Whilst I'm 100% for the story of dnd and not one for powergaming, I can see that if you are given the opportunity to do exceedingly high damage, you do it! In the case above with the smite & hexblade all adding to it, the DM might have been better to step in and tell you to roll for the damage instead of taking max, but the thing is that there was always a chance of dealing that much damage anyway! If a character is capable of unloading a monumental opening move like that, then let them!
I never said the DM should not allow players to do monumental damage. Nor did I say that the players should not take the opportunity, within the rules as being played at the table, to do damage. I was responding to someone who said that players of certain classes would love -- his words, "love" -- an obviously broken mechanic, while the DM and other players would not like that same mechanic, because said mechanic breaks the game. My argument is that, as a player, you should never be happy about a mechanic that lets you break the game. Being glad you were given a house rule by the DM that lets you -- and only you -- do that massive damage, break the game, be the star of the show, outshine the other PCs and, by the original description, is making everyone else at the table, including the DM and all the other players, unhappy -- is not the sort of behavior in which any player should engage.
I have played with someone like this before -- someone who would have rather broken the game and have his PC be the star of the show, than follow the rules and be just one of the crowd. It was not a pleasant experience. We eventually stopped playing with him.
As a player, yes, play by the rules. If the rules say you can do all that damage, I'm not saying to nerf your own character. But, you should not be glad the house rules are letting you do this, and a good player would talk to the DM about it and try to find a way to negotiate to have the game stop being broken. The alternative is to play in a broken game, and after a while, even the player benefitting from this is probably not going to enjoy it.
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Whilst I'm 100% for the story of dnd and not one for powergaming, I can see that if you are given the opportunity to do exceedingly high damage, you do it! In the case above with the smite & hexblade all adding to it, the DM might have been better to step in and tell you to roll for the damage instead of taking max, but the thing is that there was always a chance of dealing that much damage anyway! If a character is capable of unloading a monumental opening move like that, then let them!
I never said the DM should not allow players to do monumental damage. Nor did I say that the players should not take the opportunity, within the rules as being played at the table, to do damage. I was responding to someone who said that players of certain classes would love -- his words, "love" -- an obviously broken mechanic, while the DM and other players would not like that same mechanic, because said mechanic breaks the game. My argument is that, as a player, you should never be happy about a mechanic that lets you break the game. Being glad you were given a house rule by the DM that lets you -- and only you -- do that massive damage, break the game, be the star of the show, outshine the other PCs and, by the original description, is making everyone else at the table, including the DM and all the other players, unhappy -- is not the sort of behavior in which any player should engage.
I have played with someone like this before -- someone who would have rather broken the game and have his PC be the star of the show, than follow the rules and be just one of the crowd. It was not a pleasant experience. We eventually stopped playing with him.
As a player, yes, play by the rules. If the rules say you can do all that damage, I'm not saying to nerf your own character. But, you should not be glad the house rules are letting you do this, and a good player would talk to the DM about it and try to find a way to negotiate to have the game stop being broken. The alternative is to play in a broken game, and after a while, even the player benefitting from this is probably not going to enjoy it.
I think I should have said power-gaming players with crit-fishing chars "love" that kind of rule. That is what I meant. The easiest answer is don't make up house rules for crit'ing. Those DM's that say a player gets "deflated" if they roll badly on a crit, I have news for them. They have a weak player on their hands. The vast majority of D&D players are not 6 year old children. If an adult can't deal with the disappointment of some bad rolls, they should find another game.
Whilst I'm 100% for the story of dnd and not one for powergaming, I can see that if you are given the opportunity to do exceedingly high damage, you do it! In the case above with the smite & hexblade all adding to it, the DM might have been better to step in and tell you to roll for the damage instead of taking max, but the thing is that there was always a chance of dealing that much damage anyway! If a character is capable of unloading a monumental opening move like that, then let them!
I never said the DM should not allow players to do monumental damage. Nor did I say that the players should not take the opportunity, within the rules as being played at the table, to do damage. I was responding to someone who said that players of certain classes would love -- his words, "love" -- an obviously broken mechanic, while the DM and other players would not like that same mechanic, because said mechanic breaks the game. My argument is that, as a player, you should never be happy about a mechanic that lets you break the game. Being glad you were given a house rule by the DM that lets you -- and only you -- do that massive damage, break the game, be the star of the show, outshine the other PCs and, by the original description, is making everyone else at the table, including the DM and all the other players, unhappy -- is not the sort of behavior in which any player should engage.
I have played with someone like this before -- someone who would have rather broken the game and have his PC be the star of the show, than follow the rules and be just one of the crowd. It was not a pleasant experience. We eventually stopped playing with him.
As a player, yes, play by the rules. If the rules say you can do all that damage, I'm not saying to nerf your own character. But, you should not be glad the house rules are letting you do this, and a good player would talk to the DM about it and try to find a way to negotiate to have the game stop being broken. The alternative is to play in a broken game, and after a while, even the player benefitting from this is probably not going to enjoy it.
Quote from Lostwhilefishing>> >Snipped for space, and quotes are impossible to manipulate nicely in here<
Point 1: you can't say that you're punishing them for rolling too well if they are being given maximum damage for everything by the homebrew crit rules. they aren't rolling - they rolled one hit dice that got a 20, and then the subsequent damage was insane because of the houserule.
You punish them by suddenlytaking away their damage just because they rolled a crit.
I agree that a DM should have anticipated this possibility and then, in all likelihood, not ruled this way. But assuming they are human, there's a good chance they hadn't anticipated this interaction and were surprised at how much damage they kicked out. Fixing it on the fly to stop them from just one-shotting the BBEG isn't losing player agency - it's balancing the game.
It literally is not.
They still get the crit, but they have to roll their dice. They might still roll high enough to kill them, because they're dumping so much into it. They aren't being "punished for a good roll", they are "highlighting how wrong a houserule was and prompting a response from the DM to keep the game in check".
Please read what I wrote again. There are two completely separate issues. One is the "I'm changing the rules on the fly" issue the other is "giving the BBE superpowers just because I could think far enough ahead" issue.
Point 2: fair enough, you did say that. I don't think that preventing the players from doing an ungodly amount of damage in one hit through a broken houserule having unexpected consequences is a dick move. But then there's a bigger story to be had here - did they build for crit fishing purely to exploit this? was the houserule agreed by everyone or suggested by the DM? was it put that these things can change? Whether or not it's a crappy thing to do is dependent on whether it was unexpected. If I say "we'll play this rule but if it breaks the game I'll change it", and then a player uses the rule to break the game, it's not crappy to follow through on your promise to change it.
From the premise given and presented, it was a dick move. We can do all sorts of ifs and buts if you want to, I was commenting solely on the scenario as it was first described. But yes, changing the scenario will most likely change my opinion on it.
Point 3: I expect the DM didn't anticipate their houserule to make critical hits a bit less likely to roll badly would result in a player doing over 140 damage in one hit. Een if it was expected, you have 2 options: a 1/20 chance of the BBEG getting 1-shotted, or having a BBEG that's so powerful that they have no chance of killing it unless someone gets a critical hit. Their non-critical hits become trivial, and "bad luck" (here being the likely event of not getting a crit, so not really bad luck) means TPK. You can't win if you expect a normal hit to average 14 damage and a crit to do 140.
Yeah, that's not really the only two options you have, that's a false premise. Either way, that wasn't really the issue I was talking about and it could have been solved in better ways.
Point 4: I didn't say they would "just teleport away". The premise would be that if the party were going to just one-shot them, it's not a climactic final battle. It would be an anticlimax. Better to pull the story out a little more for a decent payoff than just letting their one broken attack end the game.
You did, if not in so few words. It was however, the thing you reacted to. My point is that many players would feel cheated if they did their super McAwesome move that had been approved by the DM just for the DM to then turn around and say "nah, that basically does nothing".
Point 5: Arbitrarily negating the players action would be saying their crit isn't actually a crit, or they were attacking an illusion so did nothing. Saying either A: "You won but they got away, injured", or B: "you have to roll your extra dice instead because the homebrew crit rule is not working properly and this attack broke the balance sorry" is not taking away their agency. It might have slight feel-bad when you tell the player to roll their masses of dice instead of getting a flat massive bonus, but then it'll improve the game in the long run.
Except that it is. There's not just a single way of taking away player agency. Whether or not it improves the game is irrelevant when it comes to the issue of messing with the player. Right then and there, you are (I'm using the general 'you').
As for the whole "how to make sure that the story can continue and be cool", that's a completely different topic which really has very little with my point to do. Anyone reading comics (or classic literature) knows about a dozen ways to bring someone back from appearent death or make a twist. Maybe the BBE the player one-shotted wasn't the real baddy but a clone, or their best friend borrowing their armour? Any way, different topic from a different thread. My point is that sudden asspulls (for a lack of a better word) because the DM can't handle the situation isn't nice to the players. The players should have to pay for the DM's mistake. In this case the mistake would have been the DM not preparing a the BBE with their house rules in mind.
As a side note, this is also why I think you should be careful when it comes to house ruling these sorts of things.
I would still consider changing a homebrew rule which means that someone does 140 damage in one hit which they would not normally RAW be able to do is a question of balance not an "Asspull".
Please read what I wrote again. There are two completely separate issues. One is the "I'm changing the rules on the fly" issue the other is "giving the BBE superpowers just because I could think far enough ahead" issue.
How would a player know if the BBEG had this teleport ability all along? What difference does it make if the DM was excellent at pre-planning or on the fly went "wait, crap, this is supposed to be a climactic battle, better re-evaluate the BBEG's power for next week!"? You're getting the what and the why muddled. Whether or not the DM went in expecting to have to teleport them away for a better fight next time is not relevant to whether the BBEG doing so is good for the story. What about if this was the plan? would it feel any different for the player if the DM teleported the BBEG away because it was already planned?
Yeah, that's not really the only two options you have, that's a false premise. Either way, that wasn't really the issue I was talking about and it could have been solved in better ways.
I'm genuinely curious as to how you would balance for a character who crit-fishes for a guaranteed 140+ damage on a crit, but only 12-14 otherwise. At 280hp, the fight could last for 20 rounds, or for 2. If a houserule causes this sort of imbalance between hits and crits (and I get that crits need to feel good, but this is so much damage it's bad for the game), then it needs to be addressed. If the player has built for this one thing, then you might have to offer them the chance to amend previous decisions in light of the rule change. If it was happy coincidence, a good player will accept your explanation that dealing maximum damage for a crit was a bad idea, and you're changing it.
You did, if not in so few words.
Sorry, no, I said I'd have it available if they needed it to keep the story interesting. If you're 3 rounds in and pull this off, then (whilst I'd still be looking to change the rule), the investment in the fight is there and it can be finished with the death of the BBEG. Doing this round 1 is enough to make the BBEG reconsider their ability to fight you and use a trick to escape, if possible.
Except that it is. There's not just a single way of taking away player agency. Whether or not it improves the game is irrelevant when it comes to the issue of messing with the player. Right then and there, you are (I'm using the general 'you').
Nope, sorry, I don't think it is. That's my stance on it, at any rate. The player rolled a critical hit by chance, and then they used a broken houserule to gain an immense amount of damage which they wouldn't ordinarily, RAW, have gotten. They didn't know they would crit when they rolled an attack, so their decisions (their agency) is not affected by this rule. The only thing affected is whether they roll a huge amount of dice for their combo, or get the maximum automatically. If the DM asks them to roll and explains that the rule had unexpected repercussions, they should understand this. It's the nature of houseruling that it is not necessarily balanced, and can need correcting.
Frankly, if a player builds their character to abuse a broken houserule (EG making a crit-fishing character purely because the crit rules are broken) without discussing any of it with the DM, then they kind of deserve to have their abusively powerful combination nerfed. Guarantee if a players said "when we level up I'm doing >X< because then I can crit on a 19 or 20 and get 140 damage", the DM would have addressed the critical houserule right there. The Player springing this broken rule use on a DM is as bad as the DM reacting by nerfing it. Communication is key!
I would still consider changing a homebrew rule which means that someone does 140 damage in one hit which they would not normally RAW be able to do is a question of balance not an "Asspull".
Perhaps, doing it the way described still takes away player agency.
Please read what I wrote again. There are two completely separate issues. One is the "I'm changing the rules on the fly" issue the other is "giving the BBE superpowers just because I could think far enough ahead" issue.
How would a player know if the BBEG had this teleport ability all along? What difference does it make if the DM was excellent at pre-planning or on the fly went "wait, crap, this is supposed to be a climactic battle, better re-evaluate the BBEG's power for next week!"? You're getting the what and the why muddled. Whether or not the DM went in expecting to have to teleport them away for a better fight next time is not relevant to whether the BBEG doing so is good for the story. What about if this was the plan? would it feel any different for the player if the DM teleported the BBEG away because it was already planned?
Again, you literally said that it was something made up on the spot. You are moving the goalposts and I won't engage in that.
Yeah, that's not really the only two options you have, that's a false premise. Either way, that wasn't really the issue I was talking about and it could have been solved in better ways.
I'm genuinely curious as to how you would balance for a character who crit-fishes for a guaranteed 140+ damage on a crit, but only 12-14 otherwise. At 280hp, the fight could last for 20 rounds, or for 2. If a houserule causes this sort of imbalance between hits and crits (and I get that crits need to feel good, but this is so much damage it's bad for the game), then it needs to be addressed. If the player has built for this one thing, then you might have to offer them the chance to amend previous decisions in light of the rule change. If it was happy coincidence, a good player will accept your explanation that dealing maximum damage for a crit was a bad idea, and you're changing it.
Again, it's not the "crits has to do a lot of damage" that is the issue. The issue is "woops, I as a DM didn't take into account the possibilities of my own houserules so therefor I change them on the fly in a way that makes things bad for the player". As for how to balance encounters, that's what the DMG is for. But like I've said, that's not really the topic of this discussion. One very simple way would of course to give the BBE an ability or magic item similar to the half-orc's relentless endurance.
You did, if not in so few words.
Sorry, no, I said I'd have it available if they needed it to keep the story interesting. If you're 3 rounds in and pull this off, then (whilst I'd still be looking to change the rule), the investment in the fight is there and it can be finished with the death of the BBEG. Doing this round 1 is enough to make the BBEG reconsider their ability to fight you and use a trick to escape, if possible.
Well, yes. And like I said, the DM doing these kinds to "keep the story interesting" often makes it less interesting.
Except that it is. There's not just a single way of taking away player agency. Whether or not it improves the game is irrelevant when it comes to the issue of messing with the player. Right then and there, you are (I'm using the general 'you').
Nope, sorry, I don't think it is. That's my stance on it, at any rate. The player rolled a critical hit by chance, and then they used a broken houserule to gain an immense amount of damage which they wouldn't ordinarily, RAW, have gotten. They didn't know they would crit when they rolled an attack, so their decisions (their agency) is not affected by this rule. The only thing affected is whether they roll a huge amount of dice for their combo, or get the maximum automatically. If the DM asks them to roll and explains that the rule had unexpected repercussions, they should understand this. It's the nature of houseruling that it is not necessarily balanced, and can need correcting.
I have to ask, what do you think player agency is? Because what you are talking about is something completely different. Of course the player doesn't choose to roll a natural 20, but no-one claimed they did and no-one claims that that's what player agency is.
Frankly, if a player builds their character to abuse a broken houserule (EG making a crit-fishing character purely because the crit rules are broken) without discussing any of it with the DM, then they kind of deserve to have their abusively powerful combination nerfed. Guarantee if a players said "when we level up I'm doing >X< because then I can crit on a 19 or 20 and get 140 damage", the DM would have addressed the critical houserule right there. The Player springing this broken rule use on a DM is as bad as the DM reacting by nerfing it. Communication is key!
Nice strawman. The point though, which you are almost close to getting, is that it's not the players' fault if the DM's houserules turns out to be broken so they're not the ones taht should be punished for it. But yes, communication is key. Don't think anyone has said anything to the opposite?
I have to ask, what do you think player agency is?
Player agency is what the players can decide to do. Things that are player agency:
deciding what to do
deciding how to level up
deciding whether to add smite to an attack
Things that aren't player agency:
what they roll on the dice
how much damage an attack does
how the rules work
Changing a broken rule when it is show to be broken is not taking away player agency. They still rolled a critical hit, they still get to add a load of damage - but now they have to roll for it, because the rule was shown to be clearly broken.
What do you consider player agency? Genuine question.
Again, you literally said that it was something made up on the spot. You are moving the goalposts and I won't engage in that.
And again, unless you say "I'm just going to add this now", how does it affect the game? How do the players know if it was planned or made up on the spot? The goalposts haven't moved.
Again, it's not the "crits has to do a lot of damage" that is the issue. The issue is "woops, I as a DM didn't take into account the possibilities of my own houserules so therefor I change them on the fly in a way that makes things bad for the player". As for how to balance encounters, that's what the DMG is for. But like I've said, that's not really the topic of this discussion. One very simple way would of course to give the BBE an ability or magic item similar to the half-orc's relentless endurance.
Okay, but the DMG assumes normal crit rules for balancing. I haven't had an answer from you - how do you account for a character whose attacks are this swingy? It doesn't work. The houserule is clearly broken, and keeping it is clearly going to be worse for the game than ditching it. having the BBEG get up with 1 hp just delays that inevitable result, or you give him enough HP to take it, no-one crits, and he kills everyone.
Nice strawman. The point though, which you are almost close to getting, is that it's not the players' fault if the DM's houserules turns out to be broken so they're not the ones taht should be punished for it. But yes, communication is key. Don't think anyone has said anything to the opposite?
I don't see how removing a rule which makes one player excessively powerful through an unexpected interaction is "punishing" the player. It's balancing the game, and making the game balanced is the opposite of punishment. I agree that it's the DMs fault, and as such the DM should fix it. Letting the player get a guaranteed 140+ damage and one-shotting the BBEG is the worst solution. What about the other players? perhaps they had some plans for this battle, or were looking forward to it? The DM has to keep the game fun for everyone, and if that means squatting a clearly broken houserule and making them roll all those dice for what will still be a massive amount of damage for a normal attack, then that's what it needs to be.
How would you feel if you were next in the initiative from this warlock, and they one-shot the BBEG turn 1 before you even get a go? Sound fun? you didn't even roll a dice in the final battle, and the session's over now as the DM had this as the grand finale. That sounds way worse than telling one player that the homebrew critical rules shouldn't work like that.
Quick summary to make your reply smaller (you can just quote these):
• what do you consider player agency? I think it's what the player can decide, not how rules work or what results they get on dice.
• How does it make a difference if you improvise a teleport escape or you pre-planned one? how does it change the game?
• how would you balance that encounter? that critical houserule makes it impossible - either they die to the first critical, or they survive everything and kill the party.
• how is making the player roll the dice as soon as you realise the rule is broken punishment?
• how would you feel if you were after this warlock, and didn't even get to swing in the final battle of the session, possibly the campaign?
Personally, I always tell my players that I reserve the right to change a house rule if I feel it to be broken.
That said, I would only ever do so in the middle of an encounter if it was game breaking and I couldn't think of another way out. I would normally discuss it with the players and change it between sessions, and I'd allow players to adjust their characters slightly if the house rule change had a significant effect.
Personally, I would not say that making up an on-the-spot fudge (like having the BBEG teleport away if the party has killed them too quickly or bringing in reinforcements if an encounter is too easy) is "taking away player agency". In fact, I normally try to plan this kind of thing just in case I've messed up, including a way to dial it back if I've accidentally made it too difficult.
I currently follow a campaign that does as the OP described but...
The DM gave the players a one-time choice on crits for the entirety of the campaign; whether to roll twice or assume the first roll was maximum and only roll once. He warned them that the enemies also get the same benefit. The players took the bargain.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I have to ask, what do you think player agency is?
Player agency is what the players can decide to do. Things that are player agency:
deciding what to do
deciding how to level up
deciding whether to add smite to an attack
Things that aren't player agency:
what they roll on the dice
how much damage an attack does
how the rules work
Changing a broken rule when it is show to be broken is not taking away player agency. They still rolled a critical hit, they still get to add a load of damage - but now they have to roll for it, because the rule was shown to be clearly broken.
I see. You don't actually know what player agency is. That explains a lot.
What do you consider player agency? Genuine question.
I don't "consider" player agency to be anything, but I can give you a short explaination of what it actually is. You will actually have to read up yourself if you want to find out more. But basically it comes down to the following. The player has control over their own character's decisions. Those decisions have consequences within the game world. The player has enough information to anticipate what those consequences might be before making them. In this case the third point is violated and one could argue that also the second one is.
Again, you literally said that it was something made up on the spot. You are moving the goalposts and I won't engage in that.
And again, unless you say "I'm just going to add this now", how does it affect the game? How do the players know if it was planned or made up on the spot? The goalposts haven't moved.
Yes, they have. You literally said that you made the thing up on the spot. Now you are changing the premise. That is a textbook example of moving the goalposts.
Again, it's not the "crits has to do a lot of damage" that is the issue. The issue is "woops, I as a DM didn't take into account the possibilities of my own houserules so therefor I change them on the fly in a way that makes things bad for the player". As for how to balance encounters, that's what the DMG is for. But like I've said, that's not really the topic of this discussion. One very simple way would of course to give the BBE an ability or magic item similar to the half-orc's relentless endurance.
Okay, but the DMG assumes normal crit rules for balancing.
Again, this is the fault of the DM and players shouldn't be punished for it.
I haven't had an answer from you - how do you account for a character whose attacks are this swingy?
Again, this is totally irrelevant for the point being made. If you want to discuss how to best balance encounters when using weird houserules, please start a thread about that.
It doesn't work. The houserule is clearly broken, and keeping it is clearly going to be worse for the game than ditching it. having the BBEG get up with 1 hp just delays that inevitable result, or you give him enough HP to take it, no-one crits, and he kills everyone.
As I mentioned, if you want to learn how to balance encounters, that's the topic from a different thread. The point is still that players shouldn't have to pay for the DM's mistakes.
Nice strawman. The point though, which you are almost close to getting, is that it's not the players' fault if the DM's houserules turns out to be broken so they're not the ones taht should be punished for it. But yes, communication is key. Don't think anyone has said anything to the opposite?
I don't see how removing a rule which makes one player excessively powerful through an unexpected interaction is "punishing" the player.
It's taking away player agency. You've been told this already.
It's balancing the game, and making the game balanced is the opposite of punishment.
That's not how things work. If one player happens to roll really good stats and another player rolls really bad stats you can balance the game by lowering the stats of the first player. It's still a punishment, though.
I agree that it's the DMs fault, and as such the DM should fix it. Letting the player get a guaranteed 140+ damage and one-shotting the BBEG is the worst solution.
Since when is the 140+ damage guaranteed? And, yet again, if you want to discuss solutions for bad DM-ing, that's a different topic.
What about the other players? perhaps they had some plans for this battle, or were looking forward to it? The DM has to keep the game fun for everyone, and if that means squatting a clearly broken houserule and making them roll all those dice for what will still be a massive amount of damage for a normal attack, then that's what it needs to be.
No, what needed to be was for the DM to balance the encounter to begin with. And yes, punishing lucky players, in this case someone who does stupid amounts of damage due to the DM's houserules, is still punishing the player.
How would you feel if you were next in the initiative from this warlock, and they one-shot the BBEG turn 1 before you even get a go? Sound fun? you didn't even roll a dice in the final battle, and the session's over now as the DM had this as the grand finale. That sounds way worse than telling one player that the homebrew critical rules shouldn't work like that.
I probably wouldn't be happy about it but I surely wouldn't blame the warlock player. And I sure as hell wouldn't want the warlock player punished for the DM's mistake. To be perfectly honest I would probably feel a bit condecended if the DM let the BBE live just so that everyone gets a chance to roll the dice. The Warlock kill the BBE, good for them. Awesome, let's split the treasure and find the next BBE. Having to have to find and kill the BBE again would probably feel like just a chore and probably even slightly demeaning.
Quick summary to make your reply smaller (you can just quote these):
Well, since you keep asking questions that have already been answered I feel that it's a good idea to keep everything in one post. Makes it easier instead of having to go back to previous posts to read what was actually said.
I have a DM that says Crit = max damage for the "normal" roll, then roll the dice for the "crit portion".
I was playing a high level Hexblade (no MC'ing). I told him up front that such a char was going to shake up his game using that House Rule. But he and the others thought it was great. The DM was not thinking it so great when I rolled a 20, then proceeded to burn a 5th level spell slot to max out Eldritch Smite , then to save time merely added the expected value for ES (totally 75 HP) , plus did the same with Spirit Shroud (another 37, when rounded down), plus did the same with the Hex weapon (only a d8, so another 13), plus tack on all the bonuses from being a Hexblade with (another 16 when you factor in Lifedrinker, which I had). He thought it was even less fun when I told him such a thing could also happen on a 19.
When I am swinging for in excess of 140 HP damage, on my FIRST attack, the equation of the encounter changes very very quickly.
Paladins and Hexblades love House Rules for Crits. DM's and other players should not. House Rules for Crits are a bad idea, as the DM eventually has to amp up the HP and power of the monsters. Why bother? Just play with the existing rules, and it is less headaches for the DM.
If you think pally and Hexblades are bad, Rogue would like to speak with you :).
Well, let's see. Say we have a 12th level Rogue, so 6d6 Sneak Attack. Under the set of House Rules I laid out, that would be 36 + 21 = 57 for the Crit'ed Sneak Attack, plus say 13 for a Rapier, and a +5 from Dex....for a total of 75. An Arcane Trickster at that level, with Booming Blade, or Shadow Blade, different story.
Eh, Rogue's sneak attack isn't quite as much as a smite, but it doesn't expend resources.
Glad to see another numbers guy :).
I'm not a SCAG fan so I don't know much about the "Blade" cantrips but they seem very powerful.
Also gunslingers would get a heck of a kick out of this, they already like to fish for crits with deadeye shot, plus at high levels they get improved crit and bonus damage on one, and last but not least, it refunds a grit point so they could do this till the cows come home.
For sneak attack depends on the level of the rogue, at level 19 a sneak attack crit is 20d6 damage. I think a smite crits caps out at 12d8? Rogues can also only do that once a turn though and not twice.
1) If I read everything correctly, the character would in fact be able to do this much damage RAW. As long as the damage is just maximised, it is identical to the damage the character would be able to do if they rolled the maximum value on every damage die. This is highly unlikely, but still possible. Stating that they "[do] 140 damage in one hit which they would not normally RAW be able to do" is factually incorrect, and misrepresents the issue.
2) Considering the above, this is an XY problem. The issue isn't actually the crit house rule itself; the house rule just exacerbates the issue. The underlying issue is that this character is able to put out insane crit damage, in a campaign not designed to cope with that level of potential damage output. Thoruk, if the player had dealt 140 damage because they rolled maximum damage on their crit, would you still think they should reroll the crit because it dealt too much damage? Or is the issue with the existence of the house rule, and not with the damage itself?
3) In this case, I would say that the solution would be for the BBEG to have around 145 HP, and have already demonstrated an ability to teleport. This makes it clear that he only barely survived the attack, while also allowing a pre-established escape plan to go into action. It also doesn't draw the battle out very long if nobody crits, assuming 4-5 players.
Personally, I always tell my players that I reserve the right to change a house rule if I feel it to be broken.
I would argue that this is what any good GM would tell any group of players, and that all players should readily agree that this must be the case. Any player who would argue that a GM should not be allowed to change a house rule (or even a RAW rule) that the GM honestly feels is broken, should not be in your game. At least, that player wouldn't be in my game.
I do NOT think this means the GM has carte blanche to just change rules at any old time using the excuse "I feel it is broken." I would argue that a GM ought to be able to clearly articulate why he/she feels the house rule is broken and needs fixing/changing/etc. "Cuz I feel like it" is not an acceptable answer -- or should not be.
That said, I would only ever do so in the middle of an encounter if it was game breaking and I couldn't think of another way out. I would normally discuss it with the players and change it between sessions, and I'd allow players to adjust their characters slightly if the house rule change had a significant effect.
I agree. In fact, I had something, not game-breaking, but kind-of house-rule breaking, come up in my one session and I just let it go because I had not formally articulated that particular house rule (I had kind of thought it went without saying). I did not want to interrupt the session to have a rules discussion, and I also didn't want to rule against the players doing it because I thought it would feel like an arbitrary "DM trying to stop the players doing something cool" ruling, so I let it go. But the next session, I started by explaining my position, nobody minded, and all they asked me to do was update our World Anvil site to reflect this change.
I don't think I have ever changed how a rule works mid-encounter. Usually what I will say is, "We'll keep it this way now, but then talk about it after the encounter is over." Or we talk about it in between sessions. I also agree, if the rule change affects character builds or something like that, then the player should be allowed to adjust the character sheet in light of the new ruling. That is only fair.
Personally, I would not say that making up an on-the-spot fudge (like having the BBEG teleport away if the party has killed them too quickly or bringing in reinforcements if an encounter is too easy) is "taking away player agency".
It absolutely, 100% is NOT removing player agency. What the monster has in its stat block has ZERO to do with player agency.
To the argument "but if the player thinks the monster has X in its statblock and acts on that knowledge" it is taking away agency -- baloney. Players aren't supposed to know, and characters absolutely do not know, what a monster has in its stat block, unless they have encountered that exact monster (not a similar one, but the exact one) before, and they know for sure it is the exact one. For example, my players are in the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa right now, and they started out dealing with just the "standard" ones. But I had also adapted ones from the D2 module, including Qop-Ool and some of the others, who had very different abilities. Was the fact that Qop-Ool had 10x the hit points, 3x the number of attacks, and did sneak attack in addition to 2x as much damage as a regular K-T, "taking away their agency?" No - he was a mini-boss. He has whatever abilities I decided to give him that relate to his mini-boss-ness. And if I had decided, on the fly, to give him more or less hp to adjust the difficulty of the encounter, that is the DM's prerogative. It has been recognized so since the DM came into being all those years ago.
Now, I generally *don't* do that. Whatever the monster has, it has. A few times, I have laid off of a special ability because it would have possibly killed someone, but other than laying off of a monster's legendary action or something (and even that, I only ever did once, I think), I just run the monsters as-is. But if I wanted to make adjustments to the stat block, that is sure as heck not taking away "player agency."
Players get to choose what their characters TRY to do. They do NOT get to choose the outcome of what they try to do -- which is what one is saying when one argues that changing the stat-block mid-battle is taking away their agency. It is implicitly arguing that players have a right to determine the outcome. They DO NOT.
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I have to ask, what do you think player agency is?
Player agency is what the players can decide to do. Things that are player agency:
deciding what to do
deciding how to level up
deciding whether to add smite to an attack
Things that aren't player agency:
what they roll on the dice
how much damage an attack does
how the rules work
Changing a broken rule when it is show to be broken is not taking away player agency. They still rolled a critical hit, they still get to add a load of damage - but now they have to roll for it, because the rule was shown to be clearly broken.
I see. You don't actually know what player agency is. That explains a lot.
What do you consider player agency? Genuine question.
I don't "consider" player agency to be anything, but I can give you a short explaination of what it actually is. You will actually have to read up yourself if you want to find out more. But basically it comes down to the following. The player has control over their own character's decisions. Those decisions have consequences within the game world. The player has enough information to anticipate what those consequences might be before making them. In this case the third point is violated and one could argue that also the second one is.
Ah, I see. You have player agency wrong. Sorry, but you do. How much damage an attack does, based off the rules, is not player agency. A player deciding to perform an action for additional damage is player agency, as is making the attack, moving forward, playing a little song, and anything the player decides.
What the dice decideis not player agency. If the player rolls an attack, and the dice say the attack misses, the players agency has not been removed. If the player rolls an attack, and the DM says he misses because the bad guy was an illusion, the players agency has not been removed. If a player combines every ability they have into a single attack to abuse a broken houserule, and the DM says "no, It can't work like that or it's broken, you'll have to roll them", their agency has not been removed - though not letting them take back their use of every ability in light of this new information would be. I've assumed that, after they declared "I get auto-140-damage", the DM would say "it doesn't work like that, do you still want to do all this". No doubt you'll consider this additional information to be "moving the goalposts", however. Perhaps you don't know what that term means either.
As for the rest of your post: You didn't answer my questions, instead content to quibble over "moving the goalposts", and didn't actually give me any reason why the players would even know that the teleport was added on the spur of the moment. When the DM decided something doesn't matter. Ideas aren't cheese, they don't need to sit around for a while to become good. I did literally say I was adding on the spot. I didn't say I was making that obvious to the players. And you haven't told me how it makes the blindest bit of difference.
I don't think anyone has ever lowered a players stats because another player rolled poorly. That's a weird example you've given, and is 100% punishing the player.
This discussion was about a houserule that gave a player max damage on all their abilities on a crit, guaranteeing 140+ damage. See post number 24 of this thread, summarized:
"When I am swinging for in excess of 140 HP damage, on my FIRST attack, the equation of the encounter changes very very quickly."
The player admitted that they knew the rule was broken, and in fairness they told the DM. It's just bad DMing to not respond to it then and there, I suppose.
You say the DM needed to balance the encounter, and I say that is impossible when a crit can do that much damage - except by making them immune to critical hits.
Not many of my questions have been answered. You've attempted to counter them, divert them or avoid them, and I'm starting to wonder if you might be destined for politics one day, but very few have been answered.
Following up on this idea of player agency, and my 12th level Hexblade doing 140 HP on the first swing, here is another one for consideration. I built an NPC Assassin that was going to track the players for some stuff they had done in game. It is a grand total of 9 levels, 4 Rogue Assassin, and 5 Hexblade. I am not going to dive into all its non-combat abilities, but I its ability to deceive and stealth are almost off the charts.
As a DM, I can simply handwave that the NPC has Surprise. The player has no choice to make, no warning, no rolls, other than the Poison Save.
Now, let's see what that looks like with Crit House Rules of max damage, plus taking the expected value of the rolls:
Max (5d8 + 5d6) + EV (5d8 + 5d6) + 10 + Poison =
70 + 40 + 10 + Poison = 120 + Poison
That means a char with Max 60 HP or less is dead dead, not mostly dead. And yeah, by RAW, that can be delivered by an arrow, from a rooftop, some 150 feet away. Or better, the Hex Assassin slips into the room where the target is sleeping....
I have not used it against my players at its full power because it is ridiculously OP, and the player has zero chance of defense. And that was before any House Rules. House Rules for crit'ing made available to a power-gamer are a disaster.
A player deciding to perform an action for additional damage is player agency, as is making the attack, moving forward, playing a little song, and anything the player decides.
What the dice decideis not player agency. If the player rolls an attack, and the dice say the attack misses, the players agency has not been removed. If the player rolls an attack, and the DM says he misses because the bad guy was an illusion, the players agency has not been removed.
This is exactly right, and that is what I meant when I said, player agency is about getting to TRY what you want to try. But it is not about the outcomes. Player agency lets you decide to attack the monster with lightning because you *think* the monster is vulnerable to lightning. It does not mean that because you thought so, the monster must be vulnerable. Its vulnerability is related to the outcome of the attack, and agency is about the attempt, NOT the outcome.
I think this misunderstanding of player agency has come up here before. A DM posted here that a player got upset when his character was successfully Charm-spelled and had to consider an enemy creature his character's "ally" and then had to RP that way. The player objected this was taking away his agency -- again, it absolutely was not. The player got to make a saving throw against the spell -- this is agency. You get to try to resist it. If the DM had said, "Nope, you auto-fail," that would be removing agency. But the player was able to try to resist, and the dice said, the character failed the roll. The outcome of that roll was thus the failure, and his character was now charmed. Player agency doesn't let you control the outcome of an attempt... only that you make the attempt.
Now, if some folks want to have control over outcomes and the GM agrees they can have that control (a great example: we agree as a table that the campaign is non-lethal and no one can die unless the player says it's OK, is controlling outcomes), that's fine. But it is not agency to do that. A GM who agrees with the table that no character can die unless the players say it is OK is not giving players "more agency," -- that GM is giving players control over outcomes. It is fine to do that but don't call it agency. It has nothing to do with agency.
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The topic seems to have drifted a bit, and I don't want to wade through super-long posts where people link other posts that are linked to other posts et cetera...
I pretty much use the critical hit rules as written. I consider them more than generous. The characters will be taking a lot more crits then they deal out. Yes, it bites when that momentary thrill of seeing a 20 on the die is followed by a disappointing roll, but you still hit, no matter what the armor class of your enemy, and you still did a little more damage than you would have. Honestly I have been toying with the idea of saying that when a crit is rolled, the dice for the weapon, and *only* for the weapon are doubled. Nothing else. Rogues go off like a bomb when a sneak attack crits. Adding poison on top of that, or a Smite of some kind, gets downright silly.
On the subject of Charm spells, even if you fail a save, Agency isn't lost. You must now consider the former enemy an ally. That doesn't mean your brain shuts off. Did you see them cast something? You surely know something has changed even if you don't know why. Your new ally must have done *something*. You won't suddenly do anything and everything they tell you. Have you ever done so with your real friends and allies? You get to interpret their suggestions and decide what you will do. You might just stand there staring and keep saying "Hey! Stop that!" It takes more than a Charm spell to take away all agency. Even Dominate spells leave some wiggle room unless the enemy is putting their full attention to using you as a puppet.
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I never said the DM should not allow players to do monumental damage. Nor did I say that the players should not take the opportunity, within the rules as being played at the table, to do damage. I was responding to someone who said that players of certain classes would love -- his words, "love" -- an obviously broken mechanic, while the DM and other players would not like that same mechanic, because said mechanic breaks the game. My argument is that, as a player, you should never be happy about a mechanic that lets you break the game. Being glad you were given a house rule by the DM that lets you -- and only you -- do that massive damage, break the game, be the star of the show, outshine the other PCs and, by the original description, is making everyone else at the table, including the DM and all the other players, unhappy -- is not the sort of behavior in which any player should engage.
I have played with someone like this before -- someone who would have rather broken the game and have his PC be the star of the show, than follow the rules and be just one of the crowd. It was not a pleasant experience. We eventually stopped playing with him.
As a player, yes, play by the rules. If the rules say you can do all that damage, I'm not saying to nerf your own character. But, you should not be glad the house rules are letting you do this, and a good player would talk to the DM about it and try to find a way to negotiate to have the game stop being broken. The alternative is to play in a broken game, and after a while, even the player benefitting from this is probably not going to enjoy it.
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I think I should have said power-gaming players with crit-fishing chars "love" that kind of rule. That is what I meant. The easiest answer is don't make up house rules for crit'ing. Those DM's that say a player gets "deflated" if they roll badly on a crit, I have news for them. They have a weak player on their hands. The vast majority of D&D players are not 6 year old children. If an adult can't deal with the disappointment of some bad rolls, they should find another game.
That's put far better than I did. I agree.
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You punish them by suddenlytaking away their damage just because they rolled a crit.
It literally is not.
Please read what I wrote again. There are two completely separate issues. One is the "I'm changing the rules on the fly" issue the other is "giving the BBE superpowers just because I could think far enough ahead" issue.
From the premise given and presented, it was a dick move. We can do all sorts of ifs and buts if you want to, I was commenting solely on the scenario as it was first described. But yes, changing the scenario will most likely change my opinion on it.
Yeah, that's not really the only two options you have, that's a false premise. Either way, that wasn't really the issue I was talking about and it could have been solved in better ways.
You did, if not in so few words. It was however, the thing you reacted to. My point is that many players would feel cheated if they did their super McAwesome move that had been approved by the DM just for the DM to then turn around and say "nah, that basically does nothing".
Except that it is. There's not just a single way of taking away player agency. Whether or not it improves the game is irrelevant when it comes to the issue of messing with the player. Right then and there, you are (I'm using the general 'you').
As for the whole "how to make sure that the story can continue and be cool", that's a completely different topic which really has very little with my point to do. Anyone reading comics (or classic literature) knows about a dozen ways to bring someone back from appearent death or make a twist. Maybe the BBE the player one-shotted wasn't the real baddy but a clone, or their best friend borrowing their armour? Any way, different topic from a different thread. My point is that sudden asspulls (for a lack of a better word) because the DM can't handle the situation isn't nice to the players. The players should have to pay for the DM's mistake. In this case the mistake would have been the DM not preparing a the BBE with their house rules in mind.
As a side note, this is also why I think you should be careful when it comes to house ruling these sorts of things.
I would still consider changing a homebrew rule which means that someone does 140 damage in one hit which they would not normally RAW be able to do is a question of balance not an "Asspull".
How would a player know if the BBEG had this teleport ability all along? What difference does it make if the DM was excellent at pre-planning or on the fly went "wait, crap, this is supposed to be a climactic battle, better re-evaluate the BBEG's power for next week!"? You're getting the what and the why muddled. Whether or not the DM went in expecting to have to teleport them away for a better fight next time is not relevant to whether the BBEG doing so is good for the story. What about if this was the plan? would it feel any different for the player if the DM teleported the BBEG away because it was already planned?
I'm genuinely curious as to how you would balance for a character who crit-fishes for a guaranteed 140+ damage on a crit, but only 12-14 otherwise. At 280hp, the fight could last for 20 rounds, or for 2. If a houserule causes this sort of imbalance between hits and crits (and I get that crits need to feel good, but this is so much damage it's bad for the game), then it needs to be addressed. If the player has built for this one thing, then you might have to offer them the chance to amend previous decisions in light of the rule change. If it was happy coincidence, a good player will accept your explanation that dealing maximum damage for a crit was a bad idea, and you're changing it.
Sorry, no, I said I'd have it available if they needed it to keep the story interesting. If you're 3 rounds in and pull this off, then (whilst I'd still be looking to change the rule), the investment in the fight is there and it can be finished with the death of the BBEG. Doing this round 1 is enough to make the BBEG reconsider their ability to fight you and use a trick to escape, if possible.
Nope, sorry, I don't think it is. That's my stance on it, at any rate. The player rolled a critical hit by chance, and then they used a broken houserule to gain an immense amount of damage which they wouldn't ordinarily, RAW, have gotten. They didn't know they would crit when they rolled an attack, so their decisions (their agency) is not affected by this rule. The only thing affected is whether they roll a huge amount of dice for their combo, or get the maximum automatically. If the DM asks them to roll and explains that the rule had unexpected repercussions, they should understand this. It's the nature of houseruling that it is not necessarily balanced, and can need correcting.
Frankly, if a player builds their character to abuse a broken houserule (EG making a crit-fishing character purely because the crit rules are broken) without discussing any of it with the DM, then they kind of deserve to have their abusively powerful combination nerfed. Guarantee if a players said "when we level up I'm doing >X< because then I can crit on a 19 or 20 and get 140 damage", the DM would have addressed the critical houserule right there. The Player springing this broken rule use on a DM is as bad as the DM reacting by nerfing it. Communication is key!
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Perhaps, doing it the way described still takes away player agency.
Again, you literally said that it was something made up on the spot. You are moving the goalposts and I won't engage in that.
Again, it's not the "crits has to do a lot of damage" that is the issue. The issue is "woops, I as a DM didn't take into account the possibilities of my own houserules so therefor I change them on the fly in a way that makes things bad for the player". As for how to balance encounters, that's what the DMG is for. But like I've said, that's not really the topic of this discussion. One very simple way would of course to give the BBE an ability or magic item similar to the half-orc's relentless endurance.
Well, yes. And like I said, the DM doing these kinds to "keep the story interesting" often makes it less interesting.
I have to ask, what do you think player agency is? Because what you are talking about is something completely different. Of course the player doesn't choose to roll a natural 20, but no-one claimed they did and no-one claims that that's what player agency is.
Nice strawman. The point though, which you are almost close to getting, is that it's not the players' fault if the DM's houserules turns out to be broken so they're not the ones taht should be punished for it. But yes, communication is key. Don't think anyone has said anything to the opposite?
Player agency is what the players can decide to do. Things that are player agency:
Things that aren't player agency:
Changing a broken rule when it is show to be broken is not taking away player agency. They still rolled a critical hit, they still get to add a load of damage - but now they have to roll for it, because the rule was shown to be clearly broken.
What do you consider player agency? Genuine question.
And again, unless you say "I'm just going to add this now", how does it affect the game? How do the players know if it was planned or made up on the spot? The goalposts haven't moved.
Okay, but the DMG assumes normal crit rules for balancing. I haven't had an answer from you - how do you account for a character whose attacks are this swingy? It doesn't work. The houserule is clearly broken, and keeping it is clearly going to be worse for the game than ditching it. having the BBEG get up with 1 hp just delays that inevitable result, or you give him enough HP to take it, no-one crits, and he kills everyone.
I don't see how removing a rule which makes one player excessively powerful through an unexpected interaction is "punishing" the player. It's balancing the game, and making the game balanced is the opposite of punishment. I agree that it's the DMs fault, and as such the DM should fix it. Letting the player get a guaranteed 140+ damage and one-shotting the BBEG is the worst solution. What about the other players? perhaps they had some plans for this battle, or were looking forward to it? The DM has to keep the game fun for everyone, and if that means squatting a clearly broken houserule and making them roll all those dice for what will still be a massive amount of damage for a normal attack, then that's what it needs to be.
How would you feel if you were next in the initiative from this warlock, and they one-shot the BBEG turn 1 before you even get a go? Sound fun? you didn't even roll a dice in the final battle, and the session's over now as the DM had this as the grand finale. That sounds way worse than telling one player that the homebrew critical rules shouldn't work like that.
Quick summary to make your reply smaller (you can just quote these):
• what do you consider player agency? I think it's what the player can decide, not how rules work or what results they get on dice.
• How does it make a difference if you improvise a teleport escape or you pre-planned one? how does it change the game?
• how would you balance that encounter? that critical houserule makes it impossible - either they die to the first critical, or they survive everything and kill the party.
• how is making the player roll the dice as soon as you realise the rule is broken punishment?
• how would you feel if you were after this warlock, and didn't even get to swing in the final battle of the session, possibly the campaign?
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Personally, I always tell my players that I reserve the right to change a house rule if I feel it to be broken.
That said, I would only ever do so in the middle of an encounter if it was game breaking and I couldn't think of another way out. I would normally discuss it with the players and change it between sessions, and I'd allow players to adjust their characters slightly if the house rule change had a significant effect.
Personally, I would not say that making up an on-the-spot fudge (like having the BBEG teleport away if the party has killed them too quickly or bringing in reinforcements if an encounter is too easy) is "taking away player agency". In fact, I normally try to plan this kind of thing just in case I've messed up, including a way to dial it back if I've accidentally made it too difficult.
I currently follow a campaign that does as the OP described but...
The DM gave the players a one-time choice on crits for the entirety of the campaign; whether to roll twice or assume the first roll was maximum and only roll once. He warned them that the enemies also get the same benefit. The players took the bargain.
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Usually what the PCs can do, the monsters can do too.
Crits go both ways.
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I see. You don't actually know what player agency is. That explains a lot.
I don't "consider" player agency to be anything, but I can give you a short explaination of what it actually is. You will actually have to read up yourself if you want to find out more. But basically it comes down to the following. The player has control over their own character's decisions. Those decisions have consequences within the game world. The player has enough information to anticipate what those consequences might be before making them.
In this case the third point is violated and one could argue that also the second one is.
Yes, they have. You literally said that you made the thing up on the spot. Now you are changing the premise. That is a textbook example of moving the goalposts.
Again, this is the fault of the DM and players shouldn't be punished for it.
Again, this is totally irrelevant for the point being made. If you want to discuss how to best balance encounters when using weird houserules, please start a thread about that.
As I mentioned, if you want to learn how to balance encounters, that's the topic from a different thread. The point is still that players shouldn't have to pay for the DM's mistakes.
It's taking away player agency. You've been told this already.
That's not how things work. If one player happens to roll really good stats and another player rolls really bad stats you can balance the game by lowering the stats of the first player. It's still a punishment, though.
Since when is the 140+ damage guaranteed? And, yet again, if you want to discuss solutions for bad DM-ing, that's a different topic.
No, what needed to be was for the DM to balance the encounter to begin with. And yes, punishing lucky players, in this case someone who does stupid amounts of damage due to the DM's houserules, is still punishing the player.
I probably wouldn't be happy about it but I surely wouldn't blame the warlock player. And I sure as hell wouldn't want the warlock player punished for the DM's mistake. To be perfectly honest I would probably feel a bit condecended if the DM let the BBE live just so that everyone gets a chance to roll the dice. The Warlock kill the BBE, good for them. Awesome, let's split the treasure and find the next BBE. Having to have to find and kill the BBE again would probably feel like just a chore and probably even slightly demeaning.
Well, since you keep asking questions that have already been answered I feel that it's a good idea to keep everything in one post. Makes it easier instead of having to go back to previous posts to read what was actually said.
Eh, Rogue's sneak attack isn't quite as much as a smite, but it doesn't expend resources.
Glad to see another numbers guy :).
I'm not a SCAG fan so I don't know much about the "Blade" cantrips but they seem very powerful.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
Also gunslingers would get a heck of a kick out of this, they already like to fish for crits with deadeye shot, plus at high levels they get improved crit and bonus damage on one, and last but not least, it refunds a grit point so they could do this till the cows come home.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
For sneak attack depends on the level of the rogue, at level 19 a sneak attack crit is 20d6 damage. I think a smite crits caps out at 12d8? Rogues can also only do that once a turn though and not twice.
As a note, regarding the 140 damage spike:
1) If I read everything correctly, the character would in fact be able to do this much damage RAW. As long as the damage is just maximised, it is identical to the damage the character would be able to do if they rolled the maximum value on every damage die. This is highly unlikely, but still possible. Stating that they "[do] 140 damage in one hit which they would not normally RAW be able to do" is factually incorrect, and misrepresents the issue.
2) Considering the above, this is an XY problem. The issue isn't actually the crit house rule itself; the house rule just exacerbates the issue. The underlying issue is that this character is able to put out insane crit damage, in a campaign not designed to cope with that level of potential damage output. Thoruk, if the player had dealt 140 damage because they rolled maximum damage on their crit, would you still think they should reroll the crit because it dealt too much damage? Or is the issue with the existence of the house rule, and not with the damage itself?
3) In this case, I would say that the solution would be for the BBEG to have around 145 HP, and have already demonstrated an ability to teleport. This makes it clear that he only barely survived the attack, while also allowing a pre-established escape plan to go into action. It also doesn't draw the battle out very long if nobody crits, assuming 4-5 players.
I would argue that this is what any good GM would tell any group of players, and that all players should readily agree that this must be the case. Any player who would argue that a GM should not be allowed to change a house rule (or even a RAW rule) that the GM honestly feels is broken, should not be in your game. At least, that player wouldn't be in my game.
I do NOT think this means the GM has carte blanche to just change rules at any old time using the excuse "I feel it is broken." I would argue that a GM ought to be able to clearly articulate why he/she feels the house rule is broken and needs fixing/changing/etc. "Cuz I feel like it" is not an acceptable answer -- or should not be.
I agree. In fact, I had something, not game-breaking, but kind-of house-rule breaking, come up in my one session and I just let it go because I had not formally articulated that particular house rule (I had kind of thought it went without saying). I did not want to interrupt the session to have a rules discussion, and I also didn't want to rule against the players doing it because I thought it would feel like an arbitrary "DM trying to stop the players doing something cool" ruling, so I let it go. But the next session, I started by explaining my position, nobody minded, and all they asked me to do was update our World Anvil site to reflect this change.
I don't think I have ever changed how a rule works mid-encounter. Usually what I will say is, "We'll keep it this way now, but then talk about it after the encounter is over." Or we talk about it in between sessions. I also agree, if the rule change affects character builds or something like that, then the player should be allowed to adjust the character sheet in light of the new ruling. That is only fair.
It absolutely, 100% is NOT removing player agency. What the monster has in its stat block has ZERO to do with player agency.
To the argument "but if the player thinks the monster has X in its statblock and acts on that knowledge" it is taking away agency -- baloney. Players aren't supposed to know, and characters absolutely do not know, what a monster has in its stat block, unless they have encountered that exact monster (not a similar one, but the exact one) before, and they know for sure it is the exact one. For example, my players are in the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa right now, and they started out dealing with just the "standard" ones. But I had also adapted ones from the D2 module, including Qop-Ool and some of the others, who had very different abilities. Was the fact that Qop-Ool had 10x the hit points, 3x the number of attacks, and did sneak attack in addition to 2x as much damage as a regular K-T, "taking away their agency?" No - he was a mini-boss. He has whatever abilities I decided to give him that relate to his mini-boss-ness. And if I had decided, on the fly, to give him more or less hp to adjust the difficulty of the encounter, that is the DM's prerogative. It has been recognized so since the DM came into being all those years ago.
Now, I generally *don't* do that. Whatever the monster has, it has. A few times, I have laid off of a special ability because it would have possibly killed someone, but other than laying off of a monster's legendary action or something (and even that, I only ever did once, I think), I just run the monsters as-is. But if I wanted to make adjustments to the stat block, that is sure as heck not taking away "player agency."
Players get to choose what their characters TRY to do. They do NOT get to choose the outcome of what they try to do -- which is what one is saying when one argues that changing the stat-block mid-battle is taking away their agency. It is implicitly arguing that players have a right to determine the outcome. They DO NOT.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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Ah, I see. You have player agency wrong. Sorry, but you do. How much damage an attack does, based off the rules, is not player agency. A player deciding to perform an action for additional damage is player agency, as is making the attack, moving forward, playing a little song, and anything the player decides.
What the dice decide is not player agency. If the player rolls an attack, and the dice say the attack misses, the players agency has not been removed. If the player rolls an attack, and the DM says he misses because the bad guy was an illusion, the players agency has not been removed. If a player combines every ability they have into a single attack to abuse a broken houserule, and the DM says "no, It can't work like that or it's broken, you'll have to roll them", their agency has not been removed - though not letting them take back their use of every ability in light of this new information would be. I've assumed that, after they declared "I get auto-140-damage", the DM would say "it doesn't work like that, do you still want to do all this". No doubt you'll consider this additional information to be "moving the goalposts", however. Perhaps you don't know what that term means either.
As for the rest of your post: You didn't answer my questions, instead content to quibble over "moving the goalposts", and didn't actually give me any reason why the players would even know that the teleport was added on the spur of the moment. When the DM decided something doesn't matter. Ideas aren't cheese, they don't need to sit around for a while to become good. I did literally say I was adding on the spot. I didn't say I was making that obvious to the players. And you haven't told me how it makes the blindest bit of difference.
I don't think anyone has ever lowered a players stats because another player rolled poorly. That's a weird example you've given, and is 100% punishing the player.
This discussion was about a houserule that gave a player max damage on all their abilities on a crit, guaranteeing 140+ damage. See post number 24 of this thread, summarized:
"When I am swinging for in excess of 140 HP damage, on my FIRST attack, the equation of the encounter changes very very quickly."
The player admitted that they knew the rule was broken, and in fairness they told the DM. It's just bad DMing to not respond to it then and there, I suppose.
You say the DM needed to balance the encounter, and I say that is impossible when a crit can do that much damage - except by making them immune to critical hits.
Not many of my questions have been answered. You've attempted to counter them, divert them or avoid them, and I'm starting to wonder if you might be destined for politics one day, but very few have been answered.
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Following up on this idea of player agency, and my 12th level Hexblade doing 140 HP on the first swing, here is another one for consideration. I built an NPC Assassin that was going to track the players for some stuff they had done in game. It is a grand total of 9 levels, 4 Rogue Assassin, and 5 Hexblade. I am not going to dive into all its non-combat abilities, but I its ability to deceive and stealth are almost off the charts.
As a DM, I can simply handwave that the NPC has Surprise. The player has no choice to make, no warning, no rolls, other than the Poison Save.
So now the math:
Pre-Attack: Hexblade's Curse
In Surprise Round: (Hits are Crit)
Bonus Action: Branding Smite (3d6)
1st Attack: IPW + Sneak Attack + Branding Smite + Eldritch Smite + Hexblade's Curse + 1 + 5 + Poison
= 2 * (d8+2d6+3d6+4d8)+10 + Poison
=90 + Poison
Now, let's see what that looks like with Crit House Rules of max damage, plus taking the expected value of the rolls:
Max (5d8 + 5d6) + EV (5d8 + 5d6) + 10 + Poison =
70 + 40 + 10 + Poison = 120 + Poison
That means a char with Max 60 HP or less is dead dead, not mostly dead. And yeah, by RAW, that can be delivered by an arrow, from a rooftop, some 150 feet away. Or better, the Hex Assassin slips into the room where the target is sleeping....
I have not used it against my players at its full power because it is ridiculously OP, and the player has zero chance of defense. And that was before any House Rules. House Rules for crit'ing made available to a power-gamer are a disaster.
This is exactly right, and that is what I meant when I said, player agency is about getting to TRY what you want to try. But it is not about the outcomes. Player agency lets you decide to attack the monster with lightning because you *think* the monster is vulnerable to lightning. It does not mean that because you thought so, the monster must be vulnerable. Its vulnerability is related to the outcome of the attack, and agency is about the attempt, NOT the outcome.
I think this misunderstanding of player agency has come up here before. A DM posted here that a player got upset when his character was successfully Charm-spelled and had to consider an enemy creature his character's "ally" and then had to RP that way. The player objected this was taking away his agency -- again, it absolutely was not. The player got to make a saving throw against the spell -- this is agency. You get to try to resist it. If the DM had said, "Nope, you auto-fail," that would be removing agency. But the player was able to try to resist, and the dice said, the character failed the roll. The outcome of that roll was thus the failure, and his character was now charmed. Player agency doesn't let you control the outcome of an attempt... only that you make the attempt.
Now, if some folks want to have control over outcomes and the GM agrees they can have that control (a great example: we agree as a table that the campaign is non-lethal and no one can die unless the player says it's OK, is controlling outcomes), that's fine. But it is not agency to do that. A GM who agrees with the table that no character can die unless the players say it is OK is not giving players "more agency," -- that GM is giving players control over outcomes. It is fine to do that but don't call it agency. It has nothing to do with agency.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The topic seems to have drifted a bit, and I don't want to wade through super-long posts where people link other posts that are linked to other posts et cetera...
I pretty much use the critical hit rules as written. I consider them more than generous. The characters will be taking a lot more crits then they deal out. Yes, it bites when that momentary thrill of seeing a 20 on the die is followed by a disappointing roll, but you still hit, no matter what the armor class of your enemy, and you still did a little more damage than you would have. Honestly I have been toying with the idea of saying that when a crit is rolled, the dice for the weapon, and *only* for the weapon are doubled. Nothing else. Rogues go off like a bomb when a sneak attack crits. Adding poison on top of that, or a Smite of some kind, gets downright silly.
On the subject of Charm spells, even if you fail a save, Agency isn't lost. You must now consider the former enemy an ally. That doesn't mean your brain shuts off. Did you see them cast something? You surely know something has changed even if you don't know why. Your new ally must have done *something*. You won't suddenly do anything and everything they tell you. Have you ever done so with your real friends and allies? You get to interpret their suggestions and decide what you will do. You might just stand there staring and keep saying "Hey! Stop that!" It takes more than a Charm spell to take away all agency. Even Dominate spells leave some wiggle room unless the enemy is putting their full attention to using you as a puppet.
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