Critical Hits: What's Best?
- Thread starter HeavenShallBurn
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Matt Black
First Post
To be honest, I don't see what's wrong with those unpredictable spikes in damage that occur in 3.x. We're trying to simulate lethal combat here. When you're stabbing at a fleshy body with a sharp piece of metal, there's really no such thing as 'maximum damage'. The maximum damage you can do is that you'll stab your enemy in the right place and kill it. And that should be all the more likely if you're well practiced at stabbing things.
For that reason, the ideal critical system would give occasional spikes in damage that are somewhat dependent on the relative skill of the combatants. My preferred method would be the following:
Critical hit: on a natural 20 if that roll also hits your opponent's AC, or if you exceed your opponent's AC by 10 or more.
Result: roll damage die twice (or more for high crit weapons). Static bonuses and non-weapon dice are only applied once.
A natural 20 is always an automatic hit., but it is only a crit if the roll would otherwise have hit.
This system does the following:
* it makes crits easy to resolve (no confirmation rolls; adding/subtracting 10 is easy)
* it reduces the size of the damage spikes to some extent (no multiplying of bonuses) while still preserving the occasional hefty crit (and the round table high-fives that follow)
* it allows high level combatants to mow through mooks relatively quickly, which is heroic and speeds up combat and lets them smack their way to the fun battle with the BBEG more quickly.
For that reason, the ideal critical system would give occasional spikes in damage that are somewhat dependent on the relative skill of the combatants. My preferred method would be the following:
Critical hit: on a natural 20 if that roll also hits your opponent's AC, or if you exceed your opponent's AC by 10 or more.
Result: roll damage die twice (or more for high crit weapons). Static bonuses and non-weapon dice are only applied once.
A natural 20 is always an automatic hit., but it is only a crit if the roll would otherwise have hit.
This system does the following:
* it makes crits easy to resolve (no confirmation rolls; adding/subtracting 10 is easy)
* it reduces the size of the damage spikes to some extent (no multiplying of bonuses) while still preserving the occasional hefty crit (and the round table high-fives that follow)
* it allows high level combatants to mow through mooks relatively quickly, which is heroic and speeds up combat and lets them smack their way to the fun battle with the BBEG more quickly.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Matt Black said:
* It turns 50% of all mook hits (requiring a natural 19 or better to hit) into criticals.
19's hit, 20's crit.
Matt Black
First Post
Wulf Ratbane said:
As is the case with the current 4e crit system. The difference is that those crits are slightly less predictable (though still have the roughly same average damage). I don't see that as a problem. PCs should be able to take down a lot of mooks, but they should also be an element of risk involved. Any one goblin could stab you in the guts if he's lucky.
That's what I do ... but don't you think the system would be better if it would try to avoid that kind of situation, instead of stating something like "Unfortunately our crit rules have the side effect of high PC lethality. So you are advised to ignore the rules sometimes and fudge die rolls. We are sorry that we weren't able to revise the rules in this brand new edition and instead stuck with the old, flawed model."?Wulf Ratbane said:
PCs will roll and receive more critical hits in 4E than in 3E, we know that much. But it also seems as if criticals rolled against PCs will be a lot less lethal than they were in 4E. An orc with a Greataxe would hit for 10.5 damage on average, or for a maximum of 16 on a normal hit, but up to 48 on a critical. 4E won't have these spikes, so criticals will be more predictable and more expected (as they happen more often), compared to the 3.x criticals which can come out of nowhere and kill your character in one blow.
Criticals also get more boring as a result, which is probably why the designers will compensate with magical items or abilities that do extra damage or effects on criticals. Hopefully that will be mostly confined to PCs, because if isn't, then we get the same problem in a new coat.
As for confirmation rolls to assure that PCs don't get hit critically by mooks: We have yet to see how monsters will be balanced against PCs. 3.X had mooks that only hit PCs on 19s or 20s, but that doesn't mean 4E mooks will be the same. In fact, with the minion / normal / elite / solo system, I'm under the impression that 4E will try to move away from the idea of balancing PCs against hordes of lower leveled monsters. If you can pit the 5th level characters against 8 level 5 minion monsters, you don't need to pit them against 8 level 3 monsters.
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Fallen Seraph
First Post
I personally like the new system, since well confirmation rolls annoyed the hell out of me.
Also, at least to me it feels more realistic, since I have always viewed critical hits to be the best of your ability. So no matter how often you get a d20 if you can only swing a sword so hard, or its blade is only so sharp you won't exceed a certain level of damage, ie: your max-damage.
With the +1d6, etc. I also like that since in my eyes that means that certain weapon has something particularly vicious about it that when you use it as properly as you could it deals out a more horrible blow, ie: normal dagger no +1d6, dagger with highly serrated edges a +1d6. I may potentially in my game replace this bonus with wounding or debilitating effects instead, shall have to see how it works out in the end.
Also, at least to me it feels more realistic, since I have always viewed critical hits to be the best of your ability. So no matter how often you get a d20 if you can only swing a sword so hard, or its blade is only so sharp you won't exceed a certain level of damage, ie: your max-damage.
With the +1d6, etc. I also like that since in my eyes that means that certain weapon has something particularly vicious about it that when you use it as properly as you could it deals out a more horrible blow, ie: normal dagger no +1d6, dagger with highly serrated edges a +1d6. I may potentially in my game replace this bonus with wounding or debilitating effects instead, shall have to see how it works out in the end.
Arkhandus
First Post
I voted 'don't roll to confirm, roll extra damage'....
I figure that if you roll well enough to get a crit, it's a real let-down if you then have to re-roll and see if it was really just wishful thinking. Most weapons will only crit on a 20, 19-20, or 18-20 anyway.
Only at upper levels do you deal with some weak weapons critting on a 17-20 or better, and really, a veteran warrior should be inflicting serious injuries more often than a rookie, even if he's facing other veterans; he just might not hit as often when fighting another veteran, but when he does get past the other vet's guard, he should have a decent chance of dealing a decisive blow.
As for damage, though, I figure it should be rolled on crits, not just multiplied. While it still means doing some extra rolls, that just increases the likelyhood of getting a decent critical hit in, by reducing the chances of getting a cruddy, worthless minimum-damage crit.
I figure that if you roll well enough to get a crit, it's a real let-down if you then have to re-roll and see if it was really just wishful thinking. Most weapons will only crit on a 20, 19-20, or 18-20 anyway.
Only at upper levels do you deal with some weak weapons critting on a 17-20 or better, and really, a veteran warrior should be inflicting serious injuries more often than a rookie, even if he's facing other veterans; he just might not hit as often when fighting another veteran, but when he does get past the other vet's guard, he should have a decent chance of dealing a decisive blow.
As for damage, though, I figure it should be rolled on crits, not just multiplied. While it still means doing some extra rolls, that just increases the likelyhood of getting a decent critical hit in, by reducing the chances of getting a cruddy, worthless minimum-damage crit.
Hussar
Legend
Wulf Ratbane said:
That's not really the case though. In all cases, the monster only EVER crits 5% of the time. You are saying that the monster crits half of his hits or 10% of his hits. That's true. But, the crits are so much less powerful that it's not that big of a deal.
Don't forget the other side of the equation as well. 1st level PC's start with x3 hp's from 3ed. In 3e, the orc with a greataxe can potentially do 45 points of damage - enough to kill a PC up to 4th and maybe 5th level. In 4e, the same orc with the same weapon cannot even incapacitate a 1st level character (except maybe a wizard).
Yes, he crits more. But, not as much more as you are saying. The threat is always 5%. The actual chances maybe less than that, but, that depends on a number of factors. In the 4e case, the chances of a crit are always 5% flat. But, the effects of that crit are far and away less damaging.
So, more crits (yay! I rolled a 20!), but less of a damage spike (yay, my 4th level ranger didn't just get turned into a fine red mist by a CR 1/2 orc).
I'm looking forward to 4e criticals, as they are fast and easier to compute. I agree wholeheartedly that trying to confirm a crit and then failing is one of the most anti-climactic and annoying aspects of dice rolling ever conceived.
Also I look forward to the greater diversity among weapon types and damage die dispersal in the new edition. For example, the d10 one-handed weapons in 3.5 would be powered up slightly compared to the longsword using the 4e crit rules. I'm all for it.
Also I look forward to the greater diversity among weapon types and damage die dispersal in the new edition. For example, the d10 one-handed weapons in 3.5 would be powered up slightly compared to the longsword using the 4e crit rules. I'm all for it.
