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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8756102" data-attributes="member: 6988941">Upon yet further reflection, I think the only explanation for the newly proposed system of crit rules is that the designers really wanted to get rid of crits entirely, but decided late in the process that that was a nonstarter, and this crit regime is the dumb compromise they landed on to salvage things.Crits are one of the things players already seem to most often get confused about (usually in regard to doubling dice rolled versus doubling dice damage). WotC is usually inclined to prioritize accessibility, and yet they have added three new complications to how a core mechanic people already struggled with works by adding an &quot;only certain dice&quot; rule, a &quot;no magic&quot; rule, and a &quot;no monsters&quot; rule. And players now have to master this much more complicated system for the sake of a much less important mechanic. This had me baffled.But if you look at it from the perspective of them boldly deciding to eliminate crits entirely for the sake of simplicity, balance, etc., designing around that, but then getting cold feet and partially walking back that decision, and just arriving at a messy compromise for how crits work, with simplicity or accessibility entirely out the window, it makes a lot more sense how such terrible rules (in terms of the editions overriding simplicity goals) could make it to playtest.Meanwhile, in some alternate reality, they went with a more conservative yet elegant initial tweak like &quot;crits just do max damage&quot;, designed around that, didn't need to walk it back and make a weird broken compromise system to technically still have crits but make them more complicated and less relevant, and alternate reality me is giving them plaudits for their cleverness rather than thinking they've lost the plot.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8756102, member: 6988941"] Upon yet further reflection, I think the only explanation for the newly proposed system of crit rules is that the designers really wanted to get rid of crits entirely, but decided late in the process that that was a nonstarter, and this crit regime is the dumb compromise they landed on to salvage things. Crits are one of the things players already seem to most often get confused about (usually in regard to doubling dice rolled versus doubling dice damage). WotC is usually inclined to prioritize accessibility, and yet they have added three new complications to how a core mechanic people already struggled with works by adding an "only certain dice" rule, a "no magic" rule, and a "no monsters" rule. And players now have to master this much more complicated system for the sake of a much less important mechanic. This had me baffled. But if you look at it from the perspective of them boldly deciding to eliminate crits entirely for the sake of simplicity, balance, etc., designing around that, but [I]then[/I] getting cold feet and partially walking back that decision, and just arriving at a messy compromise for how crits work, with simplicity or accessibility entirely out the window, it makes a lot more sense how such terrible rules (in terms of the editions overriding simplicity goals) could make it to playtest. Meanwhile, in some alternate reality, they went with a more conservative yet elegant initial tweak like "crits just do max damage", designed around that, didn't need to walk it back and make a weird broken compromise system to technically still have crits but make them more complicated and less relevant, and alternate reality me is giving them plaudits for their cleverness rather than thinking they've lost the plot. [/QUOTE]

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