Critical - Multiply or Roll Again?

[Azure Trance]

I recall a week or two ago a surprised PirateCat mentioning that he didn't know criticals were rolled again instead of being multipled. Earlier this week I read it myself in the PHB and made a 'uhhh whoops' face to my players since we always multipled (or thought they did, anyway). Turns out it was a 2nd Edition thing to multiply and I was stuck with it. It's somewhat of a houserule since it's just easier / quicker to multiply, but what do you guys do?

 

[LokiDR]

roll again gives you an averaged damage more often than multiply. Something about bell curves vs. linear progressions. I prefer consistancy over extreems.

 

[Azure Trance]

Hm. Maybe I'll be a convert to this new fangled thing after all ...

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Now I'm surprised that PirateCat was surprised. I guess he never noticed me doing it right all along when I was playing with him (and with a 17-20 crit range on my side, to boot!).

 

[hong]

Now I'm surprised that PirateCat was surprised. I guess he never noticed me doing it right all along when I was playing with him (and with a 17-20 crit range on my side, to boot!).

Master, I too would like to learn how to put one over Piratecat.


Hong "accumulating life skills" Ooi

 

[hammymchamham]

one of my charecters is a rogue and has a weapon with x4 critical, so its fun to roll so many d6s, especially with sneak attack

 

[CRGreathouse]

one of my charecters is a rogue and has a weapon with x4 critical, so its fun to roll so many d6s, especially with sneak attack

Would that be a heavy pick, or did he take EWP in a revised S&F weapon?

 

[hammymchamham]

yes, its the gnoish battle pick from S&F

 

[dead_radish]

Re: The reasoning behind rolling again.

Rolling again will usually yield far less damage than multiplying.

You are more and more likely to get the average roll the more dice you roll.

A 1d6/x4 weapon will tend to do about 14 damage on a crit rolled either way. It's just that it will do 14 damage more often when you roll them all.

It's when you look at max damages that it gets odd.

Take the 1d6/x4 weapon - that's 24 max damage. Rolling all 4, you have a 1 in 6^4 power chance of getting 24 damage. That's about 1 in 1296, or .08% chance. Not bloody likely.

Multiplying, you have a straight 1 in 6 chance, or 16.7%.

Massive difference. By the same token, your chance of rolling min damage is just the same. With re-rolling, you get more average damages. With multiplying, you get more extremes.

Just fyi.

 

[maddman75]

Bah! Multiply!

Extreme results (either getting to multipy that 1 you rolled times three or getting max) is what crits are all about!