James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I've long been frustrated by the inability to have an economy that makes a lick of sense. One character concept I've kept trying to play for many years now is a traveling merchant. However, the idea is so at odds with the systems I play in, that it usually either falls flat and does nothing, or worse, succeeds.
There was a 3.5 game where a friend and I decided to try being siblings who were merchants- I was a Sorcerer, and his character was a Wizard. At low levels, we relied on skill checks to appraise the value of items, haggle with prospective buyers, and so on. The DM eventually worked out a system for how much of a deal we could get on a successful "haggle" check, and since we were pretty good at it, we could almost guarantee being able to purchase things for 10-15% less, and sell them with the same markup.
Then we got into magic items, making and selling cheap items (or services, like everburning torches) that were affordable in large communities and also very useful.
We were happy making money, and sharing our wealth with our party (since we tended to ask them to make detours so we could find new things to buy, and new places to sell them).
But finally one day the DM asked to see our notes, where we kept a running tally of our net worth, and he sighed.
"Guys, I know you're having fun, and we agreed on the rules. You've even paid your Guild dues and taxes. But the fact is, you have so much money it's making it harder for me to run the game".
We pointed out several cash sinks we could invest in, like buying property, paying off a Duke to get minor titles, building a base of operations, and even a ship, but the DM then pointed out the realistic cost of such things was well within our reach, and then what?
At some point, we'd have nothing to do but sink vast wealth into crafting powerful magic items for the party, becoming too powerful for appropriate CR enemies.
And the easy solution, giving enemies magical gear of their own, was counter productive, since if we beat them, their wealth would increase our own exponentially.
So we had to retire our characters, and make new ones that paid full price for everything, and had nothing in our backpacks but lint and magical items. Very dissatisfying.
But we were talking about critical hits, lol.
So here's the thing- 5% of the time, a monster can theoretically deal double dice of damage. When that happens is not in the DM's control. It could happen during an epic boss battle, where suddenly the player is taking an extra 7d6 damage, or it can happen when fighting a mook, turning his d8+3 into 2d8+3.
So when you get right down to it, what percentage of DM crits are even really that impactful? 5e generally makes critical hits rare and tame, and only occasionally do the stars line up so that they can truly make a great impact on a battle.
For players, critical hits are generally pretty weak. Oh maybe you're a Battlemaster so you can get an extra die, or you have some trait to grant a bonus when you score a critical hit, but generally, there's three types of characters who overperform when they crit.
Paladins, assuming they haven't been forced to use up their smites in order to take out dangerous foes.
Rogues, who always have fistful of dice to work with.
And spellcasters, who don't tend to throw out a lot of attack roll spells to begin with.
It seems to me that critical hits are already pretty lopsided, as most monsters get multiple dice of damage, or can make more attacks than a party of level at or around their CR.
And even when players do roll a 20, it's only a big deal for certain characters anyways. I mean, what's an extra d8 damage anyways? Even a d12 is a lousy 6-7 points on average.
Most enemies have enough hit points that small amounts of bonus damage aren't really worth talking about. A big hit on a weak enemy is just a waste, which I'm sure happens fairly often.
Critical hits are just a bad mechanic, and always have been. We have them because somehow, rolling really well feels like it should let us "win more". Every once in a super moon, sure, there's that one crit that happened at that one time, that changed everything.
But is it really worth it to have a "one in a million" mechanic?
Maybe we should just have exploding damage dice instead, if we want dramatic moments to happen with any degree of regularity.
On the other hand, I do like the idea of getting a metagame coupon for when I roll well; then I can save it for a dramatic moment when I need a momentum shift, rather than hope I roll a natural 20 at an appropriate time.
There was a 3.5 game where a friend and I decided to try being siblings who were merchants- I was a Sorcerer, and his character was a Wizard. At low levels, we relied on skill checks to appraise the value of items, haggle with prospective buyers, and so on. The DM eventually worked out a system for how much of a deal we could get on a successful "haggle" check, and since we were pretty good at it, we could almost guarantee being able to purchase things for 10-15% less, and sell them with the same markup.
Then we got into magic items, making and selling cheap items (or services, like everburning torches) that were affordable in large communities and also very useful.
We were happy making money, and sharing our wealth with our party (since we tended to ask them to make detours so we could find new things to buy, and new places to sell them).
But finally one day the DM asked to see our notes, where we kept a running tally of our net worth, and he sighed.
"Guys, I know you're having fun, and we agreed on the rules. You've even paid your Guild dues and taxes. But the fact is, you have so much money it's making it harder for me to run the game".
We pointed out several cash sinks we could invest in, like buying property, paying off a Duke to get minor titles, building a base of operations, and even a ship, but the DM then pointed out the realistic cost of such things was well within our reach, and then what?
At some point, we'd have nothing to do but sink vast wealth into crafting powerful magic items for the party, becoming too powerful for appropriate CR enemies.
And the easy solution, giving enemies magical gear of their own, was counter productive, since if we beat them, their wealth would increase our own exponentially.
So we had to retire our characters, and make new ones that paid full price for everything, and had nothing in our backpacks but lint and magical items. Very dissatisfying.
But we were talking about critical hits, lol.
So here's the thing- 5% of the time, a monster can theoretically deal double dice of damage. When that happens is not in the DM's control. It could happen during an epic boss battle, where suddenly the player is taking an extra 7d6 damage, or it can happen when fighting a mook, turning his d8+3 into 2d8+3.
So when you get right down to it, what percentage of DM crits are even really that impactful? 5e generally makes critical hits rare and tame, and only occasionally do the stars line up so that they can truly make a great impact on a battle.
For players, critical hits are generally pretty weak. Oh maybe you're a Battlemaster so you can get an extra die, or you have some trait to grant a bonus when you score a critical hit, but generally, there's three types of characters who overperform when they crit.
Paladins, assuming they haven't been forced to use up their smites in order to take out dangerous foes.
Rogues, who always have fistful of dice to work with.
And spellcasters, who don't tend to throw out a lot of attack roll spells to begin with.
It seems to me that critical hits are already pretty lopsided, as most monsters get multiple dice of damage, or can make more attacks than a party of level at or around their CR.
And even when players do roll a 20, it's only a big deal for certain characters anyways. I mean, what's an extra d8 damage anyways? Even a d12 is a lousy 6-7 points on average.
Most enemies have enough hit points that small amounts of bonus damage aren't really worth talking about. A big hit on a weak enemy is just a waste, which I'm sure happens fairly often.
Critical hits are just a bad mechanic, and always have been. We have them because somehow, rolling really well feels like it should let us "win more". Every once in a super moon, sure, there's that one crit that happened at that one time, that changed everything.
But is it really worth it to have a "one in a million" mechanic?
Maybe we should just have exploding damage dice instead, if we want dramatic moments to happen with any degree of regularity.
On the other hand, I do like the idea of getting a metagame coupon for when I roll well; then I can save it for a dramatic moment when I need a momentum shift, rather than hope I roll a natural 20 at an appropriate time.
