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

[Archmage]

Yes, they made most fun of all. Not at the moment, but just prior (when you where scared whether it would happen or your char would get lucky) and afterwards whenever you remember it.

I mean:

Demons -> charge, slay take their stats
Dragons -> charge, slay take their stats
Giants -> charge, slay take their stuff
non-draining undead -> charge, slay take their stuff

Really, not scary at all

draining undead and poisonous animals-> players wetting their pants

Seriously, a spider more scary than a demon or a dragon, just because the spider has poison? I think not.

Give me a temple of the evil wargod. Yawn, enter kill anyone and take their stuffs.
Give me a temple of the evil deathgod. Yawn, enter kill everyone and take their stuff.

BUT give me the temple of the evil plage god and it suddenly all becomes a "You first! Me? NOOO! YOU first! Forget it"

There seems to be a grand assumption here that "kill/take stuff" is the only motivation and that disease and poison and level draining is the only deterrent against it. Yes, my players like to kill things and take their stuff, but that is (usually) incidental to whatever goal they're trying to accomplish.
The DM should be able to make the players fear whatever their characters should be fearing in the context of the game. You don't need poison rules or energy drain for that. If the temple of the evil war god is the biggest threat the players will be facing, it's up to the DM to make the players feel that. If the players are the type that don't invest anything in their characters and treat them as nothing more than the stats on paper that they are, then there's no need to worry about putting fear into them anyway - their satisfaction is indeed governed by "kill/take stuff."

Give me the biggest monster doing insane damage -> charge kill it and take it's stuff

Not if it kills you and takes your stuff first.

Give me a monster that doesn't really threatens death but drains energy/abilities and you scare the out of me.

Why? Shouldn't the character fear death more than a little weakness? I mean, if you're alive the weakness can be fixed.

I soon forgett my insane crit on the BBEG of the campaign but I damn sure remember every time I missed because of too much PA penatly or when my char had to be carried out of the dungeon by his friends because he had too much strength drained to walk on his own.

I would think you might be in the minority, forgetting big crits against memorable villains. You shouldn't have to exaggerate to make the point that the big failures can be just as memorable as the big successes - I'm sure everyone has their share of "gaaaah!" moments lined up right alongside their triumphant ones.

I never had the impression that anyone was scared because his char could be rend in two, being eaten in one piece or crushed to slush. But anyone had an irrational panic about having his char walk out perfectly fine with 100 hp but with a negative level or being infected with a ability score draining disease.

See, this makes no sense. Yes, negative levels and diseases should be fearsome. But being rent in two is even more fearsome.

*snip*
Was it fun at this very momemt? Maybe not. Was it in retrospectively one of our greates D&D moments? Sure it was! And the player of the Kord cleric agrees wholehearthly, in fact, this anecdote is the one you will most likely hear if you ask him anything about his old Kord cleric character. And he too would have quite a few victories to brag about, but he always tells this one story

Heck, with our group if you want to bet how long it will be before they mock and/or glorify a failure or screw-up, take the under. Rolling poorly on criticals is named after one guy's character because on a sneak attack coup-de-gras he rolled one 2 and the rest of the dice were 1s. So yes, failures are memorable. But, I'd rather the players had more good stories than bad.

Take out the frustration and you take out the fun! A healthy dose of frustration is the soil from which the greatest fun grows!

I disagree with that statement. Frustration is a bad thing. Challenge, on the other hand, is a good thing, and it's up to the DM to provide that.

 

[maggot]

I've been really unimpressed by nearly everything that I've seen regarding 4e, but I have to admit this crit thing is interesting. It removes two extra rolls (the confirmation and the extra damage roll), and reduces the swinginess of crits. I'm not sold, but I would definitely give this version a try.

 

[DonTadow]

I wish enworld had advanced polls. I"d love to see an ongoing poll of 4e changes. Maximum damage does not see mall that popular. Yay i roll a 20, now i can do something that i had a 1 in six chance of doing anyway.

The scary thing i guess is that a lot of weapons will be similiar. If its one thing wotc knows how to do is keep 3rd party publishers in business.

 

[Mirtek]

I disagree with that statement. Frustration is a bad thing. Challenge, on the other hand, is a good thing, and it's up to the DM to provide that.

If you never fail to overcome challenges it takes away all the joy about the challenges you did conquer.

It's like beating every video game endboss at first try. It makes the game easily forgotten. A few bosses you need 3-5 tries make sweat victories. The designer just needs to avoid bosses that you still haven't beaten after the 15th try. That's why I want a "healthy" dose of bad things

Not if it kills you and takes your stuff first.

Well, if it kills me I am dead and I have no longer to worry about anything. But if I survive crippled, I have to deal with it for some time after the encounter is long over.

 

[DonTadow]

It is statements like this that make me have faith in the new math...

However I don't know if I want predictable.
Also the idea of favoring characters instead of monsters I am not sure about. I would prefer that neither are favored by the rules.

So instead of robbing the player, why not have pcs still have double damage and enemies max damage. Wow, I think i just made a future 4e house rule.

 

[The Little Raven]

I wish enworld had advanced polls. I"d love to see an ongoing poll of 4e changes. Maximum damage does not see mall that popular. Yay i roll a 20, now i can do something that i had a 1 in six chance of doing anyway.

If you really read the article, you'd know there's more than that. Magic weapons add extra dice to your critical, as do particular weapons. We know some abilities occur when you get a critical hit, and it's like there will be ones that get an additional benefit if you crit.

The scary thing i guess is that a lot of weapons will be similiar. If its one thing wotc knows how to do is keep 3rd party publishers in business.

War Pick alone has two properties (high crit, which adds dice on a critical hit; versatile, which we don't know yet), which indicates weapons will still remain distinct from eachother.

 

[The Little Raven]

So instead of robbing the player, why not have pcs still have double damage and enemies max damage.

There are some big changes in line for combat (as evidenced by the removal of iterative attacks, which requires some kind of compensation to keep damage up at higher levels), so keeping something because it's a legacy issue, not because it works in the system, is inconsistent design.

And, of course, like pretty much everyone else making arguments like this, you completely ignore the fact that criticals provide other benefits built into the game, as demonstrated by the magic item bonus and abilities that require/benefit from crits.

 

[Sir Brennen]

The scary thing i guess is that a lot of weapons will be similiar. If its one thing wotc knows how to do is keep 3rd party publishers in business.

Check the article again. The pick mentioned had "high crit" as a feature, so that concept at least similar to increase threat range is still alive in the new edition. There's a couple other features for weapons we've seen mentioned so far, too. I don't think "weapon sameness" will be a big issue. Also, other articles describe more class abilities tied to weapon choice than in 3E, making some of weapons which didn't get much love before viable/interesting options. I for one would finally like to see a knife throwing character that could compete with the two-handed sword guy in battle, or a decent spear specialist.

At the same time, I hope weapon choice are balanced enough that there aren't obvious, must-have choices like there are now in 3E if you want to just be a crit monster (like Keen Scimitars.)

 

[Nine Hands]

It is statements like this that make me have faith in the new math...

However I don't know if I want predictable.
Also the idea of favoring characters instead of monsters I am not sure about. I would prefer that neither are favored by the rules.

I agree with WotC, multiplication of values is pretty difficult to balance. Look at some of the stuff in 3rd Edition. Spirited Charge + Lance = x4 damage (or something like that). It makes for some crazy power fluctuations with the right selection of feats.

On top of that you can get rid of a whole set of rules for weird multiplication if you drop it for crits (x3 + x2 = x4).

Also having the value precalculated speeds up the game too.

 

[nightspaladin]

I think the heart of the matter can't be really decided until we see what sort of damage we are tossing around regularly in 4e. Our current campaign, 12th level, has a fighter whom each of her five attacks (TWF) is 1d6 +10. 16 max damage is not that exciting as a crit. And as quoted earlier it is reproducable 1 in 6 times with a normal hit.

But if the damage she throws with a fighter stunt in 4e might be say 5d6+10 then 40 points max damage is something far more significant. Then the possibility of reproducing a crit damage roll on a normal roll goes from 1 in 6 to something like 1 in 7776. That truly becomes a spectacular hit.