D&D 5E Critical Hits: Why not x2 damage?

[GMforPowergamers]

I know my group hems an haws about sneak attack being doubled, hex d6 being doubled, the 1d6 cold from the bow being doubled,and the base arrow damage, but the +5 (3 from dex 1 from bow 1 from bracers) not doubling...

then again we have a fighter (eldritch knight)/Ranger who power attacks for 1d12+1d4+16, and crits for 2d12+2d4+16 who I'm glad for

 

[Mercule]

I think they just love the idea of an encounter-saving critical so much that they're willing to risk encounter-ending criticals.

Yeah. In 3E, one of my players rolled a max crit while power attacking with a mercurial great sword against a lizardman chieftain that was a couple levels higher than he should have tried to solo. If he hadn't killed it outright, I'd have had to check for "death from massive damage". I think he'd suffer through multiple TPKs just to get that sort of rush again.

 

[Celebrim]

Or the separate to-hit and damage rolls. Why not 1 roll?
1d20+proficiency+1d8+str - 16 AC = damage.

Because an unarmed man would be as lethal as a man with a sword?

Because there would be no reason to use a halberd or a greatsword ever again?

Because a 3" long wasp would be just as lethal as say a 300lb wolf?

In short, because the weapon you use often conceptually matters, especially in the edge cases. Mace = battleax = sword = longbow works pretty well, and they all basically do about the same damage in D&D, but at some point you find that you need to account for variation in the lethality of the weapon. Once you do that, you either end up with a second die roll or you end up with tables, modifiers and multipliers to determine what the first die roll means - which is just as complicated as a second die roll.

I agree crits cause extra complexity for neglible benefit, but players seem to like them, and they aren't as complicated as having armor as soak dice and other sorts of variations you could use to try to get closer to combat = physics.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Because an unarmed man would be as lethal as a man with a sword?
[ etc...]
In short, because the weapon you use often conceptually matters, especially in the edge cases. Mace = battleax = sword = longbow works pretty well, and they all basically do about the same damage in D&D, but at some point you find that you need to account for variation in the lethality of the weapon. Once you do that, you either end up with a second die roll or you end up with tables, modifiers and multipliers to determine what the first die roll means - which is just as complicated as a second die roll.

I might be wrong I think the 1d8 in mellored's formula is suppose to represent the weapon die (so, it could be a sword in this instance). No need for all the additional complexity you're suggesting. A more generic version of his formula would read:

[1d20 + Proficiency + Weapon Damage Dice + Attribute Modifier + Misc Modifiers] - target AC = Damage.

Not that I'm advocating for this. Seems like you're rolling the exact same number of dice and doing additional math (adding the weapon damage roll and subtracting out the AC) for the same result you do with separate attack and damage rolls. The only change is you might do a little more damage if your total before adding in the Weapon Damage Dice exceeds the targets AC. That by itself would make fist fights between commoners incredibly lethal.

 

[Celebrim]

I might be wrong I think the 1d8 in mellored's formula is suppose to represent the weapon die (so, it could be a sword in this instance). No need for all the additional complexity you're suggesting. A more generic version of his formula would read:

Varying a weapon dice would create as much complexity as a separate damage roll.

But in both cases, the amount by which you succeeded in the hit is the largest or at least potentially the largest component of damage.

Which is why I brought up the wasp, which even if had no weapon dice as modifier (d0), could still do 10 damage to a target simply by rolling well. This is particularly true if we think of the wasp as being agile and effective hitting a target (as anyone attacked by a wasp can attest). Instead, we'd have to come up with various strange and additional penalties to hit on the basis of our ineffectual potential damage in addition to trying to balance a weapon dice.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's likely in response to 3.5e where modifiers got crazy. 4e was also pretty cautious with crits.

Modifiers did go crazy in a number of editions. Doubling damage dice was an old critical hit variant, and it's aesthetically consistent with Adv/Dis. So maybe that's all there was to it? It does make crits less significant/detailed than in 3.x where there were different threat ranges and multipliers or 4e where high-crit & magic weapons & feats could make crits huge especially at Paragon/Epic, and 5e double-dice-only gives you a bell curve while a multiplier can give you a flat distribution - on average, it's comparable to max damage, but still gives a feeling of randomness. 5e's reliance on multiple attacks also makes crits more likely to happen (per round, that is), so perhaps they need to be a little lower-impact to limit the effect of potential crit-fishing?

 

[ChrisCarlson]

I think this decision was made more to protect PCs than to keep them from steamrolling a few monsters.

This. "Deadlier crits" sounds great on paper. And when the player scores them, sure. Fun. But crits (and lingering injuries) are far more detrimental to the PCs than to enemies/monsters. In the long run, keeping them toned down helps the players.

 

[mellored]

I might be wrong I think the 1d8 in mellored's formula is suppose to represent the weapon die (so, it could be a sword in this instance). No need for all the additional complexity you're suggesting. A more generic version of his formula would read:

[1d20 + Proficiency + Weapon Damage Dice + Attribute Modifier + Misc Modifiers] - target AC = Damage.

Yes, that's what i meant.

Seems like you're rolling the exact same number of dice and doing additional math (adding the weapon damage roll and subtracting out the AC) for the same result you do with separate attack and damage rolls. The only change is you might do a little more damage if your total before adding in the Weapon Damage Dice exceeds the targets AC. That by itself would make fist fights between commoners incredibly lethal.

You save math.

My way has 5 steps (4 +'s, and 1 -)

vs the normal way.

1d20+proficiency + attribute + misc, compare vs AC
weapon die + attribute + misc
= 6 steps (5+'s, and 1 compare).

Though i suppose if you miss, you do 4 steps.


Also, you don't need to spell out every magic items as "+1 to hit and damage" can simply be "+1 damage".


But this is off topic.

 

[S'mon]

Personally I like crits doing max damage best; it's not OTT and it avoids the "crit then roll really bad" issue.

 

[Bupp]

At my table, crits do maximum damage, and you get Advantage on your next attack/action. This avoids the bad crit roll, and still lets you roll extra dice.

When a monster rolls a crit, the players all seem to change tactics and target that one next, trying to negate the Advantage that creature would get on the next round.

Also, I use fumbles. So on a 1, you would have Disadvantage on your next attack or action.