Recently, the new UA had several critical changes to critting, among other things. One of those changes is that spells don't deal double damage on critical hits. This is quite a controversial topic, and I even started a thread about it. One of the ideas broached in a thread was that, if you won't let leveled spells crit, at least let cantrips. Cantrips are the caster's basic attack, just as martials have regular melee attacks (which are usually better) that don't expend resources; this is the spellcasters' variation of that -- especially for classes like warlocks. I have seen some arguments against this, so in this post I'm going to be weighing in with my two cents on each of those arguments.
"Allowing cantrips to crit encourages spellcasters to use cantrips over spell slots."
First off, crits are so rare -- they happen on 5% of rolls -- that they don't change the playing field between leveled spells and cantrips. You can't control when you crit (well, except for a few special features), and 95% of the time, the damage is going to be normal. If your whole reason for casting a cantrip over a higher leveled spell is the teeny possibility of getting higher damage, I have news for you: that's not good D&D tactics.
Second, the math I've seen to support this counterargument against cantrips critting leaves several things out. A Firebolt cast by a level 11 caster would average 34 damage on a critical hit. However, Fireball deals 28 damage; it's meant to hit multiple targets, so it's kind of pointless unless you hit at least two, which means 56 damage; even if the targets succeed on their saving throw, they still take half. In short, even when a Firebolt crits, it's not as good as a Fireball.
So, yeah, cantrips aren't replacing leveled spells any time soon.
“If you allow cantrips to crit, then they’ll outclass a martial’s base attack.”
First off, I don’t know how many times I can stress this, but a literal 5% chance of critting does not change much of anything.
Second, when comparing how much damage a cantrip can do to how much damage martials such as a fighter or a barbarian can do in a given turn, you’ll find out that martials can do a lot more damage.
The following table compares the popular and strong cantrip Firebolt and how much damage it does on average to how much damage a Barbarian and Fighter average at any given level — NOT counting critical hits for either.
(Note: this table assumes that the Barbarian and Fighter each have a Strength of 16 at level 1, improve it to 18 at level 4, and improve it to 20 at level 8. This table also assumes that the Barbarian uses a Greataxe and the Fighter uses a Greatsword. Please feel free to tell me if I’ve gotten anything wrong. For the sake of simplicity, this chart also assumes all attacks hit. Since Firebolt may have more damage invested in one attack roll and the martials have their damage spread out over multiple attacks, it mostly serves to balance out.)
Level
Firebolt Cantrip
Barbarian
Fighter
1-3
5.5
9.5
10
4
5.5
10.5
11
5-7
11
21
22
8-10
11
22
24
11-16
16.5
22
36
17-19
22
23
36
20
22
26
48
While the cantrip deals more damage on a crit, martials such as fighters have their crits spread out over more attacks, and overall it serves to balance out. On the rare occasion when, say, a level 20 Wizard crits on Firebolt, while a level 20 Fighter doesn’t get any crits, they’d still do more damage on average, assuming all their attacks hit.
Overall, though, as I keep saying, crits happen 5% of the time, and the table above applies 95% of the time. As the table shows, cantrips are not going to outclass martials’ base attacks any time soon, and crits won’t change that.
And because I know the first person who disagrees with this will effectively say that cantrips shouldn’t deal more damage than martials’ attacks, that’s exactly my point: They don’t. And since they don’t, it disproves this argument.
“Cantrips are way too swingy in combat: They can make the fight end well before it should have.”
Secondly, this is different for cantrips: They deal a lot less damage and aren’t nearly as “swingy” as some higher-level spells. For example, if we’re going to keep going with the Firebolt, at level 1, its crit would deal 11 damage. But both the Barbarian and Fighter’s crits would usually deal more than that. At higher levels, a cantrip can do a decent amount of damage, but 44 damage as a level 17-20 character’s whole turn is not that impressive, and it certainly doesn’t radically alter the combat.
In addition, some martials such as Barbarians with Brutal Critical actually deal nearly as much damage on a crit, and they have more attacks to play with. And I said in my previously linked post, eliminating things like Brutal Critical and Divine Smite from being doubled on crits – as the new OneD&D rules – makes more sense than doing that for spells, especially for cantrips.
I sure hope the next UA – which I believe comes out tomorrow as of the start of this thread (?) – changes the crit rules for spellcasters back to the old norm.
Out of all cantrips, only a few even count as attack. More than a half are saving throw based. Cantrips are not really about the damage, they're about additional effects, like disadvantage on enemy's next attack or -1d4 to the next saving throw. Also, given that eldritch blast is not on any spell list, I'd bet it's gonna become a class feature.
I'm going by what I see as a low-to-mid-level cleric with divine strike. I can use Sacred Flame to deal 2D8 damage at range. It can't crit. It's just a save or suck. But if it was an attack roll and could crit, it would do 4D8 radiant damage on a crit. Versus attacking with my Mace, which deals 1D8. That's 2D8 bludgeoning on a crit, with 1x a turn maybe doing an extra 1D8 Radiant. It just doesn't seem right that a cantrip would do more damage on a crit than the melee attack, and at range, and with a generally better damage type, even when the melee attack is boosted by an 8th level class ability. And in a couple of levels, that spell would do 6D8 on a crit while the melee crit damage would stay flat, only getting boosted by 1D8 from Divine Strike a few levels later.
What about allowing spells to crit but only adding a single extra die of damage (generally as if the spell was upcast a level)? It would at least stop what appears to be the nonsense of doubling several dice of damage at later levels, keeping the damage boost for a crit roughly even.
I think it's a poor argument simply because it makes a exception without good cause. The cool things that spells can do are far more impressive than just a bigger number, and even if bigger numbers are justified to balance combat for some reason, adding attribute mods or bumping up the die size is a better way to do that for cantrips.
Cantrips are powerfull in DnD 5e, stronger than lvl1 or lvl 2 spells or sometimes lvl3 on later levels. Infinite usage. No special restrictions. Cannot run out. It is a very effective weapon in the magic casters hand, but should stay on its level. English is not my native language, and the translation on my language is weak, but as I think Cantrips are minor spells, tricks etc. This kind of spells should not overshadowing higher level spells. Critical hit on a Fire bolt cantrip with 8D10 damage? Should not be. 1-4D10 is fine. Spellcasters should use higher level spells to make high damage if they want. It is a different question, is this the most effective way on that situation?
Fighters attack 2-3 times usually (1D10+statmod+magic dmg) vs Casters do AOE dmg and effects with very high damage pools (8D6 whatever and sometimes they also can add stat mod to dmg). For balancing sake, I would not let spells crit even on cantrips. And next to cantrips, you can cast a bonus action spell also which usually not a damaging spell, but... If a fighter has higher damage than spellcasters for a short time (for example the mage run out of spells and only do cantrips) is totally fine. There is no need and should not given compensate to spellcasters for if they run out of spells, because if still they have spell, they are still beast and brutal.
If a fighter class base damage would leveling as Casters cantrip, Long sword do 2D10 on Level 5, and 3D10 on level 11, and 4D10 on level 17, maybe i would agree to cantrip crits. But I do not want to be a HP calculator, so I would not recommend to increase fighters damage also.
Do not forget Casters have spell slot number of lvl1-9 spells which is much stronger than any feat of fighters (which usually are very limited in usage and in effect). - You can choose a lot of effects (most class do not have this privilege, damage type, illusion, mind effect spells, alterations etc), - You have a possibility to choose the effective spell as weapon against enemy weakness, like damage type, or you know that monster has low willpower... - You can do them a spellslot times. Which is a lot usually. Casters also get subclass specific effects also. - Add cantrips. These together shame fighter's capabilities.
The only spell that should be able to critical is Eldritch Blast, but this could be tact'ed on to an Eldritch Innovation as a secondary effect, Eldritch Spear being a good candidate for that as increasing range is rarely applicable in many situations, such as being in a dungeon where hallways over 120 foot long are pretty rare. Since Eldritch blast only increases rays, not damage die, it'd only ever be adding a 1D10.
The thing with Cantrips is they are sort of meant to be a stop-gap when a caster doesn't want to use a spell slot or doesn't have a spell slot left, so they aren't actually meant to stay up to the DPS of a martial. The only exception to this really is Eldritch Blast, which a (non-hexblade) warlock is heavily reliant on being their only option for dealing damage and is meant to be up to pace with Martial DPS.
The only spell that should be able to critical is Eldritch Blast, but this could be tact'ed on to an Eldritch Innovation as a secondary effect, Eldritch Spear being a good candidate for that as increasing range is rarely applicable in many situations, such as being in a dungeon where hallways over 120 foot long are pretty rare. Since Eldritch blast only increases rays, not damage die, it'd only ever be adding a 1D10.
Given that Eldritch Blast is not on any spell list, I'd say it might become a warlock class feature. And if so, I'd both let it crit and fuse Agonizing Blast into it by default, because let's face it, it's not a choice, every warlock must take Agonizing Blast except Hexblades. For Hexblades, Thirsting Blade and Soul Drinker are mandatory, illusionary choices. And I hate illusionary choices.
The only spell that should be able to critical is Eldritch Blast, but this could be tact'ed on to an Eldritch Innovation as a secondary effect, Eldritch Spear being a good candidate for that as increasing range is rarely applicable in many situations, such as being in a dungeon where hallways over 120 foot long are pretty rare. Since Eldritch blast only increases rays, not damage die, it'd only ever be adding a 1D10.
Given that Eldritch Blast is not on any spell list, I'd say it might become a warlock class feature. And if so, I'd both let it crit and fuse Agonizing Blast into it by default, because let's face it, it's not a choice, every warlock must take Agonizing Blast except Hexblades. For Hexblades, Thirsting Blade and Soul Drinker are mandatory, illusionary choices. And I hate illusionary choices.
There is some truth behind that, altho I'd rather Agonizing Blast go into Pact of the Tome, buffing/scaling the Familiar from Pact of the Chain to level and also wrapping Thirsting Blade into Pact of the Blade at 5th level with hexblade losing it's hex weapon and transferring the Charisma attack/damage to pact weapons on Pact of Blade at level 3, to nerf the Paladin X/Warlock 1 (hexblade) brokenness. But this isn't a Warlock re-balancing/re-working thread, so I'll drop it there.
EDIT: Maybe I should make a thread on it, I'll do that later.
I know a lot of people are complaining about crit only doubling weapon damage and blah blah blah. But I think there are several things that need to be considered: - We haven't seen the classes. We don't know if the sneak attack, the smite or, who knows, the spells, count as a weapon when making a critical. It could be that Wizards (say a class) would double the damage dice of spells (or cantrips) on a critical. We don't know, because we haven't seen how classes work. - Actually removing the crit from things like smites or sneak attacks is a good thing for the game. Does anyone really find it funny that the rogue kills the boss in one roll because he has rolled a natural 20 on the dice? It seems anticlimactic to me. It has happened to me, and it is something that I do not like at all. - Right now most offensive spells don't have a critical chance because they don't have an attack roll. Was that really a problem? Did people stop using fire ball because you can't crit with it?
I sincerely think that this was a necessary change, and that it improves the game. It remains to be seen if this will ultimately be the case, but I really hope they really limit the crit to the weapon's dice. And that the monsters, at least the minions, do not have a chance to double the damage on a critical. That's terrible at low levels, and it's absolutely anticlimactic that 4 goblins, for having a couple of crits in a row, do a TPK shortly after starting a campaign (real case).
- We haven't seen the classes. We don't know if the sneak attack, the smite or, who knows, the spells, count as a weapon when making a critical. It could be that Wizards (say a class) would double the damage dice of spells (or cantrips) on a critical. We don't know, because we haven't seen how classes work.
That is very, very unlikely. I mean, anythings a possibility, but why say "Weapon attacks" if you mean spell attacks for some classes. WotC would almost certainly have communicated that fact do avoid lots of displeasure if it were what was actually happening.
- Actually removing the crit from things like smites or sneak attacks is a good thing for the game. Does anyone really find it funny that the rogue kills the boss in one roll because he has rolled a natural 20 on the dice? It seems anticlimactic to me. It has happened to me, and it is something that I do not like at all. -
I'm not one of the people complaining about that specific change.
Quote from Drunkprince>>- Right now most offensive spells don't have a critical chance because they don't have an attack roll. Was that really a problem?
Those spells have their own cool benefits: half-damage on a successful save, and you can mix and max the right save ability for the monsters that are more likely to fail it. It was never a problem because those spells have their own, cool, extra features. In addition, just because some spells aren't able to crit, doesn't mean no spells should be able to crit. That's like saying, "Well, my favorite spell cant have the fun of critting, so you shouldn't have yours.
Did people stop using fire ball because you can't crit with it?
Have you read this thread? The whole literal point that I was explaining in the latter half of that thread was that this change doesn't do anything to change martials VS. casters balance, or how much X type of spell will be used compared to Y type of spell. It doesn't get rid of your tactics, crits only happen on 5% of rolls, it just gets rid of your extra fun. This change is pointless in changing how people play. It's major point is just taking the fun out of the game.
And yes, the reason for these changes might be because spells can be swingy. But they're not like big monster crits, and as I said in this post, among others, is a bit of swingyness really worth a boatload of fun?
I sincerely think that this was a necessary change, and that it improves the game. It remains to be seen if this will ultimately be the case, but I really hope they really limit the crit to the weapon's dice. And that the monsters, at least the minions, do not have a chance to double the damage on a critical. That's terrible at low levels, and it's absolutely anticlimactic that 4 goblins, for having a couple of crits in a row, do a TPK shortly after starting a campaign (real case).
Bolded part: I don't think it will surprise you that I disagree, for the reasons I listed at the start of this thread, and in the other thread linked here. I've explained & countered all the points you raised here several times, and in short, I don't think any of them are sufficcent reasons for removing crits from spells. Feel free to think this change was necessary, but I've explained above how it really isn't. More crits = more fun, really, what is wrong with having them on spells? If you don't like that rule, you can always play without it, but this change doesn't do much of anything to change class balance, make combat more fun, and this massive removal of a fun mechanic is certainly not worth it just for getting rid of a bit of swingyness.
For the not bolded part: There are others thread to discuss that, such as this and/or this, however, the thread we are currently in was not really made to discuss that. And anyways, again, I'm not really against those specific changes.
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In general I like the crit rule from Ad&D to 5e the way it is but if you look at what it does in simple terms in most weapons it adds 1 dice of damage to it (yes there are some weapons that do more then 1 dice of damage but we will ignore those for now) so if you wanted to do something different simply add 1 more die to the damage. How would I fix weapons that deal more then 1 dice of base damage? Well again I would just add 1 more dice to the damage amount. So fire ball does 3d6 normally on a 20 it now does 4d6, sword does 1d8 on a crit it does 2d8 a great swords does 2d6 on a crit it does 3d6.
The spells vs martials argument is generally the same I see with rogue vs other martials, and that is multi attack vs single attack and save vs damage or full damage.
Recently, the new UA had several critical changes to critting, among other things. One of those changes is that spells don't deal double damage on critical hits. This is quite a controversial topic, and I even started a thread about it. One of the ideas broached in a thread was that, if you won't let leveled spells crit, at least let cantrips. Cantrips are the caster's basic attack, just as martials have regular melee attacks (which are usually better) that don't expend resources; this is the spellcasters' variation of that -- especially for classes like warlocks. I have seen some arguments against this, so in this post I'm going to be weighing in with my two cents on each of those arguments.
"Allowing cantrips to crit encourages spellcasters to use cantrips over spell slots."
First off, crits are so rare -- they happen on 5% of rolls -- that they don't change the playing field between leveled spells and cantrips. You can't control when you crit (well, except for a few special features), and 95% of the time, the damage is going to be normal. If your whole reason for casting a cantrip over a higher leveled spell is the teeny possibility of getting higher damage, I have news for you: that's not good D&D tactics.
Second, the math I've seen to support this counterargument against cantrips critting leaves several things out. A Firebolt cast by a level 11 caster would average 34 damage on a critical hit. However, Fireball deals 28 damage; it's meant to hit multiple targets, so it's kind of pointless unless you hit at least two, which means 56 damage; even if the targets succeed on their saving throw, they still take half. In short, even when a Firebolt crits, it's not as good as a Fireball.
So, yeah, cantrips aren't replacing leveled spells any time soon.
“If you allow cantrips to crit, then they’ll outclass a martial’s base attack.”
First off, I don’t know how many times I can stress this, but a literal 5% chance of critting does not change much of anything.
Second, when comparing how much damage a cantrip can do to how much damage martials such as a fighter or a barbarian can do in a given turn, you’ll find out that martials can do a lot more damage.
The following table compares the popular and strong cantrip Firebolt and how much damage it does on average to how much damage a Barbarian and Fighter average at any given level — NOT counting critical hits for either.
(Note: this table assumes that the Barbarian and Fighter each have a Strength of 16 at level 1, improve it to 18 at level 4, and improve it to 20 at level 8. This table also assumes that the Barbarian uses a Greataxe and the Fighter uses a Greatsword. Please feel free to tell me if I’ve gotten anything wrong. For the sake of simplicity, this chart also assumes all attacks hit. Since Firebolt may have more damage invested in one attack roll and the martials have their damage spread out over multiple attacks, it mostly serves to balance out.)
Level
Firebolt Cantrip
Barbarian
Fighter
1-3
5.5
9.5
10
4
5.5
10.5
11
5-7
11
21
22
8-10
11
22
24
11-16
16.5
22
36
17-19
22
23
36
20
22
26
48
While the cantrip deals more damage on a crit, martials such as fighters have their crits spread out over more attacks, and overall it serves to balance out. On the rare occasion when, say, a level 20 Wizard crits on Firebolt, while a level 20 Fighter doesn’t get any crits, they’d still do more damage on average, assuming all their attacks hit.
Overall, though, as I keep saying, crits happen 5% of the time, and the table above applies 95% of the time. As the table shows, cantrips are not going to outclass martials’ base attacks any time soon, and crits won’t change that.
And because I know the first person who disagrees with this will effectively say that cantrips shouldn’t deal more damage than martials’ attacks, that’s exactly my point: They don’t. And since they don’t, it disproves this argument.
“Cantrips are way too swingy in combat: They can make the fight end well before it should have.”
First off, I’ve already countered that argument for leveled spells.
Secondly, this is different for cantrips: They deal a lot less damage and aren’t nearly as “swingy” as some higher-level spells. For example, if we’re going to keep going with the Firebolt, at level 1, its crit would deal 11 damage. But both the Barbarian and Fighter’s crits would usually deal more than that. At higher levels, a cantrip can do a decent amount of damage, but 44 damage as a level 17-20 character’s whole turn is not that impressive, and it certainly doesn’t radically alter the combat.
In addition, some martials such as Barbarians with Brutal Critical actually deal nearly as much damage on a crit, and they have more attacks to play with. And I said in my previously linked post, eliminating things like Brutal Critical and Divine Smite from being doubled on crits – as the new OneD&D rules – makes more sense than doing that for spells, especially for cantrips.
I sure hope the next UA – which I believe comes out tomorrow as of the start of this thread (?) – changes the crit rules for spellcasters back to the old norm.
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HERE.Out of all cantrips, only a few even count as attack. More than a half are saving throw based. Cantrips are not really about the damage, they're about additional effects, like disadvantage on enemy's next attack or -1d4 to the next saving throw. Also, given that eldritch blast is not on any spell list, I'd bet it's gonna become a class feature.
I'm going by what I see as a low-to-mid-level cleric with divine strike. I can use Sacred Flame to deal 2D8 damage at range. It can't crit. It's just a save or suck. But if it was an attack roll and could crit, it would do 4D8 radiant damage on a crit. Versus attacking with my Mace, which deals 1D8. That's 2D8 bludgeoning on a crit, with 1x a turn maybe doing an extra 1D8 Radiant. It just doesn't seem right that a cantrip would do more damage on a crit than the melee attack, and at range, and with a generally better damage type, even when the melee attack is boosted by an 8th level class ability. And in a couple of levels, that spell would do 6D8 on a crit while the melee crit damage would stay flat, only getting boosted by 1D8 from Divine Strike a few levels later.
What about allowing spells to crit but only adding a single extra die of damage (generally as if the spell was upcast a level)? It would at least stop what appears to be the nonsense of doubling several dice of damage at later levels, keeping the damage boost for a crit roughly even.
I think it's a poor argument simply because it makes a exception without good cause. The cool things that spells can do are far more impressive than just a bigger number, and even if bigger numbers are justified to balance combat for some reason, adding attribute mods or bumping up the die size is a better way to do that for cantrips.
Cantrips are powerfull in DnD 5e, stronger than lvl1 or lvl 2 spells or sometimes lvl3 on later levels. Infinite usage. No special restrictions. Cannot run out.
It is a very effective weapon in the magic casters hand, but should stay on its level.
English is not my native language, and the translation on my language is weak, but as I think Cantrips are minor spells, tricks etc. This kind of spells should not overshadowing higher level spells.
Critical hit on a Fire bolt cantrip with 8D10 damage? Should not be. 1-4D10 is fine. Spellcasters should use higher level spells to make high damage if they want. It is a different question, is this the most effective way on that situation?
Fighters attack 2-3 times usually (1D10+statmod+magic dmg) vs Casters do AOE dmg and effects with very high damage pools (8D6 whatever and sometimes they also can add stat mod to dmg). For balancing sake, I would not let spells crit even on cantrips. And next to cantrips, you can cast a bonus action spell also which usually not a damaging spell, but...
If a fighter has higher damage than spellcasters for a short time (for example the mage run out of spells and only do cantrips) is totally fine. There is no need and should not given compensate to spellcasters for if they run out of spells, because if still they have spell, they are still beast and brutal.
If a fighter class base damage would leveling as Casters cantrip, Long sword do 2D10 on Level 5, and 3D10 on level 11, and 4D10 on level 17, maybe i would agree to cantrip crits. But I do not want to be a HP calculator, so I would not recommend to increase fighters damage also.
Do not forget Casters have spell slot number of lvl1-9 spells which is much stronger than any feat of fighters (which usually are very limited in usage and in effect).
- You can choose a lot of effects (most class do not have this privilege, damage type, illusion, mind effect spells, alterations etc),
- You have a possibility to choose the effective spell as weapon against enemy weakness, like damage type, or you know that monster has low willpower...
- You can do them a spellslot times. Which is a lot usually. Casters also get subclass specific effects also.
- Add cantrips.
These together shame fighter's capabilities.
The only spell that should be able to critical is Eldritch Blast, but this could be tact'ed on to an Eldritch Innovation as a secondary effect, Eldritch Spear being a good candidate for that as increasing range is rarely applicable in many situations, such as being in a dungeon where hallways over 120 foot long are pretty rare. Since Eldritch blast only increases rays, not damage die, it'd only ever be adding a 1D10.
The thing with Cantrips is they are sort of meant to be a stop-gap when a caster doesn't want to use a spell slot or doesn't have a spell slot left, so they aren't actually meant to stay up to the DPS of a martial. The only exception to this really is Eldritch Blast, which a (non-hexblade) warlock is heavily reliant on being their only option for dealing damage and is meant to be up to pace with Martial DPS.
Given that Eldritch Blast is not on any spell list, I'd say it might become a warlock class feature. And if so, I'd both let it crit and fuse Agonizing Blast into it by default, because let's face it, it's not a choice, every warlock must take Agonizing Blast except Hexblades. For Hexblades, Thirsting Blade and Soul Drinker are mandatory, illusionary choices. And I hate illusionary choices.
There is some truth behind that, altho I'd rather Agonizing Blast go into Pact of the Tome, buffing/scaling the Familiar from Pact of the Chain to level and also wrapping Thirsting Blade into Pact of the Blade at 5th level with hexblade losing it's hex weapon and transferring the Charisma attack/damage to pact weapons on Pact of Blade at level 3, to nerf the Paladin X/Warlock 1 (hexblade) brokenness. But this isn't a Warlock re-balancing/re-working thread, so I'll drop it there.
EDIT: Maybe I should make a thread on it, I'll do that later.
I know a lot of people are complaining about crit only doubling weapon damage and blah blah blah. But I think there are several things that need to be considered:
- We haven't seen the classes. We don't know if the sneak attack, the smite or, who knows, the spells, count as a weapon when making a critical. It could be that Wizards (say a class) would double the damage dice of spells (or cantrips) on a critical. We don't know, because we haven't seen how classes work.
- Actually removing the crit from things like smites or sneak attacks is a good thing for the game. Does anyone really find it funny that the rogue kills the boss in one roll because he has rolled a natural 20 on the dice? It seems anticlimactic to me. It has happened to me, and it is something that I do not like at all.
- Right now most offensive spells don't have a critical chance because they don't have an attack roll. Was that really a problem? Did people stop using fire ball because you can't crit with it?
I sincerely think that this was a necessary change, and that it improves the game. It remains to be seen if this will ultimately be the case, but I really hope they really limit the crit to the weapon's dice. And that the monsters, at least the minions, do not have a chance to double the damage on a critical. That's terrible at low levels, and it's absolutely anticlimactic that 4 goblins, for having a couple of crits in a row, do a TPK shortly after starting a campaign (real case).
That is very, very unlikely. I mean, anythings a possibility, but why say "Weapon attacks" if you mean spell attacks for some classes. WotC would almost certainly have communicated that fact do avoid lots of displeasure if it were what was actually happening.
I'm not one of the people complaining about that specific change.
Those spells have their own cool benefits: half-damage on a successful save, and you can mix and max the right save ability for the monsters that are more likely to fail it. It was never a problem because those spells have their own, cool, extra features. In addition, just because some spells aren't able to crit, doesn't mean no spells should be able to crit. That's like saying, "Well, my favorite spell cant have the fun of critting, so you shouldn't have yours.
Have you read this thread? The whole literal point that I was explaining in the latter half of that thread was that this change doesn't do anything to change martials VS. casters balance, or how much X type of spell will be used compared to Y type of spell. It doesn't get rid of your tactics, crits only happen on 5% of rolls, it just gets rid of your extra fun. This change is pointless in changing how people play. It's major point is just taking the fun out of the game.
And yes, the reason for these changes might be because spells can be swingy. But they're not like big monster crits, and as I said in this post, among others, is a bit of swingyness really worth a boatload of fun?
Bolded part: I don't think it will surprise you that I disagree, for the reasons I listed at the start of this thread, and in the other thread linked here. I've explained & countered all the points you raised here several times, and in short, I don't think any of them are sufficcent reasons for removing crits from spells. Feel free to think this change was necessary, but I've explained above how it really isn't. More crits = more fun, really, what is wrong with having them on spells? If you don't like that rule, you can always play without it, but this change doesn't do much of anything to change class balance, make combat more fun, and this massive removal of a fun mechanic is certainly not worth it just for getting rid of a bit of swingyness.
For the not bolded part: There are others thread to discuss that, such as this and/or this, however, the thread we are currently in was not really made to discuss that. And anyways, again, I'm not really against those specific changes.
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HERE.In general I like the crit rule from Ad&D to 5e the way it is but if you look at what it does in simple terms in most weapons it adds 1 dice of damage to it (yes there are some weapons that do more then 1 dice of damage but we will ignore those for now) so if you wanted to do something different simply add 1 more die to the damage. How would I fix weapons that deal more then 1 dice of base damage? Well again I would just add 1 more dice to the damage amount. So fire ball does 3d6 normally on a 20 it now does 4d6, sword does 1d8 on a crit it does 2d8 a great swords does 2d6 on a crit it does 3d6.
The spells vs martials argument is generally the same I see with rogue vs other martials, and that is multi attack vs single attack and save vs damage or full damage.
Well it seems like we succeeded and the new crit hit rules are scrapped for this next play test. w00t.