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

[Maxperson]

No, Umbran - we're discussing D&D games here. Don't assume WotC has suddenly taking a liking to Fate or whatever, and decided to turn their ship around in a completely new direction. And more in particular - don't use this assumption to make the discussion about me. Please. That old "for you perhaps" angle is never constructive and always confrontative.

In other words, the fact there exists Fate fans where death can never happen unless the players and GM wants it, is not relevant to a discussion about a fundamentally simulationist game such as D&D.

@Umbran was also talking about D&D games. His point with bring up Fate is that players enjoy a wide variety of ways to play games, including D&D. Some might want to play D&D with death being handled in the manner Fate handles it. I'm pretty sure I've seen people on these forums say that they handled death that way, though they didn't link it to Fate. They simply said that death only happens if someone wants(usually the player) it to happen.

D&D is marvelous in its ability to be adapted to a multitude of playstyles, including your, Umbrans and those who want to play death in the Fate manner.

 

[Reynard]

During 1e and 2e I played with more than a dozen DMs, dozens if you count convention games and I can recall 0 tables that didn't either use the magazine crits mentioned, create their own crit table, or just do something simple like double damage. 3e didn't put crits back into the game, it simply codified what most people were already doing, like they are doing with the success on a 20 rule.

There's no accounting for anecdotes. We never used crits in D&D or AD&D in the 15 years I played before 3E.

 

[Cadence]

There's no accounting for anecdotes. We never used crits in D&D or AD&D in the 15 years I played before 3E.

That explains so much!

j/k

 

[Maxperson]

As much as I love the discussion (and the civility of everyones' posts!), and hearing all these perspectives and really good points.... This is a PLAYtest. It doesn't matter whether we "like" it or not, or if we think monsters should be equal to PCs, or if we like swinginess or danger or any number of things.

Play it, and see what happens. The very things you think it's taking away might actually do the exact opposite and improve your game!

Or not. But see it in play first and make the call second. That's the feedback WotC wants.

I think WotC absolutely wants that feedback, but I don't think that the only feedback they want. The number(and I have no idea how many it actually is) of people who are like me and don't need to test it to know that we are keeping crits and don't like the change, is also valuable feedback.

 

[Reynard]

That explains so much!

j/k

Which part? the fact that I am old AF?

 

[Maxperson]

Which part? the fact that I am old AF?

A lot of us are. I'm just get off my lawn bitter that I've been DMing since 1983 and for the first time ever, I decided to use Vecna as the string puller and ultimate BBEG and then Stranger Things happened.

 

[Cadence]

Which part? the fact that I am old AF?

If you only had 15 years in before 3e came out, that doesn't count as old, does it?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Which part? the fact that I am old AF?

Or that you've been playing the same character all these years because without crits the monsters can't kill anything.

 

[Reynard]

Or that you've been playing the same character all these years because without crits the monsters can't kill anything.

You don't need crits when you have save or die and proper level drain.

 

[Lanefan]

Not in the slightest. I do however prefer combats with less swinginess.

Swinginess is by far the greatest source of risk to the PCs in almost any typical combat in any edition.

Thus, preferring less swinginess directly equates to preferring less risk, all other things being equal. If you (or, in this case, the designers) then want to make the combats tougher overall to put the risk back in, that's different.