Dead in one blow

[Imaro]

I don't like damage multipliers for crits, for a couple of reasons. One is the crazy-high damage that's possible. The other is that sometimes you get a crit and then roll really crappy damage.

I prefer "crits do maximum (normal) damage." So if you normally do 1-6 points, a critical does 6 points: it was your "best shot." You're not outside the normal range of damage, it was just a really good hit. A critical failure allows one free attack from your enemy, or "something bad" at the DM's option (e.g. drop your weapon, et cetera).

I use this same system in my C&C game.

I think a high roll should be rewarded, but I find the damage multipliers combined with the combination of criticals definitely favoring the DM, in D&D, to be a little lopsided when taken from the stance of fairness to my players. Throughout a single adventure. As DM, in general, I will have more opportunities to score a critical than any one player. I feel like this is an imbalance in the game, and IMHO one of the factors that skews the CR ratings

 

[kaomera]

I use this same system in my C&C game.

I think a high roll should be rewarded, but I find the damage multipliers combined with the combination of criticals definitely favoring the DM, in D&D, to be a little lopsided when taken from the stance of fairness to my players. Throughout a single adventure. As DM, in general, I will have more opportunities to score a critical than any one player. I feel like this is an imbalance in the game, and IMHO one of the factors that skews the CR ratings

I tend to feel the same way, but when I brought up the idea my players roundly rejected it. When I suggested this was just because they wouldn't have anything to complain about anymore, they threw stuff at me.

I try to shy away from bigger crit ranges / multiples when arming monsters / enemy NPCs. I've even fudged things so that "mook" encounters only get a 20 / x2 no matter what they're described as being equipped with. Of course in that case I also assume that, say, the Orcs' axes are just primitive and poorly maintained, so they aren't really worth anything if dragged out of the dungeon.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm beginning to think Gary was right in the 1e DMG. Critical hit systems are a bad thing. They cause PC deaths but don't help the PCs all that much.

It follows the same reason why ECL does not equal challenge rating in that things the players can do will be constant but in reverse.

Players will always suffer more attacks than any single monster. Works against them. When looking at monsters with special abilities, they can always make use of them, unlike any single monster which will only be there for that scene (in most cases.)

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

x3 crits are definitely what I would call high variance.

A couple weeks ago in my AoWorms session, a half-orc barbarian killed two PCs in two rounds with back to back crits. It happens. While it was happening, the party scout dropped two of the barbarian's friends with back to back x3 crits from a longbow, so I figured it was all fair.

I took down a fresh (and I mean, generated just prior to that combat) PC with that same half-orc. How many have fallen to that damn greataxe of his?

 

[Lord Zardoz]

In 30 years of gaming, I've had several PCs one-shotted, including
(stuff)
One-shots & sudden deaths are a (rare) part of the game.

I have had exactly one instance of a memorable 1 shot death. It was in a 2nd edition game using Combat and Tactics critical hit table.

The player was a 5th level character (cannot remember if it was a Rogue or a Fighter), and at full HP. He was hit by a mounted opponent using a lance. I rolled a Critical hit on top of the double damage for a lance charge.

Using the crit table from that book, the result was 'Chest Destroyed. Victim Dead'. We all kind of laughed, and for the hell of it, we rolled out the damage. The result of the rolled damage was that he would have gone from max HP to -15 HP.

He was Dead twice over.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[wolfpunk]

A one hit kill is disappointing, both for the DM that loses a monster without a fight, and for players who lose a character with no chance to prevent it. That being said, it is the mechanic of d&d that allows that to be a possibility. Most often, well applied tactics can prevent the one hit kills from non-criticals, but critical hits don't care how good your tactics were.

In our group, it happens, so bring your back-up character, and get ready to grin and take it.

 

[frankthedm]

And there is another way a x3 or x4 crit favors NPCs over PCs. Overkill. A player who lands a high multipler crit stands a better chance of landing that crit on a mook rather than a significant foe simply because he fights more mooks than significant foes. They were dead whether the damage was x1, x2 or x3. Doing 50 to 70 damage to a mook with 25 HP is a waste.

A PC on the other hand can't be carbon copied deployed to fight the BBEG. He is [almost] always a significant foe to the NPCs. If an NPC lands the triple or quad crit, very little of that crit is wasted most of the time.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A simple way to tone back criits that drop a player in one blow is to;

make x4 crits instead be 18-20 x2
Make x3 crits instead be 19-20 x2

making instnt death from crits less likely.

 

[Arkhandus]

In last nights adventure our 6th level psychic warrior came up against a Minotaur Zombie.

after failing his jump check to run up the walls and around him, he got criticaled for 58 points of damage (greataxe)

How'd he do that? Up The Walls doesn't require a Jump check for success. As long as you're psionically focused, you can walk/run across walls and such with ease, at least if you go back down to normal ground by the end of the turn (otherwise you fall if you end your turn still on a wall/ceiling that you wouldn't normally stick to).

Maybe you meant to say he failed his Tumble check to move through the minotaur zombie's reach without provoking an Attack of Opportunity?

my scout spotted the creature in advance - but it was blocking a corridor and we needed to go through it. Artificier instead of a mage / sorcerer so we couldn't stand off and blast, arrows not much use on a zombie...

So the Artificer didn't have any useful wands or scrolls? I mean, isn't using magic items really really well just about the only thing that Artificers do, besides try infusing spell effects briefly onto items to do basically the same thing? What kind of a useless magic-item-ignorant anti-stereotypical Artificer did you have?

just bad luck, bad play or sick monster?

(my ranger with undead favoured enemy and the warforged fighter eventually hacked our way through, though we both needed healing midway through - luckily no-one else got criticaled)

Well, I'm inclined to say it's more the middle answer than either of the others, but definitely at least a bit of each. A crit by the enemy is always a sign of bad luck, especially when it's an axe that crits. A minotaur is quite big and strong, but normally it's just good on offense but easily slain by adventurers of similar level/hit dice.

The zombie template, however, significantly boosts a minotaur's survivability. It's kind of odd though that bludgeoning weapons are not terribly effective against zombies in 3.5. Also, the zombie template in 3.5 seems to really undervalue the Challenge Rating of zombies, especially the big zombies. A minotaur zombie ought to have a higher CR than 4, but somehow, it does not. A normal minotaur is the same CR, but less than half as tough, with just a bit of its racial traits lost to the zombie template. Really stupid 3.5 design.


That said, a group of 6th-level-ish adventurers should have been able to handle it better than you guys did, it seems. I'm not sure why the Psychic Warrior tried to go up the walls, but I dunno if there was enough room in the corridor or whatever for the rest of you to help fight it otherwise. Depending on his feats/powers, it may've been a stupid tactical decision, but otherwise it may've just been bad luck alone that ruined that tactic.

The Artificer should have some means of blasting stuff with magic items by 6th-level, unless he's really, really lame and terrible at what he does. There's no excuse for an adventuring Artificer to not have gotten a useful Wand or batch of Scrolls containing destructive spells by that point in his adventuring career. Or at least some really well-chosen offensive infusions.

It would have behooved you all to carry some flasks of acid or alchemist's fire, if you had no serious blasters in the party, and maybe some throwing axes. A well-prepared party will have melee and ranged weapons of varying damage types to get past the defenses of monsters, so it would be wise to carry some throwing axes, some light hammers or slings, and the usual bows/crossbows/javelins. The main problem though, I think, was the Artificer's failure to have anything useful, considering his class' entire schtick of being magic-item-masters.

 

[kensanata]

Last session the party was retreating out of a minotaur maze temple. It harbored various minotaurs, elite minotaurs, a minotaur whipmaster, and – in the temple on the second level – a greathorn minotaur (MMIV). Greathorns can move through stone like fish through water. In the last fight, two minotaurs escaped. When they came accross one of them again in the maze, they did not pursue. While retreating, I offered two DC 20 Spot checks to see the head of the greathorn appear out of the wall and disappear again in order to give them a warning. Only one character made the roll, and thought it was an illusion. So while the party retreated, they did not take special precautions. And so, in the last passage it steps out of the wall, takes a move action to reach the last character, and does a standard attack. My idea was that this was a token attack to scare the party away followed by a retreat back into the wall. But the last character in the party was the archer at half hit points. And the minotaur crits. I was lucky, though. The archer was dropped to -9 and survived. I still feel this was a mistake of mine.

 

[Asmo]

I still feel this was a mistake of mine.

Why?

Asmo