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[Guest 7037866]

Yep. It makes them actual crits. Nothing is worse, at least for me, than rolling 2d6 for a crit and coming up with a 3. Fully half of my normal hits will exceed that "crit." My way a crit always exceeds a normal hit, even if you roll a 1 on the die.

We stopped critical hits and do critical damage. Roll max on a die and roll again. Always the max +1 that way, too.

 

[Maxperson]

We stopped critical hits and do critical damage. Roll max on a die and roll again. Always the max +1 that way, too.

Another DM I play with does the exploding dice system as well. Personally, that results in too many effective criticals for my taste as a DM. 1 in 6 hits will be a "crit" that way if you're rolling a d6.

The DM I mention above also uses a natural roll of 1 on the damage die as a nick that doesn't do more than 1 point of damage no matter what your bonuses are to balance out the exploding dice.

 

[Guest 7037866]

Another DM I play with does the exploding dice system as well. Personally, that results in too many effective criticals for my taste as a DM. 1 in 6 hits will be a "crit" that way if you're rolling a d6.

But a "crit" is just more damage and has no other effect. I personally like it because it helps the d4 and d6 weapons have a bit more appeal--even if it is just pyschological.

Ever since we've started doing it, and for each player who joins us, all agree we'll never go back to the nat 20 again.

If I joined a group and they wanted to use the nat 20, sure I'd play, but it would feel like a bit of a let down.

The DM I mention above also uses a natural roll of 1 on the damage die as a nick that doesn't do more than 1 point of damage no matter what your bonuses are to balance out the exploding dice.

That is actually a rule we just started talking about!

But for me it is also to remove the floor of 1+X bonus and make it 1 again (or 2 or however many dice...).

I should note, we roll criticals for everything. Spells, healing, etc. except when you roll hit dice on gaining a level.

 

[Maxperson]

But a "crit" is just more damage and has no other effect. I personally like it because it helps the d4 and d6 weapons have a bit more appeal--even if it is just pyschological.

Ever since we've started doing it, and for each player who joins us, all agree we'll never go back to the nat 20 again.

If I joined a group and they wanted to use the nat 20, sure I'd play, but it would feel like a bit of a let down.


That is actually a rule we just started talking about!

But for me it is also to remove the floor of 1+X bonus and make it 1 again (or 2 or however many dice...).

I should note, we roll criticals for everything. Spells, healing, etc. except when you roll hit dice on gaining a level.

It's much more than psychological! A d4 weapon is a 2d4 weapon 25% of the time, and a 3d4 weapon, what, 12.5% of the time? That's pretty good.

 

[Guest 7037866]

It's much more than psychological! A d4 weapon is a 2d4 weapon 25% of the time, and a 3d4 weapon, what, 12.5% of the time?

Actually, we only explode a die once. Even if we allowed it to continue, the 3d4 odds isn't 12.5%, it's half that at 6.25%

That's pretty good.

LOL it isn't as good as you think.

Even an (infinitely) exploding d4 does less average damage than a non-exploding d6. And an exploding d6 does less average damage than a non-exploding d8, and so on.

Mathmatically, an exploding die (with sides n) has an average of:

An exploding d4 averages 3.33
exploding d6 is 4.2
exploding d8 is 5.14
exploding d10 is 6.11
exploding d12 is 7.09

So, nice, sure, but not as great as people think. So, it is more psychological:

Dagger is a d4 weapon, but man, 25% of the time I get to roll an extra d4! Awesome, huh??

Much better than the 5% of the natural 20 IMO.

Finally, it also enforce the rule that an attack is binary. You succeed or you fail. If you need to roll an 8, it doesn't matter if you roll an 8, 18, or 20... They are all simply successful.

Now, when you roll the damage die... That makes more sense IMO to be "critical" than the attack.

 

[Maxperson]

Actually, we only explode a die once. Even if we allowed it to continue, the 3d4 odds isn't 12.5%, it's half that at 6.25%


LOL it isn't as good as you think.

Even an (infinitely) exploding d4 does less average damage than a non-exploding d6. And an exploding d6 does less average damage than a non-exploding d8, and so on.

Mathmatically, an exploding die (with sides n) has an average of:

View attachment 381695

An exploding d4 averages 3.33
exploding d6 is 4.2
exploding d8 is 5.14
exploding d10 is 6.11
exploding d12 is 7.09

So, nice, sure, but not as great as people think. So, it is more psychological:

Dagger is a d4 weapon, but man, 25% of the time I get to roll an extra d4! Awesome, huh??

Much better than the 5% of the natural 20 IMO.

Finally, it also enforce the rule that an attack is binary. You succeed or you fail. If you need to roll an 8, it doesn't matter if you roll an 8, 18, or 20... They are all simply successful.

Now, when you roll the damage die... That makes more sense IMO to be "critical" than the attack.

For sure. I wasn't trying to say that the d4 would be better than a d8 weapon. What I was getting at is that it's much better than normal dagger damage. Even if the average damage is only a bit better than normal over time, you will have damage spikes fairly often where you are rolling 3d4(or sometimes more) and that can make a significant difference. That spike can easily kill the monster you are hitting in a single strike.

 

[Guest 7037866]

For sure. I wasn't trying to say that the d4 would be better than a d8 weapon. What I was getting at is that it's much better than normal dagger damage. Even if the average damage is only a bit better than normal over time, you will have damage spikes fairly often where you are rolling 3d4(or sometimes more) and that can make a significant difference. That spike can easily kill the monster you are hitting in a single strike.

True, but just so you know the damage, while better than the natural 20 crit hit, isn't that much more.

Now, were it DOES make things scarry is something like fireball!! 8d6 goes from 28 damage average to 33.6 average.

 

[mamba]

Mathmatically, an exploding die (with sides n) has an average of:

An exploding d4 averages 3.33
exploding d6 is 4.2

Does it? How did you arrive at that? Is this exploding once or every time you roll the max value, because the latter does feel off at a minimum.

Naively I would say that the average of one roll is (n + 1) / 2 while the probability to explode is 1/n. This results in sum(((n + 1) / (2 * n)) ^ x) for the exploding part, which is always slightly more than sum((1/2)^x), and sum(1/2)^x) = 1. So an exploding d4 has a average of somewhat more than 3.5, the d6 of 4.5 and so forth.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yep. It makes them actual crits. Nothing is worse, at least for me, than rolling 2d6 for a crit and coming up with a 3. Fully half of my normal hits will exceed that "crit." My way a crit always exceeds a normal hit, even if you roll a 1 on the die.

Well, I meant in comparison to just mazimizing the die. You cannot exceed a crit if it is "maximize a die." And, of course, 4e had other things that would add further damage on crits, so crits were already always-better regardless.

Which, like I said, is part of why I find it kind of baffling that 5e went for something more complicated and less beneficial.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Which, like I said, is part of why I find it kind of baffling that 5e went for something more complicated and less beneficial.

A small price to pay to make it feel like D&D!