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

[Greg K]

Confirmation rolls are utter garbage.

Player 1: <rolls d20> Natural 20!
Player 2: Awesome!
Player 1: <rolls d20 again> No, not awesome. Worthless. 3 damage. Your turn.

Do you even read the rest of my post? I agree that the unconfirmation roll is an unnecessary step that leads to disappointment, but I don't think a natural 20 should be so special that the attacker's skill is not taken to account. That is why I pointed out how 2e PO: Combat and Tactics took into account an attacker's skill without requiring an a confirmation roll. So, I'll still stand by my statement, what they have shown us is utter garbage unless there is more to it (obviously my opinion),

 

[med stud]

The crit spikes the article talks about came from allowing extra modifiers to be doubled and not to mention the broken Power Attack feat. 1d8x2 vs 1d8 maximized or 1d10x2 vs 1d10 maximized is the same then in that regard with averages. But I can live with max damage crits. What troubles me is the tendency for wanting to speed play up in this edition. So far we have no confirmation rolls for crits and saving throws are static. What else have I missed? Looking ahead, with the new crit system and its speed of play we theoretically don't need to roll for damage either. If crits are static we could take a static average result from each die as well since rolling a 1 is no fun after the thrill of hitting a high AC monster. Chance be damned!

I know you were going for hyperbole, but I will answer any way. Saves being static doesn't speed many things up since a d20 needs to be rolled anyway; previously it was the victim, now it is the aggressor that rolls.

The thrill of a confirmation roll will be replaced by the thrill of rolling a natural 20 instead. If you are into RPGs for the thrills of good rolls, this change will bring more of it than before

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm really pleased with the new design for crits.

Although it is true that taking average damage across a characters lifetime crits are only an extra 10% total damage, say - but the problem is that crits can be so much higher than standard damage (any crit with a x3 weapon for instance) that they have a disproportionate effect.

As my physics professors used to tell me, knowing the average is meaningless without knowing the variability around that average. They probably used more precise words, but if I'd listened closely to them I'd be a rocket scientist now rather than a web developer so hey ho

A beneficial side effect of simply using maximum die damage for a crit rather than a multiplier is that it removes temptation to add 'additional multipliers' which were responsible for really cranking up the damage. The core books had spirited charge with mounted lance which was nasty enough (x5 crits were brutal if combined with a paladins smite), but subsequent books added more ways of increasing crit multipliers, plus lots of ways to add to the bonus damage which was multiplied.

I bet that a large number of melee based sultans of smack would find it hard to work so effectively with static crits rather than multiplier crits.

Note: the December preview article said that one of the forthcoming articles would be
Subsystem: Critical Hits and Misses.

I see Critical hits here - but nothing about critical misses?

Cheers

 

[Scribble]

Do you even read the rest of my post? I agree that the unconfirmation roll is an unnecessary step, but I don't think a natural 20 should be so special that the attacker's skill is not taken to account. That is why I pointed out how 2e PO: Combat and Tactics took into account an attacker's skill without requiring an a confirmation roll

What exactly do you find about it that is "garbage?"

In my opinion, it seems like it leaves room for a lot of interesting things to do with crits. (Aside from just adding more damage...)

 

[Mortellan]

Note: the December preview article said that one of the forthcoming articles would be
Subsystem: Critical Hits and Misses.

I see Critical hits here - but nothing about critical misses?

Hey yeah! If all 20's crit, I damn well want all 1's to fumble!

 

[Oldtimer]

I see Critical hits here - but nothing about critical misses?

Thankfully, not.

 

[IanB]

As a DM, I *much* prefer this proposed system.

- It removes the random "sorry, you're screwed" factor PC instakills that plague my low level games. Kullen the albino half orc in AoW won't be one shotting PCs with 45 damage crits two rounds in a row again.

- It removes the random "oops, the big badguy died" factor that PC crits sometimes cause. Not as important as the first point though.

- Longer fights are more fun fights, generally speaking. Smaller crits = longer fights.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So, I'll still stand by my statement, what they have shown us is utter garbage unless there is more to it (obviously my opinion),

It seems to me that you are taking a particularly binary view of this situation. I would have thought that since you agree with the problems of the confirmation roll but are disappointed that user skill doesn't (apparently) come into play then this would come somewhere between "most excellent" and "utter garbage".

Can I see a "not as good as I would have liked"? Possibly at least a "still mostly disappointing"?

 

[The Little Raven]

Do you even read the rest of my post? I agree that the unconfirmation roll is an unnecessary step that leads to disappointment, but I don't think a natural 20 should be so special that the attacker's skill is not taken to account. That is why I pointed out how 2e PO: Combat and Tactics took into account an attacker's skill without requiring an a confirmation roll. So, I'll still stand by my statement, what they have shown us is utter garbage unless there is more to it (obviously my opinion),

Oh, you must mean this sytem:

Player 1: <rolls d20> Natural 20!
Player 2: Awesome!
Player 1: <compares roll to AC> No, not awesome, since my attack roll isn't 5 more than his AC. Worthless. 3 damage. Your turn.

Whee. Sounds like just as much fun as confirmations.

 

[withak]

It doesn't mention one way or the other whether critical hits are still automatically successful. My guess is that they still are, but there's a chance they're not.

To score a critical hit in 4th Edition D&D, do the following:

Roll 20.

This implies pretty strongly that a natural 20 is an automatic hit, IMO.

I like that the confirmation roll is gone (for my 2e players, it'll be like it never existed).