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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DND_Reborn" data-source="post: 7854701" data-attributes="member: 6987520">I've never been a big fan of the "critical hit" using d20s, especially when you actually need a 20 to hit. I've long used the house-rule that a 20 is a critical hit only if you can also hit on a 19 or lower as well.I like the idea that the severity of a hit is determined by the damage roll, not the attack roll, and so I've been looking into exploding dice. I think most of us here are familiar with the term, but for those who aren't exploding dice work like this: if you roll the maximum for a die, such as a 6 on a d6, you roll the die again (or add another die), increasing the result by the new roll. If the new roll is also maximum, the process continues.Ex. Suppose you are rolling 2d6 for a greatsword. You roll a 3 and 6. The 6 "explodes" and is re-rolled (or add another die). The new roll is a 5. So, the total damage is 3 + 6 + 5, or 14. The exploding die replaces the chance of a critical hit. If the new roll was also a 6, you would roll another die, and so on.Now, the math behind exploding dice is close enough to the benefits of double dice on a natural 20 as a normal critical hit would do. It depends on the die size, what you need to roll on the d20, etc., but overall I think it would be a good system to try out. Here are the numbers:[ATTACH=full]115879[/ATTACH]The "Explode" column shows the average result of a die type given the exploding feature.The "d20 Avg" column is the average damage over the entire range of rolls from 1-20, using 20 as double dice.The "d20 Exp" column is the average damage over the same range, but the die explodes regardless of the d20 roll as long as you hit.The "Exp LESS" column is the range on a d20 when the exploding dice averages less than natural 20 criticals over all.If you expand it to exploding dice for everything (AoE spells, poison, falling, etc.) it adds a "critical" factor to damage sources that otherwise don't have anything. For something like Magic Missile, for 3 missiles average damage would go from 10.5 to 13, a pretty big jump really, so I am not sold on the idea for applying it to non-attack roll damage sources. But it also makes it so a single die, with enough luck, could result in killing anything theoretically (not likely at all, but it could happen), which I like (however rare).Of course, a natural 20 would still be a hit, regardless of AC and attack bonuses, it just won't be a critical anymore.And, I would have to think about how to handle things like increased critical range, such as with the Champion, and Savage Attacks for Half-Orcs, but I'll worry about that later.Does any one use exploding dice (in any fashion) in their game?</blockquote>

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