D&D (2024) DM's no longer getting crits on PC's

[Reynard]

But how much do crits really impact any given fight? I doubt I roll 20 attacks in most fights, so on average I'm doing less than 1 crit a fight. Do some fights occasionally have more than one? Sure, but those are few and far between. The increase in damage to any given fight from crits is pretty minimal when you average it out. If they are accounting for that by softening encounters, then they really shouldn't be softening them up very much, which means that encounters won't get all that much harder if they remove crits.

Again, I think the intent is to increase certainty. it doesn't have anything to do with difficulty, except maybe by increasing it (after all, whatever the special recharge abilities are certain to begin with). So, if you gave all enemies a recharge 6 crit (again -- no one has said this exactly is what they are doing) they would "crit" once for sure and pretty probably at least one more time ina 3 or 4 round combat. That is a tougher fight, not an easier or softer one.

 

[Umbran]

At the potential cost of making combat less surprising, and thus less fun, for the DM (and the players).

We can, and probably should, surprise the players with things other than randomly timed wads of damage.

The players surprise me with their choices often enough that those randomly timed wads of damage aren't really the major thrill of my game.

I am okay with that asymmetry - I can surprise them with things, they can surprise me with things, and not so much is going on that surprises both of us at the same time.

 

[Micah Sweet]

We can, and probably should, surprise the players with things other than randomly timed wads of damage.

The players surprise me with their choices often enough that those randomly timed wads of damage aren't really the major thrill of my game.

I am okay with that asymmetry - I can surprise them with things, they can surprise me with things, and not so much is going on that surprises both of us at the same time.

Fair enough. I prefer DM side crits, and will be keeping them.

 

[Bill Zebub]

We can, and probably should, surprise the players with things other than randomly timed wads of damage.

The players surprise me with their choices often enough that those randomly timed wads of damage aren't really the major thrill of my game.

I am okay with that asymmetry - I can surprise them with things, they can surprise me with things, and not so much is going on that surprises both of us at the same time.

I totally agree, and I hope that somewhere in WotC's One roadmap there is a plan for more interesting monster abilities, including recharge abilities.

 

[Retreater]

It isn't about being "worried about it", to my mind.

A notable problem with playtest feedback like this is that it doesn't demonstrate synergies in the whole design very well. We are forced to think about how a given change would work all else being the same. But, the rest does not have to be the same.

Consider something we always complain about - encounter design. Many of us gripe about how the current encounter design is often a bit soft, for lack of a better term. It seems to me that the chance of crit goes hand-in-hand with encounter design. The swingier the mechanics, the more one is likely to softball the overall encounter design to accommodate that.

Removing the chance of crits from encounter design means that they can more reliably build tougher encounters that won't randomly paste the party outright!

Isn't that something many GMs want?

A sudden jolt of damage is one of the few things that make combats interesting in 5e. Otherwise, it's slogs through bags of hit points, fighting creatures that rarely hit against heroes that hit nearly all the time. The monsters don't do enough damage to threaten a party. (I think there are CR 7 monsters that do something like 15 damage a hit - please!)
Moreover, it's thrilling. I don't know why WotC can't get that. It's part of the communal experience around a table to see a DM roll a Natural 20 on a monster's attack and all the players gasp. Just like they cheer when a Hero rolls a Natural 20, there has to be balance.
Like what are we going to have now?
I rolled an average number on a die and now you take an average amount of damage from your average amount of hit points during this completely predictable battle?

 

[payn]

A sudden jolt of damage is one of the few things that make combats interesting in 5e. Otherwise, it's slogs through bags of hit points, fighting creatures that rarely hit against heroes that hit nearly all the time. The monsters don't do enough damage to threaten a party. (I think there are CR 7 monsters that do something like 15 damage a hit - please!)
Moreover, it's thrilling. I don't know why WotC can't get that. It's part of the communal experience around a table to see a DM roll a Natural 20 on a monster's attack and all the players gasp. Just like they cheer when a Hero rolls a Natural 20, there has to be balance.
Like what are we going to have now?
I rolled an average number on a die and now you take an average amount of damage from your average amount of hit points during this completely predictable battle?

Well, lets see the recharge mechanics they got planned before burning the house down.

 

[Retreater]

Well, lets see the recharge mechanics they got planned before burning the house down.

I prefer a little bit of randomness. Monsters in Forbidden Lands have randomized attacks, and I love that.
I can see me getting accused as a DM of storing up recharge abilities to use at the most tactically advantageous time or "picking on" specific players.
When everyone has an equal chance of getting hit by a critical it levels the playing field.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, lets see the recharge mechanics they got planned before burning the house down.

If you're going to include one rule in your playtest but not include another intended to balance it, then it's a poor playtest.

 

[Umbran]

A sudden jolt of damage is one of the few things that make combats interesting in 5e.

I find it unfortunate you've had that experience. It hasn't been mine.

There's a stack of techniques (both in encounter design and in runtime) that one can use to keep it from being so, but this isn't the thread to discuss them.

 

[payn]

I prefer a little bit of randomness. Monsters in Forbidden Lands have randomized attacks, and I love that.
I can see me getting accused as a DM of storing up recharge abilities to use at the most tactically advantageous time or "picking on" specific players.
When everyone has an equal chance of getting hit by a critical it levels the playing field.

See, schmee. Still got it rock it before you can knock it.