The monster 'crit' problem

[Cadfan]

Have you noticed this actually making a meaningful effect in your game? To the extent that you seem to be suggesting that this creates a flaw in the game's math, its unlikely that it meaningfully effects monster DPR. Crits occur 5% of the time, so the effect on DPR of extra dice from crits is .05*3.5*X where X is the number of d6s involved. That's .175 X. To get a full point of DPR behind, the system would have to short a monster by a full 6d6 on critical hits, the equivalent of a vanilla +6 weapon.

I honestly think that the extra damage dice on critical hits is mathematically unnecessary for PCs, too, though players enjoy it, it lets them roll dice on critical hits, and it keeps a max damage roll from being exactly the same as a critical hit.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Plane Sailing, I have no idea why the RAW critter's do not gain a scaling crit dice add, unless its like Artoomis considers the additional swinginess in favor of the bad guys.

That being said, I think I will implement your HR thought presented in the general forum to grant bonus damage D6 dice on a crit based on the monsters magic threshold table, with D8's going to lurkers and Brutes.

... of course, I like having more in the favor of the bad guys

 

[Eldorian]

Think it's been basically said already, but

That's not a bug, it's a feature.

 

[Jack99]

It has occurred to me recently, that one of the problem that faces high level monsters vis a vis high level PCs comes down to the 'monster crit' problem.

Specifically, even though monsters have a built in number to match their assumed equivalent to magic item power, they lack the ability to do additional dice damage on a critical hit.

You describe a difference between Monster building and Player building. And yes, they are different. But you do not explain why you feel it is a problem that monsters lack the ability to do additional damage.

I guess my point is: What is the goal of your house rule?

 

[FadedC]

I remember an early design article by Wizards saying at some point that they wanted crits to be less deadly, so they do max damage instead of double. But they didn't want crits to be irrelevent to higher level characters (presumably because doing max damage isn't so relevent if your doing d6+20) so they added magic weapon scaling. They didn't do this to monsters because they wanted pc crits to be deadlier then npc ones.

It's also worth noting that monsters tend to have more variation in their damage then pcs. A paragon level pc might do d10+13, while a paragon level monster is more likely to do 2d10+7. This leads to the same average damage, but causes the monsters crits to be more deadly before any extra damage dice are added. Strikers are of course an exception to this with all their extra dice (though phb2 strikers appear to have flat damage bonuses or other mechanics, weakening their crits).

 

[Doctor Proctor]

It's also worth noting that monsters tend to have more variation in their damage then pcs. A paragon level pc might do d10+13, while a paragon level monster is more likely to do 2d10+7. This leads to the same average damage, but causes the monsters crits to be more deadly before any extra damage dice are added. Strikers are of course an exception to this with all their extra dice (though phb2 strikers appear to have flat damage bonuses or other mechanics, weakening their crits).

Yeah, I think that's something that's missing out of this. Part of the difference between PC's and Monsters is that a lot of monsters already roll a pile of dice to begin with...and then that pile gets maxed. Take an Ancient Red Dragon, for example. It's a Level 30 Solo Soldier whose At-Will Claw attack does 2d12+12 + 6d6 Fire Damage. On average this comes out to 13+12 + 21 Fire Damage, for a total of 46 damage. On a crit, that pile becomes maximized and we get 24+12 + 36 Fire Damage for a total of 72.

Now, PC At-Will powers don't make that big of a jump because they're not rolling that many dice...well, except for the Rogue. But this is a Soldier Solo, so it's best to compare it to the Fighter. At Best, a normal Fighter will be rolling 4d6 (High Crit) with an Executioner's Axe. Looking at what I would consider to be a more "average" scenario and we'll probably be seeing 2d10 or 2d12 without the High Crit property. Possibly even as low as 2d8 if they were using a Spear or Longsword.

That's just an At-Will comparison though... Granted, a 30th level Fighter could pull out a 7[W] Daily and roll a crit on it, plus his magic weapon dice, but as it's a daily that's a bit more rare. Looking at the Encounter powers you're not getting near that high. You might be getting like 4[W] with something like Skullcrusher though. Compare that to a crit with the Dragon's Immolate Foe power though. The PC might edge out in damage due to the extra magic weapon dice, but it won't recharge in about 3 rounds (it recharges on a 5 or 6, which is about a 1 in 3 chance).

The other thing to remember here is that NPC's don't play like PC's. There's plenty of NPC's, especially amongst the Solos and Elites, that get multiple attacks per round At-Will. Then they might also have a couple of action points, but they can use more than per encounter. So, with these BBEG type monsters they're putting out a lot more attacks that a similar PC has access to, which gives them a higher chance to crit.

While the non-Solo/Elite monsters might not have as many attacks, they will typically outnumber the party, thus giving the DM more d20 rolls than the party and more chances for a crit. By tossing extra dice on top of this it could result in a bloodbath for the PC's if the DM happens to roll a couple 20's within a round or two of each other.

In our game we're curretly going through KotS, so we're low level and extra crit dice wouldn't come into play anyway...but just as an example of how things can quickly get out of hand you can look at our last session. I (The Fighter) was holding off a group of 3 Soldiers in a side room while my allies were dealing with the rest of the party. They had their hands full with at least 1 target per PC, which is why I was trying to hold the reinforcements off. I got hit by crits 3 rounds in a row. The only reason I was even able to survive was because we have two Clerics which means that they could afford to spend 2 Healing Words on me (That and I'm a high CON Dragonborn with Toughness...). This eneded up happening because of the superior numbers the DM had. While statistically unlikely, he was rolling 3 attacks to my 1 attack each round. That means that his chances to crit are 3 times as high as mine...which also means that if each crit was as strong as a PC's then it would be VERY hard to survive mutiple crits, which is essentially an inevitability due to the NPC to PC ratio.

 

[Mengu]

Monster crits would make healing a lot more difficult. If there were healing crits, that would be fine, but monster crits doing extra dice of damage will definitely make the job of a healer more difficult.

If healers had something like Armor of Bahamut as a class feature, this mechanic would be more managable, but without it, it would make a swingy mechanic and it would make encounter design a bit more challenging.

For the most part I'd rather have the PC's go through an encounter easier due to high number of crits, that the other way around.

 

[Stalker0]

One thing to remember is, when it comes to crits, its not all about the DPR, its about the scare factor they can impose.

When a player gets bloodied, he may feel that he is okay from a normal hit, but if he worries that a crit could drop him, he may react differently. If he feels that even a crit couldn't take him down, then that excitement factor is reduced.

I don't think you need to add bigger crits to all monsters, but it might be nice for solo monsters to give them a bigger scare factor (which they often seem to lack)

 

[keterys]

Yep - basically that's the problem. Predictability is good for players, but it also can make things boring. Some players don't realize, and that's fine, but there are plenty of players who can do the math and just not be scared or worried at certain points in combat and that's suboptimal sometimes.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

My own experience from 3.5 is that monster crits don't really up the "scare" factor but rather the "unfair" factor.

By this I mean that they don't really happen enough to be taken into account by the players (which is what is needed, IMHO, to have a scare factor), but rather insta-killed party members who really weren't expecting it (which is why they felt unfair).

Indeed, I think about 50% of the player deaths my group experienced in 3.5 were because of monster criticals.