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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8757345" data-attributes="member: 5948">Debating the probability of critical hits seems to me a little like not seeing the trees for the wood (cliche deliberately inverted)The impact of critical hits on the game isn't one that's intended to have a major game-balance effect over time (there are exceptions, like a Champion fighters' increased crit range etc, but I'm talking in general).  It's intended to have an impact on the very tactical level of individual combats.  The paladin gets a big critical smite off against the orc warlord and gets a moment of awesome, or the frost giant lands a crit on a PC and all of a sudden a previously routine random encounter turns desperate and tense in a hurry.  Averaging and the statistical analysis of damage over time smooths out these peaks and troughs by definition, and by design.  That seems to me to be missing the point.  Critical hit mechanics exist to bring the peaks and troughs into the game, because they're the sort of thing that creates in-game moments that you'll remember.  Nobody looks back on a game rhapsodising about how their fighter averaged 0.5 hp more damage per hit over the course of the campaign by using a greatsword instead of a greataxe.  They talk about the time the cleric was down to 2hp, out of healing and getting savaged by the remorhaz, when the ranger crit it in the eye with an arrow from across the map.</blockquote>