Critical Hit with Fireball!

[Lanefan]

Well, it "makes sense" in the same way that characters don't have to suffer any number of other inconveniences that plague real combatants, such as shooting friends in the back; it's done for the sake of smoothening gameplay.

They should, and in my game they do...if you shoot into melee you're at significant risk of hitting the wrong target.

The game needs a formal fumbles table.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Or maybe it's absolutely no fun to play a wizard who has no idea if he is going to roast all of his friends with a spell each time he casts so he delays instead (like happened in the one game I played in where the DM enforced a "you can't place your spells exactly" rule).

Then don't cast near where your friends are! And don't delay either, just cast where your friends aren't...hit the enemy backliners and let the fighters deal with the frontline.

I've played a couple of the D&D video games where (at the right setting) you could hurt your allies with area of effect spells and you had to choose the point to attack 2 or 3 seconds before the spell appeared. I don't think I managed to MISS an ally with a spell...ever.

Hard to know if that's bad tactics or bad rolling; being a video game you don't see either the to-hit rolls or the random-direction-of-miss rolls, so there's no way of knowing if it's set up to have you always clobber your friends or not.

Lanefan

 

[StarFyre]

yay!

we currently use the detailed/realistic critical hit system from 2E combat & tactics/spells & magic. ADds a lot more flavour to combat. Just added that system on top of the 3.X system

Just today, a fireball caused 4 crits on a yugoloth..but didn't end up doing much.

it was cool though

Sanjay

 

[Rystil Arden]

See, that's what I'm talking about.

I've got a reputation as a brutal DM as it is without going back to the old first edition, "Everytime a dragon breathes you've got a good chance of a TPK".

Hmmm...Celebrim, while I think your sentiment here is right, I actually have no problem with spell criticals, per se. The trouble I can see (if indeed it is so, and we don't have enough evidence to prove this!) and the way you should push your argument, IMO, is the "one-roll-for-everything" phenomenon. You roll a Natural 1 / Dragon rolls a Natural 20? Okay, your PC is toast. That was just bad luck. Only a 5% chance--it won't happen next time with any luck. But the entire party suffers the same critical, that's just excessive (plus think of the reverse for a PC--if you roll low on a big mass effect spell like Mass Hold Person, you get nothing at all for your spell slot, whereas in 3.5, you'd expect to get at least a percentage of the mooks when you cast it).

That said, I'm going to wait to see what they actually give us before getting upset. Though if what we get is a "1 roll crits all" system, that will not make me happy.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Then don't cast near where your friends are! And don't delay either, just cast where your friends aren't...hit the enemy backliners and let the fighters deal with the frontline.

I found that never really came up. Most of the time it was things like:

DM: "You are traveling down a 15 foot wide hallway. The Paladin, Fighter, and Rogue walking three a breast in the front row, the Wizard and the Cleric behind them. You see 3 Hobgoblins up ahead, they run up to the party into melee with all three of your front line friends."
Me: "Umm, I fireball, since that's perfect, I put it just far enough back that the 20 foot radius hits all of my the enemies and ends right before it hits my friends"
DM: "Alright, make a roll to see if you can aim well enough."
Me: "Ok, what do I add to it and what is my chance of succeeding?"
DM: "Just roll a d20, you don't know exactly what your chance of succeeding is, I'll figure it out based on what you roll."
Me: "Umm...ok, well, according to the rules it succeeds automatically."
DM: "Yeah, don't quote me the rules, the DM is always right, and I don't care what any rules say, you can't just place spells within a couple of inches of accuracy."
Me: "Well, I don't want to hit my friends...."
DM: "Just roll already."
Me: "Ok...15."
DM: "Alright, roll your damage."
Me: "Cool, I missed them, whew, I was really worried there for a minute. Well, 36 damage."
DM: "Fighter, Rogue, Paladin, you all take 36 damage. You don't get Reflex saves since you weren't expecting an attack from BEHIND you."
Me: "What? 15 didn't make it? What did I need to roll then?"
DM: "I don't know what you needed to roll, but 15 doesn't sound high enough to me to have pinpoint accuracy like you are CLAIMING you should be able to do. I mean, it requires adjusting it within 6 inches or so to hit one but not the other. I don't know, maybe a 20 would do it."

There were also enough times where we'd be fighting 1 ogre as a combat, or 1 troll or 1 minotaur...and 2 or 3 melee types would be beside the enemy. If there is a chance of hitting your allies in melee with any spell that takes an attack roll or any area of effect spell, then it narrows your options to delay, use a magic missile, or use a nondamaging spell that targeted One Creature, since most DMs didn't assume those had a chance of hitting one of your friends.

Hard to know if that's bad tactics or bad rolling; being a video game you don't see either the to-hit rolls or the random-direction-of-miss rolls, so there's no way of knowing if it's set up to have you always clobber your friends or not.

Well the reason it always happened in those video games was that it worked in real time. You'd say "Cast fireball at that enemy there". You allies would all run up to attack that enemy, since you would only fight 1 or 2 monsters at a time and it was their only option. It would display the casting animation for a second or two, just long enough for the rest of your party to close the distance to the enemy and BLAM, they were hit.

The only way to avoid it was to remove friendly damage or micromanage your party, giving them all ranged weapons so they didn't get into melee right away or telling them all not to attack unless you specifically said so.

 

[Intrope]

I found that never really came up. Most of the time it was things like:
<snip>

Man, your DM was a JERK. Just imposing a flat 50% failure rate on all actions would have been a less severe penalty!

I think I'd have either quit, or switch to a character class the DM didn't blatantly job!

 

[3catcircus]

Well, yeah. Of course critical hits with a fireball - if the wizard gets to roll for attack, he should be able to crit. Why should the rest of the table have all of the fun with double damage?

However, notice that the fireball crit only took out ONE troglodyte skirmisher. I'm wondering if fireball is no longer necessarily an explosive area-of-attack fireball by default.

Yawn.

Critical hits with fireballs already exists in 3.5 with various 3rd party things like the SSS Advanced Player's Guide and its critical hit system...

Seriously, if *this* is the kind of "upgrade" that 4e will include, they can keep it. I'll switch to C&C, HARP, or some other system. The only things that 4e should be "fixing" is the DM's prep work time.

 

[Mkhaiwati]

hmmm... critical hits with a fireball

arcane spell failure

spell levels up to 30 or so

action points


are we talking D&D or Rolemaster?

 

[pemerton]

Critical hits with fireballs already exists in 3.5 with various 3rd party things like the SSS Advanced Player's Guide and its critical hit system...

Seriously, if *this* is the kind of "upgrade" that 4e will include, they can keep it. I'll switch to C&C, HARP, or some other system.

HARP has both criticals with fireballs (like RM, it treats elemental spells in an analagous fashion to weapon attacks) and also has the "1 roll versus all targets" feature that many are worried about (in that respect it is different from RM).

hmmm... critical hits with a fireball

arcane spell failure

spell levels up to 30 or so

action points


are we talking D&D or Rolemaster?

No edition of RM has had Fate Points as a core rules option. HARP does, but does not have spell levels. So in fact no ICE game fits your specs, sorry.

Seriously, I doubt very much that 4e will play like either HARP or RM. Both of those games are very highly influenced by the granularity of their character build and combat resolution systems. RM is also the product of a resolutely simulationist aesthetic from which the 4e designers seem to be deliberately departing.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

No, I am not Sean K. Reynolds.

Only the true not Sean K. Reynolds would deny his name!

Hail to Sean K. Reynolds.

Where's your sandal?