Critical hits in 4e

[Morrus]

At high levels I used to dread crits. Especially from rogues using sneak attack. With magic weapons which add a couple of 1d6 or 2d6 damage bonuses. The rogue player in my group would take 5 minutes to work out what dice he was rolling, roll them, then another three minutes to add them up.

"Hmmm... so i'm rolling 26d6 plus 2d8 plus 2d6 plus 2d4 plus 45...."

Ok, I exaggerate, but at high levels it was a really pain waiting for him.

 

[delericho]

I personally never liked it, since you would be like, "Awesome got a critical" *rolls damage: get two 1's* "crap..."

Criticals are supposed to be your big hits, this isn't conveyed well in the old system.

See, the problem with your example is that "Awesome got a critical" came when the player had in fact not got a critical.

The second part of it, where the PC gets really low damage after rolling an actual critical was something of an oddity. Still, it's just one of those things that happens when you roll dice for things (like when the Str 6 elf manages to lift a portcullis the Str 19 barbarian failed to lift). Perhaps next time you'll barely score a hit but get maximum damage?

As for the 4e critical rules - they're not as bad as I'd feared. By calling out the exception that you can't crit if your '20' relies on the auto-hit rule to hit at all, they've gotten rid of my biggest gripe with 20-auto-crits (the "every hit is a critical" thing). And the use of 'high-crit' weapons goes some way to restoring the range of weapons lost with '20 always crits'. Still, I'm not exactly delighted at the new rules, they're just 'okay'.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

It's another example, IMO, of how they've sucked some of the fun out of the game in their effort to streamline it and make it so much more predictable. The couple times a fight a crit comes up, the extra dice mean squat time-wise, and every RPG I've ever played, the players *loved* the wildly random effect once in a while.

You could always introduce the Paizo critical hit deck or something to liven things up a bit.

 

[delericho]

You could always introduce the Paizo critical hit deck or something to liven things up a bit.

One thing I've wanted for quite some time is a deck of 'random combat stuff' cards. At the end of each round, someone would draw a card from the deck, which contained some event that happens, either helpful "pick an enemy; he slips on a pool of blood and falls prone", harmful "the next time you are attacked, the blow knocks your weapon from your hand", to purely flavourful "the force of the battle damages the terrain; pick three squares to fill with light rubble".

By adding an extra element of randomness to combats, the game should gain a more fluid and cinematic feel than is currently in play. Or it might just prove to be an annoying waste of time.

 

[TimeOut]

Thoughts?

What exactly stops you from changing that back?

 

[Darkness]

At high levels I used to dread crits. Especially from rogues using sneak attack. With magic weapons which add a couple of 1d6 or 2d6 damage bonuses. The rogue player in my group would take 5 minutes to work out what dice he was rolling, roll them, then another three minutes to add them up.

"Hmmm... so i'm rolling 26d6 plus 2d8 plus 2d6 plus 2d4 plus 45...."

Ok, I exaggerate, but at high levels it was a really pain waiting for him.

Yikes. Sounds like he should have prepared a comprehensive table in advance - or a flowchart.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One thing I've wanted for quite some time is a deck of 'random combat stuff' cards. At the end of each round, someone would draw a card from the deck, which contained some event that happens, either helpful "pick an enemy; he slips on a pool of blood and falls prone", harmful "the next time you are attacked, the blow knocks your weapon from your hand", to purely flavourful "the force of the battle damages the terrain; pick three squares to fill with light rubble".

By adding an extra element of randomness to combats, the game should gain a more fluid and cinematic feel than is currently in play. Or it might just prove to be an annoying waste of time.

This screams "Torg Drama Deck".

Basically, each round, Initiative was determined by the Drama Deck. The GM draws a card. The Card defined which side started (heroes or villains). It also added certain side effects
- Improved Action: If you use this combat skill (think Maneuver, Taunt, Test, Intimidate and stuff like that), player gets a new card on his hand (cards can be used to augment rolls or do plot stuff) at the end of the turn.
- Flurry: This side acts twice
- Setback: All attacks of this side fail. Take some (nonlethal) damage. Need to reload (Hollywood magazines - only empty if required for dramatic reasons)
- Inspiration: heal all nonlethal damage
- Break-Off: Enemy retreats, unless at least one attack succeeds.
- Up: Side rolls an extra d20 on your d20 roll.

In "dramatic" scenarios, the deck was stacked against you (the GM read a different row/column on the car, and this was more often beneficial to the NPCs or harmful to the PCs.). In "regular" encounters, the PCs had the advantage.

Torg was so full of great ideas, it's a shame nobody is actively developing for it anymore, and that you can't get new adventures or at least old source books...

 

[delericho]

This screams "Torg Drama Deck".

Basically, each round, Initiative was determined by the Drama Deck. The GM draws a card. The Card defined which side started (heroes or villains). It also added certain side effects...

That sounds a bit over-powering*, but it's basically the concept I was going for.

* By which I mean it sounds like it would make combats rather too 'swingy' - a few bad draws in a row could turn a routine combat into a TPK right quick.

 

[timbannock]

The second part of it, where the PC gets really low damage after rolling an actual critical was something of an oddity.

My players wouldn't call that an 'oddity.' They'd call it the "Oh." roll. As in, "Oh. I rolled crappy damage on my critical yet again."

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That sounds a bit over-powering*, but it's basically the concept I was going for.

* By which I mean it sounds like it would make combats rather too 'swingy' - a few bad draws in a row could turn a routine combat into a TPK right quick.

I unfortunately haven't played it much, but the rest of my group did it a lot (before I joined them), and it didn't seem to become a problem. There are a lot of ways in Torg to avoid the worst, and PCs have more and different resources then the NPCs. (Possibilities provided a mix of 3E and 4E style action points as well as hit points)