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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6751416" data-attributes="member: 6701872">I find those moments are actually false drama or false tension, just like how having to roll a die in order to do something might appear to add tension to a situation even when it really doesn't (i.e. it is the game element which the player is feeling tension over, not the narrative which is actually tense).Yes, average, though the dice added from a critical hit are rolled.I find it very important in enabling a player to actually understand how much risk a course of action involves for there to be a more consistent and predictable quality to combat. Having no idea whether or not your character can actually match their foe is not, in my opinion, helpful beyond the very first round of engagement.For example, in last night's session the party faced off against a chasme for the first time and were unsure how difficult it would be to face it head on and come out victorious so they could collect the treasures it was lazily sifting through when they came upon it. In the first round it scored a critical hit, and because I don't roll all of the dice there was zero chance that the players underestimate the danger of the creature because of a low roll (nothing is more misleading than a critical hit for minimum damage) and also zero chance of a single pair of lucky rolls (a crit for high damage) killing off a character with no opportunity to learn or interact.And overall, I find that the players not knowing when a creature might score a critical hit nor being sure if the attack(s) they've seen are the only ones the creature can perform covers the "I can't plan around it" aspect - so damage doesn't actually need to be unpredictable (I'd even remove critical hits from my games if my players didn't out-vote me, since they are far more bad for the PCs than good, despite how enjoyable it is for a player to score a critical hit).</blockquote>

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