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View Full Version : Skill-Based Crits; or Stacking Damage



Absol197
2012-02-17, 04:02 PM
So, there have been a couple threads like this going around recently, and I've proposed this idea there, but those threads are for discussing those posters' ideas, so I came here 'cause I wanted some thoughts and/or advice directed at my idea.

The idea is that, instead of critical hits being luck based - it doesn't matter how good you are at fighting (as measured by BAB and attack bonus), you only strike a vulnerable spot when you get lucky and roll a nat. 20 - the more skilled you are (i.e. the higher above the target's AC you roll) the more damage you do.

How I'm thinking of running this is, for every 10 higher than your target's AC you score, you roll base damage for your weapon (including extra static damage, like the bonuses from high Strength and Weapon Specialization) an additional time.

So, as an example:
You're using a quarterstaff against a target with an AC of 15. You're pretty burly, and have Str 16.

You roll a 15: You hit, dealing 1d6+3 damage.
You roll a 25: You get a critical hit, dealing 2d6+6 damage.
You roll a 35: You get a better critical hit, dealing 3d6+9 damage.
You roll a 45: You get a vicious critical hit, dealing 4d6+12 damage.

This would continue the higher your to-hit roll goes.

So, you ask, how does this work with weapons with high crit ranges? What about high crit multipliers? And how about those special weapon properties that add damage dice on a crit? Those are good questions!

A high threat range decreases the amount above the target's AC you need to roll to get a crit. A 19-20 weapon only needs a +9, and an 18-20 weapon needs only a +8. The Improved Critical feat (and the keen weapon property) decrease the amount needed by 2. I was thinking they might also be stackable; thoughts on that?

So, if you were using the mighty greatsword instead of your quarterstaff:
You roll a 15: You hit, dealing 2d6+4 damage.
You roll a 24: You get a critical hit, dealing 4d6+8 damage.
You roll a 33: You get a better critical hit, dealing 6d6+12 damage.
You roll a 42: You get a vicious critical hit, dealing 8d6+16 damage.

Crit multipliers increase the amount of extra damage dealt per "crit level." A x3 multiplier? You deal twice your base damage per +10. Weidling a scythe (or a gnome-hooked hammer, I suppose)? You deal triple your base damage per +10.

So:
You're using a mighty warhammer instead of your quarterstaff.

You roll a 15: You hit, dealing 1d8+3 damage.
You roll a 25: You get a critical hit, dealing 3d8+9 damage.
You roll a 35: You get a better critical hit, dealing 5d8+15 damage.
You roll a 45: You get a vicious critical hit, dealing 7d8+21 damage.

Burst weapons would work normally: based on your crit multiplier, you deal an extra number of d10 energy damage. I'm not sure if it should scale up the crit levels; thoughts?

Now, some might ask if this would apply to spellcasters as well. I'm a big fan of consistency, so I would say, "Yes." Any spell that requires an attack roll and deals damage would benefit as well, including touch attacks. However, I would specify that the "base damage" for a spell is not the full scaling damage (a ray that deals 1d6/level doesn't crit for 10d6 per +10 at 10 level or higher), but is the base damage per increment (so the previously mentioned spell would deal +1d6 per +10).

So, thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Love it? Hate it? Want to rip me limb from limb for suggesting it?

PEACH
2012-02-17, 05:10 PM
It certainly makes crit chance increasing more reasonable, since with limited optimization you could get down to requiring only 4 above the AC to reroll base damage, and with a good bit you could probably get down to 1, 0, or even negatives (what would that even do)?

The problem with that is that it becomes really exponential; going from a 10 to a 9 crit bonus doesn't really do much (you'd have to roll very high to even start to see damage increases, and it'd average out to I think about 11%), but going from a 5 to a 4 increases your damage by 25%, going from a 4 to a 3 increases it by 33%, 3 to a 2 increases it by 50%, and a 2 to a 1 doubles your damage. It makes crit stacking either go big or go suck (instead of just "it sucks).

Absol197
2012-02-17, 05:20 PM
It certainly makes crit chance increasing more reasonable, since with limited optimization you could get down to requiring only 4 above the AC to reroll base damage, and with a good bit you could probably get down to 1, 0, or even negatives (what would that even do)?

Well, I don't know how one would get below a +4; Improved Critical and Keen are the only threat range increasing effects I know of (of course, I don't peruse splatbooks all too much). I could also say is can't go lower than +5, or I could say that those two effects are the only ones that stack.

Perhaps I should also have mentioned that I always treat a nat. 20 as a result of 30 (and max damage on your base damage dice, to boot), and a nat. 1 as a result of a -10; that makes it easier to get to the higher levels, even against a tough opponent.

chrisrawr
2012-02-17, 08:48 PM
Disciple of Dispater 10 (+3 crit range I think? so +7) wielding an 18-20 (now 15-20, 4+) with Keen and Improved Crit (normally 9-20, now +0) meaning every hit is an infinitely high-damaging critical. That grants an extra attack with lightning maces.

You could probably leave it at +10, using your system, and then make critical modifiers grant +2 Critical bonuses to your attack roll for the purpose of critical hits only (meaning 19-20 hits AC15's critical at 23, 33, etc. 18-20 hits it at 21, 31, etc. 15-20 grants a free critical at 15, and hits it harder at, 25, 35, etc. 9-20 grants a free double critical at 15, and another at 23, 33, etc.) Which seems like something fairly reasonable - incredibly lucky blokes or incredibly skilled blokes or, especially, incredibly lucky, skilled blokes get to do lots of damage for shanking you with a bit of thought.

Edit: You could also introduce a separate feat tree with modifiers to the +10 bit. Would give crit-focused fighters something to set them apart. You could also tack on bonuses to things like Weapon Spec and Focus.

Critical Confirmation: Things that affect critical confirmation instead simply grant a bonus to seeing how much critical you get.