First, a summary for those who've been living under a rock for the last couple of days.
Part of the Character Origins playtest document for the new 'One D&D' ruleset is an experimental change to the rules for critical hits. This change has three primary components:
Critical hits only apply to weapon and Unarmed attacks - spells cannot crit, even if they make an attack roll instead of imposing a save.
Critical hits only apply to weapon damage. You roll the damage die of the weapon that crit a second time and add the damage. This discludes things like a rogue's Sneak Attack and a paladin's Smite from critical hit calculations.
Critical hits can only be rolled by players. Monsters/NPCs cannot, by default, crit.
There are a number of reasons behind these changes, many of which were elucidated by Jeremy Crawford and Todd Kenreck in the video accompanying the playtest document. Regardless of these reasons, the forum immediately lit itself on fire in strident protest over the "neutering" of crits and the removal of a Fun DM Moment from the game. I'd like to argue the rules changes' case, and perhaps influence hearts and minds so we can retain this cool new rule and all the new design space it opens up moving forward.
1.) "Monster Crits are too swingy, especially in tier 1 play" Effectively, this is when a DM inadvertently murders a PC with a single critical hit. This has happened to me, in one of my very first forays as a DM - I attacked the level 2 monk in my party with a thug's heavy crossbow during the first round of initiative, before any player had gotten to act, rolled a critical hit, and nearly maxed the damage. The monk went from fresh and ready to fight to 0HP and out of the combat in a single blow. Did I love that moment? Was I smiling and exulting at my great good fortune and filled with glee at my superior DMing? No. I hated it. This was a playtest game to help a mostly-new batch of players shake down character ideas and help me get a better grip on GMing, and before Rize had even gotten to do a single goddamn thing he was down and out of the fight. It was awful. I later ruled that the character came to with one hit point due to a heroic effort of will so that my buddy could play in the playtest. Yes, I fudged. I fudged openly, and with my players' full knowledge, because that crit was bullshit. Was it an overtuned encounter I learned a lot from regardless? Sure thing - but what stuck in my mind most of all was how terrible monster crits are in low-level play.
Monsters regularly roll multiple damage dice for their attacks. Monsters that have only a single die for any given attack they launch are an exception rather than the rule. Doubling monster dice is enormously more potent than doubling a player's single weapon damage die, and that has serious impacts on game and encounter balance. Monsters need to deal the damage they do to be able to properly threaten PCs, but that means the monster scoring a crit is catastrophic in eearly tiers of play. I've been on both ends of it, it's especially an issue when the DM is doing what good DMs do and running encounters where the party is outnumbered as well as simply encounters against one chonky chungus. It's a problem, and removing the ability for monsters to roll critical attacks solves the problem. Especially considering...:
2.) "Monsters already have their own inherent crit-like mechanic - Recharge abilities." This is the real zinger. Monsters that merit it have an ability on a Recharge that allows them to do something flashy, cool, dangerous and extraordinarily powerful...but only occasionally. For most monsters, their Recharge ability is their signature power, and the DM's fun is watching the players clench their sphincters when that signature power is unleashed upon them. Then the DM gets to have their own Uncertainty mechanic in not knowing when the critter will get that power back - and more importantly, the critter can get the power back but the DM is still in control of when they use it. If, for whatever reason, the DM does not want to unleash Armageddon on the party (such as, for example, getting unreasonably lucky and nailing a 'Recharge 6' ability three turns in a row), the DM is allowed to do that. It is less fudgey to simply withhold an ability than to say "Oops, I crit, but I'm not gonna take it." Recharge powers are simply more fun than crits, and removing monster crits in a bid to emphasize Recharge powers makes a great deal of sense.
What these rules changes also do is open up lots of new design space for the team to play with. Monsters can be given punchier, more interesting default attacks as well as juicier Recharge abilities because the team no longer has to worry about what happens when a monster rolls a 20 and deals double damage randomly out of the blue for no reason. Classes that over-relied on crits for their damage, i.e. rogues desperately hoping for Crit Sneaks, can be tuned up because their Sneak damage is no longer able to randomly deal double damage for no reason and thus they can improve the rogue's base damage as a result. Classes that over-capitalized on crits to the detriment of encounter balance, i.e. palladalladingdongs, can enjoy having the same crits as everybody else rather than magically gaining 12d8 radiant damage just because they threw a 20.
Stabilization of the critical hit rules gives the team more room to do cool things, and makes classes that throw crits but don't get to do anything cool with them (fighters, monks) feel less bad about 'wasting' a crit. Expanded crit range can be made more accessible, and cool effects that happen on crits can be more common because that crit is not also dealing a gorrillion d6 piercing damage or 12d8 radiant damage. Monsters can be built that specifically have "on nat 20" effects, such as the dullahan, to allow DMs to opt back in to the "excitement" of rolling really well without also having one pissant goblin Massive Damage overkill your party's sorcerer with a single unreasonably lucky crit it had no god damn business rolling.
Frankly, the lessening of incoming crit damage even allows players to feel less bad for deciding that stats other than Constitution make more sense for their characters to invest in and focus on, since the mania for MAXX CONN is, generally, a response to overly swingy monster damage and the desperate hope of obtaining that one last point of Hit you need to not die outright to a pissant goblin maxing the damage on a crit.
Removing critical hits from most monsters also allows the small handful of monsters that have crit effects built into their statblock to pop out more. Rather than every dumbass mook having the ability to randomly deal double damage for no reason, when a boss monster or a super notable enemy displays the ability to crit it can be a serious wake-up call for the players and a delightful "you thought I couldn't do this anymore, eh?" moment for the DM. You can't do that if every dumbass mook can crit, but Specific Beats General means that a monster which says it can crit can still crit - and those monsters are going to be extra scary because they're stealing part of the players' power.
I know - our table has been playing with a loose variation of these rules for months in our homebrew Tursk game. Random mooks cannot crit, and haven't been able to for most of the game. Far from cramping the DM's style, it mostly has meeant that random mooks are exactly that - random mooks the players get to enjoy Dynasty Warriors-ing through. While Named Enemies - Arrows Mc*****tits, Treetus Deletus the Chunker of Phone Poles, Bonerhands Kingslayer, and other such foes of singular threat have the entire party running in defense mode the moment we discover they're in the area. It was already a rule I was going to adopt for my future games because it just works better. We've been playtesting "no monster crits" for months and I can proudly report the DM still enjoys DMing, the players are still properly nervous around powerful enemies, and no skies have, in fact, fallen.
These crit rule changes really are almost nothing but upside. It's a really excellent idea that would make future content better for existing, and I dearly hope we get to keep it. But we're going to have to overcome a lot of knee-jerk Sacred Cow reactions to keep it. Help me out?
I have never felt anything other than awful when I roll crits against my PCs. I do hope that monsters are balanced for a higher but steadier damage output round after round, but I have zero problem with taking crits away from them. You're absolutely right that recharge abilities create a much more interesting "sudden damage spike" effect.
With the combination of unfortunate rolls against my players and monsters having mutli-dice attacks at early levels I now have a player who has a knee-jerk reaction to the word "Peryton" after I rolled 3 critical attacks in a row with one and obliterated her druid.
I think the game can do with some power scaling as well reducing the "lemme roll every die I own" pinata of smite or sneak attack crits. Do i think it's kind of sad that critical hits are just another die roll? Yeah. Know how I'm gonna fix it? Character specific crit mechanics. Give my player's characters special attack things they can do on crits. Everyone's happy and my bosses don't get one-shot by a lucky flurry of every D8 one player owns and every d6 another owns.
Crits are a great way for low CR monsters to remain relevant, which was a guiding principle behind bounded accuracy. With this change, its possible to make an AC build that can wade into an entire army of goblins and be 100% immune to damage. Heck, they can't even grapple or shove you.
I get the sentiment behind the 'bugbear crit ends life with no counterplay' issue. And I would love to see additional monster tools and more interesting combat. I'm in a 'wait and see' moment right now until I see some additional monster designs.
Edit: monsters can still auto-hit - they just don't double damage. Everything is fine.
Crits are a great way for low CR monsters to remain relevant, which was a guiding principle behind bounded accuracy. With this change, its possible to make an AC build that can wade into an entire army of goblins and be 100% immune to damage. Heck, they can't even grapple or shove you.
I get the sentiment behind the 'bugbear crit ends life with no counterplay' issue. And I would love to see additional monster tools and more interesting combat. I'm in a 'wait and see' moment right now until I see some additional monster designs.
There is already a system for this without critical hits.
Pg. 250 in DMG:
"Handling Mobs
Keeping combat moving along at a brisk pace can be difficult when there are dozens of monsters involved in a battle. When handling a crowded battlefield, you can speed up play by forgoing attack rolls in favor of approximating the average number of hits a large group of monsters can inflict on a target.
Instead of rolling an attack roll, determine the minimum d20 roll a creature needs in order to hit a target by subtracting its attack bonus from the target’s AC. You’ll need to refer to the result throughout the battle, so it’s best to write it down.
Look up the minimum d20 roll needed on the Mob Attacks table. The table shows you how many creatures that need that die roll or higher must attack a target in order for one of them to hit. If that many creatures attack the target, their combined efforts result in one of them hitting the target.
For example, eight orcs surround a fighter. The orcs’ attack bonus is +5, and the fighter’s AC is 19. The orcs need a 14 or higher to hit the fighter. According to the table, for every three orcs that attack the fighter, one of them hits. There are enough orcs for two groups of three. The remaining two orcs fail to hit the fighter.
If the attacking creatures deal different amounts of damage, assume that the creature that deals the most damage is the one that hits. If the creature that hits has multiple attacks with the same attack bonus, assume that it hits once with each of those attacks. If a creature’s attacks have different attack bonuses, resolve each attack separately.
This attack resolution system ignores critical hits in favor of reducing the number of die rolls. As the number of combatants dwindles, switch back to using individual die rolls to avoid situations where one side can’t possibly hit the other."
On the whole this moves combat to a much faster paced, less swingy/rolly mess and I think it's going to be fantastic.
Overall, I am supportive of simplifying the crits to take them down to just weapons and unarmed attacks. So many spells rely on saves or gets messy with AoE that it really is simpler to keep crits out of it altogether (I don't really think spell casters get short changed this way - rather that the melee types gets a chance to shine).
In our group, we play with the extra crit die doing full damage - e.g. a weapon doing 1d6 with do 6 + 1d6 on a crit - mainly because it's really disheartening to roll two ones on a crit.
I can also follow some of the logic of moving crits out of monsters, but at the same time I can't help but feel it's a bit of stacking the deck further to prop up the players. I get that they are the heroes of the story, and that overall, we want an adventure to feel exciting without TPK's around every corner. However, removing crits from opponents renders them a bit toothless and even more straight forward to calculate your way out of a combat with. I tend to vary individual monster hit points by rolling them, just as I roll their damage, because part of the inherent fun of D&D is the unpredictability of the dice. By removing part of the element, we're dampening the unpredictability, and encouraging parties to launch themselves at anything after a few scribbled calculations on the back of a napkin.
The rechargeable features for monsters do offset this somewhat, but I still do feel that living with the inherent danger of monsters doing to you, what you might do to them (e.g. crit) is part of the excitement, danger, and unpredictability of the game. Sure it means that low level game is potentially deadly - and I have fudged away a couple of crits in my time for level 1/2 characters for sure - but removing the mechanic altogether seems a bit too much like putting support wheels on from my perspective. But I do like a grittier form of D&D where combat is dangerous, and early levels are not really heroes yet - just folks trying to become heroes.
Hordes of low CR monsters trigger the Mob Attack rules in the DMG, which states that [X] number of low-level monsters can simply generate one automatic hit based on the target number needed for a hit instead of rolling attacks for every individual critter. That's how an army of goblins remains relevant/threatening to high-level PCs that invest heavily in armor class. That rule is going to need revising, but fortunately the DMG is being revised as well as the PHB. The fact that almost no one knows the Mob Attack rule exists is further evidence of how terrible the 2014 DMG is. You don't need crits to make mooks threatening to twentieth-level PCs, and frankly past a certain point mooks are never going to be a threat. A nuisance, absolutely. A distraction the players are not pleased at dealing with on a large, chaotic battlefield? Certainly. But if a DM's objective is "I want this one individual CR 1/8 bandit weenie to be taken seriously as a combat threat by a twentieth-level paladin in full kit with the entire party backing him", that DM needs to maybe rethink things a little bit.
I personally like the complete reduction in PC damage too. No more Critical Smites, Sneak Attacks, Hunters Marks, Battle Master Maneuvers, Hexes, and everything else that boosts PC Damage rolls. Monsters will last longer now that PC Criticals are basically one extra die of damage.
Crits are a great way for low CR monsters to remain relevant, which was a guiding principle behind bounded accuracy. With this change, its possible to make an AC build that can wade into an entire army of goblins and be 100% immune to damage. Heck, they can't even grapple or shove you.
I get the sentiment behind the 'bugbear crit ends life with no counterplay' issue. And I would love to see additional monster tools and more interesting combat. I'm in a 'wait and see' moment right now until I see some additional monster designs.
This isn't true. Another good change these rules enact is that critical hits are divorced from the auto-hit of a 20. A 20 still automatically hits, but that's not a crit. Critical hits are only about double damage.
The mob rules currently don't have a function for when the number needed to hit is 21+. With crits, the minimum number needed to hit caps at 20, because a 20 always hits. This is no longer the case.
And even without the mob rules, there is still a minor issue of the character being literally immune to the creature when not in a mob. Creatures like Meazels, Shadows, and Intellect devourers are really low CR threats, even at higher levels. Even if you are build to be resilient, complete immunity to them feels... awkward.
Nevermind - 20s still autohit for monsters, they just don't double damage. We good.
Our group will continue to use crits as they appear today. Some of us have played this way for decades, and a nat 20 was always a cheering moment at the table. We're going to continue this for all attacks, PCs or otherwise. There might be mathematical justification for the changes, but that doesn't mean we have to like them. We want to continue to cheer the nat 20s in all circumstances, not just PC weapon attacks. And we'll still just double the dice because it's fun to do. Is it spiky? Yeah. But no one at our table gets hurt feelings over it. Personally, we never had issues with any of it. Balanced or not, no one I've personally played with in the past 29 years has ever complained about crits. We even (with 5e) added a home-brew rule to introduce EPIC crits - a way to have a super heroic (or super unheroic) moment. Bottom line: we feel the critical changes take away some enjoyment from the game, so the new rules are going to be tossed.
The mob rules currently don't have a function for when the number needed to hit is 21+. With crits, the minimum number needed to hit caps at 20, because a 20 always hits. This is no longer the case.
Crits are a great way for low CR monsters to remain relevant, which was a guiding principle behind bounded accuracy. With this change, its possible to make an AC build that can wade into an entire army of goblins and be 100% immune to damage. Heck, they can't even grapple or shove you.
I get the sentiment behind the 'bugbear crit ends life with no counterplay' issue. And I would love to see additional monster tools and more interesting combat. I'm in a 'wait and see' moment right now until I see some additional monster designs.
This isn't true. Another good change these rules enact is that critical hits are divorced from the auto-hit of a 20. A 20 still automatically hits, but that's not a crit. Critical hits are only about double damage.
The mob rules currently don't have a function for when the number needed to hit is 21+. With crits, the minimum number needed to hit caps at 20, because a 20 always hits. This is no longer the case.
Again, yes, it is still the case.
It appears I misunderstood the rules change. 20s are still hits for monsters- they just don't double the damage. Thanks for post #9.
Oooooh! I'm all for hot takes like this! I'll politely disagree as I do think crits on enemies are better for the game!
1.) This is going to be a very hot take but I kind of like how swingy low-level play is. Your characters have just learned the skills they need and it's going to be a struggle. Low level was not inherently designed for a high-fantasy type game in my opinion compared to the rest of D&D. Level 3 and onward is where the swinginess of dice starts to dwindle, and characters get more high-fantasy, less "fight for your life every adventure". If you want an easier game/a game where your characters have much less of a chance to die, start at level 3. It's not at all hard to introduce newbies to level 3, I've done it a lot. 2.) Yes we have the recharge mechanic. But it's barely used at all on any monster in the game! In addition it's extra stuff for the DM to keep track of, who is typically overwhelmed. In addition, the recharge mechanic won't give that same tension the chance of cries do. Recharge is a monster only ability, many new players entering the game don't even know how monsters function, thus the "recharge abilities" will actually just feel like OP, unfair, unbalanced attacks to them. Crits though are a universal player ability, and have been in tons of non D&D games as well. They're recognizable, adding to the tension when one happens.
The Compromise: I do think that a compromise could happen here when it comes to the crits/no crits debate! Maybe some sort of mechanic only allowing for CR 1 or higher monsters to crit, so people wouldn't immediately die to the lowest of monsters. Or a more complex version of this would be that crits are turned off on monsters with a too low CR compared to the highest CR monster on the battlefield. This would make sense narratively and would be better from a mechanics standpoint. It's the big boss who's the real dread on the battlefield.
We tried these crit rules and inspiration rules in my game last night.
I can say that the no crits for spells thing was not very popular at my table last night.
Aside from that, I think it worked well. The players definitely all had and used inspiration more often, which is to say that they used it at all. The trick about having to decide before you roll was a little tricky to get used to. But that was fine.
I personally like the complete reduction in PC damage too. No more Critical Smites, Sneak Attacks, Hunters Marks, Battle Master Maneuvers, Hexes, and everything else that boosts PC Damage rolls. Monsters will last longer now that PC Criticals are basically one extra die of damage.
...You must be fun at parties...
It's their opinion my dude, no need to be rude. Every DM has had a fight they wanted to be a nail-biter be smote into the ground with a lucky crit. It sucks. Just like when a PC gets critted into the dirt.
Golaryn is right. Whether that makes him "fun at parties" is irrelevant. Player A getting to roll three trillion damage dice on a random crit while Player B gets to roll the one damage die for their weapon on a random crit is donkey. Frankly, I'm with the guy that said in another thread it'd be more fun for each (martial/weapon-oriented) class to have a special thing that happens when they crit instead of just a bunch of extra damage. The Piercer/Crusher/Slasher feats giving extra bonuses on crit is a big draw to those feats. Sure, there's fun to be had in throwing a fistful of dice at the DM's face, but man. All the people constantly complaining that "PCs are invincible ultragods by level 12!" or "Challenge Rating sucks and doesn't work at all!" would have less to complain about if a PC couldn't deal anywhere between fiveish to well over a hundred damage with any given random attack.
So, most monsters don't have a recharge feature at all, currently. It sounds like they're gonna make some, but as it stands, the rule is just subtractive. So it makes sense that it feels like a loss, because it literally is.
I think I like recharge features? Honestly I've played with so few of them, I'm not even sure.
Saying they are party poopers ain't rude, its an observation.
If they want to NOT have Players actually feel good and have fun at their table, they can, just do not mess it up for the rest of us.
If you need a 5% chance per attack to feel good and have fun your DM is doing a bad job. Equally your DM has the right to enjoy their curated experience being run in the manner it was presented and not lucked through.
And nobody is messing up anything for you. WotC isn't holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use it. Even if they did the new rules dictate there's still a 5% chance they miss.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
First, a summary for those who've been living under a rock for the last couple of days.
Part of the Character Origins playtest document for the new 'One D&D' ruleset is an experimental change to the rules for critical hits. This change has three primary components:
There are a number of reasons behind these changes, many of which were elucidated by Jeremy Crawford and Todd Kenreck in the video accompanying the playtest document. Regardless of these reasons, the forum immediately lit itself on fire in strident protest over the "neutering" of crits and the removal of a Fun DM Moment from the game. I'd like to argue the rules changes' case, and perhaps influence hearts and minds so we can retain this cool new rule and all the new design space it opens up moving forward.
1.) "Monster Crits are too swingy, especially in tier 1 play"
Effectively, this is when a DM inadvertently murders a PC with a single critical hit. This has happened to me, in one of my very first forays as a DM - I attacked the level 2 monk in my party with a thug's heavy crossbow during the first round of initiative, before any player had gotten to act, rolled a critical hit, and nearly maxed the damage. The monk went from fresh and ready to fight to 0HP and out of the combat in a single blow. Did I love that moment? Was I smiling and exulting at my great good fortune and filled with glee at my superior DMing? No. I hated it. This was a playtest game to help a mostly-new batch of players shake down character ideas and help me get a better grip on GMing, and before Rize had even gotten to do a single goddamn thing he was down and out of the fight. It was awful. I later ruled that the character came to with one hit point due to a heroic effort of will so that my buddy could play in the playtest. Yes, I fudged. I fudged openly, and with my players' full knowledge, because that crit was bullshit. Was it an overtuned encounter I learned a lot from regardless? Sure thing - but what stuck in my mind most of all was how terrible monster crits are in low-level play.
Monsters regularly roll multiple damage dice for their attacks. Monsters that have only a single die for any given attack they launch are an exception rather than the rule. Doubling monster dice is enormously more potent than doubling a player's single weapon damage die, and that has serious impacts on game and encounter balance. Monsters need to deal the damage they do to be able to properly threaten PCs, but that means the monster scoring a crit is catastrophic in eearly tiers of play. I've been on both ends of it, it's especially an issue when the DM is doing what good DMs do and running encounters where the party is outnumbered as well as simply encounters against one chonky chungus. It's a problem, and removing the ability for monsters to roll critical attacks solves the problem. Especially considering...:
2.) "Monsters already have their own inherent crit-like mechanic - Recharge abilities."
This is the real zinger. Monsters that merit it have an ability on a Recharge that allows them to do something flashy, cool, dangerous and extraordinarily powerful...but only occasionally. For most monsters, their Recharge ability is their signature power, and the DM's fun is watching the players clench their sphincters when that signature power is unleashed upon them. Then the DM gets to have their own Uncertainty mechanic in not knowing when the critter will get that power back - and more importantly, the critter can get the power back but the DM is still in control of when they use it. If, for whatever reason, the DM does not want to unleash Armageddon on the party (such as, for example, getting unreasonably lucky and nailing a 'Recharge 6' ability three turns in a row), the DM is allowed to do that. It is less fudgey to simply withhold an ability than to say "Oops, I crit, but I'm not gonna take it." Recharge powers are simply more fun than crits, and removing monster crits in a bid to emphasize Recharge powers makes a great deal of sense.
What these rules changes also do is open up lots of new design space for the team to play with. Monsters can be given punchier, more interesting default attacks as well as juicier Recharge abilities because the team no longer has to worry about what happens when a monster rolls a 20 and deals double damage randomly out of the blue for no reason. Classes that over-relied on crits for their damage, i.e. rogues desperately hoping for Crit Sneaks, can be tuned up because their Sneak damage is no longer able to randomly deal double damage for no reason and thus they can improve the rogue's base damage as a result. Classes that over-capitalized on crits to the detriment of encounter balance, i.e. palladalladingdongs, can enjoy having the same crits as everybody else rather than magically gaining 12d8 radiant damage just because they threw a 20.
Stabilization of the critical hit rules gives the team more room to do cool things, and makes classes that throw crits but don't get to do anything cool with them (fighters, monks) feel less bad about 'wasting' a crit. Expanded crit range can be made more accessible, and cool effects that happen on crits can be more common because that crit is not also dealing a gorrillion d6 piercing damage or 12d8 radiant damage. Monsters can be built that specifically have "on nat 20" effects, such as the dullahan, to allow DMs to opt back in to the "excitement" of rolling really well without also having one pissant goblin Massive Damage overkill your party's sorcerer with a single unreasonably lucky crit it had no god damn business rolling.
Frankly, the lessening of incoming crit damage even allows players to feel less bad for deciding that stats other than Constitution make more sense for their characters to invest in and focus on, since the mania for MAXX CONN is, generally, a response to overly swingy monster damage and the desperate hope of obtaining that one last point of Hit you need to not die outright to a pissant goblin maxing the damage on a crit.
Removing critical hits from most monsters also allows the small handful of monsters that have crit effects built into their statblock to pop out more. Rather than every dumbass mook having the ability to randomly deal double damage for no reason, when a boss monster or a super notable enemy displays the ability to crit it can be a serious wake-up call for the players and a delightful "you thought I couldn't do this anymore, eh?" moment for the DM. You can't do that if every dumbass mook can crit, but Specific Beats General means that a monster which says it can crit can still crit - and those monsters are going to be extra scary because they're stealing part of the players' power.
I know - our table has been playing with a loose variation of these rules for months in our homebrew Tursk game. Random mooks cannot crit, and haven't been able to for most of the game. Far from cramping the DM's style, it mostly has meeant that random mooks are exactly that - random mooks the players get to enjoy Dynasty Warriors-ing through. While Named Enemies - Arrows Mc*****tits, Treetus Deletus the Chunker of Phone Poles, Bonerhands Kingslayer, and other such foes of singular threat have the entire party running in defense mode the moment we discover they're in the area. It was already a rule I was going to adopt for my future games because it just works better. We've been playtesting "no monster crits" for months and I can proudly report the DM still enjoys DMing, the players are still properly nervous around powerful enemies, and no skies have, in fact, fallen.
These crit rule changes really are almost nothing but upside. It's a really excellent idea that would make future content better for existing, and I dearly hope we get to keep it. But we're going to have to overcome a lot of knee-jerk Sacred Cow reactions to keep it. Help me out?
Please do not contact or message me.
I have never felt anything other than awful when I roll crits against my PCs. I do hope that monsters are balanced for a higher but steadier damage output round after round, but I have zero problem with taking crits away from them. You're absolutely right that recharge abilities create a much more interesting "sudden damage spike" effect.
I agree.
With the combination of unfortunate rolls against my players and monsters having mutli-dice attacks at early levels I now have a player who has a knee-jerk reaction to the word "Peryton" after I rolled 3 critical attacks in a row with one and obliterated her druid.
I think the game can do with some power scaling as well reducing the "lemme roll every die I own" pinata of smite or sneak attack crits. Do i think it's kind of sad that critical hits are just another die roll? Yeah. Know how I'm gonna fix it? Character specific crit mechanics. Give my player's characters special attack things they can do on crits. Everyone's happy and my bosses don't get one-shot by a lucky flurry of every D8 one player owns and every d6 another owns.
My main concern has to do with AC tanks.
Crits are a great way for low CR monsters to remain relevant, which was a guiding principle behind bounded accuracy. With this change, its possible to make an AC build that can wade into an entire army of goblins and be 100% immune to damage. Heck, they can't even grapple or shove you.
I get the sentiment behind the 'bugbear crit ends life with no counterplay' issue. And I would love to see additional monster tools and more interesting combat. I'm in a 'wait and see' moment right now until I see some additional monster designs.
Edit: monsters can still auto-hit - they just don't double damage. Everything is fine.
There is already a system for this without critical hits.
Pg. 250 in DMG:
"Handling Mobs
Keeping combat moving along at a brisk pace can be difficult when there are dozens of monsters involved in a battle. When handling a crowded battlefield, you can speed up play by forgoing attack rolls in favor of approximating the average number of hits a large group of monsters can inflict on a target.
Instead of rolling an attack roll, determine the minimum d20 roll a creature needs in order to hit a target by subtracting its attack bonus from the target’s AC. You’ll need to refer to the result throughout the battle, so it’s best to write it down.
Look up the minimum d20 roll needed on the Mob Attacks table. The table shows you how many creatures that need that die roll or higher must attack a target in order for one of them to hit. If that many creatures attack the target, their combined efforts result in one of them hitting the target.
For example, eight orcs surround a fighter. The orcs’ attack bonus is +5, and the fighter’s AC is 19. The orcs need a 14 or higher to hit the fighter. According to the table, for every three orcs that attack the fighter, one of them hits. There are enough orcs for two groups of three. The remaining two orcs fail to hit the fighter.
If the attacking creatures deal different amounts of damage, assume that the creature that deals the most damage is the one that hits. If the creature that hits has multiple attacks with the same attack bonus, assume that it hits once with each of those attacks. If a creature’s attacks have different attack bonuses, resolve each attack separately.
This attack resolution system ignores critical hits in favor of reducing the number of die rolls. As the number of combatants dwindles, switch back to using individual die rolls to avoid situations where one side can’t possibly hit the other."
On the whole this moves combat to a much faster paced, less swingy/rolly mess and I think it's going to be fantastic.
Overall, I am supportive of simplifying the crits to take them down to just weapons and unarmed attacks. So many spells rely on saves or gets messy with AoE that it really is simpler to keep crits out of it altogether (I don't really think spell casters get short changed this way - rather that the melee types gets a chance to shine).
In our group, we play with the extra crit die doing full damage - e.g. a weapon doing 1d6 with do 6 + 1d6 on a crit - mainly because it's really disheartening to roll two ones on a crit.
I can also follow some of the logic of moving crits out of monsters, but at the same time I can't help but feel it's a bit of stacking the deck further to prop up the players. I get that they are the heroes of the story, and that overall, we want an adventure to feel exciting without TPK's around every corner. However, removing crits from opponents renders them a bit toothless and even more straight forward to calculate your way out of a combat with. I tend to vary individual monster hit points by rolling them, just as I roll their damage, because part of the inherent fun of D&D is the unpredictability of the dice. By removing part of the element, we're dampening the unpredictability, and encouraging parties to launch themselves at anything after a few scribbled calculations on the back of a napkin.
The rechargeable features for monsters do offset this somewhat, but I still do feel that living with the inherent danger of monsters doing to you, what you might do to them (e.g. crit) is part of the excitement, danger, and unpredictability of the game. Sure it means that low level game is potentially deadly - and I have fudged away a couple of crits in my time for level 1/2 characters for sure - but removing the mechanic altogether seems a bit too much like putting support wheels on from my perspective. But I do like a grittier form of D&D where combat is dangerous, and early levels are not really heroes yet - just folks trying to become heroes.
Hordes of low CR monsters trigger the Mob Attack rules in the DMG, which states that [X] number of low-level monsters can simply generate one automatic hit based on the target number needed for a hit instead of rolling attacks for every individual critter. That's how an army of goblins remains relevant/threatening to high-level PCs that invest heavily in armor class. That rule is going to need revising, but fortunately the DMG is being revised as well as the PHB. The fact that almost no one knows the Mob Attack rule exists is further evidence of how terrible the 2014 DMG is. You don't need crits to make mooks threatening to twentieth-level PCs, and frankly past a certain point mooks are never going to be a threat. A nuisance, absolutely. A distraction the players are not pleased at dealing with on a large, chaotic battlefield? Certainly. But if a DM's objective is "I want this one individual CR 1/8 bandit weenie to be taken seriously as a combat threat by a twentieth-level paladin in full kit with the entire party backing him", that DM needs to maybe rethink things a little bit.
Please do not contact or message me.
I personally like the complete reduction in PC damage too. No more Critical Smites, Sneak Attacks, Hunters Marks, Battle Master Maneuvers, Hexes, and everything else that boosts PC Damage rolls. Monsters will last longer now that PC Criticals are basically one extra die of damage.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
This isn't true. Another good change these rules enact is that critical hits are divorced from the auto-hit of a 20. A 20 still automatically hits, but that's not a crit. Critical hits are only about double damage.
The mob rules currently don't have a function for when the number needed to hit is 21+. With crits, the minimum number needed to hit caps at 20, because a 20 always hits. This is no longer the case.And even without the mob rules, there is still a minor issue of the character being literally immune to the creature when not in a mob. Creatures like Meazels, Shadows, and Intellect devourers are really low CR threats, even at higher levels. Even if you are build to be resilient, complete immunity to them feels... awkward.Nevermind - 20s still autohit for monsters, they just don't double damage. We good.
Our group will continue to use crits as they appear today. Some of us have played this way for decades, and a nat 20 was always a cheering moment at the table. We're going to continue this for all attacks, PCs or otherwise. There might be mathematical justification for the changes, but that doesn't mean we have to like them. We want to continue to cheer the nat 20s in all circumstances, not just PC weapon attacks. And we'll still just double the dice because it's fun to do. Is it spiky? Yeah. But no one at our table gets hurt feelings over it. Personally, we never had issues with any of it. Balanced or not, no one I've personally played with in the past 29 years has ever complained about crits. We even (with 5e) added a home-brew rule to introduce EPIC crits - a way to have a super heroic (or super unheroic) moment. Bottom line: we feel the critical changes take away some enjoyment from the game, so the new rules are going to be tossed.
Again, yes, it is still the case.
Well double the weapon's damage anyway.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
It appears I misunderstood the rules change. 20s are still hits for monsters- they just don't double the damage. Thanks for post #9.
Oooooh! I'm all for hot takes like this!
I'll politely disagree as I do think crits on enemies are better for the game!
1.) This is going to be a very hot take but I kind of like how swingy low-level play is. Your characters have just learned the skills they need and it's going to be a struggle. Low level was not inherently designed for a high-fantasy type game in my opinion compared to the rest of D&D. Level 3 and onward is where the swinginess of dice starts to dwindle, and characters get more high-fantasy, less "fight for your life every adventure". If you want an easier game/a game where your characters have much less of a chance to die, start at level 3. It's not at all hard to introduce newbies to level 3, I've done it a lot.
2.) Yes we have the recharge mechanic. But it's barely used at all on any monster in the game! In addition it's extra stuff for the DM to keep track of, who is typically overwhelmed. In addition, the recharge mechanic won't give that same tension the chance of cries do. Recharge is a monster only ability, many new players entering the game don't even know how monsters function, thus the "recharge abilities" will actually just feel like OP, unfair, unbalanced attacks to them. Crits though are a universal player ability, and have been in tons of non D&D games as well. They're recognizable, adding to the tension when one happens.
The Compromise:
I do think that a compromise could happen here when it comes to the crits/no crits debate! Maybe some sort of mechanic only allowing for CR 1 or higher monsters to crit, so people wouldn't immediately die to the lowest of monsters. Or a more complex version of this would be that crits are turned off on monsters with a too low CR compared to the highest CR monster on the battlefield. This would make sense narratively and would be better from a mechanics standpoint. It's the big boss who's the real dread on the battlefield.
We tried these crit rules and inspiration rules in my game last night.
I can say that the no crits for spells thing was not very popular at my table last night.
Aside from that, I think it worked well. The players definitely all had and used inspiration more often, which is to say that they used it at all. The trick about having to decide before you roll was a little tricky to get used to. But that was fine.
It's their opinion my dude, no need to be rude. Every DM has had a fight they wanted to be a nail-biter be smote into the ground with a lucky crit. It sucks. Just like when a PC gets critted into the dirt.
Golaryn is right. Whether that makes him "fun at parties" is irrelevant. Player A getting to roll three trillion damage dice on a random crit while Player B gets to roll the one damage die for their weapon on a random crit is donkey. Frankly, I'm with the guy that said in another thread it'd be more fun for each (martial/weapon-oriented) class to have a special thing that happens when they crit instead of just a bunch of extra damage. The Piercer/Crusher/Slasher feats giving extra bonuses on crit is a big draw to those feats. Sure, there's fun to be had in throwing a fistful of dice at the DM's face, but man. All the people constantly complaining that "PCs are invincible ultragods by level 12!" or "Challenge Rating sucks and doesn't work at all!" would have less to complain about if a PC couldn't deal anywhere between fiveish to well over a hundred damage with any given random attack.
Please do not contact or message me.
So, most monsters don't have a recharge feature at all, currently. It sounds like they're gonna make some, but as it stands, the rule is just subtractive. So it makes sense that it feels like a loss, because it literally is.
I think I like recharge features? Honestly I've played with so few of them, I'm not even sure.
If you need a 5% chance per attack to feel good and have fun your DM is doing a bad job. Equally your DM has the right to enjoy their curated experience being run in the manner it was presented and not lucked through.
And nobody is messing up anything for you. WotC isn't holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use it. Even if they did the new rules dictate there's still a 5% chance they miss.