Critical Hit with Fireball!

[Celebrim]

Yeah, but PCs have action points now. A single lucky (unlucky?) hit will not kill a character anymore. It will take several of those hits to make a guy blow all his save-his-@$$ points--or using too many for cool powers and not leaving a couple for a safety net.

So in other words, a net increase in complexity to achieve the same result?

 

[Rechan]

Yeah, but PCs have action points now. A single lucky (unlucky?) hit will not kill a character anymore. It will take several of those hits to make a guy blow all his save-his-@$$ points--or using too many for cool powers and not leaving a couple for a safety net.

A good example of this is the Tomb under the Tor playtest. The rogue took a critical, used his Second Wind, took another critical, and went unconscious.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

So in other words, a net increase in complexity to achieve the same result?

That's not really an increase in complexity at all.

 

[Andor]

Huh. What sticks out for me is that he seemed floored that a critted fireball one shot a trog skirmisher. Trogs aren't the toughest foes in the underdark, and I wouldn't expect a skirmisher to be a hunk o' hitpoints. That tells me that fireball damage is not expected to drop or even seriously wound lvl appropriate foes. Looks like wizards are moving even farther away from their 1/2ed "big guns" role. Not an attack on 4e btw, just an observation.

 

[Reaper Steve]

So in other words, a net increase in complexity to achieve the same result?

Whoa...not at all.
I think crits are great.
I think action points are great.
I think some player control is great, which action points provide.

I do not think that action points add any complexity to the situation.
As a matter of fact, it's less complex:
DM: You just got hit with a fireball crit for 69 hp!
Me: Ohhh...I only had 42...I'll burn an action point to stay alive.
DM: The game continues!
versus:
DM: You just got hit with a fireball crit for 69 hp!
You: Ohhh...I only had 42 hp, I guess I'm dead.
DM: See you in an hour after you make a new character and I can figure out where to work him in.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

If criticals can be scored with a AoE spell, and a single roll which can result in a crit is made against the defenses of all within the AoE, then I think this would be too much. Unless melee changes a lot, I don't see fighters getting to make multiple crits with a single attack roll. Some players of melee types already take issue with the way the spellcasters can take out multiple foes with one shot. This would make that even worse.

If it is against a single target and the rest get "splash" damage, I would have no problem with it.

 

[Celebrim]

Yes.

And the number of fireballs my party is subjected to is minuscule compared to the number of fireballs they cast.

Doesn't matter. Compared to any NPC in the campaign, the number of fireballs that a PC is expected to survive (the number of attacks of any sort the PC is expected to survive) is enormous. Few NPC's in your campaign are going to be expected to survive 1 'save or die' situation, much less 2. But your PC's are going to be expected to survive literally dozens of 'save or die' situations.

Consider the 3rd edition variant of this rule. Say a party of level X faces down an arcane spell caster of level X who surprises them with an area effect that does 1d8/level damage, save for half, or 2d8/level damage if they roll a 1 to save. Suddenly there is a 1:20 chance that most anyone in the party (and anyone carrying any amount of damage) is going to be one shotted by this attack.

No, I don't like this at all. It makes balance just that much harder to achieve, because as a DM the deviation in the expected damage from an encounter is going way up.

 

[Celebrim]

Reaper Steve: Your example is flawed. The two cases are, "Spend an action point or take 69 damage." vs. "Take 34 damage." The net change is "More save or die situations + more ways to avoid them." versus "Fewer save or die situations."

 

[Reaper Steve]

Reaper Steve: Your example is flawed. The two cases are, "Spend an action point or take 69 damage." vs. "Take 34 damage." The net change is "More save or die situations + more ways to avoid them." versus "Fewer save or die situations."

OK, so I should have chosen numbers that would have resulted in char death regardless of 3e saves or 4e action points. My point was: at some point, a character could face being dead. If the 3e guy only had 23 hp, he'd be dead even if he made his save. The 4e guy, no matter his hp before the attack, could live by spending an AP. (I'm assuming an AP will prevent char death.)

I find it much more dramatic and tense if the characters face heinous attacks that would kill them, but for pending an action point. "Whew, that was close!' Of course, I also spent lots of time playing Warhammer Roleplay, where Fate points served the same purpose.

 

[Sir Brennen]

two threads on fireball criticals merged...

Woot! My thread killed the other thread and took its stuff!