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

[Reynard]

Oh sure, that's what I want. In order for that to matter, however, you also need group of like-minded players.

For sure. I am running Rappan Athuk in 5e because my players -- all GenXers that grew up with AD&D or B/X -- didn't want to do it with old school rules.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Why can't it be both? Are monsters uninteresting now because they can potentially crit?

I didn’t think most of them were interesting before. The ability to crit wasn’t, in my opinion, interesting. Too unlikely to happen, identical across all monsters, and other than hoping it didn’t happen did not elicit much thought from players.

One might argue that it creates an incentive to keep HP above a certain threshold, but in my experience that doesn’t actually happen.

 

[CubicsRube]

That's true, but I still believe in the principle of CapnZapp's post, for my game. I personally don't find a game fun if the PCs aren't being threatened, whether I'm the DM or not.

Shadow of the Demon Lord doesn't typically have crits for enemies (if it doss it's spelled out in the monster stat block), and if played by the book, many fights are extremely deadly.

Crits != threat

 

[CubicsRube]

I long ago houseruled that as a DM, I don't roll weapon damage, it speeds up the game. So Crits reverted to 4e, I just assumed a maximum roll. A monster that deals 1d8+3 deals 8 damage, 11 on a crit. I like having crits, DMs want to enjoy rolling dice too, but only taking the max, I think makes it a little less swingy.

A lot of people overlook the average damage value in the MM. I'm sure it was put there for an option to use.

If I remember right, in acquisitions inc didn't chris perkins typically use the average + a single die roll?

I'm even more blasphemous. I make players roll defense and give the monsters a fixed attack dc. Runs so fast. I can just say "these 3 orcs attack copernicus and these 2 move in and attack barnaby. AR is 15, tell me how many you fail" and then i can tell them the damage. Might not be for everyone, but i love it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

This thing about fights not being deadly without crits is nonsense. It’s a roughly 10% boost to total damage. And usually even a crit isn’t that bad. It’s just that when the crit lands AND the damage dice are improbably high that bad things can happen. It’s so rare and so random that it doesn’t change tactics; it’s just an arbitrary lightning strike.

 

[CubicsRube]

I've been running shadow of the demon lord for a few years and it dossn't have critical hits for most monsters. (It also has crits as a class feature of fighters as a special treat just for them)

I find one advantage is to make planning difficulty for encounters much easier. If I know on average how much a monster can do, i figure out how many hits the weakest and strongest members of the party can take, and this gives me a good general idea of how hard the combat will be.

Even without crits you have 2 main elements of randomness, if a monster will hit, and if they roll high damage or low. In addition you have the PCs rolls determining how long the fight will last.

And thats without conaider special abilities and environmental effects. Even without crits there's still enough randomness in combat to make things unpredictable.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Even without crits you have 2 main elements of randomness, if a monster will hit, and if they roll high damage or low. In addition you have the PCs rolls determining how long the fight will last.

Yes that’s the other thing some people are ignoring. Damage does not become perfectly predictable; there’s still a lot of variance.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes that’s the other thing some people are ignoring. Damage does not become perfectly predictable; there’s still a lot of variance.

In a way it is explicitly so when it matters.

• When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.
• If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious (see appendix A). This unconsciousness ends if you regain any hit points.
• The number of both is reset to zero when you regain any hit points or become stable.

any amount of damage that does not equal or exceed your hit point maximum or cause 3 failed death saves before recovering even a single hit point may as well be zero, It should be no surprise that there is so much focus on how much less dangerous that it makes monsters given the absence of other details. Not only do we not have even a single example of the crit powered recharge mechanics we have healing word looking more accessible between races divine spell list and primal spell lists. I don't believe the announcement video included anything so much as hinting that there would be changes impacting any of the bullet points & survivability even in a possible variant rule change

 

[SkidAce]

This thing about fights not being deadly without crits is nonsense. It’s a roughly 10% boost to total damage. And usually even a crit isn’t that bad. It’s just that when the crit lands AND the damage dice are improbably high that bad things can happen. It’s so rare and so random that it doesn’t change tactics; it’s just an arbitrary lightning strike.

I wouldn't want it to change tactics, but I would like it to have the impact of a lightning strike, i.e. a change in the flow of that particular encounter.

 

[Bill Zebub]

In a way it is explicitly so when it matters.

• When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.
• If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious (see appendix A). This unconsciousness ends if you regain any hit points.
• The number of both is reset to zero when you regain any hit points or become stable.

any amount of damage that does not equal or exceed your hit point maximum or cause 3 failed death saves before recovering even a single hit point may as well be zero, It should be no surprise that there is so much focus on how much less dangerous that it makes monsters given the absence of other details. Not only do we not have even a single example of the crit powered recharge mechanics we have healing word looking more accessible between races divine spell list and primal spell lists. I don't believe the announcement video included anything so much as hinting that there would be changes impacting any of the bullet points & survivability even in a possible variant rule change

Ok, I didn’t consider that use.

And the reason I didn’t is because most of the time, in my regular group, it doesn’t come up. It’s rare (and scary) for adversaries to attack downed characters.

I could see a variant rule, in the “gritty” chapter of the DMG, that restores something similar.