D&D 5E Highly Lethal/ Critical Combat

[ElPsyCongroo]

Recently came across this Reddit post...

And I appreciated the idea of beating a targets defences to a sufficient degree resulting in severe consequences... that being actual physical trauma as opposed to their stamina being worn down.

However I'd like to spitball the idea of instead of keeping track of a secondary pool of HP, and we introduce the idea of beating an opponents AC by 5 resulting in a Critical Hit?

We also make overcoming an opponents Saves versus spells as a static DC like AC (easily changed up). Therefore the succeeding by 5 or more results in a Critical there too.

Of course this would make Criticals more frequent the higher level you become, but HP also becomes increasingly more abundant. Lethality is kept present and scales with Bounded Accuracy.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Fanaelialae]

It seems like your proposal would be more dangerous than standard 5e, but significantly less so than what is proposed in the Reddit post. Keep in mind that chaos tends to favor monsters over the long term, and more crits means more chaos.

I would expect players under a house rule like this to do everything possible to minmax their to hit bonus, save DCs, AC, and saves. I realize that some players will minmax those things even in standard 5e, but I've played with plenty of players who didn't, and it really isn't necessary IME. This change would add significant incentives to minmax those stats, since it means more crits dished out and less received, respectively. A paladin, with their bonus to saves aura, becomes even better under this proposal, since that aura makes it significantly less likely that you are crit by spells that have saves.

I'd be hesitant to add crits to saves. Those kinds of spells and features are arguably designed around the idea that they can't crit, so you might be opening up a can of worms. Unlike AC, which most PCs can find ways to increase, it's rare to have a good bonus in all saves. This is doubly so for monsters, who often have really poor save bonuses. That makes (save) spell crits disproportionately likely, and something a canny wizard player will be able to exploit. (I consider the wizard to already be one of the strongest classes in 5e, and there's no good reason IMO to buff a class that's already on top.)

One more thing to consider is that the monster design system treats HP and AC as essentially existing in a ratio to one another. Raise AC but lower HP, and you have the same CR monster. Raise HP but lower AC, and you again have the same CR monster. But under your proposal, AC becomes disproportionately useful, since beating it by 5 or more means a crit (which is a disproportionate drain on HP). IOW, I suspect that monsters with high AC / low HP (animated armor) would be stealth buffed by this change, while monsters with high HP / low AC (gelatinous cube) would receive a stealth nerf.

 

[ElPsyCongroo]

It seems like your proposal would be more dangerous than standard 5e, but significantly less so than what is proposed in the Reddit post. Keep in mind that chaos tends to favor monsters over the long term, and more crits means more chaos.

I would expect players under a house rule like this to do everything possible to minmax their to hit bonus, save DCs, AC, and saves. I realize that some players will minmax those things even in standard 5e, but I've played with plenty of players who didn't, and it really isn't necessary IME. This change would add significant incentives to minmax those stats, since it means more crits dished out and less received, respectively. A paladin, with their bonus to saves aura, becomes even better under this proposal, since that aura makes it significantly less likely that you are crit by spells that have saves.

I'd be hesitant to add crits to saves. Those kinds of spells and features are arguably designed around the idea that they can't crit, so you might be opening up a can of worms. Unlike AC, which most PCs can find ways to increase, it's rare to have a good bonus in all saves. This is doubly so for monsters, who often have really poor save bonuses. That makes (save) spell crits disproportionately likely, and something a canny wizard player will be able to exploit. (I consider the wizard to already be one of the strongest classes in 5e, and there's no good reason IMO to buff a class that's already on top.)

One more thing to consider is that the monster design system treats HP and AC as essentially existing in a ratio to one another. Raise AC but lower HP, and you have the same CR monster. Raise HP but lower AC, and you again have the same CR monster. But under your proposal, AC becomes disproportionately useful, since beating it by 5 or more means a crit (which is a disproportionate drain on HP). IOW, I suspect that monsters with high AC / low HP (animated armor) would be stealth buffed by this change, while monsters with high HP / low AC (gelatinous cube) would receive a stealth nerf.

I hear what you say about Spell Saves, so we'll leave them aside. This will of course buff Martial classes and Monsters. Personally I would play a Gelatinous Cube with a rule like "Can't be Crit" due to its amorphous nature. That said as a general rule squishies are gonna squish and Monster Stat blocks are a GM's tools. Animated Armour should be dealt with differently than a Gelatinous Cube afterall.

That said I'm not an advocate for balanced encounters. Throwing a curveball at the players keeps them on their toes and peril is exciting. I'm even tempted by the reddit post's idea.

 

[Quickleaf]

I tried something like the "exceed target by 5+" and get a bennie house rule. The problem I found in 5e was that the abundance of rolls multiplied the seemingly insignificant maths such that the house rule contributed to combat drag.

Whereas it worked great with skill rolls – because they were generally spaced more apart and not a bunch in a short time frame – I probably wouldn't implement the "exceed target by 5+" as a blanket rule in 5e combat. Maybe in another system with less of a microscope for combats.

 

[ElPsyCongroo]

I tried something like the "exceed target by 5+" and get a bennie house rule. The problem I found in 5e was that the abundance of rolls multiplied the seemingly insignificant maths such that the house rule contributed to combat drag.

Whereas it worked great with skill rolls – because they were generally spaced more apart and not a bunch in a short time frame – I probably wouldn't implement the "exceed target by 5+" as a blanket rule in 5e combat. Maybe in another system with less of a microscope for combats.

Perhaps but given that Crits progress combat faster by depleting HP quicker I don't see it being the same level of problematic as a bennie type resource. "Any roll that equals your AC +5 or more is a Crit". It acts as more of a Soft Crit Range that fittingly depends on a character's level of protection/ ability to evade harm.

 

[Lanefan]

I hear what you say about Spell Saves, so we'll leave them aside. This will of course buff Martial classes and Monsters. Personally I would play a Gelatinous Cube with a rule like "Can't be Crit" due to its amorphous nature. That said as a general rule squishies are gonna squish and Monster Stat blocks are a GM's tools. Animated Armour should be dealt with differently than a Gelatinous Cube afterall.

In general I like the principle behind the original Reddit post you quoted, however a few bunch of questions quickly leap to mind:

Does this system apply to NPC foes as well? If yes, good; but won't that be a real headache for the DM to track when there's lots of enemies? (I credit players with being able to track this for a single character)

Do WP scale with level or are they locked in at (using your example) 4 + 6 = 10 forever? If they scale then what's presented works fine, but if they're locked in, at higher levels one good hit from any enemy is going to go through all those 10 WP at once because higher-level enemies tend to pack bigger punches; and that's too rocket-tag even for me. What I'd propose instead is that each such hit does but 1 WP damage (in addition to normal damage, of course), and that a true nat-20 critical does 2 (maybe doubled to 2/4 if the attacker is two or more size categories bigger than the target).

There's no mention of how any of this interacts with the normal hit points a character already gets (let's call these Fatigue Points, or FP). Does a character fall unconscious if it gets to 0 FP but still has some WP left? If a normal (i.e. non-critical) hit runs you out of FP does the extra damage carry through into WP? If you get to 0 WP but still have lots of FP left, does that give you a chance to hang on a bit longer?

There's no mention made of how easy/hard WP are to cure, recover, or rest back. Does this work differently than recovering FP, and if so, how? Can you rest back FP while still being down some WP?

As for the bit I quoted above, I've never liked systems where criticals apply to some foes but not others, a la 3e. Everything - even a Gelatinous Cube or an undead or whatever - has a heart or a brain or a key structural spot that if you hit it will cause extra harm/damage to the creature, which is kind of what criticals represent.

I wouldn't bother applying any of this to saves.

That said I'm not an advocate for balanced encounters. Throwing a curveball at the players keeps them on their toes and peril is exciting.

Peril is more exciting if clever play can mitigate or avoid it, but I get your point here.

 

[Quickleaf]

Perhaps but given that Crits progress combat faster by depleting HP quicker I don't see it being the same level of problematic as a bennie type resource. "Any roll that equals your AC +5 or more is a Crit". It acts as more of a Soft Crit Range that fittingly depends on a character's level of protection/ ability to evade harm.

You may want to consider how to handle PCs with improved crit ranges like Champion Fighters.

And you may want to implement a house rule to speed up adding critical damage dice – since they'll be occurring more often – like the "crit = max damage + roll" that a bunch of GMs use.

 

[Warforged DK]

Interesting feature overall.
I wonder how this variant would turn out:
Crit is max damage on dice plus Ability mod.
Crit on natural 20 or if you exceed target AC by 5.
Wound points are equal to your Total number of remaining Hit Die plus your Con Mod [1-5 at first level, scales by 1(+) each level]
Remove wound point when you are crit or you go to 0 HP.
When yo uare at 0 HP and not stable, you lose 1 WP per round.
When you have 0 Wound points remaining, you die, even if you would have remaining HP.
Wound points return when you level up.

I wouldn't mind introducing an injury table as well, like the one from the DMG. Injuries can be mitigated and removed with healing, WP loss cannot.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Does this system apply to NPC foes as well? If yes, good; but won't that be a real headache for the DM to track when there's lots of enemies? (I credit players with being able to track this for a single character)

quoting OP
Monsters also had WP typically 1 or 10 depending on importance, or more if they were large. I summarized them like this so I could just eyeball a monster's stats and intuit their WP instead of having to keep track of another set of info.

Do WP scale with level or are they locked in at (using your example) 4 + 6 = 10 forever? If they scale then what's presented works fine, but if they're locked in, at higher levels one good hit from any enemy is going to go through all those 10 WP at once because higher-level enemies tend to pack bigger punches; and that's too rocket-tag even for me. What I'd propose instead is that each such hit does but 1 WP damage (in addition to normal damage, of course), and that a true nat-20 critical does 2 (maybe doubled to 2/4 if the attacker is two or more size categories bigger than the target).

It's half you HD+half con. So if you increase your Con, it goes up. Since it's half your HD, at first level you get 1 and at 20th you get 10.

There's no mention of how any of this interacts with the normal hit points a character already gets (let's call these Fatigue Points, or FP). Does a character fall unconscious if it gets to 0 FP but still has some WP left? If a normal (i.e. non-critical) hit runs you out of FP does the extra damage carry through into WP? If you get to 0 WP but still have lots of FP left, does that give you a chance to hang on a bit longer?

According to OP, if you drop to 0HP (or fatigue points), you are unconscious and you lose 1 WP per turn.

 

[Fanaelialae]

It's half you HD+half con. So if you increase your Con, it goes up. Since it's half your HD, at first level you get 1 and at 20th you get 10.

Pretty sure it's half the size of your HD. So a fighter would get 5 (d10/2) while a wizard would get 3 (d6/2). Plus Con, of course. I believe the article even talks about how it might need to be scaled at higher levels.