running my first playtest session for this UA.

The paladin not hoarding spell slots is an interesting, unexpected outcome. I like it.

Yeah tbh I always encouraged only smiting on a crit, because IME it meant Paladin players used spell slots more out of combat, but this might get us there even better.

I’ll also say, I think if the cleric is going to have access to all divine spells, I think the Paladin should get some benefit when they hit with an attack that deals extra damage from a spell they cast, like adding their Cha to the damage or something. Paladins should be the best at smiting, even when it’s via spells others can also cast, IMO.