D&D 5E (2024) DM's no longer getting crits on PC's

[dave2008]

I will probably allow a monster crit to trigger some effect from a list of DM options.

• Move a player in combat with it 5’
• Move a monster 5’
• Knock a player prone
• Move the monsters to the next place up the initiative order
• Monster makes a free disengage

Probably some others. Monsters could be much more interesting.

Someone in another thread said they did this for PCs too. IT sounded really fun.

 

[dave2008]

Pathfinder 2nd edition manages to give monsters interesting abilities without needing to crit proof PCs.

Crits function very differently in PF2 (+10 on the hit roll, not a 20). And if you read the PF2 forums here you will see that it doesn't crit proof PCs. The major reason PF2 monsters are so deadly at +3 level and above is because they crit so much more often. That wouldn't happen in D&D because the crit chance is the same (5%) no matter the skill of the monster.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How do you all feel about the proposed change to crits affecting the PC's?
I know my players and I will not be following that bit of advice but I was curious about how everyone else feels about this.

It's necessary given other changes to crits.

Specifically:

A) Making only weapons crit, rather than spells, which means you'd have to carefully check every monster stat block for spell keywords on attacks.

B) Only doubling weapon damage dice, not smites, sneak attacks, etc. Many monsters have a ton of baked-in damage which is basically to cover that or is literally that (pretty sure there's an antipaladin in MotM with perma-smite for example, baked in to the damage). Monsters would get a pretty huge unfair advantage here if they could still crit on all dice.

So anyone who is casually saying "I'll ignore it!" needs to drop those two changes as well.

 

[CapnZapp]

How do you all feel about the proposed change to crits affecting the PC's?
I know my players and I will not be following that bit of advice but I was curious about how everyone else feels about this.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's necessary given other changes to crits.



So anyone who is casually saying "I'll ignore it!" needs to drop those two changes as well.

Why not instead ignore those two changes?

 

[CapnZapp]

Crits function very differently in PF2 (+10 on the hit roll, not a 20). And if you read the PF2 forums here you will see that it doesn't crit proof PCs. The major reason PF2 monsters are so deadly at +3 level and above is because the crit so much more often. That wouldn't happen in D&D because the crit chance is the same (5%) no matter the skill of the monster.

PF2 crits are an essential part of keeping PF2 combat exciting and tense.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Why not instead ignore those two changes?

Uhhhh isn't that what I said?

 

[jgsugden]

How do you all feel about the proposed change to crits affecting the PC's?
I know my players and I will not be following that bit of advice but I was curious about how everyone else feels about this.

I think they need to establish a line and allow monsters 'above the line' to crit, and those 'below the line' to not crit. As PCs advance, more and more monsters could be able to crit.

The low level PC being killed by a high damage crit can be very frustrating for a player that put a lot of effort into their PC. I'm fine if a PC makes a mistake and it costs their PC their life ... but not so fine when a player does everything right, but the dice just kill the PC. This rule will cut back on those 'unfair' deaths a lot.

As an add in while 5E crits work, I'd rather they came up with a better mechanic than doubling the dice. It gets flat, fast. I used to have a rule that you crit if you rolled a natural 20 or you hit by 7. In those crits, you rolled on a table to determine what went down, and you added the amount by which your attack hit to the d20 roll to determine the result. It had extra damage, applying limitations on the target, and even on a 30 - instant death (with a save to negate). It wasn't perfect, but it worked well.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

It depends. If they make monsters stronger to compensate for the reduction in damage, I'm all for it. But I don't really think that will happen.

To make a crit->recharge ability work, they'd need to redesign most monsters to actually give them recharge ability. I am, by no mean, an expert, but I think there aren't a lot of them that have them. In fact, I didn't play a lot of 4e, but I vaguely remember the mechanic being used more often at this time (I could be wrong), so I saw them in 5e as a "leftover mechanic". I can see this redesign happening, but at the price of the "compatibility" they tout.

In the spirit of compatibility, I'll explain the monsters critting by Darwin's natural selection. "The original bulettes critted and the minuscule added damage made them live longer and able to reproduce more than the the compatible bulettes who couldn't, so nowadays, there is no compatible bulettes anymore, all the bulettes left are able to crit."

TBH, I fully expect them to redesign the monsters in order to sell new monsters manuals.

 

[akr71]

I don't like it, but I would like to know more about the monster recharge mechanic they mentioned. So few monsters have that at the moment.

I get what they are trying to do - avoid crit kills at low level - but maybe that is better served as an optional rule in the new DMG.