The crit rules are bad and none of the arguments in favor of them make much sense. Nerfing player crits only sucks out all of the excitement out of a fun moment.
Divine/Eldritch Smite and Sneak Attack were obviously the main causes of this change, they do, do too much damage on a critical currently.
No, they don't. I will die on this hill. There's no difference between the Fighter spreading out his crits over a bunch of attacks and the Rogue getting his crits on one big attack. It's a ~5% bump in overall damage either way, and any encounter that's broken by one of these crits would've ended next round, or maybe even later this round.
The real problem with Divine Smite is that it lets Paladins convert all of their spell slots into damage really efficiently and really quickly. There's no saves and they can smite as many times as they can swing. That's what's going to end your boss encounter prematurely. If they happen to crit along the way, that's just a small bonus. I don't believe Smite being so good at burst damage and opportunity attacks was an intentional decision.
Ignore overall damage, it doesn't even matter, what matters is the NOVA damage on a critical where Paladin and Rogue do too much, so die on that hill, you'll still be wrong because you're looking at the wrong area; Nova is what is important to this discussion, not average DPR. Also rolling a D20 isn't the same thing as 5% average more DPR, not sure where you got that from, there is a lot of factors for determining it, for classes like fighter it might be around 5% but for classes like Paladin and Rogue it'd be significantly higher than 5% when smite or sneak attack goes off of that attack. I can only imagine it comes from critical hits being a 5% chance on a normal D20 roll but even that is flawed, some classes might perform actions or spells that give you advantage which would increase that up to a 9.75% to critical during those situtations.
Anyways, smite itself isn't a real issue for normal attacks, Paladin can't smite as often as you make out for quiet a while, when Paladin first gets Divine smite they only have 2 1st level spell slots, this is easily beaten out by battle master fighter at this level, Barbarians still get extra damage during rage. Ironically for Paladin, during 1st tier of play, casting bless can actually increase the average DPR of the party more than doing an attack and divine smite, it changes at level 5 when paladin gets extra attack tho since it's more chance to crit fish and they get two 2nd level spell slots there, however without crit fishing, it's actually not really enough to out Nova Fighter, it requires the crit fish to get there. Paladin do have the most power in crit fishing but at level 5, assuming you land both attacks, it'd adding 6d8(~27 damage) damage at a cost of two spell slots, however with a ~65% chance to hit, that isn't even guaranteed. If you critical one of the two hits, you can push 9d8 of smite damage...
It's around level 9 (which a significant number of campaigns don't even hit) that Divine Smite starts to get broken and mostly due to the crit fish. Since with 3rd level spell slots, a divine smite does 4d8, going to 8d8 (~36) on a critical. Then at level 11 Paladin gets IDS which adds another 1d8 or 2d8 on a critical.
So comparing to fighter. Well battle master can out-do paladin at levels 1-4 no problem, something like trip attack to add a 1d8 damage if you hit or precision attack to hit more often and you can action surge on a round to get an extra attack, superiority dice and action surge both recharge on short rests. Short rests and long rests tend to get used badly in a lot of campaigns, which makes paladin seem stronger than it really is and warlock weaker than it really is. Basically you shouldn't be able to long rest -> battle -> long rest -> battle -> long rest in a cave/dungeon, but a lot of DMs allow it despite it breaking game balance.
So assuming 2 short rests a day, fighter gets up to 12 d8s of extra damage, compared to paladin's mere 4 d8s at level 2 or 6 d8s at levels 3 & 4. Plus fighter gets action surge. At levels 5 & 6 paladin gets a dramatic boost to being worth around 14 d8s worth of damage. Fighter still has action surge and both classes get extra attack, so basically the same. At level 7 & 8 Paladin gets a boost up to around 17 d8s but fighter also gets up to 15 d8s. It's level 9 when Paladin finally gets the 3rd level slots and potentially up to 25 d8s worth of smite damage that they pull away, yet Paladin gets touted as higher damage even before level 9, and that is due to crit fishing, not smite as a feat. From level 9 to around 15, Paladin is by far one of, if not the highest damage output class on a single target, for sure but again those are levels that aren't even relevant to most campaigns in the first place.
Sure at level 9 there is an argument that Paladin pulls away in regards to NOVA damage, but it really is the crits that cause this.
Ignore overall damage, it doesn't even matter, what matters is the NOVA damage on a critical where Paladin and Rogue do too much, so die on that hill, you'll still be wrong because you're looking at the wrong area; Nova is what is important to this discussion, not average DPR.
It's not nova if it only happens randomly 5-10% of the time.
Also rolling a D20 isn't the same thing as 5% average more DPR, not sure where you got that from, there is a lot of factors for determining it, for classes like fighter it might be around 5% but for classes like Paladin and Rogue it'd be significantly higher than 5% when smite or sneak attack goes off of that attack.
It's not that complicated. If 5% of the time you do double damage, that's the same as doing 5% more damage on average. In practice crits do less than double damage because numerical bonuses don't get doubled.
Encounters last for multiple rounds, each of which contains multiple attacks from multiple characters. Only 5% of those are normally crits. For every random burst of double damage there's 19 others that do normal damage. That goes for the Rogue too. And I'm not even including the fireballs and the likes that can't crit at all. No matter how you look at it, at least 90% of the damage in a fight is not coming from crits and paladin players don't have a magical ability to make crits happen at their convenience. On any given fight they *might* get 1 crit, but they can get multiple smites in a single round if they wish. A crit just means getting a freebie every once in a while.
It's around level 9 (which a significant number of campaigns don't even hit) that Divine Smite starts to get broken and mostly due to the crit fish.
Multiclassing lets them get spell slots faster, and in practice they probably won't exclusively crit fish because it's smarter to do big damage on high stakes fights. Paladin X/Hexblade 2 and Bladesinger X/Paladin 2 are two popular combos that can smite more often than a single-classed paladin, plus additional benefits.
Ignore overall damage, it doesn't even matter, what matters is the NOVA damage on a critical where Paladin and Rogue do too much, so die on that hill, you'll still be wrong because you're looking at the wrong area; Nova is what is important to this discussion, not average DPR.
It's not nova if it only happens randomly 5-10% of the time.
It's NOVA damage on a critical hit, even if that critical is random, the damage that gets inflicted is NOVA, and that burst combination of NOVA and CRITICAL is the PROBLEM.
Also rolling a D20 isn't the same thing as 5% average more DPR, not sure where you got that from, there is a lot of factors for determining it, for classes like fighter it might be around 5% but for classes like Paladin and Rogue it'd be significantly higher than 5% when smite or sneak attack goes off of that attack.
It's not that complicated. If 5% of the time you do double damage, that's the same as doing 5% more damage on average. In practice crits do less than double damage because numerical bonuses don't get doubled.
Encounters last for multiple rounds, each of which contains multiple attacks from multiple characters. Only 5% of those are normally crits. For every random burst of double damage there's 19 others that do normal damage. That goes for the Rogue too. And I'm not even including the fireballs and the likes that can't crit at all. No matter how you look at it, at least 90% of the damage in a fight is not coming from crits and paladin players don't have a magical ability to make crits happen at their convenience. On any given fight they *might* get 1 crit, but they can get multiple smites in a single round if they wish. A crit just means getting a freebie every once in a while.
repeat after me, CRITICAL HITS ARE NOT DOUBLE DAMAGE. Also your Maths is bad if you were working from it that way, since you forgot to account for misses. If you miss 35% of the time, normal damage 60% of the time and critical damage 5% of the time, and you were assuming critical hits as literally double damage, the number you'd get is 8.3%, not 5%. Which I am still not entirely sure is the accurate number either (it's late here), going by those assumptions.
But to make you understand more, only dice rolls are doubled. So for a Paladin, assuming they have a +1 weapon, a strength MOD of +4 and used a long sword and a 3rd level divine smite.
normal hit average DPR can be calculated as: 4+1+1d8+4d8 = ~27.5
critical hit average DPR can be calculated as: 4+1+2d8+8d8 = ~50
50 is not double 27.5. the normal hit does around 55% the damage of the critical
Now if we went to a fighter with the same weapon and MOD with no divine smites or extra damage sources...
normal hit average DPR can be calculated as: 4+1+1d8 = ~9.5
critical hit average DPR can be calculated as: 4+1+2d8 = ~14
the normal hit does around 68% the damage of the critical, that is to say the damage increase is less than 50% on average.
If you still don't get what I'm hinting at here, it's that Paladin are capable of converting a much higher damage increase out of a critical hit than a fighter. However looking at it as a DPR increase still misses the biggest issue with smite critical hits anyway.
It's around level 9 (which a significant number of campaigns don't even hit) that Divine Smite starts to get broken and mostly due to the crit fish.
Multiclassing lets them get spell slots faster, and in practice they probably won't exclusively crit fish because it's smarter to do big damage on high stakes fights. Paladin X/Hexblade 2 and Bladesinger X/Paladin 2 are two popular combos that can smite more often than a single-classed paladin, plus additional benefits.
Hexblade does increase critical hits, but not as well as the champion sub-class from fighter does. The reason Paladins prefer hexblade is not hexblade's curse, it's hex warrior, which turns Paladin from MAD to SAD. Also with a 3 level dip you get 2 2nd level slots that are regained on a short rest, which is a heck of a lot more smite power, by level 5 you can divine smite AND eldritch smite on the same attack. But if you were looking for the critical on 19, champion is technically better, since it applies to all attacks, not just some attacks.
Also sure, a bladesinger/paladin can divine smite more often but that's a 2 class level dip to get there also Divine smite has a damage cap 5d8. So once you get above 4th level spell slots, while you can still get them, you're burning them for no real gain. Also to do this, you either have to wait on getting the 2 level dip or you have to push back getting extra attack by 2 levels which is actually quiet significant for bladesinger since extra attack comes in at level 6 and has an extra feature of being able to swap an attack for a cantrip, which works great with green-flame blade or booming blade, which as cantrips, don't even burn resources, then past level 6, at level 8 you'd get greater invisibility which is great for bladesinger, but nope, now wait til level 10. Overall I just don't see this bladesinger/2 paladin being the greatest. Actually I'd say bladesinger/3 swashbuckler would be way better, sneak attack on a booming blade and run away from the guy you just booming bladed who can't fight back (Opportunity Attack) due to the swashbuckler features, less resources burnt to get similar levels of damage.
Couldn't they just errata assassin to make sneak attack dice double on crit? Yeah, it's a nerf to rogue, and also spellcasters, but rogue will be fine without sneak attack crits, and spellcasters need as many nerfs as WotC can throw at them. I don't understand why this is a problem when crit fails on checks and saves aren't.
1.) They're not. Paladins are. Fighters only start pulling even late in the game, and only specific subclasses making use of specific feat combinations. if you're not doing GWM Power Blow cheese and adding a flat +10 to every attack, paladins are easily the most potent damage class. Barbarians get more damage per hit, but dingdong smites and combat versatility make them the better overall choice. There's a reason paladins are widely touted as the strongest class in D&D.
Paladins are not "widely touted as the strongest class in D&D." For example, in the linked video over 1500 folks voted and Fighters came out on top. Paladins are a strong DPS class but far from the consensus strongest.
The issue with nerfing criticals is that it is a nerf to fun. Right now, natural 1s and natural 20s are unequivocal moments in the game. The story changes, sometimes radically. There's a reason the most watched actual play show took the name "Critical Role." Taking that away in order to...what? Solve a problem that most people don't see as a problem? Where is the sense in that?
What are the actual problems, again? The safest edition D&D has ever had is too dangerous at Level 1? Which in most campaigns lasts all of one game? And where PC deaths are still a rarity? That some folks perceive damage in some classes as too spikey? Most folks seem fine with the current system.
Averaging everyone out is boring. Paladins do less damage than barbarians and fighters on a typical round but occasionally get to explode. That's what makes them different and fun and helps them keep up. Rogues are squishy but can hit really hard if they are played carefully. That's interesting. Sure, there are some sub-par classes - monks, sorcerers, rangers - help them out. Make them better, don't make other classes worse.
And taking away unpredictable spike damage from monsters and NPCs via critical hits is a terrible, terrible idea for what really matters: the story. D&D is most fun when something unexpected happens and the players and DM have to improvise. A character who is suddenly, unexpectedly in imminent peril is great for the story. The occasional PC death is vital to the game. It has to have stakes and there is little enough danger to PCs as is.
At the end of the day, the natural 20 is the signature event of D&D. WotC nerfs that at their peril.
It's NOVA damage on a critical hit, even if that critical is random, the damage that gets inflicted is NOVA, and that burst combination of NOVA and CRITICAL is the PROBLEM.
I think you have a different definition of "nova" as most people. "Nova" implies you can do a ton of damage on command.
Regardless, the point still stands that the majority of damage in a fight is not coming from crits and a Paladin will always do more damage in a single fight dumping all of their slots irrespective of crits. Crit fishing is technically more efficient in a vacuum, but in practice there's no point in burning precious resources on easy fights (spending a slot just because it was a crit) and holding back on hard fights (waiting for crits that may not come instead of doing guaranteed damage when it counts.)
repeat after me, CRITICAL HITS ARE NOT DOUBLE DAMAGE.
I already said they're not: "In practice crits do less than double damage because numerical bonuses don't get doubled." I simplify it to double because 1) it's close enough, 2) it's double in some cases (spells), and 3) if it's not a problem with double damage it's certainly not a problem with less than double damage.
Also your Maths is bad if you were working from it that way, since you forgot to account for misses. If you miss 35% of the time, normal damage 60% of the time and critical damage 5% of the time, and you were assuming critical hits as literally double damage, the number you'd get is 8.3%, not 5%. Which I am still not entirely sure is the accurate number either (it's late here), going by those assumptions.
We're just looking at the same phenomenon from different angles. The increase relative to no crits is 7.69% by my math (0.7/0.65), but the absolute increase is always 5% of your normal damage.
If you still don't get what I'm hinting at here, it's that Paladin are capable of converting a much higher damage increase out of a critical hit than a fighter. However looking at it as a DPR increase still misses the biggest issue with smite critical hits anyway.
I understand that. I'm saying that's not how the ability is used in the real world and that's not the situation where it causes problems at the table.
I'll cut the chase. Even if Divine Smite crits were a problem, changing the crit rules in a way that makes them worthless for magic weapons and Sneak Attacks and spell attacks is a stupid way to fix it. Literally all of the problems with Divine Smite go away if they limited it to once per turn when you take the Attack action. Paladins would no longer be able to nova, they wouldn't have an incentive to go TWF or Polearm Master for extra hits, and they wouldn't have crazy strong opportunity attacks. In fact, I'd argue they shouldn't have given Paladins Divine Smite at all. It's not only OP, but redundant with Smite spells. The game would've been better off if they'd given Paladins a different class feature at that level.
Couldn't they just errata assassin to make sneak attack dice double on crit? Yeah, it's a nerf to rogue, and also spellcasters, but rogue will be fine without sneak attack crits, and spellcasters need as many nerfs as WotC can throw at them. I don't understand why this is a problem when crit fails on checks and saves aren't.
To be fair I don't think anyone's saying the changes to checks and fails aren't problems too. There's no reason why we have to pick only 1 rule to fix.
Honestly, they should just make class specific Crit Rules. Like when this class lands a crit X happens. I suppose it makes things a little more complex but it would allow for the benefit "the crit experience" to exist for everyone. Although personally, I think this new rule is fine. The numbers check out to be quite balanced.
Still I think spell casters crying about losing crits is dumb. Its like a healer in an MMO complaining they can't out damage a dedicated DPS. They casters can do way more beyond just doing damage, well beyond what a martial class could do. I ran the numbers and there is no way a martial class could compete with damage against casters with crit. Using the new rules the damage is actually really balanced. As much as people cry about rogues losing it for their sneak attack their damage still surpasses other martial classes unless you assume the fighter or barbarian crit on every hit.
1.) They're not. Paladins are. Fighters only start pulling even late in the game, and only specific subclasses making use of specific feat combinations. if you're not doing GWM Power Blow cheese and adding a flat +10 to every attack, paladins are easily the most potent damage class. Barbarians get more damage per hit, but dingdong smites and combat versatility make them the better overall choice. There's a reason paladins are widely touted as the strongest class in D&D.
Paladins are not "widely touted as the strongest class in D&D." For example, in the linked video over 1500 folks voted and Fighters came out on top. Paladins are a strong DPS class but far from the consensus strongest.
The issue with nerfing criticals is that it is a nerf to fun. Right now, natural 1s and natural 20s are unequivocal moments in the game. The story changes, sometimes radically. There's a reason the most watched actual play show took the name "Critical Role." Taking that away in order to...what? Solve a problem that most people don't see as a problem? Where is the sense in that?
What are the actual problems, again? The safest edition D&D has ever had is too dangerous at Level 1? Which in most campaigns lasts all of one game? And where PC deaths are still a rarity? That some folks perceive damage in some classes as too spikey? Most folks seem fine with the current system.
Averaging everyone out is boring. Paladins do less damage than barbarians and fighters on a typical round but occasionally get to explode. That's what makes them different and fun and helps them keep up. Rogues are squishy but can hit really hard if they are played carefully. That's interesting. Sure, there are some sub-par classes - monks, sorcerers, rangers - help them out. Make them better, don't make other classes worse.
And taking away unpredictable spike damage from monsters and NPCs via critical hits is a terrible, terrible idea for what really matters: the story. D&D is most fun when something unexpected happens and the players and DM have to improvise. A character who is suddenly, unexpectedly in imminent peril is great for the story. The occasional PC death is vital to the game. It has to have stakes and there is little enough danger to PCs as is.
At the end of the day, the natural 20 is the signature event of D&D. WotC nerfs that at their peril.
There is not one single sensible party out there who, given the option between a paladin and a fighter of equal level and competence, would take the fighter. Even taking into account Feat Cheese, the paladin is just more valuable in so many cases - and Divine Smite keeps up with Feat Cheese just fine while the paladin has Smite ammo.
Crits are still guaranteed hits that deal extra damage for free, without any resource expenditure. People need to get over this idea that every single nat 20 needs to involve fifteen minutes of impromptu breakdancing and intense drinking, that every single 20 Tells A Story. Most 20s, especially in combat, do nothing of the sort. They're still great to get, you still see people yelling "YEAH!" when the 20 pops up, but nobody needs to jump up on the table and start stomping all over the game - literally - when they get a 20 because they're just so overcome with the urge to celebrate. Moments worth remembering and celebrating will happen - those are usually saves or ability checks that allow someone to pull off the nigh impossible or survive something truly lethal by the skin of their teeth, attacks are rarely so special. And paladins being able to deal something like quintuple-plus damage on a crit NEEDS TO GO AWAY. As Coder said, paladins being able to dump their entire mana pool to deal five rounds' worth of damage in a single round is Not Helpful for encounter balancing.
When monsters routinely throw 6+ dice on any given attack, watching that monster crit basically means a PC dies. End of story. Wizards has, of late, been giving monsters incredibly potent baseline attacks and absolutely devastating Recharge powers. I approve of that direction. The variance people want is baked in when a critter throws 6d10 as its baseline attack - rolling particularly well on 6d10 is functionally identical to "critting", and when a recharge power has an average damage number in the triple digits it does not need to crit. Imagine if a dragon's breath weapon could crit, and the DM gets to roll 40d6 damage for a YOUNG DRAGON's breath attack. That's not a High Tension moment where the party needs to adapt and overcome - that's a moment where a bunch of guys who maybe have 60HP tops take an average of 140 damage and fall over dead from Massive Damage. It's not fun, it's not good gameplay. There's a reason nearly every other game in existence has huge boss threats telegraph their biggest moves, but in D&D a dragon can simply hose down the party with a breath attack on the first turn of initiative and kill everyone with critical damage without a single player getting to do a single thing about it.
Much fun. Such tension. Wow.
The signature event of D&D is playing D&D. People need to calm their shit over nat 20s and stop dancing on the bar every time one happens, just like DMs need to stop breaking players' shit every time somebody rolls a nat 1. Those awesome moments where someone pulls off the nearly impossible will still happen, and maybe if nat 20s don't automatically cast Greater Wish every single f@#$ing time, people can enjoy the entire experience instead of just checking out any time a nat 20 hasn't been rolled in the last six minutes.
The signature event of D&D is playing D&D. People need to calm their shit over nat 20s and stop dancing on the bar every time one happens, just like DMs need to stop breaking players' shit every time somebody rolls a nat 1. Those awesome moments where someone pulls off the nearly impossible will still happen, and maybe if nat 20s don't automatically cast Greater Wish every single f@#$ing time, people can enjoy the entire experience instead of just checking out any time a nat 20 hasn't been rolled in the last six minutes.
I agree. It makes people exploit a system too. Having people find ways to multiclass to get the highest possible chance for a critical just to deal insane damage is just weird. It cuts all strategy out of a difficult fight too, turning it into, "survive long enough for the Rogue or Paladin to deal an insane crit strike and 1 shot the boss. Crits should be icing on the cake, not the entire desert. an "aww cool" moment, rather than the defining moment of a fight. It also sucks for a narrative perspective too. The build up to this big bad guy only to have someone run up and 1 shot it. Sure they cheer but if 1 shotting enemies was what everyone wanted why not give all the bosses low hit points.
I ran the numbers and a Dual Longsword Wielding Barbarian (with Feat) would have to crit on every attack just to get over 100 damage (no modifiers) when an Assassin Rogue can land 1 sneak attack crit and do more damage (150+). I don't have experience with paladins so I haven't run their numbers.
The issue with Spell Caster Crits, even on Cantrips only is that it makes using Cantrips potentially superior (DPS) than higher level spells. Since a single attack would do 8d10 with Firebolt at lvl 17. 44 damage. That's compared to Finger of death 62 damage but also requires a save. For comparison a Fighter would do about 40 damage across all 4 attacks dual wielding longswords and getting 1 crit. (lvl 20) A fighter, taking Magic Initiate, could potentially do 44x4 damage on a turn. throw in an action surge that's another 44x4. That';s 352 damage. Obviously that's an impossible number of criticals in a row but just demonstrating how spell (even cantrip) critical scales. I'm not super experienced with such a tactic so I may have overlooked something. Swap Firebolt with Eldritch Blast and throw in an invocation and you'll jack it up further. Also that is without any modifiers. Not sure how all that applies.
I think with Eldritch Blast (Spell Sniper Feat) Agonizing Blast (Eldritch Adept) you could bring that up to 432 damage (all crits) Technically this would be harder than the fireball since you'd have to crit 32 times in a row. But we're already talking impossible crits. Although if the fighter takes Champion it would crit on an 18 so it wouldn't be as hard as only 20s, still impossible.
I've seen no compelling reason to change how critical hits work. This is a solution looking for a problem. GMs know they exist for both players and monsters, so they have the capability to take their effects into account. As a GM running for new and experienced players, critical hits have never been a problem.
All the damage dice should continue to be doubled. This includes for magic attacks. New and old players alike enjoy a good critical regardless of class. Crits are fun. Don't take away that fun.
If one believes low level characters dying is an issue, monster critical hits and damage aren't the problem. The problem is the instant death/massive damage rule. Remove that rule, critical hits have the impact they should, without outright killing PCs. They are still vulnerable at zero hit points and appropriately raises the tension of a scene.
The low level crit problem is a GM problem. It always has been. GMs that don't/can't do math or can't be bothered to do math walk into this problem. If you want players running low level characters to have fun, do math. It's not big math, it's just how many hits by a creature will it take to put down a PC? Will a critical take out any one PC? How many creatures are in the encounter?
Additionally, lowering damage extends game time in combat. I don't want or need an hour long slog in an encounter if a lucky critical shows up and kills the tough creature in an encounter. There is generally a chain of events the players put together that shape the narrative around that critical as an exciting part of the plan. It arguably is.
Lastly, allowing magic types to get criticals on spell attacks that work like melee and ranged attacks make the rules for combat seamless. They feel like combat because they are integrated into combat in a recognized manner. Allowing magic critcals is fun and rewarding for the caster. Let them have that. The spells that work like melee and ranged combat are in line with weapons damage as is. They generally don't get additions (I'd argue they should INT, WIS, CHA by caster type for all spells) so they are often behind martial damage dealers. A 1d10 is doing 5.5 damage average where a longbow is doing 1d8+2 or 3 so they are either 6.5 or 7.5 average. When all a caster has left is a cantrip the least you can do is give them a goddamn critical hit chance.
It's NOVA damage on a critical hit, even if that critical is random, the damage that gets inflicted is NOVA, and that burst combination of NOVA and CRITICAL is the PROBLEM.
I think you have a different definition of "nova" as most people. "Nova" implies you can do a ton of damage on command.
Regardless, the point still stands that the majority of damage in a fight is not coming from crits and a Paladin will always do more damage in a single fight dumping all of their slots irrespective of crits. Crit fishing is technically more efficient in a vacuum, but in practice there's no point in burning precious resources on easy fights (spending a slot just because it was a crit) and holding back on hard fights (waiting for crits that may not come instead of doing guaranteed damage when it counts.
Divine Smite is Nova it is a lot of damage and it's on command, it also burns resources, stack it with a smite spell for more fun. Crit fishing isn't just waiting for a 5% chance, a crit fisher can potentially be pushing as high as a 19% chance to critical, when you crit on a 19 and have advantage. A vengeance Paladin/Hexblade Warlock can actually be pushing that.
repeat after me, CRITICAL HITS ARE NOT DOUBLE DAMAGE.
I already said they're not: "In practice crits do less than double damage because numerical bonuses don't get doubled." I simplify it to double because 1) it's close enough, 2) it's double in some cases (spells), and 3) if it's not a problem with double damage it's certainly not a problem with less than double damage.
I literally did the Maths, the fighter in that scenario only got a less than 50% increase in damage while the Paladin was around a 90% increase, because Divine Smite warps the numbers that much. Yes most spells are essentially double.
Also your Maths is bad if you were working from it that way, since you forgot to account for misses. If you miss 35% of the time, normal damage 60% of the time and critical damage 5% of the time, and you were assuming critical hits as literally double damage, the number you'd get is 8.3%, not 5%. Which I am still not entirely sure is the accurate number either (it's late here), going by those assumptions.
We're just looking at the same phenomenon from different angles. The increase relative to no crits is 7.69% by my math (0.7/0.65), but the absolute increase is always 5% of your normal damage.
No we aren't, you're just straight up wrong here, let's use some maths again, to show yet again, you're straight up wrong.
So lets stick with a 9th level paladin that misses 25% of the time, normal hits 60% of the time and critical hits 5% of the time, using a 3rd level divine smite on all (except misses obviously), in this scenario. Using a +1 weapon and having an ability mod of +4
the misses all do 0 damage
normal hits: 1d8+5+4d8 = ~27.5
critical hits: 2d8+5+ 8d8 = ~50
Same numbers we have seen before. So the average DPR can be calculated as 27.5 * .6 + 50 * 0.05=16.5 + 2.5 = 19.
Now we have our average DPR, times this by 20, 380. So assuming we have the expected 12 normal hits and 1 critical hit; The critical in full is 13.2% of incoming damage. The additional damage of a critical over a normal hit (22.5) is 5.9%. a normal hit is 7.2%. Funnily enough 5.9 + 7.2 = 13.1. the .1 difference is due to rounding. This has already broken your baseless assertion of 5%, you're just straight up wrong here.
If you still don't get what I'm hinting at here, it's that Paladin are capable of converting a much higher damage increase out of a critical hit than a fighter. However looking at it as a DPR increase still misses the biggest issue with smite critical hits anyway.
I understand that. I'm saying that's not how the ability is used in the real world and that's not the situation where it causes problems at the table.
I'll cut the chase. Even if Divine Smite crits were a problem, changing the crit rules in a way that makes them worthless for magic weapons and Sneak Attacks and spell attacks is a stupid way to fix it. Literally all of the problems with Divine Smite go away if they limited it to once per turn when you take the Attack action. Paladins would no longer be able to nova, they wouldn't have an incentive to go TWF or Polearm Master for extra hits, and they wouldn't have crazy strong opportunity attacks. In fact, I'd argue they shouldn't have given Paladins Divine Smite at all. It's not only OP, but redundant with Smite spells. The game would've been better off if they'd given Paladins a different class feature at that level.
Why do you say the ability isn't used like that in the real world? I've done it this way before. Just because you haven't doesn't mean others don't or can't make it work. I play with a bard that likes spells like faerie fire or bless, my Paladin is multiclassed into hexblade. Using this to the advantage, I can commonly get into situtations with a 19% critical chance. So why wouldn't I crit fish? Party composition helps a lot here and the bard likes to play support roles.
how much of that damage is now critical at that 19% chance to critical?
27.5 * .68 + 50 * 0.19=18.7+9.5 = 28.2
28.2*20 = 564
A single critical hit is now 8.9% of incoming damage, but we are expecting more than 1 in 20 hits to be critical... 19 in 100. We are now looking at 33.8% of average DPR to be coming from critical hits, of which, 15.2% of incoming DPR is coming from the extra damage of it being a critical hit over a normal hit.
As for Nerfing Divine Smite; Nerfing Divine smite ain't enough, Rogue's sneak attack is just as broken when it comes up. If a rogue is taking 1 attack a turn then there is a good chance that they'll sneak attack when they critical. also spells that do crit, when they do so, usually go explosive. I mean a bladesinger using greenflame blade on a critical can do quiet a lot of damage, but that isn't as common. Divine Smite and Sneak Attack are the main offenders because those are the two that occur the most often given they are class features as opposed to subclass features like eldritch smite or a bladesingers extra attack cantrip usage.
how much of that damage is now critical at that 19% chance to critical?
27.5 * .68 + 50 * 0.19=18.7+9.5 = 28.2
28.2*20 = 564
A single critical hit is now 8.9% of incoming damage, but we are expecting more than 1 in 20 hits to be critical... 19 in 100. We are now looking at 33.8% of average DPR to be coming from critical hits, of which, 15.2% of incoming DPR is coming from the extra damage of it being a critical hit over a normal hit.
As for Nerfing Divine Smite; Nerfing Divine smite ain't enough, Rogue's sneak attack is just as broken when it comes up. If a rogue is taking 1 attack a turn then there is a good chance that they'll sneak attack when they critical. also spells that do crit, when they do so, usually go explosive. I mean a bladesinger using greenflame blade on a critical can do quiet a lot of damage, but that isn't as common. Divine Smite and Sneak Attack are the main offenders because those are the two that occur the most often given they are class features as opposed to subclass features like eldritch smite or a bladesingers extra attack cantrip usage.
Let me help with all this math debate Here is a formula to punch into Excel: =SUM(( ( sides + 1) / 2 )*number of dice) so 4d8 would be =SUM(( ( 8 + 1) / 2 )*4)
Also the formula for calculating odds of critical hits would be =SUM(1-((0.95)^number of dice rolled)) #REMEMBER attacking with advantage means you'll be rolling twice and taking the larger, so a Barbarian with Rage would be rolling twice per attack i.e. =SUM(1-((0.95)^2)). If you want to measure the total damage including potential criticals it would more or less even out to average regardless, since a 20 is an extra roll and a 1 is no roll. Beyond that you'd have to stack it up against specific AC with modifiers etc, which is more than I care to do.
As for mentions of "double damage" Alternatively, since often people are using average damage in their calculations double that would be the same as just rolling again, since its still the average. Same with if they are talking about max potential damage.
how much of that damage is now critical at that 19% chance to critical?
27.5 * .68 + 50 * 0.19=18.7+9.5 = 28.2
28.2*20 = 564
A single critical hit is now 8.9% of incoming damage, but we are expecting more than 1 in 20 hits to be critical... 19 in 100. We are now looking at 33.8% of average DPR to be coming from critical hits, of which, 15.2% of incoming DPR is coming from the extra damage of it being a critical hit over a normal hit.
As for Nerfing Divine Smite; Nerfing Divine smite ain't enough, Rogue's sneak attack is just as broken when it comes up. If a rogue is taking 1 attack a turn then there is a good chance that they'll sneak attack when they critical. also spells that do crit, when they do so, usually go explosive. I mean a bladesinger using greenflame blade on a critical can do quiet a lot of damage, but that isn't as common. Divine Smite and Sneak Attack are the main offenders because those are the two that occur the most often given they are class features as opposed to subclass features like eldritch smite or a bladesingers extra attack cantrip usage.
Let me help with all this math debate Here is a formula to punch into Excel: =SUM(( ( sides + 1) / 2 )*number of dice) so 4d8 would be =SUM(( ( 8 + 1) / 2 )*4)
Also the formula for calculating odds of critical hits would be =SUM(1-((0.95)^number of dice rolled)) #REMEMBER attacking with advantage means you'll be rolling twice and taking the larger, so a Barbarian with Rage would be rolling twice per attack i.e. =SUM(1-((0.95)^2)). If you want to measure the total damage including potential criticals it would more or less even out to average regardless, since a 20 is an extra roll and a 1 is no roll. Beyond that you'd have to stack it up against specific AC with modifiers etc, which is more than I care to do.
As for mentions of "double damage" Alternatively, since often people are using average damage in their calculations double that would be the same as just rolling again, since its still the average. Same with if they are talking about max potential damage.
That would probably be more sensible... but I only have LibreOffice (needs a bit more manual work), using a slightly modified formula [=SUM(1-((0.05*(C1 - 1))^B3))]
roll for critical
20
19
18
17
nice of dice rolled
1
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
2
9.75%
19.00%
27.75%
36.00%
3
14.26%
27.10%
38.59%
48.80%
So apparently a Champion with Elvish accuracy can get up to a whooping 48.8% chance to critical, crazy.
I am not a native English speaker / writer so sorry for my mistakes in advance.
I have to see all rules and classes together to form a final opinion, but at first glance the new crit rule's intended way is supported by me with some differencies:
Monsters and NPC-s should crit also. Rolling 20 should not give inspiration die. As DM I only give inspiration for enjoyable moments, and not for luck. Also I am not weakening the new human race already with this rule + some classes has more chance to roll 20 in a round, so this is not okay. With the new rule, the crit dmg is too random for me. Crit dices always laughing on the table to the throwers face with less damage than a normal attack... I would give the max weapon dmg + roll the weapon dmg, so the result at least higher with 1 dmg than a normal attack's max dmg.
I am a big supporter of the balancing; Paladin divine smite basicly a very strong option without crit, and paladin also gets a lot of class feats which are far better choices than any PHB feat what anybody can take. Paladin compared to Fighers - Class feats and 5 vs 7 feats on the whole career - are a much much stronger choice if we see the pure efficiency, and not counting the role play where paladin has very serious restrictions sometimes. For rogue sneak attack: I think they should keep the possibility to crit. One chance to attack in a round is not a lot, and need to get to be in advantage situation. I would not weakening them. The rogue class is fine as they are now. For spells dmg I would not allow crit because spells usually has high dicepools, and the spells overall efficiency are much higher than any weapon attack. With easy tricks you can cast spells twice in a round to desintegrate or neutralize all enemy at once to end all DM-s story.
I am not a native English speaker / writer so sorry for my mistakes in advance.
I have to see all rules and classes together to form a final opinion, but at first glance the new crit rule's intended way is supported by me with some differencies:
Monsters and NPC-s should crit also. Rolling 20 should not give inspiration die. As DM I only give inspiration for enjoyable moments, and not for luck. Also I am not weakening the new human race already with this rule + some classes has more chance to roll 20 in a round, so this is not okay. With the new rule, the crit dmg is too random for me. Crit dices always laughing on the table to the throwers face with less damage than a normal attack... I would give the max weapon dmg + roll the weapon dmg, so the result at least higher with 1 dmg than a normal attack's max dmg.
I am a big supporter of the balancing; Paladin divine smite basicly a very strong option without crit, and paladin also gets a lot of class feats which are far better choices than any PHB feat what anybody can take. Paladin compared to Fighers - Class feats and 5 vs 7 feats on the whole career - are a much much stronger choice if we see the pure efficiency, and not counting the role play where paladin has very serious restrictions sometimes. For rogue sneak attack: I think they should keep the possibility to crit. One chance to attack in a round is not a lot, and need to get to be in advantage situation. I would not weakening them. The rogue class is fine as they are now. For spells dmg I would not allow crit because spells usually has high dicepools, and the spells overall efficiency are much higher than any weapon attack. With easy tricks you can cast spells twice in a round to desintegrate or neutralize all enemy at once to end all DM-s story.
+1 to the bold part. The biggest issue with crits is being able to do less damage than normal attacks.
At this point we know very little about crits and how they will work in the bigger picture of the game beyond the crit rule:
Weapons and Unarmed Strikes* have a special feature for player characters: Critical Hits. If a player character rolls a 20 for an attack roll with a Weapon or an Unarmed Strike, the attack is also a Critical Hit, which means it deals extra damage to the target; you roll the damage dice of the Weapon or Unarmed Strike a second time and add the second roll as extra damage to the target. For example, a Mace deals Bludgeoning Damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier. If you score a Critical Hit with the Mace, it instead deals 2d6 + your Strength modifier. If your Weapon or Unarmed Strike has no damage dice, it deals no extra damage on a Critical Hit.
What are the damage dice of a weapon? I assume that for a great sword the damage dice is 2d6 as they talk about weapon dice or do they intend for a greatsword to do one aditional d6 damage ?
If damage dice can mean multiple dice like with the greatsword (2d6) will there be class abilities that can modify your weapon damage dice? We all assume sneak will not work but it might be worded as you adding a number of d6 to your weapon damage dice, if so it can crit.
I agree with you. Badly written rules cause these arguments, like in Shadowrun 5e. Should be more clear. But I assume the damage dice of the weapon is the full damage of the weapon and it should be. Easier and clearer. With adding only one die is nonsense. A great sword making less damage at critical compare to other two handed weapons like great axe is not okay 3D6 vs 2D12. But thats just one example.
DnD players: spellcasters outclass martials in everything, and can deal insane amounts of damage, this needs to be balanced.
Same DnD players: WTF where are my spell crits, I want to do all the damage!
What people seem to be missing is that this is also an big nerf to martial damage as well.
Now a weapon crit is going to just do 1 extra weapon die, which is only an average of 2.5 to 6.5 damage (7 on a great sword). This isn't anything that is going to shift the momentum in a combat anymore and is only slightly less disappointing as doing no extra damage at all.
DnD players: spellcasters outclass martials in everything, and can deal insane amounts of damage, this needs to be balanced.
Same DnD players: WTF where are my spell crits, I want to do all the damage!
What people seem to be missing is that this is also an big nerf to martial damage as well.
Now a weapon crit is going to just do 1 extra weapon die, which is only an average of 2.5 to 6.5 damage (7 on a great sword). This isn't anything that is going to shift the momentum in a combat anymore and is only slightly less disappointing as doing no extra damage at all.
"If a player character rolls a 20 for an attack roll with a Weapon or an Unarmed Strike, the attack is also a Critical Hit, which means it deals extra damage to the target; you roll the damage dice of the Weapon or Unarmed Strike a second time and add the second roll as extra damage to the target."
Nothing changed in the basic crit mechanics for martials; you still roll all the weapon damage dice, 2d6 turn into 4d6.
Well it's a great opportunity to rework the classes, give the martial characters a few new ways to inflict damage and be slightly more resilient against on the old saving throws.
I'd say it's not about the damage really - it's about versatility and resources. Monk, for instance, has to really struggle with ki shortage until mid-levels. So many fun features use ki, you can burn through them in first few rounds and be reduced to just punching the enemy like a weaker fighter.
I believe that another reason for the changes on Crits is that they are providing more chances to attack with advantage with the new inspiration rules, now with the old rules you would do a lot more dmg with the more frequent Crits. Hence the balance ?
Ignore overall damage, it doesn't even matter, what matters is the NOVA damage on a critical where Paladin and Rogue do too much, so die on that hill, you'll still be wrong because you're looking at the wrong area; Nova is what is important to this discussion, not average DPR. Also rolling a D20 isn't the same thing as 5% average more DPR, not sure where you got that from, there is a lot of factors for determining it, for classes like fighter it might be around 5% but for classes like Paladin and Rogue it'd be significantly higher than 5% when smite or sneak attack goes off of that attack. I can only imagine it comes from critical hits being a 5% chance on a normal D20 roll but even that is flawed, some classes might perform actions or spells that give you advantage which would increase that up to a 9.75% to critical during those situtations.
Anyways, smite itself isn't a real issue for normal attacks, Paladin can't smite as often as you make out for quiet a while, when Paladin first gets Divine smite they only have 2 1st level spell slots, this is easily beaten out by battle master fighter at this level, Barbarians still get extra damage during rage. Ironically for Paladin, during 1st tier of play, casting bless can actually increase the average DPR of the party more than doing an attack and divine smite, it changes at level 5 when paladin gets extra attack tho since it's more chance to crit fish and they get two 2nd level spell slots there, however without crit fishing, it's actually not really enough to out Nova Fighter, it requires the crit fish to get there. Paladin do have the most power in crit fishing but at level 5, assuming you land both attacks, it'd adding 6d8(~27 damage) damage at a cost of two spell slots, however with a ~65% chance to hit, that isn't even guaranteed. If you critical one of the two hits, you can push 9d8 of smite damage...
It's around level 9 (which a significant number of campaigns don't even hit) that Divine Smite starts to get broken and mostly due to the crit fish. Since with 3rd level spell slots, a divine smite does 4d8, going to 8d8 (~36) on a critical. Then at level 11 Paladin gets IDS which adds another 1d8 or 2d8 on a critical.
So comparing to fighter. Well battle master can out-do paladin at levels 1-4 no problem, something like trip attack to add a 1d8 damage if you hit or precision attack to hit more often and you can action surge on a round to get an extra attack, superiority dice and action surge both recharge on short rests. Short rests and long rests tend to get used badly in a lot of campaigns, which makes paladin seem stronger than it really is and warlock weaker than it really is. Basically you shouldn't be able to long rest -> battle -> long rest -> battle -> long rest in a cave/dungeon, but a lot of DMs allow it despite it breaking game balance.
So assuming 2 short rests a day, fighter gets up to 12 d8s of extra damage, compared to paladin's mere 4 d8s at level 2 or 6 d8s at levels 3 & 4. Plus fighter gets action surge. At levels 5 & 6 paladin gets a dramatic boost to being worth around 14 d8s worth of damage. Fighter still has action surge and both classes get extra attack, so basically the same. At level 7 & 8 Paladin gets a boost up to around 17 d8s but fighter also gets up to 15 d8s. It's level 9 when Paladin finally gets the 3rd level slots and potentially up to 25 d8s worth of smite damage that they pull away, yet Paladin gets touted as higher damage even before level 9, and that is due to crit fishing, not smite as a feat. From level 9 to around 15, Paladin is by far one of, if not the highest damage output class on a single target, for sure but again those are levels that aren't even relevant to most campaigns in the first place.
Sure at level 9 there is an argument that Paladin pulls away in regards to NOVA damage, but it really is the crits that cause this.
It's not nova if it only happens randomly 5-10% of the time.
It's not that complicated. If 5% of the time you do double damage, that's the same as doing 5% more damage on average. In practice crits do less than double damage because numerical bonuses don't get doubled.
Encounters last for multiple rounds, each of which contains multiple attacks from multiple characters. Only 5% of those are normally crits. For every random burst of double damage there's 19 others that do normal damage. That goes for the Rogue too. And I'm not even including the fireballs and the likes that can't crit at all. No matter how you look at it, at least 90% of the damage in a fight is not coming from crits and paladin players don't have a magical ability to make crits happen at their convenience. On any given fight they *might* get 1 crit, but they can get multiple smites in a single round if they wish. A crit just means getting a freebie every once in a while.
Multiclassing lets them get spell slots faster, and in practice they probably won't exclusively crit fish because it's smarter to do big damage on high stakes fights. Paladin X/Hexblade 2 and Bladesinger X/Paladin 2 are two popular combos that can smite more often than a single-classed paladin, plus additional benefits.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
It's NOVA damage on a critical hit, even if that critical is random, the damage that gets inflicted is NOVA, and that burst combination of NOVA and CRITICAL is the PROBLEM.
repeat after me, CRITICAL HITS ARE NOT DOUBLE DAMAGE. Also your Maths is bad if you were working from it that way, since you forgot to account for misses. If you miss 35% of the time, normal damage 60% of the time and critical damage 5% of the time, and you were assuming critical hits as literally double damage, the number you'd get is 8.3%, not 5%. Which I am still not entirely sure is the accurate number either (it's late here), going by those assumptions.
But to make you understand more, only dice rolls are doubled. So for a Paladin, assuming they have a +1 weapon, a strength MOD of +4 and used a long sword and a 3rd level divine smite.
normal hit average DPR can be calculated as: 4+1+1d8+4d8 = ~27.5
critical hit average DPR can be calculated as: 4+1+2d8+8d8 = ~50
50 is not double 27.5. the normal hit does around 55% the damage of the critical
Now if we went to a fighter with the same weapon and MOD with no divine smites or extra damage sources...
normal hit average DPR can be calculated as: 4+1+1d8 = ~9.5
critical hit average DPR can be calculated as: 4+1+2d8 = ~14
the normal hit does around 68% the damage of the critical, that is to say the damage increase is less than 50% on average.
If you still don't get what I'm hinting at here, it's that Paladin are capable of converting a much higher damage increase out of a critical hit than a fighter. However looking at it as a DPR increase still misses the biggest issue with smite critical hits anyway.
Hexblade does increase critical hits, but not as well as the champion sub-class from fighter does. The reason Paladins prefer hexblade is not hexblade's curse, it's hex warrior, which turns Paladin from MAD to SAD. Also with a 3 level dip you get 2 2nd level slots that are regained on a short rest, which is a heck of a lot more smite power, by level 5 you can divine smite AND eldritch smite on the same attack. But if you were looking for the critical on 19, champion is technically better, since it applies to all attacks, not just some attacks.
Also sure, a bladesinger/paladin can divine smite more often but that's a 2 class level dip to get there also Divine smite has a damage cap 5d8. So once you get above 4th level spell slots, while you can still get them, you're burning them for no real gain. Also to do this, you either have to wait on getting the 2 level dip or you have to push back getting extra attack by 2 levels which is actually quiet significant for bladesinger since extra attack comes in at level 6 and has an extra feature of being able to swap an attack for a cantrip, which works great with green-flame blade or booming blade, which as cantrips, don't even burn resources, then past level 6, at level 8 you'd get greater invisibility which is great for bladesinger, but nope, now wait til level 10. Overall I just don't see this bladesinger/2 paladin being the greatest. Actually I'd say bladesinger/3 swashbuckler would be way better, sneak attack on a booming blade and run away from the guy you just booming bladed who can't fight back (Opportunity Attack) due to the swashbuckler features, less resources burnt to get similar levels of damage.
Couldn't they just errata assassin to make sneak attack dice double on crit? Yeah, it's a nerf to rogue, and also spellcasters, but rogue will be fine without sneak attack crits, and spellcasters need as many nerfs as WotC can throw at them. I don't understand why this is a problem when crit fails on checks and saves aren't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qGkoxo3ktI
Paladins are not "widely touted as the strongest class in D&D." For example, in the linked video over 1500 folks voted and Fighters came out on top. Paladins are a strong DPS class but far from the consensus strongest.
The issue with nerfing criticals is that it is a nerf to fun. Right now, natural 1s and natural 20s are unequivocal moments in the game. The story changes, sometimes radically. There's a reason the most watched actual play show took the name "Critical Role." Taking that away in order to...what? Solve a problem that most people don't see as a problem? Where is the sense in that?
What are the actual problems, again? The safest edition D&D has ever had is too dangerous at Level 1? Which in most campaigns lasts all of one game? And where PC deaths are still a rarity? That some folks perceive damage in some classes as too spikey? Most folks seem fine with the current system.
Averaging everyone out is boring. Paladins do less damage than barbarians and fighters on a typical round but occasionally get to explode. That's what makes them different and fun and helps them keep up. Rogues are squishy but can hit really hard if they are played carefully. That's interesting. Sure, there are some sub-par classes - monks, sorcerers, rangers - help them out. Make them better, don't make other classes worse.
And taking away unpredictable spike damage from monsters and NPCs via critical hits is a terrible, terrible idea for what really matters: the story. D&D is most fun when something unexpected happens and the players and DM have to improvise. A character who is suddenly, unexpectedly in imminent peril is great for the story. The occasional PC death is vital to the game. It has to have stakes and there is little enough danger to PCs as is.
At the end of the day, the natural 20 is the signature event of D&D. WotC nerfs that at their peril.
I think you have a different definition of "nova" as most people. "Nova" implies you can do a ton of damage on command.
Regardless, the point still stands that the majority of damage in a fight is not coming from crits and a Paladin will always do more damage in a single fight dumping all of their slots irrespective of crits. Crit fishing is technically more efficient in a vacuum, but in practice there's no point in burning precious resources on easy fights (spending a slot just because it was a crit) and holding back on hard fights (waiting for crits that may not come instead of doing guaranteed damage when it counts.)
I already said they're not: "In practice crits do less than double damage because numerical bonuses don't get doubled." I simplify it to double because 1) it's close enough, 2) it's double in some cases (spells), and 3) if it's not a problem with double damage it's certainly not a problem with less than double damage.
We're just looking at the same phenomenon from different angles. The increase relative to no crits is 7.69% by my math (0.7/0.65), but the absolute increase is always 5% of your normal damage.
I'll cut the chase. Even if Divine Smite crits were a problem, changing the crit rules in a way that makes them worthless for magic weapons and Sneak Attacks and spell attacks is a stupid way to fix it. Literally all of the problems with Divine Smite go away if they limited it to once per turn when you take the Attack action. Paladins would no longer be able to nova, they wouldn't have an incentive to go TWF or Polearm Master for extra hits, and they wouldn't have crazy strong opportunity attacks. In fact, I'd argue they shouldn't have given Paladins Divine Smite at all. It's not only OP, but redundant with Smite spells. The game would've been better off if they'd given Paladins a different class feature at that level.
To be fair I don't think anyone's saying the changes to checks and fails aren't problems too. There's no reason why we have to pick only 1 rule to fix.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Honestly, they should just make class specific Crit Rules. Like when this class lands a crit X happens. I suppose it makes things a little more complex but it would allow for the benefit "the crit experience" to exist for everyone. Although personally, I think this new rule is fine. The numbers check out to be quite balanced.
Still I think spell casters crying about losing crits is dumb. Its like a healer in an MMO complaining they can't out damage a dedicated DPS. They casters can do way more beyond just doing damage, well beyond what a martial class could do.
I ran the numbers and there is no way a martial class could compete with damage against casters with crit.
Using the new rules the damage is actually really balanced. As much as people cry about rogues losing it for their sneak attack their damage still surpasses other martial classes unless you assume the fighter or barbarian crit on every hit.
There is not one single sensible party out there who, given the option between a paladin and a fighter of equal level and competence, would take the fighter. Even taking into account Feat Cheese, the paladin is just more valuable in so many cases - and Divine Smite keeps up with Feat Cheese just fine while the paladin has Smite ammo.
Crits are still guaranteed hits that deal extra damage for free, without any resource expenditure. People need to get over this idea that every single nat 20 needs to involve fifteen minutes of impromptu breakdancing and intense drinking, that every single 20 Tells A Story. Most 20s, especially in combat, do nothing of the sort. They're still great to get, you still see people yelling "YEAH!" when the 20 pops up, but nobody needs to jump up on the table and start stomping all over the game - literally - when they get a 20 because they're just so overcome with the urge to celebrate. Moments worth remembering and celebrating will happen - those are usually saves or ability checks that allow someone to pull off the nigh impossible or survive something truly lethal by the skin of their teeth, attacks are rarely so special. And paladins being able to deal something like quintuple-plus damage on a crit NEEDS TO GO AWAY. As Coder said, paladins being able to dump their entire mana pool to deal five rounds' worth of damage in a single round is Not Helpful for encounter balancing.
When monsters routinely throw 6+ dice on any given attack, watching that monster crit basically means a PC dies. End of story. Wizards has, of late, been giving monsters incredibly potent baseline attacks and absolutely devastating Recharge powers. I approve of that direction. The variance people want is baked in when a critter throws 6d10 as its baseline attack - rolling particularly well on 6d10 is functionally identical to "critting", and when a recharge power has an average damage number in the triple digits it does not need to crit. Imagine if a dragon's breath weapon could crit, and the DM gets to roll 40d6 damage for a YOUNG DRAGON's breath attack. That's not a High Tension moment where the party needs to adapt and overcome - that's a moment where a bunch of guys who maybe have 60HP tops take an average of 140 damage and fall over dead from Massive Damage. It's not fun, it's not good gameplay. There's a reason nearly every other game in existence has huge boss threats telegraph their biggest moves, but in D&D a dragon can simply hose down the party with a breath attack on the first turn of initiative and kill everyone with critical damage without a single player getting to do a single thing about it.
Much fun. Such tension. Wow.
The signature event of D&D is playing D&D. People need to calm their shit over nat 20s and stop dancing on the bar every time one happens, just like DMs need to stop breaking players' shit every time somebody rolls a nat 1. Those awesome moments where someone pulls off the nearly impossible will still happen, and maybe if nat 20s don't automatically cast Greater Wish every single f@#$ing time, people can enjoy the entire experience instead of just checking out any time a nat 20 hasn't been rolled in the last six minutes.
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I agree. It makes people exploit a system too. Having people find ways to multiclass to get the highest possible chance for a critical just to deal insane damage is just weird. It cuts all strategy out of a difficult fight too, turning it into, "survive long enough for the Rogue or Paladin to deal an insane crit strike and 1 shot the boss. Crits should be icing on the cake, not the entire desert. an "aww cool" moment, rather than the defining moment of a fight. It also sucks for a narrative perspective too. The build up to this big bad guy only to have someone run up and 1 shot it. Sure they cheer but if 1 shotting enemies was what everyone wanted why not give all the bosses low hit points.
I ran the numbers and a Dual Longsword Wielding Barbarian (with Feat) would have to crit on every attack just to get over 100 damage (no modifiers) when an Assassin Rogue can land 1 sneak attack crit and do more damage (150+). I don't have experience with paladins so I haven't run their numbers.
The issue with Spell Caster Crits, even on Cantrips only is that it makes using Cantrips potentially superior (DPS) than higher level spells. Since a single attack would do 8d10 with Firebolt at lvl 17. 44 damage. That's compared to Finger of death 62 damage but also requires a save. For comparison a Fighter would do about 40 damage across all 4 attacks dual wielding longswords and getting 1 crit. (lvl 20) A fighter, taking Magic Initiate, could potentially do 44x4 damage on a turn. throw in an action surge that's another 44x4. That';s 352 damage. Obviously that's an impossible number of criticals in a row but just demonstrating how spell (even cantrip) critical scales. I'm not super experienced with such a tactic so I may have overlooked something. Swap Firebolt with Eldritch Blast and throw in an invocation and you'll jack it up further. Also that is without any modifiers. Not sure how all that applies.
I think with Eldritch Blast (Spell Sniper Feat) Agonizing Blast (Eldritch Adept) you could bring that up to 432 damage (all crits) Technically this would be harder than the fireball since you'd have to crit 32 times in a row. But we're already talking impossible crits. Although if the fighter takes Champion it would crit on an 18 so it wouldn't be as hard as only 20s, still impossible.
I've seen no compelling reason to change how critical hits work. This is a solution looking for a problem. GMs know they exist for both players and monsters, so they have the capability to take their effects into account. As a GM running for new and experienced players, critical hits have never been a problem.
All the damage dice should continue to be doubled. This includes for magic attacks. New and old players alike enjoy a good critical regardless of class. Crits are fun. Don't take away that fun.
If one believes low level characters dying is an issue, monster critical hits and damage aren't the problem. The problem is the instant death/massive damage rule. Remove that rule, critical hits have the impact they should, without outright killing PCs. They are still vulnerable at zero hit points and appropriately raises the tension of a scene.
The low level crit problem is a GM problem. It always has been. GMs that don't/can't do math or can't be bothered to do math walk into this problem. If you want players running low level characters to have fun, do math. It's not big math, it's just how many hits by a creature will it take to put down a PC? Will a critical take out any one PC? How many creatures are in the encounter?
Additionally, lowering damage extends game time in combat. I don't want or need an hour long slog in an encounter if a lucky critical shows up and kills the tough creature in an encounter. There is generally a chain of events the players put together that shape the narrative around that critical as an exciting part of the plan. It arguably is.
Lastly, allowing magic types to get criticals on spell attacks that work like melee and ranged attacks make the rules for combat seamless. They feel like combat because they are integrated into combat in a recognized manner. Allowing magic critcals is fun and rewarding for the caster. Let them have that. The spells that work like melee and ranged combat are in line with weapons damage as is. They generally don't get additions (I'd argue they should INT, WIS, CHA by caster type for all spells) so they are often behind martial damage dealers. A 1d10 is doing 5.5 damage average where a longbow is doing 1d8+2 or 3 so they are either 6.5 or 7.5 average. When all a caster has left is a cantrip the least you can do is give them a goddamn critical hit chance.
As always, YMMV.
Divine Smite is Nova it is a lot of damage and it's on command, it also burns resources, stack it with a smite spell for more fun. Crit fishing isn't just waiting for a 5% chance, a crit fisher can potentially be pushing as high as a 19% chance to critical, when you crit on a 19 and have advantage. A vengeance Paladin/Hexblade Warlock can actually be pushing that.
I literally did the Maths, the fighter in that scenario only got a less than 50% increase in damage while the Paladin was around a 90% increase, because Divine Smite warps the numbers that much. Yes most spells are essentially double.
No we aren't, you're just straight up wrong here, let's use some maths again, to show yet again, you're straight up wrong.
So lets stick with a 9th level paladin that misses 25% of the time, normal hits 60% of the time and critical hits 5% of the time, using a 3rd level divine smite on all (except misses obviously), in this scenario. Using a +1 weapon and having an ability mod of +4
the misses all do 0 damage
normal hits: 1d8+5+4d8 = ~27.5
critical hits: 2d8+5+ 8d8 = ~50
Same numbers we have seen before. So the average DPR can be calculated as 27.5 * .6 + 50 * 0.05=16.5 + 2.5 = 19.
Now we have our average DPR, times this by 20, 380. So assuming we have the expected 12 normal hits and 1 critical hit; The critical in full is 13.2% of incoming damage. The additional damage of a critical over a normal hit (22.5) is 5.9%. a normal hit is 7.2%. Funnily enough 5.9 + 7.2 = 13.1. the .1 difference is due to rounding. This has already broken your baseless assertion of 5%, you're just straight up wrong here.
Why do you say the ability isn't used like that in the real world? I've done it this way before. Just because you haven't doesn't mean others don't or can't make it work. I play with a bard that likes spells like faerie fire or bless, my Paladin is multiclassed into hexblade. Using this to the advantage, I can commonly get into situtations with a 19% critical chance. So why wouldn't I crit fish? Party composition helps a lot here and the bard likes to play support roles.
how much of that damage is now critical at that 19% chance to critical?
27.5 * .68 + 50 * 0.19=18.7+9.5 = 28.2
28.2*20 = 564
A single critical hit is now 8.9% of incoming damage, but we are expecting more than 1 in 20 hits to be critical... 19 in 100. We are now looking at 33.8% of average DPR to be coming from critical hits, of which, 15.2% of incoming DPR is coming from the extra damage of it being a critical hit over a normal hit.
As for Nerfing Divine Smite; Nerfing Divine smite ain't enough, Rogue's sneak attack is just as broken when it comes up. If a rogue is taking 1 attack a turn then there is a good chance that they'll sneak attack when they critical. also spells that do crit, when they do so, usually go explosive. I mean a bladesinger using greenflame blade on a critical can do quiet a lot of damage, but that isn't as common. Divine Smite and Sneak Attack are the main offenders because those are the two that occur the most often given they are class features as opposed to subclass features like eldritch smite or a bladesingers extra attack cantrip usage.
Let me help with all this math debate
Here is a formula to punch into Excel:
=SUM(( ( sides + 1) / 2 )*number of dice)
so 4d8 would be =SUM(( ( 8 + 1) / 2 )*4)
Also the formula for calculating odds of critical hits would be
=SUM(1-((0.95)^number of dice rolled)) #REMEMBER attacking with advantage means you'll be rolling twice and taking the larger, so a Barbarian with Rage would be rolling twice per attack i.e. =SUM(1-((0.95)^2)). If you want to measure the total damage including potential criticals it would more or less even out to average regardless, since a 20 is an extra roll and a 1 is no roll. Beyond that you'd have to stack it up against specific AC with modifiers etc, which is more than I care to do.
As for mentions of "double damage" Alternatively, since often people are using average damage in their calculations double that would be the same as just rolling again, since its still the average. Same with if they are talking about max potential damage.
That would probably be more sensible... but I only have LibreOffice (needs a bit more manual work), using a slightly modified formula [=SUM(1-((0.05*(C1 - 1))^B3))]
So apparently a Champion with Elvish accuracy can get up to a whooping 48.8% chance to critical, crazy.
I am not a native English speaker / writer so sorry for my mistakes in advance.
I have to see all rules and classes together to form a final opinion, but at first glance the new crit rule's intended way is supported by me with some differencies:
Monsters and NPC-s should crit also.
Rolling 20 should not give inspiration die. As DM I only give inspiration for enjoyable moments, and not for luck. Also I am not weakening the new human race already with this rule + some classes has more chance to roll 20 in a round, so this is not okay.
With the new rule, the crit dmg is too random for me. Crit dices always laughing on the table to the throwers face with less damage than a normal attack... I would give the max weapon dmg + roll the weapon dmg, so the result at least higher with 1 dmg than a normal attack's max dmg.
I am a big supporter of the balancing;
Paladin divine smite basicly a very strong option without crit, and paladin also gets a lot of class feats which are far better choices than any PHB feat what anybody can take. Paladin compared to Fighers - Class feats and 5 vs 7 feats on the whole career - are a much much stronger choice if we see the pure efficiency, and not counting the role play where paladin has very serious restrictions sometimes.
For rogue sneak attack: I think they should keep the possibility to crit. One chance to attack in a round is not a lot, and need to get to be in advantage situation. I would not weakening them. The rogue class is fine as they are now.
For spells dmg I would not allow crit because spells usually has high dicepools, and the spells overall efficiency are much higher than any weapon attack. With easy tricks you can cast spells twice in a round to desintegrate or neutralize all enemy at once to end all DM-s story.
+1 to the bold part. The biggest issue with crits is being able to do less damage than normal attacks.
At this point we know very little about crits and how they will work in the bigger picture of the game beyond the crit rule:
Weapons and Unarmed Strikes* have a special feature for player characters: Critical Hits. If a player character rolls a 20 for an attack roll with a Weapon or an Unarmed Strike, the attack is also a Critical Hit, which means it deals extra damage to the target; you roll the damage dice of the Weapon or Unarmed Strike a second time and add the second roll as extra damage to the target. For example, a Mace deals Bludgeoning Damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier. If you score a Critical Hit with the Mace, it instead deals 2d6 + your Strength modifier. If your Weapon or Unarmed Strike has no damage dice, it deals no extra damage on a Critical Hit.
What are the damage dice of a weapon? I assume that for a great sword the damage dice is 2d6 as they talk about weapon dice or do they intend for a greatsword to do one aditional d6 damage ?
If damage dice can mean multiple dice like with the greatsword (2d6) will there be class abilities that can modify your weapon damage dice?
We all assume sneak will not work but it might be worded as you adding a number of d6 to your weapon damage dice, if so it can crit.
I agree with you. Badly written rules cause these arguments, like in Shadowrun 5e. Should be more clear.
But I assume the damage dice of the weapon is the full damage of the weapon and it should be. Easier and clearer.
With adding only one die is nonsense. A great sword making less damage at critical compare to other two handed weapons like great axe is not okay 3D6 vs 2D12. But thats just one example.
What people seem to be missing is that this is also an big nerf to martial damage as well.
Now a weapon crit is going to just do 1 extra weapon die, which is only an average of 2.5 to 6.5 damage (7 on a great sword). This isn't anything that is going to shift the momentum in a combat anymore and is only slightly less disappointing as doing no extra damage at all.
"If a player character rolls a 20 for an attack roll with a Weapon or an Unarmed Strike, the attack is also a Critical Hit, which means it deals extra damage to the target; you roll the damage dice of the Weapon or Unarmed Strike a second time and add the second roll as extra damage to the target."
Nothing changed in the basic crit mechanics for martials; you still roll all the weapon damage dice, 2d6 turn into 4d6.
I'd say it's not about the damage really - it's about versatility and resources. Monk, for instance, has to really struggle with ki shortage until mid-levels. So many fun features use ki, you can burn through them in first few rounds and be reduced to just punching the enemy like a weaker fighter.
I believe that another reason for the changes on Crits is that they are providing more chances to attack with advantage with the new inspiration rules, now with the old rules you would do a lot more dmg with the more frequent Crits. Hence the balance ?