More Interesting "Wizard" Critical Hits

[Garthanos]

I think it might be interesting if critical hits for area attacks could do things like increase the area of effect.... or critical hits for durational effects might penalize the saving throw to end them. Nothing wizard specific about it ofcourse... I am probably forgetting feats that already enable this right?

 

[circadianwolf]

There aren't feats, AFAIK, but there are items. It's actually a really good idea IMO, at least in general (increase AOE on crit wouldn't work since you roll separately for each creature)--it would at least start to solve the issue that it's much easier for non-controllers to add controller effects onto their powers via feats than it is for controllers (most notoriously Polearm Momentum).

Of course, you also have to ask, do your players take critical-modifying feats? Mine usually don't, unless they have expanded crit ranges.

 

[Garthanos]

There aren't feats, AFAIK, but there are items. It's actually a really good idea IMO, at least in general (increase AOE on crit wouldn't work since you roll separately for each creature).

It might if a crit on the first target was considered the controlling roll....for the expanded effect.

 

[Amaroq]

Interestingly, we've been playing a "Critical/Fumble effects" house rule, and decided that we needed to make any interesting effects happen only on the first attack die roll of a multi-target power, just as Garthanos suggested. That way, area-effect targeting doesn't subject the caster (or melee type - Twin Strike, etc) to extra chances of fumbling.

I've got the characters in a strange location, a roiling pocket of Wild Magic, which is messing with their crits/fumbles at the moment: an area-based crit does result in an area exactly 1 square larger in all directions: e.g., target: one creature becomes burst 1, burst 1 becomes burst 2, etc. Since it caught them by surprise, they really loved it the first time it went in their favor!! ... but a '1', which has previously been basically a "fizzle", is now going to result in a random spell: random effect, random location, random size.

Have yet to see how it plays out in extended usage (they'll be there for another 2-4 sessions, I think), but initial reactions were very positive.

 

[Garthanos]

I've got the characters in a strange location, a roiling pocket of Wild Magic, which is messing with their crits/fumbles at the moment: an area-based crit does result in an area exactly 1 square larger in all directions: e.g., target: one creature becomes burst 1, burst 1 becomes burst 2, etc. Since it caught them by surprise, they really loved it the first time it went in their favor!! ... but a '1', which has previously been basically a "fizzle", is now going to result in a random spell: random effect, random location, random size.

Have yet to see how it plays out in extended usage (they'll be there for another 2-4 sessions, I think), but initial reactions were very positive.

cool ... we play with players making defensive rolls (in place of me making attack rolls) so a really bad defense is an enemy critical effect... feels a little like fumbling ... (adding fumbles could give all around balance).

 

[Amaroq]

Hah. It turns out initial reactions positive were related to the expanded criticals hitting more bad guys, as the bad guys were nicely clustered together.

Tonight's encounters included some nasty ambushes, and tight quarters fighting in narrow corridors. Somehow the sorceress rolled 4 20's, and each expanded zone encompassed at least as many allies as enemies; each managed to be either a single-target (whose expansion explicitly targeted all creatures in burst 1) or an "all creatures in ..." power, so she wound up making a lot of attack to-hit rolls against the party, and doing a fair bit of striker damage to her own group.

Which didn't fly so well ... though they blamed me, not her! ... and at the end of the night she led our "MVP" voting, too, so I think overall they felt it was more awesome than not. Still, something to think about ..

I'm happy leaving it as-is for this unpredictable, chaotic, Wild Magic zone ... but if you're house ruling it, you just might want to make crits unequivocally a "good thing" for the party, so maybe expanded zones should only target enemies? Or maybe should only target enemies unless the original power explicitly targets all creatures in burst?