Reducing PC damage only matters if they actually reduce PC damage and also remove Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master (or make Power Attack a more universal mechanic) as well. Imagine the rogue doesn't get to explode with its crits anymore but the barbarian is still allowed to run around with Reckless + GWM. As I see it, good crit damage is one of the better ways to diversify away from power attack as a martial and still have a good time with some big damage. I will be curious to see how this is approached.
As for low level play and monster crits, I 100% understand the feel bad sentiment of having a character go down before being able to do anything. But I also disagree with the idea that PC's shouldn't be able to be killed by any random mook with one random shot. It makes me think of The Walking Dead comics where character deaths were often unceremonious and very sudden. This is life. Sometimes people trip down some stairs and hurt their foot a little. Other times they hit their neck and die.
I think the more interesting side is considering what monster design can be like when they don't have to budget for crit damage. I don't care about making the game less randomly deadly for tier 1, but I definitely want to see what comes from not being shackled by crit damage.
I find that unless I have a strong connection to a character's story- or theme I suppose- I rarely enjoy playing them for long periods of time.
A counter question is how long does it take you from concept to creation to build a character, and if you suddenly die how does that line up with how long you are out of play?
I would say it is acceptable for a PC to die at any level. At my table however it usually only happens in situations where it feels warranted as I rarely if ever start a game below 3rd level and I tend towards 5th.
I dont regularly experience death that results in character loss so it might be over-flavoring my knee jerk reaction against it.
As I have said before, none of the experiences of others are wrong, just strange to me.
Building a character - assuming 1st level - is maybe 2-3 hours of work, tops. I also think about the character outside of the actual activity of filling in the sheet and making choices. A bit more time if the character is starting off higher than 1st. But again: I try not to get bogged down with EVERY detail before actual play; I do want a distinctive feel of who the character is, what drives their choices...but it's not always set in stone, and it's not exhaustive documenting it all. One or two key past events, briefly mentioned, and the surface details. Most of the rest comes into focus as a result of play.
I frankly haven't died in play yet for 5E, but I think at most I'd be out for the remainder of just that session. Which I'm fine with; again, it's an accepted risk of the game. Sometimes your character dies. You realize it's a game and find a way to enjoy your friends' company and the rest of the session (maybe even beginning the rolling for the next character then). I just don't view missing out part of a session as some kind of egregious break of the social contract of the game.
You use the term "where it feels warranted" - which, again highlights the divide. I don't know that PC is death is ever warranted (though sure, sometimes it's a clearly logical result of poor player choices) and I guess for me, using that kind of language puts a lot of weight and pressure on the rest of the game and the DM to meet those kinds of expectations.
The question you should be asking is "why does the DM need to be able to crit in order to enjoy the game?"
That's a little disingenuous. Monsters scoring critical hits isn't "for" the DM's benefit any more than it's for the benefit of the players. Which isn't to say it isn't! Because it is! It's one of the ways that combat stays unpredictable. Unpredictability extends the planning phase beyond the start of combat. Unpredictability forces you to make gameplay decisions instead of just following the script you laid out. Especially in a game where the default damage calculation for monsters doesn't involve dice! This can be a real issue!
Though, in my own opinion, I don't think critical hits contribute that much. I mean, they're pretty uncommon, so how could they? Even so, that's the shape of the argument. Not the thing you described, where the critical hits are a cost that the players must pay so that the DM can enjoy himself.
B.) monster design can be overall better because Wizards doesn't have to factor in a random low chance of dealing double damage out of the blue for absolutely no reason.
You said this in the OP, too. I can see the logic, but I don't think it's going to make much of a difference. Once again, the likelihood of a critical hit from a monster is pretty low -- and the monster can be critically hit, too, which might take it out more quickly, thus reducing that likelihood by a similar amount. So, if it barely happens, why would it factor into the CR? They explicitly don't factor in every odd little thing that can happen. I mean, a harpy is a lot less threatening if you happen to have just been deafened by a Storm of Vengeance, but that's obviously not relevant to designing the harpy in general.
As a side note, unrelated to anything... I'll be curious to see how they handle things like Polymorph. Would be funny if a player could use the form of a monster, and get access to both the recharge features AND the critical hits.
I find that unless I have a strong connection to a character's story- or theme I suppose- I rarely enjoy playing them for long periods of time.
A counter question is how long does it take you from concept to creation to build a character, and if you suddenly die how does that line up with how long you are out of play?
I would say it is acceptable for a PC to die at any level. At my table however it usually only happens in situations where it feels warranted as I rarely if ever start a game below 3rd level and I tend towards 5th.
I dont regularly experience death that results in character loss so it might be over-flavoring my knee jerk reaction against it.
As I have said before, none of the experiences of others are wrong, just strange to me.
Building a character - assuming 1st level - is maybe 2-3 hours of work, tops. I also think about the character outside of the actual activity of filling in the sheet and making choices. A bit more time if the character is starting off higher than 1st. But again: I try not to get bogged down with EVERY detail before actual play; I do want a distinctive feel of who the character is, what drives their choices...but it's not always set in stone, and it's not exhaustive documenting it all. One or two key past events, briefly mentioned, and the surface details. Most of the rest comes into focus as a result of play.
I frankly haven't died in play yet for 5E, but I think at most I'd be out for the remainder of just that session. Which I'm fine with; again, it's an accepted risk of the game. Sometimes your character dies. You realize it's a game and find a way to enjoy your friends' company and the rest of the session (maybe even beginning the rolling for the next character then). I just don't view missing out part of a session as some kind of egregious break of the social contract of the game.
You use the term "where it feels warranted" - which, again highlights the divide. I don't know that PC is death is ever warranted (though sure, sometimes it's a clearly logical result of poor player choices) and I guess for me, using that kind of language puts a lot of weight and pressure on the rest of the game and the DM to meet those kinds of expectations.
I suppose I am using bad terminology.
What I mean is it happens in a dangerous situation, not one manufactured by the random whims of the universe.
A difficult encounter where the party struggles, not one lucky monster who is otherwise a speedbump I roll 4 back to back crits for (it has happened).
For me, the "random whims of the universe" are part of the game.
If you (generic you) head out into a world full of giants, dragons, vampires, and gigantic floating evil eyeballs expressly looking for trouble, it feels odd (to me at least) to start distinguishing between "meaningful" trouble and "unwarranted" trouble.
You should look up the specific cause of WWI sometime. I'm not talking generally about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand - I'm talking specifically about how it happened. Random doesn't even begin to encompass it. If it was written as a novel or film, no one would believe it.
And yet one assassin deciding to eat at a certain sandwich shop essentially determined the course of the 20th Century in the West.
Sometimes, that gnoll archer gets lucky and hits your PC in the eye all the way into the brainpain.
I have seen a near TPK from a single goblin, not because of crits but from a series of really bad rolls from the party. Several rounds of nothing higher than a 3 as the goblin with a spear took them down one at a time. The event lead to the players joking about their characters having a fear of goblins with spears for months afterwards.
I mean, I don't think I'd ever have/allow a PC die from the D&D equivalent of slipping on a banana peel.
But from a trap that rolls well (assuming the trap was designed to maim/kill - not all are!)? Or a randomly encountered monster that the PCs engages in with for combat? Yep.
I feel like there might be a problem with the overall fragility of level 1 characters, but crits are kind of a side story, the core problem is just monster damage vs hit points. A typical level 1 wizard can be instantly dead from full from a hit of 16 points (assumes Con 14), and there's a fair number of CR 1 monsters that can do that without even critting and will do so routinely on a crit, such as a bugbear. By comparison, that same wizard at level 5 now requires 64 damage to be instantly killed, and there's very few CR 5 monsters that will manage that even with a crit (the bulette averages 56).
I feel like there might be a problem with the overall fragility of level 1 characters, but crits are kind of a side story, the core problem is just monster damage vs hit points. A typical level 1 wizard can be instantly dead from full from a hit of 16 points (assumes Con 14), and there's a fair number of CR 1 monsters that can do that without even critting and will do so routinely on a crit, such as a bugbear. By comparison, that same wizard at level 5 now requires 64 damage to be instantly killed, and there's very few CR 5 monsters that will manage that even with a crit (the bulette averages 56).
Low level wizards are squishy. If they end up in melee, things are going to go badly, even if you take crits away from monsters.
I should add that, as a DM, I always roll my damage; I never use the average/static number given in the stats. Maybe it's the old school gamer in me, but I dislike the idea of it being predictable/the same for every successful attack.
Low level wizards are squishy. If they end up in melee, things are going to go badly, even if you take crits away from monsters.
Melee is not always avoidable, and it's not like ranged damage is that much lower. Also, that same bugbear will also frequently one-shot d8 classes such as cleric, monk, and rogue.
I feel like there might be a problem with the overall fragility of level 1 characters, but crits are kind of a side story, the core problem is just monster damage vs hit points. A typical level 1 wizard can be instantly dead from full from a hit of 16 points (assumes Con 14), and there's a fair number of CR 1 monsters that can do that without even critting and will do so routinely on a crit, such as a bugbear. By comparison, that same wizard at level 5 now requires 64 damage to be instantly killed, and there's very few CR 5 monsters that will manage that even with a crit (the bulette averages 56).
All very valid points that we seem to have slight disagreements on, but I believe this sums it up nicely.
I would like my monsters to be more deliberate in their threat capacity.
And monster crits skew that in the same manner crit smites and crit sneak attacks and crit spells do.
I do not really mind losing crits for my monsters. Crits seem to pop up at decidedly inconvenient times in the DM chair. The goal as a DM is, in my opinion, to lose every battle. Crits add an element of unpredictability that as the OP stated, can really swing a fight. You can anticipate every action the monsters take. It is difficult to anticipate and plan for crits. I do not expect this change will be a disruptive element in my game over the next month and I hope all those here give it a try to see how it feels in practice.
I do not really mind losing crits for my monsters. Crits seem to pop up at decidedly inconvenient times in the DM chair. The goal as a DM is, in my opinion, to lose every battle. Crits add an element of unpredictability that as the OP stated, can really swing a fight. You can anticipate every action the monsters take. It is difficult to anticipate and plan for crits. I do not expect this change will be a disruptive element in my game over the next month and I hope all those here give it a try to see how it feels in practice.
This is fairly close to my mindset as well. "Inconvenient" feels closer to my feelings than "bad"
The goal as a DM is, in my opinion, to lose every battle.
Really? That's...interesting.
When I DM, my goal is to run the monsters to their full capabilities as written. And a LOT of monsters I'm only now understanding how to use strategically and cleverly. (The better I understand the rules of the game, the more I admire how a lot of monsters were constructed. There are a good number of critters that may not look too fancy or intimidating but run well, they can be quite the nasty challenge.) My monsters don't always have the same goals. Some want to kill. Some want to capture. Some want to intimidate.
I think it's the DM's job to run the monsters as best as they can to try and achieve the monsters' goal. If the monsters' goals are to kill/eat/destroy the characters, then I do my best to do that. It isn't always - I do try to think about what the monsters actually want. But I certainly don't run them in a way to guarantee they'll lose the fight.
But this idea - that DMs are supposed to try and lose battles - that's pretty antithetical to how I run and view the game. And it's certainly not want I want as a player running PCs, either.
For me and my games "Death is always a possibility" is bunk. Death is a possibility when it is of narrative importance for death to be a possibility. I build my campaigns based on PC back stories and have character arcs planned for them. Why would I allow the dice to tell me when a character's story is over? Having a level 1 character die isn't fun for me as a DM, nor is it fun for anyone I play with as a player.
I don't remember which system it was, perhaps Pathfinder 1E's Lifepath system? Anyway, you rolled on a bunch of tables to discover what happened to your character since childhood. I hated it. You could actually die in character creation and have to start over before adventuring even began. Hated it so much.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
"Death is always a possibility" is a legitimate choice, but I don't think it fits the Heroic Fantasy genre. It is more a gritty and dark genre, which is an optional choice for DM's not the default genre.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You should run your game the way you want, of course! To me, that robs a lot of encounters of any tension or real threat, but if it works for you, that's great. (Meant sincerely.)
And I, at least, am not advocating some kind of blind obedience to the dice. The DM can and should override the dice as they think best helps the game they're running (and to be clear, that means having an awareness of and consideration for what's fun for everyone at the table, not just themselves).
Conversely, why should I as a player participate in a story that's already most predetermined or only has occasional unknowns? I don't play D&D to help the DM write their novel.
Personally, I like to mash up the kinds of fantasy listed in the DMG - pieces and parts of most of them, with my own sensibilities thrown in. There are definitely greater story arcs but I'm not there to dictate what happens regardless of dice rolls or character choices. Everyone participates, everyone affects the story, and the characters' choices affect the world, often in unanticipated ways (which can trickle down to even affecting "random encounters").
Case in point: there's a Baba Yaga type entity in my campaign world - she's likely an end-campaign boss in terms of power. She has many covens of hags doing her bidding, and they've become aware of the party. When they venture out into the wilds, it's a high probability that they're going to clash with at least one coven (which registers to the party as "random" encounter). One or more characters could die from such an encounter, as the hags aren't there to take prisoners. Will that ruin any larger arcs I have planned? Nope. Will it possibly affect them and alter them? Sure!
Conversely, why should I as a player participate in a story that's already most predetermined or only has occasional unknowns? I don't play D&D to help the DM write their novel.
With respect, it's not the DM writing a novel. It's the DM helping the players facilitate their story. You take a different approach, and that's fine, but...I understand you're trying to be respectful, but please understand this comes off as kind of dismissive...
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Reducing PC damage only matters if they actually reduce PC damage and also remove Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master (or make Power Attack a more universal mechanic) as well. Imagine the rogue doesn't get to explode with its crits anymore but the barbarian is still allowed to run around with Reckless + GWM. As I see it, good crit damage is one of the better ways to diversify away from power attack as a martial and still have a good time with some big damage. I will be curious to see how this is approached.
As for low level play and monster crits, I 100% understand the feel bad sentiment of having a character go down before being able to do anything. But I also disagree with the idea that PC's shouldn't be able to be killed by any random mook with one random shot. It makes me think of The Walking Dead comics where character deaths were often unceremonious and very sudden. This is life. Sometimes people trip down some stairs and hurt their foot a little. Other times they hit their neck and die.
I think the more interesting side is considering what monster design can be like when they don't have to budget for crit damage. I don't care about making the game less randomly deadly for tier 1, but I definitely want to see what comes from not being shackled by crit damage.
Building a character - assuming 1st level - is maybe 2-3 hours of work, tops. I also think about the character outside of the actual activity of filling in the sheet and making choices. A bit more time if the character is starting off higher than 1st. But again: I try not to get bogged down with EVERY detail before actual play; I do want a distinctive feel of who the character is, what drives their choices...but it's not always set in stone, and it's not exhaustive documenting it all. One or two key past events, briefly mentioned, and the surface details. Most of the rest comes into focus as a result of play.
I frankly haven't died in play yet for 5E, but I think at most I'd be out for the remainder of just that session. Which I'm fine with; again, it's an accepted risk of the game. Sometimes your character dies. You realize it's a game and find a way to enjoy your friends' company and the rest of the session (maybe even beginning the rolling for the next character then). I just don't view missing out part of a session as some kind of egregious break of the social contract of the game.
You use the term "where it feels warranted" - which, again highlights the divide. I don't know that PC is death is ever warranted (though sure, sometimes it's a clearly logical result of poor player choices) and I guess for me, using that kind of language puts a lot of weight and pressure on the rest of the game and the DM to meet those kinds of expectations.
That's a little disingenuous. Monsters scoring critical hits isn't "for" the DM's benefit any more than it's for the benefit of the players. Which isn't to say it isn't! Because it is! It's one of the ways that combat stays unpredictable. Unpredictability extends the planning phase beyond the start of combat. Unpredictability forces you to make gameplay decisions instead of just following the script you laid out. Especially in a game where the default damage calculation for monsters doesn't involve dice! This can be a real issue!
Though, in my own opinion, I don't think critical hits contribute that much. I mean, they're pretty uncommon, so how could they? Even so, that's the shape of the argument. Not the thing you described, where the critical hits are a cost that the players must pay so that the DM can enjoy himself.
You said this in the OP, too. I can see the logic, but I don't think it's going to make much of a difference. Once again, the likelihood of a critical hit from a monster is pretty low -- and the monster can be critically hit, too, which might take it out more quickly, thus reducing that likelihood by a similar amount. So, if it barely happens, why would it factor into the CR? They explicitly don't factor in every odd little thing that can happen. I mean, a harpy is a lot less threatening if you happen to have just been deafened by a Storm of Vengeance, but that's obviously not relevant to designing the harpy in general.
As a side note, unrelated to anything... I'll be curious to see how they handle things like Polymorph. Would be funny if a player could use the form of a monster, and get access to both the recharge features AND the critical hits.
I suppose I am using bad terminology.
What I mean is it happens in a dangerous situation, not one manufactured by the random whims of the universe.
A difficult encounter where the party struggles, not one lucky monster who is otherwise a speedbump I roll 4 back to back crits for (it has happened).
For me, the "random whims of the universe" are part of the game.
If you (generic you) head out into a world full of giants, dragons, vampires, and gigantic floating evil eyeballs expressly looking for trouble, it feels odd (to me at least) to start distinguishing between "meaningful" trouble and "unwarranted" trouble.
You should look up the specific cause of WWI sometime. I'm not talking generally about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand - I'm talking specifically about how it happened. Random doesn't even begin to encompass it. If it was written as a novel or film, no one would believe it.
And yet one assassin deciding to eat at a certain sandwich shop essentially determined the course of the 20th Century in the West.
Sometimes, that gnoll archer gets lucky and hits your PC in the eye all the way into the brainpain.
This is what I would call the Universe deciding the fate of the character. That is some bad luck.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I have seen a near TPK from a single goblin, not because of crits but from a series of really bad rolls from the party. Several rounds of nothing higher than a 3 as the goblin with a spear took them down one at a time. The event lead to the players joking about their characters having a fear of goblins with spears for months afterwards.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I mean, I don't think I'd ever have/allow a PC die from the D&D equivalent of slipping on a banana peel.
But from a trap that rolls well (assuming the trap was designed to maim/kill - not all are!)? Or a randomly encountered monster that the PCs engages in with for combat? Yep.
I feel like there might be a problem with the overall fragility of level 1 characters, but crits are kind of a side story, the core problem is just monster damage vs hit points. A typical level 1 wizard can be instantly dead from full from a hit of 16 points (assumes Con 14), and there's a fair number of CR 1 monsters that can do that without even critting and will do so routinely on a crit, such as a bugbear. By comparison, that same wizard at level 5 now requires 64 damage to be instantly killed, and there's very few CR 5 monsters that will manage that even with a crit (the bulette averages 56).
I think this is the real truth of the matter.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Low level wizards are squishy. If they end up in melee, things are going to go badly, even if you take crits away from monsters.
I should add that, as a DM, I always roll my damage; I never use the average/static number given in the stats. Maybe it's the old school gamer in me, but I dislike the idea of it being predictable/the same for every successful attack.
Melee is not always avoidable, and it's not like ranged damage is that much lower. Also, that same bugbear will also frequently one-shot d8 classes such as cleric, monk, and rogue.
All very valid points that we seem to have slight disagreements on, but I believe this sums it up nicely.
I would like my monsters to be more deliberate in their threat capacity.
And monster crits skew that in the same manner crit smites and crit sneak attacks and crit spells do.
I do not really mind losing crits for my monsters. Crits seem to pop up at decidedly inconvenient times in the DM chair. The goal as a DM is, in my opinion, to lose every battle. Crits add an element of unpredictability that as the OP stated, can really swing a fight. You can anticipate every action the monsters take. It is difficult to anticipate and plan for crits. I do not expect this change will be a disruptive element in my game over the next month and I hope all those here give it a try to see how it feels in practice.
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This is fairly close to my mindset as well. "Inconvenient" feels closer to my feelings than "bad"
Really? That's...interesting.
When I DM, my goal is to run the monsters to their full capabilities as written. And a LOT of monsters I'm only now understanding how to use strategically and cleverly. (The better I understand the rules of the game, the more I admire how a lot of monsters were constructed. There are a good number of critters that may not look too fancy or intimidating but run well, they can be quite the nasty challenge.) My monsters don't always have the same goals. Some want to kill. Some want to capture. Some want to intimidate.
I think it's the DM's job to run the monsters as best as they can to try and achieve the monsters' goal. If the monsters' goals are to kill/eat/destroy the characters, then I do my best to do that. It isn't always - I do try to think about what the monsters actually want. But I certainly don't run them in a way to guarantee they'll lose the fight.
But this idea - that DMs are supposed to try and lose battles - that's pretty antithetical to how I run and view the game. And it's certainly not want I want as a player running PCs, either.
For me and my games "Death is always a possibility" is bunk. Death is a possibility when it is of narrative importance for death to be a possibility. I build my campaigns based on PC back stories and have character arcs planned for them. Why would I allow the dice to tell me when a character's story is over? Having a level 1 character die isn't fun for me as a DM, nor is it fun for anyone I play with as a player.
I don't remember which system it was, perhaps Pathfinder 1E's Lifepath system? Anyway, you rolled on a bunch of tables to discover what happened to your character since childhood. I hated it. You could actually die in character creation and have to start over before adventuring even began. Hated it so much.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
"Death is always a possibility" is a legitimate choice, but I don't think it fits the Heroic Fantasy genre. It is more a gritty and dark genre, which is an optional choice for DM's not the default genre.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You should run your game the way you want, of course! To me, that robs a lot of encounters of any tension or real threat, but if it works for you, that's great. (Meant sincerely.)
And I, at least, am not advocating some kind of blind obedience to the dice. The DM can and should override the dice as they think best helps the game they're running (and to be clear, that means having an awareness of and consideration for what's fun for everyone at the table, not just themselves).
Conversely, why should I as a player participate in a story that's already most predetermined or only has occasional unknowns? I don't play D&D to help the DM write their novel.
Personally, I like to mash up the kinds of fantasy listed in the DMG - pieces and parts of most of them, with my own sensibilities thrown in. There are definitely greater story arcs but I'm not there to dictate what happens regardless of dice rolls or character choices. Everyone participates, everyone affects the story, and the characters' choices affect the world, often in unanticipated ways (which can trickle down to even affecting "random encounters").
Case in point: there's a Baba Yaga type entity in my campaign world - she's likely an end-campaign boss in terms of power. She has many covens of hags doing her bidding, and they've become aware of the party. When they venture out into the wilds, it's a high probability that they're going to clash with at least one coven (which registers to the party as "random" encounter). One or more characters could die from such an encounter, as the hags aren't there to take prisoners. Will that ruin any larger arcs I have planned? Nope. Will it possibly affect them and alter them? Sure!
With respect, it's not the DM writing a novel. It's the DM helping the players facilitate their story. You take a different approach, and that's fine, but...I understand you're trying to be respectful, but please understand this comes off as kind of dismissive...