D&D 5E Critical Hits Appears to be Next in D&D Archive

[Wolfspider]

This is well and true. Maybe the whole point is tied up in defining "critical".

Maybe it's not too late for 4e to remove the term "critical hit" and replace it with "max hit"? That way, when the player rolls a 20 he says "Oooh, a 20! Max hit! I do 18 damage." That would be much better than "Oooh, a 20! Critical hit! I do 18 damage."

That way, when the big old stone giant drops from 100 HP to 82 HP and suffers no impairment at all from suffering a "critical hit", at least the "Max hit" description will describe what actually happened.

It would be really tragic to put all this work into a game, then after it's published, have to put out "Well, what we really meant was..." articles to explain and justify the abrasive parts of the game.

Of course, it's been done before...

"Max hit" or something similar may seem awkward for some folks, but I think using "critical" to define an attack that in many cases won't do anything critical to the foe struck is also pretty awkward. Since Hit Points are defined so loosely anyway, a "critical" hit on an opponent may not even be have really hit the enemy at all.

I would prefer to have the term "critical" mean something. Maybe have a natural 20 do maximum damange, and then have some sort of a confirmation roll or something that determines some special effect.

Hmmm. I might impliment something like that into v3.5 to avoid what many people have mentioned here. Have a threat mean that the character does maximum normal damage and then can roll additional damage based on the weapon multiplier...that seems like a good compromise. Thoughts? Anyway, I'm just blathering now.

 

[Scribble]

"Max hit" or something similar may seem awkward for some folks, but I think using "critical" to define an attack that in many cases won't do anything critical to the foe struck is also pretty awkward. Since Hit Points are defined so loosely anyway, a "critical" hit on an opponent may not even be have really hit the enemy at all.

I would prefer to have the term "critical" mean something. Maybe have a natural 20 do maximum damange, and then have some sort of a confirmation roll or something that determines some special effect.

Hmmm. I might impliment something like that into v3.5 to avoid what many people have mentioned here. Have a threat mean that the character does maximum normal damage and then can roll additional damage based on the weapon multiplier...that seems like a good compromise. Thoughts? Anyway, I'm just blathering now.

Isn't that basically what they're doing?

You get max damage, plus certain weapons do additional dice of damage... Plus my guess (based on some stuff they've said already) is that certain powers will be able to effect crits as well...

 

[Wolfspider]

Isn't that basically what they're doing?

You get max damage, plus certain weapons do additional dice of damage... Plus my guess (based on some stuff they've said already) is that certain powers will be able to effect crits as well...

Hmmm.

 

[frankthedm]

If you're so good at defending yourself that your opponent can barely hit you, then why is it that all of your opponent's hits always land in your critical locations?

To ingeniously discourage turtle builds. Level appropriate encounters should not be hitting only on 20’s in the first place and mooks are still worth some XP. 4e will not let a PC marginalize foes. If they are on the battlemat , they are at least going to matter slightly. And if that discourages PCs from cranking their AC far beyond what they should have at a given level… GREAT!

 

[ThirdWizard]

Arguing about the fun of doubling versus maximizing small numbers like 1d6 is only half of the discussion. The debate about whether maximizing or doubling is better for large numbers like 10d6 or 15d6 is equally relevant. As a whole, I think maximizing is clearly better than doubling for very large numbers for the sake of balance, game speed, and fun, and that this is more than enough of a reason to change it for low numbers as well.

I agree with your point, and its an important one. However, I think it is important to keep in mind that we are not going to see 10d6 fireballs dealing 60 damage 5% of the time, as they're changing how damage spells work (specifics undetailed at the moment). The new crit rules do showcase at least one reason why fireball's damage has been changed, though!