Critical Hits: What's Best?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Roll for confirmation is good because it means that a better combatant has better critical chance, before counting special abilities.

Rolling extra damage rather than multiply is my preference, just because to me it's more fun to roll more damage dice.

Funny thing about this poll is that if this poll had been done before the 4e announcement, the result would have been totally different, with the vast majority agreeing that the 3.5 way is the best possible.

It would probably have been in a house rules thread, and I think it would have been appreciated by the few people that looked at it. It could have been in Unearthed Arcana as one of several variant rules, and I think few people would have objected. In either case, it would only have been optional to anyone discussing it, so I do not think we ever have a chance of a fair comparison.

The only thing we can gather so far is that from the people sufficiently interested in 4E that post on this board, many do like the 4E implementation for critical hits.

 

[Steely Dan]

Frankly I think much of unconditional support for 4e changes comes form sort of Stanley Milgram compliance to authority

And what do we call the unconditional hatred for 4th Ed changes…?

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

As a refute to the argument, "I don't like that when you critical you deal the same damage as you might have done with a lucky normal hit", I did some maths:

Chance of your critical being no more effective than a normal hit in 4e (1d8 weapon): 12.5%
Chance of your critical being no more effective than a normal hit in 3.x (1d8/x2 weapon, admittedly not accounting for other multiplied bonuses): 16.4%
Same, but x3 weapon: 10.9%

(Also it's more favourable to 4e with bigger dice, less with smaller dice.)

So you know, for ordinary people, 4e proves better overall. By far the best thing about the max damage system is that finally, no arguments about what gets multiplied and what doesn't!

 

[Someone]

I think 4e's option is best in the context of 4e design philosohy, which seems to be to reduce all rolls to a minimum.

 

[Steely Dan]

I think 4e's option is best in the context of 4e design philosohy, which seems to be to reduce all rolls to a minimum.

Yet they seem to be embracing this re-roll mechanic – odd.

 

[The Eternal GM]

I've always liked our 3.5 house rule (not my creation, but one I support) whereby on a critical threat, you can opt not to deal the extra damage, but deal normal damage and go for one of the combat options (trip, sunder, grapple, etc) undeclared. It got around the "you'll only do these things if you've taken the feat to make you unbeatable at it" situation, and added a little dynamism to combat. Not saying it'd work in 4th Ed., since I'm sure they'll be clearing up the combat options no end, but I always liked it.

 

[ZoA2]

And what do we call the unconditional hatred for 4th Ed changes…?

I would not know because there are some things about 4e that I like (like same +1/2 levels BAB for all classes, same treatment for AC and saves, new magic system seems nice from what I have seen, no save or die effects, no more multiple attack rolls on higher levels and so on) but there are some other changes I intensely dislike (irrelevant crits, no more PC-NPC-Monster comparability, effects of some powers (for example paladins Healing Smite), doubts about new skill system). Overall to me 4e is very mixed bag.

 

[StarFyre]

truly

in the end, critical hits is one of the easiest areas to house rules. It's essentially a rule independent change.

A group + DM can decide that upon ANY # they agree on, 'something happens'.
It doesn't matter if it's 20, or 19+ or even 5+, or '19+ if the hit was already 5 more than needed'.

I am sure everyone will start using, within a week or so, of using the 4E system, whatever they prefer anyways.

Us, we aren't even going to bother with it, since what we use adds a lot more tension and 'unique' experiences/roleplaying opportunities to the game....

ZoA2 - I find it mixed as well. I like the changes to classes/races (for most part) such as the racial feats (awesome) and many simplifications for classes, but I am not a huge fan of the planar changes overall (I like the shadowfell though), and I am not a fan of the spell changes (well, some are ok, but overall, I find the changing of the wizard so that specialization is harder, annoying). But, we've decided to add spells back that are removed, etc as needed, so I will house rule the wizard beyond belief most likely

Sanjay

 

[Lackhand]

I would not know because there are some things about 4e that I like (like same +1/2 levels BAB for all classes, same treatment for AC and saves, new magic system seems nice from what I have seen, no save or die effects, no more multiple attack rolls on higher levels and so on) but there are some other changes I intensely dislike (irrelevant crits, no more PC-NPC-Monster comparability, effects of some powers (for example paladins Healing Smite), doubts about new skill system). Overall to me 4e is very mixed bag.

Then perhaps you could edit out the Stanley Milgram comment -- seeing as how you can have a reasoned stance on 4e, it seems a bit... insulting, non?

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

I rather like SW Saga's approach of no confirmation roll and double damage (then again, in that system you pretty much only crit on a nat 20). It makes rolling a crit worth something, either to be cheered for by the players when they roll one or feared when the Big Bad rolls one.

While the 4e version of "max damage" is quicker, it just doesn't feel right to me.