Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Mitigating Critical Hit Devastation
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6412097" data-attributes="member: 2011"><p>It mitigates the swingyness, but does not make fights any easier. Many fights, criticals might rarely come into play. So making tougher early encounters just means that the PCs are going to have to throw out more resources earlier in the day and then have fewer encounters that day.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Point 1: Yes, but it is a resource that would be spent anyway. PCs have x amount of healing in a given day. If the PCs can use short rest healing outside of a short rest, all it means is that heal spells will typically be used for non-crit damage. The entire "Oh shoot, I just got critted. I hope the Cleric can heal me before something else hits me." threat is totally gone, at least for the early encounters. What good is the threat of unconsciousness if the PCs can negate the biggest single attack heavy hitter rule towards unconsciousness (criticals) in the game? In fact, why even have criticals at that point. Just an exercise in dice rolling.</p><p></p><p>Point 2: A player might if push comes to shove. The can use hit dice house rule for any critical is only really helpful in the first few encounters a day at low level when those resources would be used anyway. But a player would almost never save hit dice if criticaled in the first or second encounter. It doesn't make sense to do so. The player would just be using that exact same resource after the encounter anyway, so why not use it now? Any other source of healing might not be required by this particular PC, so it makes sense to save all other sources of healing that can be used on any PC for when it is required.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And your suggestion modified by the caveat of only if the PC would go unconscious (or even only if the PC would die), would handle that without having to drastically change the effects of all criticals.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If you say so. I think that it fundamentally changes the entire concept and feel of criticals if players can willy nilly negate them. Criticals would not ever be threatening again (shy of once hit dice are exhausted).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="KarinsDad, post: 6412097, member: 2011"] It mitigates the swingyness, but does not make fights any easier. Many fights, criticals might rarely come into play. So making tougher early encounters just means that the PCs are going to have to throw out more resources earlier in the day and then have fewer encounters that day. Point 1: Yes, but it is a resource that would be spent anyway. PCs have x amount of healing in a given day. If the PCs can use short rest healing outside of a short rest, all it means is that heal spells will typically be used for non-crit damage. The entire "Oh shoot, I just got critted. I hope the Cleric can heal me before something else hits me." threat is totally gone, at least for the early encounters. What good is the threat of unconsciousness if the PCs can negate the biggest single attack heavy hitter rule towards unconsciousness (criticals) in the game? In fact, why even have criticals at that point. Just an exercise in dice rolling. Point 2: A player might if push comes to shove. The can use hit dice house rule for any critical is only really helpful in the first few encounters a day at low level when those resources would be used anyway. But a player would almost never save hit dice if criticaled in the first or second encounter. It doesn't make sense to do so. The player would just be using that exact same resource after the encounter anyway, so why not use it now? Any other source of healing might not be required by this particular PC, so it makes sense to save all other sources of healing that can be used on any PC for when it is required. And your suggestion modified by the caveat of only if the PC would go unconscious (or even only if the PC would die), would handle that without having to drastically change the effects of all criticals. If you say so. I think that it fundamentally changes the entire concept and feel of criticals if players can willy nilly negate them. Criticals would not ever be threatening again (shy of once hit dice are exhausted). [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Mitigating Critical Hit Devastation
Top