The chance of rolling a crit with Advantage is 9.75%. I think 10% is forgiveably close.
The maths:
Chances of not critting on a d20 is 95%. Chances of not critting on 2d20 is 0.95*0.95=0.9025. Therefore the chances of critting are 0.0975, or 9.75%.
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The chance of rolling a crit with Advantage is 9.75%. I think 10% is forgiveably close.
The maths:
Chances of not critting on a d20 is 95%. Chances of not critting on 2d20 is 0.95*0.95=0.9025. Therefore the chances of critting are 0.0975, or 9.75%.
Yeah its close enough I guess, but if im going on a math of the session type post I'd say close to 10%, I went with 7% on the assumption you may get advantage some of the time but its not even 1/2 the time. But even if we bump that to 7.5% or 8% based on people thinking advantage is that much more common, its still negligible on DPR especially for mages who aren't using attack rolls every round of combat.
At Advantage a crit has a 10% chance of being rolled.
But let's look across the dice rolled in a session. After just 24 dice rolls (a party of 4 making 6 rolls each for anything) the chance of 1 Nat 20 is 80%. So on average in any 6 round combat you should get at least 1 nat 20 most of the time within the party and thats ignoring players getting advantage for themselves.
Please contact a math teacher and redo your statistics lessons. The change of rolling a 20 is 1/20=5%. this means out of 100 rolls 5 are likely to be a 20.
His math is wrong but he was saying when you have advantage its 10%. But two 5% chances do not give you a 10% chance any more than 20 5% chances give you a 100% chance. And in all the years of play I don;t think anywhere near close to 1/2 the rolls were at advantage. So the they will have advantage a lot argument falls flat for me, but lets add in semi-frequent advantage and call it 7% of the time. That is still no mechanically significant difference in damage per round. This rule is not about balancing the classes and if it is it fails miserably at doing so. On that score it just makes certain features less fun, that is all it does.
The goal at best is to make things less swingy, but that is a dumb goal. Predictable is boring, swingy is fun. If I can map out how a fight will play out consistently, why are we rolling at all, I can just say hey there was a fight, you looked cool and won.
I rounded up, but also if you looked I stated the probability as well of rolling advantage across a combat 4 players over 6 rounds and there is an 80% chance of at least 1 20 being rolled. Now as a DM I have to take that into account, maybe that 20 gets rolled for a saving throw, or for the rogue to hide between rounds. Or maybe it is rolled by the Rogue when they get sneak attack, or the paladin when they get to Smite.
When I am planning my encounter I have to take into account the worst case, the player that does the most damage crits, and so I need to increase the hit points on my monsters to make the encounter challenging, fun and have a chance of causing real danger to the characters.
I might not do this on every encounter, some encounters I set up just to let the players have fun steamrollering an enemy, but, when I want the combat to mean something then I have to account for the possibility that in round 1 of combat the Rogue or Paladin or Magic user might do a ton of damage to my BBEG and then make the big climatic battle a bit of a damp squib.
Now some DMs buff there enemies mid way through adding hit points, other have extra enemies come on the scene. These are both valid tactics for a DM to balance a combat post massive damage from an attack, but, surely that shows the system is broken.
Simply limiting enemies to only critting on weapon damage and not on spells or abilities that have an excessive number of dice might go a long way to achieving this goal anyway. Say, default to no crits on enemy abilities but allow them for certain attacks that fit the mold of a normal weapon attack.
But that aside, there is a lot more to the dynamic playout of an encounter than just critical damage. Maybe the barbarian against all odds manages to beat a wis save that could turn them against the party. Maybe the entire team gets stunned by an ilithid mind blast. A lucky roll on a counterspell stops a high level spell from going off. Whether or not the fighter can shake off that fear effect and get back to slapping a dragon's shins. A banshee shows up but everyone manages to save, or half the party just went down instantly. My arcane trickster once made a fight against a trio of minibosses substantially easier by taking one out of the fight with hiddeous laughter, keeping the target out of the fight for a few turns until the other foes were down.
Limiting crits isn't going to make fights predictable. Though I can still understand if people prefer keeping the old crit rules.
At Advantage a crit has a 10% chance of being rolled.
But let's look across the dice rolled in a session. After just 24 dice rolls (a party of 4 making 6 rolls each for anything) the chance of 1 Nat 20 is 80%. So on average in any 6 round combat you should get at least 1 nat 20 most of the time within the party and thats ignoring players getting advantage for themselves.
Please contact a math teacher and redo your statistics lessons. The change of rolling a 20 is 1/20=5%. this means out of 100 rolls 5 are likely to be a 20.
His math is wrong but he was saying when you have advantage its 10%. But two 5% chances do not give you a 10% chance any more than 20 5% chances give you a 100% chance. And in all the years of play I don;t think anywhere near close to 1/2 the rolls were at advantage. So the they will have advantage a lot argument falls flat for me, but lets add in semi-frequent advantage and call it 7% of the time. That is still no mechanically significant difference in damage per round. This rule is not about balancing the classes and if it is it fails miserably at doing so. On that score it just makes certain features less fun, that is all it does.
The goal at best is to make things less swingy, but that is a dumb goal. Predictable is boring, swingy is fun. If I can map out how a fight will play out consistently, why are we rolling at all, I can just say hey there was a fight, you looked cool and won.
I rounded up, but also if you looked I stated the probability as well of rolling advantage across a combat 4 players over 6 rounds and there is an 80% chance of at least 1 20 being rolled. Now as a DM I have to take that into account, maybe that 20 gets rolled for a saving throw, or for the rogue to hide between rounds. Or maybe it is rolled by the Rogue when they get sneak attack, or the paladin when they get to Smite.
When I am planning my encounter I have to take into account the worst case, the player that does the most damage crits, and so I need to increase the hit points on my monsters to make the encounter challenging, fun and have a chance of causing real danger to the characters.
I might not do this on every encounter, some encounters I set up just to let the players have fun steamrollering an enemy, but, when I want the combat to mean something then I have to account for the possibility that in round 1 of combat the Rogue or Paladin or Magic user might do a ton of damage to my BBEG and then make the big climatic battle a bit of a damp squib.
Now some DMs buff there enemies mid way through adding hit points, other have extra enemies come on the scene. These are both valid tactics for a DM to balance a combat post massive damage from an attack, but, surely that shows the system is broken.
This is still wrong isn't it? there is 1 - (0.95)^n chance of rolling a 1, right? and that comes out to be like 70% for 24 rolls.
Edit. Oh are you assuming advantage for all 24 of those rolls? If that's the case, I still don't get 80%. The only way to get a 1 that matters when you have advantage is with both d20s showing a 1: that is 1/400, so the chances of that happening once in 24 rolls, is something less than 6%, I think.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder about my math. I think what I've calculated is the chance that exactly one 1 shows up. maybe that isn't the correct calculation? But you could just explain that 80% number.
I think that spells should definitely be able to crit. When you roll the d20, you are basicaly seeing how well you aimed your attack, rolling a 20 means it is literaly imposible for you to have aimed any better, so you hit the creature in a more vunerable place, such as the head or the neck, resulting in a critical hit. So why does a hit to the face with an arrow hurt more, when a hit to the face with a fire bolt does not? This, in my opinion, makes no sense.
Makes sense to me as well. However I think the issue is that certain spells when you crit can be pretty powerful (inflict wounds for instance). I can totally see the crit being a touch to the head and all that necrotic energy doing massive damage.
Yeah, I can see how spell crits can do a way more damage than weapon crits because you usualy roll more dice for spells, but I'm just asking if it makes sense that a hit to the face with a normal dagger does extra damage, when a hit to the face with a ice knife does not.
Crits aren't a big thing for casters in terms of power output, at all. It's around 0.5 damage per round doing tier 1 cantrips, assuming that every round you're doing attack roll cantrips. How often you're casting attack roll spells depends on your class, but it's not every turn. The practical effect of the changes on casters is minimal to negligible. It's only really removing the joy of being able to roll more clickety-clacks on rolling a 20.
Ironically, there are martial classes that get hurt more by this than casters. Specifically, Paladins no longer get to double their Smite damage. There are other martial-specific-drawbacks too - they're more likely to have weapons that have additional effect-based damage, like Sun Blade, that no longer gets doubled and so has reduced damage. Since martials are likely to have these weapons beyond the first few levels, crit far more often than casters (at least twice as many attempts after L5) and sometimes have increased crit ranges (the Champion has 10% crit chance versus the normal 5% and ends up with 15% if you play high level, leading to roughly 50% chance of critting per round), this could be a substantial change in DPR. I don't have usage data for magic weapons and so forth so K can't number crunch this, but it really wouldn't surprise if this change nerfed martials more than casters.
That this somehow works towards balancing the spellcasters with martials just doesn't hold water. The only thing this does do positively in that regard is to possibly make spellcasters less attractive to use compared to martials, which I'm dubious about (I certainly never chose a caster based on crits, but we'll run with it). Here's the rankings of the classes by popularity according to the famous usage statistics:
Fighter.
Rogue.
Barbarian.
Cleric.
Paladin.
Ranger.
Sorceror.
Wizard.
Monk.
Druid.
Bard.
Warlock.
Did you notice something? Martials are actually more popular than casters in general. Top 3 are all martials. Only one martial in the bottom 50% and only one pure caster in the top 50%. Martials don't need to be any more popular relative to casters. Like, at all. If anything, we need it the other way around.
As Scatterbrained said, martials have problems...none of which are addressed by the new crit system.
So far as I can tell, there is only one reason for the nerf, and it's nothing to do with martials v casters. They wanted to add inspiration, so to balance it, they nerfed damage. The question is, is the inspiration a better choice for the game than the damage dealt by the old rules? There's no right answer to that question, it's a matter of preference.
Again, this is really, really, really easy to understand. This has NOTHING to do with balance, or perceived balance, or giving martials a leg up over casters or any of that.There is one reason for crit change and that is individual encounter balance. They want fights to be less swingy. Enemies critting can be huge, and at lower levels can be unintentionally life threatening. Player smite, sneak attack and Spell crits add A LOT more than weapon crits typically do and can practically drop the boss enemy at the middle levels with just a single crit. It isn't about the average balance it is about what happens when the spike happens and controlling the size of the spike.
First off, that invalidates the argument everyone else who has been arguing against caster crits, because they've been saying it's important to balance casters VS. martials, and that's why this change is good. But if this is the reason why, then why have crits for martials still? Wizards could just rule that crits don't work with sneak attacks & divine smites, and that would help balance things.
The math showing that crits are rare for spellcasters. Yes, they may be swingy, but the difference between a spellcaster critting on one attack and a martial critting isn't that super massive. A PC critting and a monster critting (though this thread isn't talking about monster crits) is massively different, since PC's have a much lower average damage per an attack, and the creatures they attack, monsters, have a lot more HP. Yes, spells critting can be a tiny bit swingy, but they're not nearly as swingy as monsters, and don't change combats to the level you seem to be implying. Also, is removing a tiny bit of swingyness from combat worth a boatload of fun?
At Advantage a crit has a 10% chance of being rolled.
But let's look across the dice rolled in a session. After just 24 dice rolls (a party of 4 making 6 rolls each for anything) the chance of 1 Nat 20 is 80%. So on average in any 6 round combat you should get at least 1 nat 20 most of the time within the party and thats ignoring players getting advantage for themselves.
Please contact a math teacher and redo your statistics lessons. The change of rolling a 20 is 1/20=5%. this means out of 100 rolls 5 are likely to be a 20.
His math is wrong but he was saying when you have advantage its 10%. But two 5% chances do not give you a 10% chance any more than 20 5% chances give you a 100% chance. And in all the years of play I don;t think anywhere near close to 1/2 the rolls were at advantage. So the they will have advantage a lot argument falls flat for me, but lets add in semi-frequent advantage and call it 7% of the time. That is still no mechanically significant difference in damage per round. This rule is not about balancing the classes and if it is it fails miserably at doing so. On that score it just makes certain features less fun, that is all it does.
The goal at best is to make things less swingy, but that is a dumb goal. Predictable is boring, swingy is fun. If I can map out how a fight will play out consistently, why are we rolling at all, I can just say hey there was a fight, you looked cool and won.
I rounded up, but also if you looked I stated the probability as well of rolling advantage across a combat 4 players over 6 rounds and there is an 80% chance of at least 1 20 being rolled. Now as a DM I have to take that into account, maybe that 20 gets rolled for a saving throw, or for the rogue to hide between rounds. Or maybe it is rolled by the Rogue when they get sneak attack, or the paladin when they get to Smite.
When I am planning my encounter I have to take into account the worst case, the player that does the most damage crits, and so I need to increase the hit points on my monsters to make the encounter challenging, fun and have a chance of causing real danger to the characters.
I might not do this on every encounter, some encounters I set up just to let the players have fun steamrollering an enemy, but, when I want the combat to mean something then I have to account for the possibility that in round 1 of combat the Rogue or Paladin or Magic user might do a ton of damage to my BBEG and then make the big climatic battle a bit of a damp squib.
Now some DMs buff there enemies mid way through adding hit points, other have extra enemies come on the scene. These are both valid tactics for a DM to balance a combat post massive damage from an attack, but, surely that shows the system is broken.
No, you don't have to account for that, in fact you shouldn't. If the paladin crits timely in a boss fight and the fight ends up being easier, awesome the player has a cool story, if the monster crits at a inopportune time and the fight is harder awesome, the players have a cool story. You know when they don't have a cool story, when the fight is basically scripted because everyone knows what is going to happen.
At Advantage a crit has a 10% chance of being rolled.
But let's look across the dice rolled in a session. After just 24 dice rolls (a party of 4 making 6 rolls each for anything) the chance of 1 Nat 20 is 80%. So on average in any 6 round combat you should get at least 1 nat 20 most of the time within the party and thats ignoring players getting advantage for themselves.
Please contact a math teacher and redo your statistics lessons. The change of rolling a 20 is 1/20=5%. this means out of 100 rolls 5 are likely to be a 20.
His math is wrong but he was saying when you have advantage its 10%. But two 5% chances do not give you a 10% chance any more than 20 5% chances give you a 100% chance. And in all the years of play I don;t think anywhere near close to 1/2 the rolls were at advantage. So the they will have advantage a lot argument falls flat for me, but lets add in semi-frequent advantage and call it 7% of the time. That is still no mechanically significant difference in damage per round. This rule is not about balancing the classes and if it is it fails miserably at doing so. On that score it just makes certain features less fun, that is all it does.
The goal at best is to make things less swingy, but that is a dumb goal. Predictable is boring, swingy is fun. If I can map out how a fight will play out consistently, why are we rolling at all, I can just say hey there was a fight, you looked cool and won.
I rounded up, but also if you looked I stated the probability as well of rolling advantage across a combat 4 players over 6 rounds and there is an 80% chance of at least 1 20 being rolled. Now as a DM I have to take that into account, maybe that 20 gets rolled for a saving throw, or for the rogue to hide between rounds. Or maybe it is rolled by the Rogue when they get sneak attack, or the paladin when they get to Smite.
When I am planning my encounter I have to take into account the worst case, the player that does the most damage crits, and so I need to increase the hit points on my monsters to make the encounter challenging, fun and have a chance of causing real danger to the characters.
I might not do this on every encounter, some encounters I set up just to let the players have fun steamrollering an enemy, but, when I want the combat to mean something then I have to account for the possibility that in round 1 of combat the Rogue or Paladin or Magic user might do a ton of damage to my BBEG and then make the big climatic battle a bit of a damp squib.
Now some DMs buff there enemies mid way through adding hit points, other have extra enemies come on the scene. These are both valid tactics for a DM to balance a combat post massive damage from an attack, but, surely that shows the system is broken.
No, you don't have to account for that, in fact you shouldn't. If the paladin crits timely in a boss fight and the fight ends up being easier, awesome the player has a cool story, if the monster crits at a inopportune time and the fight is harder awesome, the players have a cool story. You know when they don't have a cool story, when the fight is basically scripted because everyone knows what is going to happen.
You see that might be your opinion, several games at I have had players, when asked for feedback, tell me that they felt some fights, ones they had spent months of real time building to session after session leading to the BBEG, where really anticlimatic. When I explain that the reason was they scored some pretty key Crit rolls and so ended it much sooner then I anticipated they pretty much all stated that they wouldn't mind in that situation if I bumped the enemy hit points mid battle without them knowing, or in one case suggested we look at nerfing the crit rules. For them spending ages to get to this big boss, only to have it killed in 4 rounds of combat made them feel a bit flat.
Other times, that crit at the right time, saving the party at just the right time is the epitome of awesomeness - and the sheer scale of a Smite being doubled as well is what really makes that sense so substantial. The difference in tone between a hail Mary smashing it out of the park and eking it over the finish line is massive. It's a lot easier to subtly increase the HP than to subtly double the crit damage of Smite.
That said, low level character deaths aren't something I particularly enjoy. I like to invest in my characters and having them die at level 1 or 2 wastes that investment (it takes me a lot of energy and time to come up with interesting characters). If the DM doesn't pull punches, then no monster crits is something I welcome. On the other hand, crits can increase the feeling of danger and stress. You get hit by one and it can force you to back off and let the rest of the party deal with it the enemy.
There's no right answer, I think.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If they feel that spell and ability crits are too powerful then I suggest that none weapon crits get to add half their dice rounded up.
I also suggest that the recharge abilities on monsters be more common and if a monster crits then they get one free recharge outside of their normal means to recharge instead of critical damage.
Balance is definitely not the reason for removing crits from spells, after all the caster mostly effected by this is going to be Warlock, the generally believed to be weakest of the pure casters... and one of the least played classes.
The real reason for the removal of crits is consistency, which is terrible but the real reason. Since a Rogue or Paladin in certain situations can near one shot dungeon bosses, the real target was sneak attack and smite, which obviously get a lot of power from crit. Why remove it from spells then? Because it's easier and there is a few spells that also were problematic from the crit perspective, those being Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Hex & Hunter's Mark.
Overall I believe WotC went the wrong way with this one, they nerfed crits too much, and still left crits vulnerable to the snake eye's effect.
Balance is definitely not the reason for removing crits from spells, after all the caster mostly effected by this is going to be Warlock, the generally believed to be weakest of the pure casters... and one of the least played classes.
The real reason for the removal of crits is consistency, which is terrible but the real reason. Since a Rogue or Paladin in certain situations can near one shot dungeon bosses, the real target was sneak attack and smite, which obviously get a lot of power from crit. Why remove it from spells then? Because it's easier and there is a few spells that also were problematic from the crit perspective, those being Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Hex & Hunter's Mark.
Overall I believe WotC went the wrong way with this one, they nerfed crits too much, and still left crits vulnerable to the snake eye's effect.
I suppose another option would be making the player choose to announce smite or sneak attack before they roll to attack, but that means if they miss they lose that spell slot/chance to sneak attack.
These new rules mean, that classes that rely on spells, people who play them don't get the thrill of rolling a natural 20, they might as well have rolled a 15, a 16, or maybe even a roll lower than those two depending on the monsters AC.
Incorrect. A natural 20 still occurred. It still provided you a bonus. Automatic hit and Inspiration.
Yes, perhaps saying a crit on spells does nothing is a bit exaggerated, but inspiration certainly doesn't provide much, as I talked about in the part of my post that were chopped off from the quotes.
While all the people making weapon attacks get to crit, and deal double damage, and celebrate, since you're the spellcaster, you don't have any of that. A natural 20 is supposed to be a reward, supposed to be something everyone at the table is excited to see, but with spells, it's just like any other hit. You get nothing extra, nothing special for a special roll, you might as well not roll against monsters with really low AC, you'll hit them anyways unless you get a one.
They deal an additional weapon die. Not double. They also automatically hit and gain inspiration. You as a spellcaster get two of those 3 things. As for the point about not rolling against low AC monsters that is also a separate rule introduced in the document. Not rolling for targets below 5 or above 30.
A crit is not a crit for you, it's just another hit with nothing special about it. It's unfair for everyone fighting with weapons to be able to enjoy getting a natural 20 and doing something awesome because of it. Your awesome roll is not your awesome roll, because based off the type of class you play, you can't have rolls like it.
Correct for the bold, incorrect for the rest. You still gain an auto hit and advantage. What is unfair is you dealing 3x the die roll of a longsword with a first level spell, and having a 5% chance to destroy a low level encounter before a fighter can get to it.
I could continue, but it just seems to me that you want to have unrivaled control capability, unrivaled movement capability, the answer to most obstacles, and immeasurably better damage that also can deal double immeasurably better damage. Let the damn martials have their SINGLE ADDITIONAL DIE ROLL. You don't need it.
It doesn't deal one additional damage die, it deals all the initial damage dice in the first attack, which can be multiple dice, all over again. This is very similar to double damage and is often referred to as that in short.
I'm not saying that martials can't have there extra damage, I'm saying that spellcasters should be able to have it too. After all, there is a difference between saying "I would like this too," and "You can't have it."
These are rule tests for a new edition, spells don't have to deal three times the damage of a longsword. Also, spells cast resources, a longsword doesn't and you can just use it on repeat.
I entirely agree with you, BoringBard. What most people who are arguing against you don't seem to realize (when they're saying casters are more powerful than martials and so on) is that caster's use spell slots, martials don't. And caster's have fewer hit points on average. And are more lightly armored. And smartly played enemies will toast a caster ASAP in a fight. Yeah, sure, fine, cantrips don't use spell slots, but every other spell does, so once a caster is out of slots, they are essentially down to only cantrips. Once this happens, they are on the same playing field as a martial character, but with less hit points, a crappier AC, and a HUGE target on their heads.
The rest of the forum can keep arguing it, but a base game mechanic should apply to ALL players, not just the ones who chose a martial class. It isn't a CLASS ability. It's a BASE GAME MECHANIC.
And yes, it's a game, guys and girls, but DMs use common sense all the time to arbitrate the game. In what world does it make sense for a sword strike to the skull to do bonus damage but a Acid Arrow to the skull does ... "meh, what'ev's?"
Kudos to BoringBard for braving the flames and posting on a most-definitely controversial topic.
Good on you, man. I just wish you didn't have to endure the ridiculous backlash.
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Shawn D. Robertson
"Deride not the differing views of others, for it is in thoughtful and considerate conversation we find our greatest friends."
I entirely agree with you, BoringBard. What most people who are arguing against you don't seem to realize (when they're saying casters are more powerful than martials and so on) is that caster's use spell slots, martials don't. And caster's have fewer hit points on average. And are more lightly armored. And smartly played enemies will toast a caster ASAP in a fight. Yeah, sure, fine, cantrips don't use spell slots, but every other spell does, so once a caster is out of slots, they are essentially down to only cantrips. Once this happens, they are on the same playing field as a martial character, but with less hit points, a crappier AC, and a HUGE target on their heads.
The rest of the forum can keep arguing it, but a base game mechanic should apply to ALL players, not just the ones who chose a martial class. It isn't a CLASS ability. It's a BASE GAME MECHANIC.
And yes, it's a game, guys and girls, but DMs use common sense all the time to arbitrate the game. In what world does it make sense for a sword strike to the skull to do bonus damage but a Acid Arrow to the skull does ... "meh, what'ev's?"
Kudos to BoringBard for braving the flames and posting on a most-definitely controversial topic.
Good on you, man. I just wish you didn't have to endure the ridiculous backlash.
That is kinda a flawed analysis there, pure casters isn't just sorcerers and wizards, it's also clerics, druids and warlocks and there are just some subclasses this isn't true for.
Warlocks already are very different and their whole thing is a cantrip + 1 concentration spell, normally. (let's not even get started on Hexblade+pact of the blade)
Bladesingers are also casters which can use a lot of cantrips, bladeward is a cantrip they can use with their extra attack feature while also getting a bonus to AC equal to INT. So they aren't really beholden to their spell slots either.
Clerics have medium armor and while a D8 is less than any martial their AC is usually highly comparative. War clerics actually can do two attacks from level 1, albeit using a resource
Circle of the Moon druids also are technically casters, altho unlike the other three mentioned, they are pretty unlikely to actually use spells at all, preferring their wildshapes which gives them so much HP and other utility that they can often out tank barbarians.
Else wise you're right, martials usually beat a spell caster that is out of spell slots, however it's rarely the case that, that comes up. When spell casters might have spells that entirely disable a martial while the caster blasts them to pieces, spells like hold person or levitate, with the exception of Paladin, most martials really don't have the best saving throw proficiency for beating these types of spells. A druid casting heat metal once can be enough to end a martial character, heat metal can't even be resisted. This is why casters are stronger, even if it is resource based, casters can completely shut-down most martial characters with a single spell while most martial characters can't do anything about it or have to hope for a lucky roll. While spell casters are more squishy, spells like misty step or dimension door exist for them to create a gap which shuts down most melee builds, you can misty step while prone, you can misty step while grappled.
This is all to say, that for the argument that casters running out of spell slots somehow makes them balanced, would require that martials actually be able to survive long enough for spell slots to expire from full, which is rarely ever the case, except maybe Paladin (higher saves, dispel magic, etc).
This all said, I still believe spells should do critical damage still, there are few spells which actually were broken by critical damage and those that were, mostly belong to Paladin and Hexblade, which you know are the same two that'd use divine/eldritch smite.
I entirely agree with you, BoringBard. What most people who are arguing against you don't seem to realize (when they're saying casters are more powerful than martials and so on) is that caster's use spell slots, martials don't. And caster's have fewer hit points on average. And are more lightly armored. And smartly played enemies will toast a caster ASAP in a fight. Yeah, sure, fine, cantrips don't use spell slots, but every other spell does, so once a caster is out of slots, they are essentially down to only cantrips. Once this happens, they are on the same playing field as a martial character, but with less hit points, a crappier AC, and a HUGE target on their heads.
The rest of the forum can keep arguing it, but a base game mechanic should apply to ALL players, not just the ones who chose a martial class. It isn't a CLASS ability. It's a BASE GAME MECHANIC.
And yes, it's a game, guys and girls, but DMs use common sense all the time to arbitrate the game. In what world does it make sense for a sword strike to the skull to do bonus damage but a Acid Arrow to the skull does ... "meh, what'ev's?"
Kudos to BoringBard for braving the flames and posting on a most-definitely controversial topic.
Good on you, man. I just wish you didn't have to endure the ridiculous backlash.
That is kinda a flawed analysis there, pure casters isn't just sorcerers and wizards, it's also clerics, druids and warlocks and there are just some subclasses this isn't true for.
Warlocks already are very different and their whole thing is a cantrip + 1 concentration spell, normally. (let's not even get started on Hexblade+pact of the blade)
Bladesingers are also casters which can use a lot of cantrips, bladeward is a cantrip they can use with their extra attack feature while also getting a bonus to AC equal to INT. So they aren't really beholden to their spell slots either.
Clerics have medium armor and while a D8 is less than any martial their AC is usually highly comparative. War clerics actually can do two attacks from level 1, albeit using a resource
Circle of the Moon druids also are technically casters, altho unlike the other three mentioned, they are pretty unlikely to actually use spells at all, preferring their wildshapes which gives them so much HP and other utility that they can often out tank barbarians.
(Stuff)
Warlocks also have two or three spellslots. As for the subclasses you mentioned, many of them are some of the most powerful/broken subclasses in the game. They are outliers, not the norm, and they deserve to be treated as such.
Yes, different spellcasting classes may have some non-spellcasting features, but overall, those different classes have cons and negative aspects that help balance them out with other spellcasting classes.
I entirely agree with you, BoringBard. What most people who are arguing against you don't seem to realize (when they're saying casters are more powerful than martials and so on) is that caster's use spell slots, martials don't. And caster's have fewer hit points on average. And are more lightly armored. And smartly played enemies will toast a caster ASAP in a fight. Yeah, sure, fine, cantrips don't use spell slots, but every other spell does, so once a caster is out of slots, they are essentially down to only cantrips. Once this happens, they are on the same playing field as a martial character, but with less hit points, a crappier AC, and a HUGE target on their heads.
The rest of the forum can keep arguing it, but a base game mechanic should apply to ALL players, not just the ones who chose a martial class. It isn't a CLASS ability. It's a BASE GAME MECHANIC.
And yes, it's a game, guys and girls, but DMs use common sense all the time to arbitrate the game. In what world does it make sense for a sword strike to the skull to do bonus damage but a Acid Arrow to the skull does ... "meh, what'ev's?"
Kudos to BoringBard for braving the flames and posting on a most-definitely controversial topic.
Good on you, man. I just wish you didn't have to endure the ridiculous backlash.
That is kinda a flawed analysis there, pure casters isn't just sorcerers and wizards, it's also clerics, druids and warlocks and there are just some subclasses this isn't true for.
Warlocks already are very different and their whole thing is a cantrip + 1 concentration spell, normally. (let's not even get started on Hexblade+pact of the blade)
Bladesingers are also casters which can use a lot of cantrips, bladeward is a cantrip they can use with their extra attack feature while also getting a bonus to AC equal to INT. So they aren't really beholden to their spell slots either.
Clerics have medium armor and while a D8 is less than any martial their AC is usually highly comparative. War clerics actually can do two attacks from level 1, albeit using a resource
Circle of the Moon druids also are technically casters, altho unlike the other three mentioned, they are pretty unlikely to actually use spells at all, preferring their wildshapes which gives them so much HP and other utility that they can often out tank barbarians.
(Stuff)
Warlocks also have two or three spellslots. As for the subclasses you mentioned, many of them are some of the most powerful/broken subclasses in the game. They are outliers, not the norm, and they deserve to be treated as such.
Yes, different spellcasting classes may have some non-spellcasting features, but overall, those different classes have cons and negative aspects that help balance them out with other spellcasting classes.
Yes, Warlock have few spellslots, because spellslots aren't their thing, it's Eldritch Blast + concentration spell, most of the time. They still get access to most the spells I mentioned, even with those limited spell slots, warlock also is used as the baseline for calculating how good DPR is, given how average their eldritch blast damage output is.
And yes, some subclasses are entirely broken for casters and non-casters. The stuff you cut out is the most important bit tho, that spellcasters are considered to be stronger than martials because spellcasters have too many methods to shutdown martials while martials have none to shutdown spell casters; even if it's resource based for casters, if you take either class from long rest then you'd normally expect the spellcaster to win.
But as far as those subclasses mentioned go, they all have one thing in common, they are casters which aren't really squishy, war cleric, blade dancer, moon druid & hexblade. Squishiness is the real counter-balance but that also gets countered harder the higher levels get...
I entirely agree with you, BoringBard. What most people who are arguing against you don't seem to realize (when they're saying casters are more powerful than martials and so on) is that caster's use spell slots, martials don't. And caster's have fewer hit points on average. And are more lightly armored. And smartly played enemies will toast a caster ASAP in a fight. Yeah, sure, fine, cantrips don't use spell slots, but every other spell does, so once a caster is out of slots, they are essentially down to only cantrips. Once this happens, they are on the same playing field as a martial character, but with less hit points, a crappier AC, and a HUGE target on their heads.
The rest of the forum can keep arguing it, but a base game mechanic should apply to ALL players, not just the ones who chose a martial class. It isn't a CLASS ability. It's a BASE GAME MECHANIC.
And yes, it's a game, guys and girls, but DMs use common sense all the time to arbitrate the game. In what world does it make sense for a sword strike to the skull to do bonus damage but a Acid Arrow to the skull does ... "meh, what'ev's?"
Kudos to BoringBard for braving the flames and posting on a most-definitely controversial topic.
Good on you, man. I just wish you didn't have to endure the ridiculous backlash.
That is kinda a flawed analysis there, pure casters isn't just sorcerers and wizards, it's also clerics, druids and warlocks and there are just some subclasses this isn't true for.
Warlocks already are very different and their whole thing is a cantrip + 1 concentration spell, normally. (let's not even get started on Hexblade+pact of the blade)
Bladesingers are also casters which can use a lot of cantrips, bladeward is a cantrip they can use with their extra attack feature while also getting a bonus to AC equal to INT. So they aren't really beholden to their spell slots either.
Clerics have medium armor and while a D8 is less than any martial their AC is usually highly comparative. War clerics actually can do two attacks from level 1, albeit using a resource
Circle of the Moon druids also are technically casters, altho unlike the other three mentioned, they are pretty unlikely to actually use spells at all, preferring their wildshapes which gives them so much HP and other utility that they can often out tank barbarians.
(Stuff)
Warlocks also have two or three spellslots. As for the subclasses you mentioned, many of them are some of the most powerful/broken subclasses in the game. They are outliers, not the norm, and they deserve to be treated as such.
Yes, different spellcasting classes may have some non-spellcasting features, but overall, those different classes have cons and negative aspects that help balance them out with other spellcasting classes.
Yes, Warlock have few spellslots, because spellslots aren't their thing, it's Eldritch Blast + concentration spell, most of the time. They still get access to most the spells I mentioned, even with those limited spell slots, warlock also is used as the baseline for calculating how good DPR is, given how average their eldritch blast damage output is.
And yes, some subclasses are entirely broken for casters and non-casters. The stuff you cut out is the most important bit tho, that spellcasters are considered to be stronger than martials because spellcasters have too many methods to shutdown martials while martials have none to shutdown spell casters; even if it's resource based for casters, if you take either class from long rest then you'd normally expect the spellcaster to win.
But as far as those subclasses mentioned go, they all have one thing in common, they are casters which aren't really squishy, war cleric, blade dancer, moon druid & hexblade. Squishiness is the real counter-balance but that also gets countered harder the higher levels get...
Yeah, I get what you mean. But either way, as I've said earlier, removing crits from spellcasters doesn't really help balance any of that.
I entirely agree with you, BoringBard. What most people who are arguing against you don't seem to realize (when they're saying casters are more powerful than martials and so on) is that caster's use spell slots, martials don't. And caster's have fewer hit points on average. And are more lightly armored. And smartly played enemies will toast a caster ASAP in a fight. Yeah, sure, fine, cantrips don't use spell slots, but every other spell does, so once a caster is out of slots, they are essentially down to only cantrips. Once this happens, they are on the same playing field as a martial character, but with less hit points, a crappier AC, and a HUGE target on their heads.
The rest of the forum can keep arguing it, but a base game mechanic should apply to ALL players, not just the ones who chose a martial class. It isn't a CLASS ability. It's a BASE GAME MECHANIC.
And yes, it's a game, guys and girls, but DMs use common sense all the time to arbitrate the game. In what world does it make sense for a sword strike to the skull to do bonus damage but a Acid Arrow to the skull does ... "meh, what'ev's?"
Kudos to BoringBard for braving the flames and posting on a most-definitely controversial topic.
Good on you, man. I just wish you didn't have to endure the ridiculous backlash.
That is kinda a flawed analysis there, pure casters isn't just sorcerers and wizards, it's also clerics, druids and warlocks and there are just some subclasses this isn't true for.
Warlocks already are very different and their whole thing is a cantrip + 1 concentration spell, normally. (let's not even get started on Hexblade+pact of the blade)
Bladesingers are also casters which can use a lot of cantrips, bladeward is a cantrip they can use with their extra attack feature while also getting a bonus to AC equal to INT. So they aren't really beholden to their spell slots either.
Clerics have medium armor and while a D8 is less than any martial their AC is usually highly comparative. War clerics actually can do two attacks from level 1, albeit using a resource
Circle of the Moon druids also are technically casters, altho unlike the other three mentioned, they are pretty unlikely to actually use spells at all, preferring their wildshapes which gives them so much HP and other utility that they can often out tank barbarians.
(Stuff)
Warlocks also have two or three spellslots. As for the subclasses you mentioned, many of them are some of the most powerful/broken subclasses in the game. They are outliers, not the norm, and they deserve to be treated as such.
Yes, different spellcasting classes may have some non-spellcasting features, but overall, those different classes have cons and negative aspects that help balance them out with other spellcasting classes.
Yes, Warlock have few spellslots, because spellslots aren't their thing, it's Eldritch Blast + concentration spell, most of the time. They still get access to most the spells I mentioned, even with those limited spell slots, warlock also is used as the baseline for calculating how good DPR is, given how average their eldritch blast damage output is.
And yes, some subclasses are entirely broken for casters and non-casters. The stuff you cut out is the most important bit tho, that spellcasters are considered to be stronger than martials because spellcasters have too many methods to shutdown martials while martials have none to shutdown spell casters; even if it's resource based for casters, if you take either class from long rest then you'd normally expect the spellcaster to win.
But as far as those subclasses mentioned go, they all have one thing in common, they are casters which aren't really squishy, war cleric, blade dancer, moon druid & hexblade. Squishiness is the real counter-balance but that also gets countered harder the higher levels get...
Yeah, I get what you mean. But either way, as I've said earlier, removing crits from spellcasters doesn't really help balance any of that.
Removing crits from spells never had anything to do with Balance, IMO, it's all to do with consistency, which was broken by crit fishing, esp. by Paladin and Rogue. Most spells don't even have attack rolls, the majority that do are lower level, so it mainly impacts Warlock than any other caster past level 5, which from a balance perspective would make it dumb since Warlock is slightly under powered.
Personally I don't think WotC is even that bothered about combat balance, rather more about encounter difficulty and encounter balance, which is where crit fishing is an issue, but I'd say it's an issue that brings more to the table than problems actually caused, since it creates stories and moments. I'll still remember the time when the party ran around a dungeon looking for the BBEG who we accidentally killed in 1 round at the start due to managing to path oddly through the dungeon and me getting a 20 as the 7 Tiefling Devotion Paladin/1 Hexblade Warlock/1 Dragonic Sorcerer (it's two dips, I know), I got a nat 20 on the first attack and did over 80 damage, then also smited on the second normal attack for around 30ish damage. Going last in initiative the boss already had taken some damage. So we were thinking that was like the mid-boss not the BBEG... and that's a story that exists because of a broken paladin smite crit.
I think losing moments like that would reduce the quality of the game, and there are other stories of other characters having pulled of something insane (fighter doing 98 damage to a young green dragon at level 7 due to bless, advantage, a hand crossbow, action surge and crossbow expert comes to mind as the absurd) from same campaign.
After 24 rolls your probability is 0.95^24 that you don't roll a 20 which is 0.29, so there's about a 0.71 probability that you'll have rolled a 20 at some point.
If you're rolling with advantage that's 0.95^2 which is 0.90 for each set of rolls.
0.90^24 comes to 0.09, which increases the probability of a crit to 0.91, or better than 90% that a 20 would have been rolled at some point.
The chance of rolling a crit with Advantage is 9.75%. I think 10% is forgiveably close.
The maths:
Chances of not critting on a d20 is 95%. Chances of not critting on 2d20 is 0.95*0.95=0.9025. Therefore the chances of critting are 0.0975, or 9.75%.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Yeah its close enough I guess, but if im going on a math of the session type post I'd say close to 10%, I went with 7% on the assumption you may get advantage some of the time but its not even 1/2 the time. But even if we bump that to 7.5% or 8% based on people thinking advantage is that much more common, its still negligible on DPR especially for mages who aren't using attack rolls every round of combat.
I rounded up, but also if you looked I stated the probability as well of rolling advantage across a combat 4 players over 6 rounds and there is an 80% chance of at least 1 20 being rolled. Now as a DM I have to take that into account, maybe that 20 gets rolled for a saving throw, or for the rogue to hide between rounds. Or maybe it is rolled by the Rogue when they get sneak attack, or the paladin when they get to Smite.
When I am planning my encounter I have to take into account the worst case, the player that does the most damage crits, and so I need to increase the hit points on my monsters to make the encounter challenging, fun and have a chance of causing real danger to the characters.
I might not do this on every encounter, some encounters I set up just to let the players have fun steamrollering an enemy, but, when I want the combat to mean something then I have to account for the possibility that in round 1 of combat the Rogue or Paladin or Magic user might do a ton of damage to my BBEG and then make the big climatic battle a bit of a damp squib.
Now some DMs buff there enemies mid way through adding hit points, other have extra enemies come on the scene. These are both valid tactics for a DM to balance a combat post massive damage from an attack, but, surely that shows the system is broken.
Simply limiting enemies to only critting on weapon damage and not on spells or abilities that have an excessive number of dice might go a long way to achieving this goal anyway. Say, default to no crits on enemy abilities but allow them for certain attacks that fit the mold of a normal weapon attack.
But that aside, there is a lot more to the dynamic playout of an encounter than just critical damage. Maybe the barbarian against all odds manages to beat a wis save that could turn them against the party. Maybe the entire team gets stunned by an ilithid mind blast. A lucky roll on a counterspell stops a high level spell from going off. Whether or not the fighter can shake off that fear effect and get back to slapping a dragon's shins. A banshee shows up but everyone manages to save, or half the party just went down instantly. My arcane trickster once made a fight against a trio of minibosses substantially easier by taking one out of the fight with hiddeous laughter, keeping the target out of the fight for a few turns until the other foes were down.
Limiting crits isn't going to make fights predictable. Though I can still understand if people prefer keeping the old crit rules.
This is still wrong isn't it? there is 1 - (0.95)^n chance of rolling a 1, right? and that comes out to be like 70% for 24 rolls.
Edit. Oh are you assuming advantage for all 24 of those rolls? If that's the case, I still don't get 80%. The only way to get a 1 that matters when you have advantage is with both d20s showing a 1: that is 1/400, so the chances of that happening once in 24 rolls, is something less than 6%, I think.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder about my math. I think what I've calculated is the chance that exactly one 1 shows up. maybe that isn't the correct calculation? But you could just explain that 80% number.
Yeah, I can see how spell crits can do a way more damage than weapon crits because you usualy roll more dice for spells, but I'm just asking if it makes sense that a hit to the face with a normal dagger does extra damage, when a hit to the face with a ice knife does not.
Philippians 4:8
First off, that invalidates the argument everyone else who has been arguing against caster crits, because they've been saying it's important to balance casters VS. martials, and that's why this change is good. But if this is the reason why, then why have crits for martials still? Wizards could just rule that crits don't work with sneak attacks & divine smites, and that would help balance things.
The math showing that crits are rare for spellcasters. Yes, they may be swingy, but the difference between a spellcaster critting on one attack and a martial critting isn't that super massive. A PC critting and a monster critting (though this thread isn't talking about monster crits) is massively different, since PC's have a much lower average damage per an attack, and the creatures they attack, monsters, have a lot more HP. Yes, spells critting can be a tiny bit swingy, but they're not nearly as swingy as monsters, and don't change combats to the level you seem to be implying. Also, is removing a tiny bit of swingyness from combat worth a boatload of fun?
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HERE.No, you don't have to account for that, in fact you shouldn't. If the paladin crits timely in a boss fight and the fight ends up being easier, awesome the player has a cool story, if the monster crits at a inopportune time and the fight is harder awesome, the players have a cool story. You know when they don't have a cool story, when the fight is basically scripted because everyone knows what is going to happen.
You see that might be your opinion, several games at I have had players, when asked for feedback, tell me that they felt some fights, ones they had spent months of real time building to session after session leading to the BBEG, where really anticlimatic. When I explain that the reason was they scored some pretty key Crit rolls and so ended it much sooner then I anticipated they pretty much all stated that they wouldn't mind in that situation if I bumped the enemy hit points mid battle without them knowing, or in one case suggested we look at nerfing the crit rules. For them spending ages to get to this big boss, only to have it killed in 4 rounds of combat made them feel a bit flat.
Other times, that crit at the right time, saving the party at just the right time is the epitome of awesomeness - and the sheer scale of a Smite being doubled as well is what really makes that sense so substantial. The difference in tone between a hail Mary smashing it out of the park and eking it over the finish line is massive. It's a lot easier to subtly increase the HP than to subtly double the crit damage of Smite.
That said, low level character deaths aren't something I particularly enjoy. I like to invest in my characters and having them die at level 1 or 2 wastes that investment (it takes me a lot of energy and time to come up with interesting characters). If the DM doesn't pull punches, then no monster crits is something I welcome. On the other hand, crits can increase the feeling of danger and stress. You get hit by one and it can force you to back off and let the rest of the party deal with it the enemy.
There's no right answer, I think.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If they feel that spell and ability crits are too powerful then I suggest that none weapon crits get to add half their dice rounded up.
I also suggest that the recharge abilities on monsters be more common and if a monster crits then they get one free recharge outside of their normal means to recharge instead of critical damage.
Balance is definitely not the reason for removing crits from spells, after all the caster mostly effected by this is going to be Warlock, the generally believed to be weakest of the pure casters... and one of the least played classes.
The real reason for the removal of crits is consistency, which is terrible but the real reason. Since a Rogue or Paladin in certain situations can near one shot dungeon bosses, the real target was sneak attack and smite, which obviously get a lot of power from crit. Why remove it from spells then? Because it's easier and there is a few spells that also were problematic from the crit perspective, those being Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Hex & Hunter's Mark.
Overall I believe WotC went the wrong way with this one, they nerfed crits too much, and still left crits vulnerable to the snake eye's effect.
I suppose another option would be making the player choose to announce smite or sneak attack before they roll to attack, but that means if they miss they lose that spell slot/chance to sneak attack.
I entirely agree with you, BoringBard. What most people who are arguing against you don't seem to realize (when they're saying casters are more powerful than martials and so on) is that caster's use spell slots, martials don't. And caster's have fewer hit points on average. And are more lightly armored. And smartly played enemies will toast a caster ASAP in a fight. Yeah, sure, fine, cantrips don't use spell slots, but every other spell does, so once a caster is out of slots, they are essentially down to only cantrips. Once this happens, they are on the same playing field as a martial character, but with less hit points, a crappier AC, and a HUGE target on their heads.
The rest of the forum can keep arguing it, but a base game mechanic should apply to ALL players, not just the ones who chose a martial class. It isn't a CLASS ability. It's a BASE GAME MECHANIC.
And yes, it's a game, guys and girls, but DMs use common sense all the time to arbitrate the game. In what world does it make sense for a sword strike to the skull to do bonus damage but a Acid Arrow to the skull does ... "meh, what'ev's?"
Kudos to BoringBard for braving the flames and posting on a most-definitely controversial topic.
Good on you, man. I just wish you didn't have to endure the ridiculous backlash.
Shawn D. Robertson
"Deride not the differing views of others, for it is in thoughtful and considerate conversation we find our greatest friends."
~Me~
That is kinda a flawed analysis there, pure casters isn't just sorcerers and wizards, it's also clerics, druids and warlocks and there are just some subclasses this isn't true for.
Warlocks already are very different and their whole thing is a cantrip + 1 concentration spell, normally. (let's not even get started on Hexblade+pact of the blade)
Bladesingers are also casters which can use a lot of cantrips, bladeward is a cantrip they can use with their extra attack feature while also getting a bonus to AC equal to INT. So they aren't really beholden to their spell slots either.
Clerics have medium armor and while a D8 is less than any martial their AC is usually highly comparative. War clerics actually can do two attacks from level 1, albeit using a resource
Circle of the Moon druids also are technically casters, altho unlike the other three mentioned, they are pretty unlikely to actually use spells at all, preferring their wildshapes which gives them so much HP and other utility that they can often out tank barbarians.
Else wise you're right, martials usually beat a spell caster that is out of spell slots, however it's rarely the case that, that comes up. When spell casters might have spells that entirely disable a martial while the caster blasts them to pieces, spells like hold person or levitate, with the exception of Paladin, most martials really don't have the best saving throw proficiency for beating these types of spells. A druid casting heat metal once can be enough to end a martial character, heat metal can't even be resisted. This is why casters are stronger, even if it is resource based, casters can completely shut-down most martial characters with a single spell while most martial characters can't do anything about it or have to hope for a lucky roll. While spell casters are more squishy, spells like misty step or dimension door exist for them to create a gap which shuts down most melee builds, you can misty step while prone, you can misty step while grappled.
This is all to say, that for the argument that casters running out of spell slots somehow makes them balanced, would require that martials actually be able to survive long enough for spell slots to expire from full, which is rarely ever the case, except maybe Paladin (higher saves, dispel magic, etc).
This all said, I still believe spells should do critical damage still, there are few spells which actually were broken by critical damage and those that were, mostly belong to Paladin and Hexblade, which you know are the same two that'd use divine/eldritch smite.
Warlocks also have two or three spellslots. As for the subclasses you mentioned, many of them are some of the most powerful/broken subclasses in the game. They are outliers, not the norm, and they deserve to be treated as such.
Yes, different spellcasting classes may have some non-spellcasting features, but overall, those different classes have cons and negative aspects that help balance them out with other spellcasting classes.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
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HERE.Yes, Warlock have few spellslots, because spellslots aren't their thing, it's Eldritch Blast + concentration spell, most of the time. They still get access to most the spells I mentioned, even with those limited spell slots, warlock also is used as the baseline for calculating how good DPR is, given how average their eldritch blast damage output is.
And yes, some subclasses are entirely broken for casters and non-casters. The stuff you cut out is the most important bit tho, that spellcasters are considered to be stronger than martials because spellcasters have too many methods to shutdown martials while martials have none to shutdown spell casters; even if it's resource based for casters, if you take either class from long rest then you'd normally expect the spellcaster to win.
But as far as those subclasses mentioned go, they all have one thing in common, they are casters which aren't really squishy, war cleric, blade dancer, moon druid & hexblade. Squishiness is the real counter-balance but that also gets countered harder the higher levels get...
Yeah, I get what you mean. But either way, as I've said earlier, removing crits from spellcasters doesn't really help balance any of that.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
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HERE.Removing crits from spells never had anything to do with Balance, IMO, it's all to do with consistency, which was broken by crit fishing, esp. by Paladin and Rogue. Most spells don't even have attack rolls, the majority that do are lower level, so it mainly impacts Warlock than any other caster past level 5, which from a balance perspective would make it dumb since Warlock is slightly under powered.
Personally I don't think WotC is even that bothered about combat balance, rather more about encounter difficulty and encounter balance, which is where crit fishing is an issue, but I'd say it's an issue that brings more to the table than problems actually caused, since it creates stories and moments. I'll still remember the time when the party ran around a dungeon looking for the BBEG who we accidentally killed in 1 round at the start due to managing to path oddly through the dungeon and me getting a 20 as the 7 Tiefling Devotion Paladin/1 Hexblade Warlock/1 Dragonic Sorcerer (it's two dips, I know), I got a nat 20 on the first attack and did over 80 damage, then also smited on the second normal attack for around 30ish damage. Going last in initiative the boss already had taken some damage. So we were thinking that was like the mid-boss not the BBEG... and that's a story that exists because of a broken paladin smite crit.
I think losing moments like that would reduce the quality of the game, and there are other stories of other characters having pulled of something insane (fighter doing 98 damage to a young green dragon at level 7 due to bless, advantage, a hand crossbow, action surge and crossbow expert comes to mind as the absurd) from same campaign.
After 24 rolls your probability is 0.95^24 that you don't roll a 20 which is 0.29, so there's about a 0.71 probability that you'll have rolled a 20 at some point.
If you're rolling with advantage that's 0.95^2 which is 0.90 for each set of rolls.
0.90^24 comes to 0.09, which increases the probability of a crit to 0.91, or better than 90% that a 20 would have been rolled at some point.