D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Crit stacking?

[Darklone]

I am absolutely positive that it's okay to convert a crit range into a flat multiplier, with one and only one exception: If you're attacking in such a way as to "waste" some of your crit thresh (eg, you have a crit thresh of 15-20, but require an 18+ to hit). In that case, you have to recalculate your damage such that your crit range is appropriate -- in my example, it's now effectively 18-20.

My feeling is broadly that with the exception of the 12-20 crit range, if this starts to come into play, we're looking at a silly case. Fighters broadly speaking don't need 16-19+ to hit against CR-appropriate opponents.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I wanted to know if that straight multiplier was calculated for a certain AC to hit.

 

[Storm Raven]

Not all revisions need be about balance. This is a flavor change, and a good one. If critical hits were common, they truly would mean nothing at all.

Why would they mean nothing at all?

A critical hit specialist with a keen weapon is someone with a +8 BAB and a magical weapon that costs at least 8,000 gp. That's an 8th+ level warrior type, or an 11th+ rogue type (or somewhere in ebtween for a multiclass of those two). We are talking about a veteran of dozens of fights. Someone who has likely vanquished a hundred enemies of various types in his career.

Why is it that these individuals, veteran combatants with skill and prowess far beyond the general populace, should not be really good at scoring critical hits?

Flavor changes have no place in a revision. A revision should change things that are broken or widely disliked by the player base. The critical hit stacking appears to have neither characteristic.

 

[PaulGreystoke]

Storm Raven said:

Why is it that these individuals, veteran combatants with skill and prowess far beyond the general populace, should not be really good at scoring critical hits?

Because the game system already rewards these veteran combatants through higher BAB & multiple iterative attacks, which already increase the likelihood of successful critical hits. And because critical hits are in the game for flavor purposes, not for the purpose of optimizing damage for a certain type of character.

A character with multiple iterative attacks gets more critical threats than a character with fewer iterative attacks. A character with higher BAB confirms more of these threats. Thus higher skilled characters already critical more often than their lesser skilled brethren.

That said, criticals were not intended to be commonplace. They were intended to be rare, & thus special & memorable when they occurred. But by designing both a feat & a magic spell that increased threat ranges & by allowing these to stack, the game designers of 3E created something that they didn't foresee - that characters designed around increased crit ranges would become commonplace, which meant that criticals themselves would become less rare.

The math is clear - the stacking of critical threat range modifiers does not unduly balance the game. This goes to show that the original 3E designers did a good job of creating a balanced critical hits system. But the stacking of multiple threat range modifiers does dilute the original intended flavor of the critical hits system, so the 3.5 designers were justified in changing the rule for flavor reasons, if not for play balance reasons. Ultimately Andy Collins is right - critical hits are supposed to be "special". This rule is just an attempt to reclaim that.

 

[Abraxas]

posted by PaulGreystoke
But the stacking of multiple threat range modifiers does dilute the original intended flavor of the critical hits system, so the 3.5 designers were justified in changing the rule for flavor reasons, if not for play balance reasons.

I've seen this a number of times in these discussions.

Where has it been stated that the original intention of the critical hit system was to make them "special" (Other than the statement by A.C.) as opposed to merely representing the frequency of causing more substantial wounds to a target?

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I wanted to know if that straight multiplier was calculated for a certain AC to hit.

No, not exactly. The crit multiplier is applied to expected damage per hit. It doesn't take into account the to-hit rate.

So, if your average damage before crits is, say, 9 points, and you have a 17-20/x2 weapon, then your expected damage per hit is 9 * 1.2 (assuming that you need a 17 or less to hit).

If you require a 9+ to hit a given opponent, then your expected damage per attack is .6 * 1.2 * 9 (as you have a 60% chance to hit).

Does that answer you, or did I misunderstand the question?

 

[Mista Collins]

Man with all these calculations and math problems, just give me a table with some players and some dice and I want to have fun. All these math problems makes my head want to explode (doesn't matter if the crit for head explosion is 12-20,15-20,20.. I am still dead)

What would be this guys crit range?

 

[PaulGreystoke]

I've seen this a number of times in these discussions.

Where has it been stated that the original intention of the critical hit system was to make them "special" (Other than the statement by A.C.) as opposed to merely representing the frequency of causing more substantial wounds to a target?

3.0 DMG p. 65 BEHIND THE CURTAIN: CRITICAL HITS "Critical hits are in the game to add moments of particular excitement." & p. 64 "This is an opportunity for you to give the players some vivid description, to keep the excitement high:..."

This is admittedly just flavor text, but these snatches capture the essence of the reasoning behind the inclusion of criticals in the game system in 3E. We must remember that in 1E & 2e, there were no criticals in the core rules. Yet almost everybody had houserules that brought criticals into the game. Clearly, players wanted critical hits because they felt that criticals added to the fun of the game. The 3E designers responded to this desire & created what they thought was a simple, clean, & balanced mechanic - not at all like the homebrew critical charts that had been the norm. The 3.5 designers have now modified the mechanics slightly because they feel that the system was resulting in characters that overemphasized criticals, making these "moments of particular excitement" so commonplace that they were instead humdrum events.

 

[Abraxas]

I don't agree that the flavor text in the 3.0 DMG means criticals = special.

The 3E designers responded to this desire & created what they thought was a simple, clean, & balanced mechanic

It was.

The 3.5 designers have now modified the mechanics slightly because they feel that the system was resulting in characters that overemphasized criticals, making these "moments of particular excitement" so commonplace that they were instead humdrum events.

IME, even with characters focused on criticals, critical hits were never humdrum events. It has always been fun to see the falchion tank score 2 out of 3 crits (have yet to see 3 out of 3) or the rapier rouge score 2 out of 2 (although the bonus damage from the crit was overshadowed by the sneak attack damage he does). Its even more exciting when your DM describes your opponent as a fiendish ogre holding a falchion (blade dancing with blue sparks) and moving it much more skillfully than a the run of the mill ogre

Feh - Flavor changes such as these should have been left up to individual DMs. YMMV