D&D General Probability, Critical Hits, and the Illusion of Importance

[Argyle King]

A lot of the points made in the video aren't true outside of a very specific (D&D) context.

Critical hits can mean broken bones; penetrating armor-as-damage-reduction; and a variety of other things.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yes, but the amount of damage you get is trivial. Exploding weapon damage is tiny. +1 to hit or +1 to damage would have a much bigger impact.

Oh, I see your point. But in that light the impact of critical hits is even more trivial. I already showed the exploding critical damage system yields better (more impactful) damage.

For example consider a d8+3. Average damage is 7.5, critical 20 damage average is 12 (2d8+3). With exploding critical damage the average is 16 (8+3+5.1ish).

The minimum with critical 20 damage is just 5 (which can be quite disappointing when it happens), with exploding critical damage it is 12.

Finally, even the RAW critical 20 hit, a +1 to hit or damage would have bigger impact as well.

But even more importantly, the extra damage is pretty smooth. You won't get huge bursts of damage very often.

True, but you get more than with the default RAW system.

Please understand, I'm not being critical. I opened my discussion of this target by saying that I considered critical hits bad for the game and probably would take them out if I could but I couldn't because players loved them so much. I'm saying you found a way to do that.

Ok. I did seem it a bit, but thanks for making your point clearer. Overall, it is a better system IMO. If you want to ask or challenge other aspects of it, please let me know.