D&D 5E Should Crits be x2 Damage? (And Champion Sucks)

[Xeviat]

Hello everyone.

The title says it all: Should Critical Hits deal x2 damage in 5E D&D?

Weak crits only hurt the warriors. Rogue's bonus damage is from sneak attack, which is dice, which is multiplied in a critical hit. Most of a spellcaster's spell attack damage is dice as well, so it's multiplied by a critical hit.

I was doing some subclass comparisons, and the Champion's Improved Critical jumped out at me. This is absolutely a terrible ability unless you stack it with bonus damage dice (half-orc, high level barbarian, magic weapons). How much damage does improved critical add?

Well, if you were a duelist with +5 str/dex, your average damage at 65% to hit would be 10.625; with Improved Crit, it jumps up to 10.85. That's an increase of 0.225. That's comparable to a +0.35 damage increase. 0.35. That doesn't even equate to +1 to damage until you get 3 attacks. With Greater Critical, it becomes +0.7 damage. With 4 attacks, that's nearly +2 damage. Per round. This is the only ability you get at this level. The Eldritch Knight is getting possibly a sweet free ranged attack (cantrip) and like +5 AC as a reaction 3 times a day (shield). The Battle Master is getting +1d8 damage 4 times per short rest, with cool riders. And you're getting +0.35 damage per attack.

Sure, if you're a Great Weapon Fighter with a greatsword, that jumps up to a staggering +0.64 damage.

With 3 rests per day (1 long, 2 short), the Battle Master is getting +12d8 (+54) damage over the course of the day, plus riders. You'd have to make more than 84 attacks in a day (54/0.64 = 84.375) before you get that much damage. At 1st through 4th level, that's 84 rounds, minus some opportunity attacks. At 5th through 6th level, that's 42 rounds. At 6-8 fights a day, at maybe 3 rounds per fight, that's 18-24 combat rounds a day. OH, at 7th level, the Battle Master gets another die, so that's another +13.5 damage, or another 11 rounds you need to add to equalize them in damage. And remember, that battle master damage works on demand, and comes with cool riders. Or they can negate misses or grant temp hp or reduce damage. You get +0.64 damage! An ASI is better than that ability.

Even with Action surge 3/day, and Superior Critical, the Champion's damage (from those two abilities) doesn't equal the Battle Master's damage (from combat superiority and improved combat superiority, not counting relentless) until level 15, when it starts to fall into that 18-24 rounds per day range. And remember, the Battle Master gets nifty riders along with all that damage.

If Crits were double damage, than +1 to your critical hit range would be equivalent to +1 to hit. +1 to hit isn't even worth half a feat; +2 Strength is +1 to hit, +1 damage, +1 athletics, +1 str saves, and +1 carrying capacity and extraneous strength checks. Assuming that class levels should be reasonably balanced against an Ability Score Improvement, I'm crying foul.

+1 to critical hit range is not worth a class level. The champion needs more. Weak crits unfairly hurt Fighters and don't hurt Rogues and spell attackers (it hurts warlocks' eldritch blast a bit).

What would break if crits were x2 damage? Great Weapon Master and Sharp Shooter damage should probably "outside" and not double on a crit, just to prevent spikes.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Critical hits should not deal double damage. Critical hits shouldn't even be in the game, if you ask me.

Critical hits favor the monsters and NPCs heavily, and have done so in every iteration of critical hit rules ever implemented in D&D, because the monsters are intended to typically be temporary participants in the game-play, frequently have more chances to critical because they make more attack rolls per turn, and often have greater damage both in dice and flat modifiers.

Yet, players seem dead-set (pun intended) on the inclusion of critical hit rules - so I say the least we should do is make sure that there is just enough to a critical hit for a player to be happy, which my experience says the 5th edition critical hit rules deliver on, without creating the circumstance that a monster rolling a critical hit is too negative of an experience to a player - which I again think that 5th edition delivers on, since my players have their characters crit on as many as 8 times a session and still insist that we not remove critical hits from our game.

And my personal experience DMing for, and playing as, a champion fighter is that you are looking to solve a problem that isn't actually there.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Increasing the damage of critical hits would make every battle less predictable for the players. The number one threat to PCs is the random crit, which is boring since there's no way to predict or guard against it. This change would make things even less predictable for the players, and increase the chance that a PC will die from something boring and unpredictable.

If you think the Champion is bad, and you want to make it more powerful, then you would be better off giving it path-specific bonuses rather than overhauling the crit system that everyone else uses.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

This post is a placeholder so that the forum will stop telling me there are new posts in this thread when there effectively aren't because someone posting in the thread has me on their ignore list - and for some reason I've yet to figure out, that has been intentionally designed to prevent me from reading whatever it is that person has to say.

 

[abirdcall]

I think Champions are mostly fine.

If you do anything to crits it should be Champion specific. I wouldn't mind allowing them to double their ability modifier damage on a crit.

 

[jaelis]

I'm good with how crits and champion work. Main thing I would change is to make it max damage instead of roll twice, just because it is quicker and more satisfying to me.

Might also not let crits apply to sneak attack and smite. Not sure though.

 

[Jester David]

Have you *actually* seen the champion in play, and does it seem weak?
I have an archer champion at my table and his expanded crit range adds a good 1d8 damage every fight. It comes up at least as much as the battle master uses their manuevers.

 

[mellored]

Critical hits should not deal double damage. Critical hits shouldn't even be in the game, if you ask me.

Agreed.

I also agree champions need some help. I give them d12 hit dice.

 

[Lanliss]

This post is a placeholder so that the forum will stop telling me there are new posts in this thread when there effectively aren't because someone posting in the thread has me on their ignore list - and for some reason I've yet to figure out, that has been intentionally designed to prevent me from reading whatever it is that person has to say.

Oh, so that is what causes that. Apparently someone has me on their ignore list too, since this was happening a week ago to me. Never even knew.

 

[ccs]

My own choice would be no crits, good or bad. A 1 always misses, a 20 always hits, is all that's needed....

If we must have crits then I always argue for crits on both hits & misses.

As for what'd break if you just made crit hits deal damage x2?
Nothing.
I know this because that's exactly how crits work when I DM. And the games where I'm just a player. We total up the damage & double it. No fiddling around with wich parts multiply & wich dont, no rolling more dice, just a nice simple x2.
The result? Some monsters have died faster. Oh no, not that....
Now & then a PC suffers alot of damage. A few have been killed by it. But those? Those are the crits/deaths that get REMEMBERED.