Reworked Criticals

[Perseus]

Before I start working on this side project, I wanted to know if there is a variant rule or if perhaps another game does something like this.

Instead of making the critical hit base off the weapon, how about we make it based off the defender?

Something like...

To score a critical hit an attacker must not only hit the creature true (hit their AC) but they must go above and beyond such a hit. To score a critical hit on a creature you must hit a target number of [Creatures Normal AC] + 10.

Weapons that give increase crit ranges give you a bonus to your attack ONLY for determining if you hit their critical hit number.

X2/X3/X4 weapons: +0
19-20 weapons: +1
18-20 weapons: +2
17-20 weapons: +3
and so on...

Feats such as improved critical (+4 to determine if you hit a critical hit) stack with properties such as keen (keen gives you a +1).

So once you are level 15 and you go fight a CR 1 creature... You are going to be so awesome that you crit pretty much every time. However there will be some battles that to crit will be next to impossible (which helps the DM since their BBEG won't go down 5% of the time on a lucky 20).

Weapons that work off a crit may be more appealing since they aren't based so much on luck anymore.

Perhaps make the Critical Hit number based on class, like a Rogue who has sneak attack counts their attack as X number higher to determine if they hit the critical hit number whereas a rogue without sneak attack wouldn't gain that bonus. *shrug*

Anyways....

Has someone seen a system like this? I need to flesh out the details over in the homebrew section but I wanted to find out if I'm wasting my time and I can just read up on someone's work and houserule that into a game.

[Maginomicon]

First off, you may not be aware of this, but the original RAW for criticals includes that if a would-be threat doesn't hit the AC and is also not a Nat20, it's not a threat. That is, even if you have a threat range of 13-20, if the roll total doesn't beat their AC, it's not a threat. (Suddenly the Disciple of Dispater doesn't seem quite so overpowered)

Second, basing the probability of a critical on the defender's AC means that it becomes effectively-impossible to get a critical hit in on comparatively-high-AC creatures (which, keep in mind, may not necessarily include the BBEG). The critical hit's system's original design purpose was so that even if you're a lowly kobold, you could still get a Nat20 and hit (and possibly even roll damage twice or even three times) on those blasted human scum.

If you're really all that worried about the BBEG going down on a 5% chance, force your campaign to use the SRD's Bell Curve Rolls variant (which reduces it to less than 0.5% of the time).

Also, IIRC there's a variant in the DMG that treats a natural 1 as a lower calculated number and a Nat20 as a higher calculated number.

Also, making keen and improved critical stack (like they did in 3.0) is a terrible idea because it removes a necessary limiter on a number of obscene crit-range combos.

[Delvin Darkwood]

There was an old table called Good Hits and Bad Misses, which handled crits in a slightly different way. Instead of a nat 1 being a fumble and a nat 20 being a crit, any attack that either hit or miss could be either of them. However much you rolled over (or under) the number needed to hit, determining your % chance of getting a crit (or a fumble). Thus, characters with high AC will be much more difficult to get a crit on, etc.

Now, I'm not necessarily advocating for this system (the table is for AD&D anyways... and we never even used this way), but perhaps it might provide inspiration.

[Maginomicon]

There was an old table called Good Hits and Bad Misses, which handled crits in a slightly different way.There's also one in Dragon Compendium by the same name. Be aware though that you should download the errata for that book since some of the entries in that table contain misleading typos.

[Greenish]

Also, making keen and improved critical stack (like they did in 3.0) is a terrible idea because it removes a necessary limiter on a number of obscene crit-range combos.Well, his version of Keen is far worse than just upping the weapon's enhancement bonus by +1, so I wouldn't be too worried.

[Perseus]

I like the Good Hit/Bad Misses idea, I'll be looking into that to see how it was handled.

Couple that idea with changing crit ranges/feats work... Could be interesting.

A Fighter who focuses on criticals is no longer someone who focuses on getting lucky and is someone who focuses on honing their skill to hit the correct spot.

Thanks all.

[Zombimode]

As system like this will like bite your players in the ass, given the time.

Reason: there are creatures, notably Dragons and Giants, with to-hit scores of "yes". Going into melee with a dragon is already a rather bad idea. With your system it would just be suicide.

[Perseus]

As system like this will like bite your players in the ass, given the time.

Reason: there are creatures, notably Dragons and Giants, with to-hit scores of "yes". Going into melee with a dragon is already a rather bad idea. With your system it would just be suicide.

This is for players, not for monsters/NPC/creatures.

[JusticeZero]

A monster is just an unlucky player of another game, as a rule. Otherwise it gets complex. If you dominate a monster into fighting for you, does it use different rules? What about if a PC is dominated into attacking her party?

[Perseus]

A monster is just an unlucky player of another game, as a rule. Otherwise it gets complex. If you dominate a monster into fighting for you, does it use different rules? What about if a PC is dominated into attacking her party?

Actually when dominated players in games I'm in and run... The domination works a bit different. When being dominated, it isn't the character in control but the magic... Something like vampire in buffyverse but replace demons with magic and leave the person in their body. The player can see out of their eyes but isn't deciding to do anything and stuff.

So this not working while the magic is in control makes sense.

Having special rules for PCs make sense, PCs are special and should have their own rules.

[ArcturusV]

Well... for one thing this solves the old "Kobold Problem", as I used to call it in ADnD days (Where equal HD of Kobolds could slaughter a level 20 fighter, no contest). Which may or may not be a good thing depending on how you feel about your game and what sort of feeling you want to your adventures. Honestly I LIKE the thing where the guy who can necessarily wrestle a dragon unto death can still be taken out by overwhelming numbers of kobolds if he gets cocky. But that's just me, and I understand that's a preference thing.

The other thing is, just how often do you really expect to have situations where your level 12 fighter is fighting off a bunch of Kobolds, or the like? Because that is the situation which this rule seems most applicable in general. You even called it out yourself as such. I can say in most campaigns it probably won't come up too often. In which case you're running against the diminishing returns balance point, a lot of work for practically no reward. Plus you have to worry about the usual thing where the level 12 fighter is all pumped up because he gets to be a badass against this Kobold Tribe... and then the wizard just drops a fireball on the tribe and ends it anyway.

Speaking of which, that might be the unintended consequence of your rule. Presuming you're facing roughly equal/valid/normal encounters... it's not going to be likely that your fighter type is going to trigger criticals all that often. But you know who is? Your wizard/sorcerer. Because even with their lesser BAB, a lot of their offensive spells hit Touch AC which tends to be notoriously low for their level. Chances are if you institute this rule, you'll see your fighter rarely getting Crits in a lot of fights as they have to deal with Dodge Bonuses, Natural Armor, Deflection, Equipment, etc. And your Wizard is critting with Rays and stuff all the time.

Which from your posts doesn't sound like what you were originally thinking of.

[Maginomicon]

Speaking of which, that might be the unintended consequence of your rule. Presuming you're facing roughly equal/valid/normal encounters... it's not going to be likely that your fighter type is going to trigger criticals all that often. But you know who is? Your wizard/sorcerer. Because even with their lesser BAB, a lot of their offensive spells hit Touch AC which tends to be notoriously low for their level. Chances are if you institute this rule, you'll see your fighter rarely getting Crits in a lot of fights as they have to deal with Dodge Bonuses, Natural Armor, Deflection, Equipment, etc. And your Wizard is critting with Rays and stuff all the time.
This is why I specify in my Called Shots method (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300755) that called shots have to be non-touch attacks. You can't really do that feasibly with the system described in the OP here, as it wouldn't make logical sense to only allow criticals with non-touch attacks.

[Perseus]

Well... for one thing this solves the old "Kobold Problem", as I used to call it in ADnD days (Where equal HD of Kobolds could slaughter a level 20 fighter, no contest). Which may or may not be a good thing depending on how you feel about your game and what sort of feeling you want to your adventures. Honestly I LIKE the thing where the guy who can necessarily wrestle a dragon unto death can still be taken out by overwhelming numbers of kobolds if he gets cocky. But that's just me, and I understand that's a preference thing.

The other thing is, just how often do you really expect to have situations where your level 12 fighter is fighting off a bunch of Kobolds, or the like? Because that is the situation which this rule seems most applicable in general. You even called it out yourself as such. I can say in most campaigns it probably won't come up too often. In which case you're running against the diminishing returns balance point, a lot of work for practically no reward. Plus you have to worry about the usual thing where the level 12 fighter is all pumped up because he gets to be a badass against this Kobold Tribe... and then the wizard just drops a fireball on the tribe and ends it anyway.

Speaking of which, that might be the unintended consequence of your rule. Presuming you're facing roughly equal/valid/normal encounters... it's not going to be likely that your fighter type is going to trigger criticals all that often. But you know who is? Your wizard/sorcerer. Because even with their lesser BAB, a lot of their offensive spells hit Touch AC which tends to be notoriously low for their level. Chances are if you institute this rule, you'll see your fighter rarely getting Crits in a lot of fights as they have to deal with Dodge Bonuses, Natural Armor, Deflection, Equipment, etc. And your Wizard is critting with Rays and stuff all the time.

Which from your posts doesn't sound like what you were originally thinking of.

Actually getting to hit bonuses in 3.5 is easy. My level 12 ubercharger in a high op game was bringing down the smack on CR 20+ creatures and hitting well over their AC.

However I took the Hill Giant and compared it to one of my less optimized characters.

Hill Giant: AC 20 (CR 7)

Fighter (Level 7 attack bonus): 7 BAB + 6 (str mod, +2 magic) + 1 weapon = +14

So to hit into critical ranges... The Fighter would need to roll somewhere above 6... Easy enough.

Very young dragon has an AC around 18 (CR 10 ish), Hezrou AC is 23 (CR 11) ...

So at the level in which most games start to wind down the fighter (aka Full BAB class) is still going to be able to pull off some crits. Actually hitting AC is one of the easiest things to do when miss chance doesn't exist. Everyone knows that in D&D AC doesn't scale at all versus To Hit. Why do you think they (for the most part) fixed it in 4th ed and they went to bounded accuracy in 5th ed?

Also as a DM the mooks/hordes I send at players do tend to be lower level but I play them correctly so they are still a challenge... Not 100% tuckers kobolds but you can tell I read up on them. Sure I throw in some appropriate CRs (which as we seen above to hit outstrips ac so that doesn't matter) a lot of the time but if you want real numbers then you need to dial back the CR.

[Raendyn]

So once you are level 15 and you go fight a CR 1 creature... You are going to be so awesome that you crit pretty much every time. However there will be some battles that to crit will be next to impossible (which helps the DM since their BBEG won't go down 5% of the time on a lucky 20).


When you are lvl 15 and hit lvl 1 you don't need crit, nor power attack, nor two handed weapon, you can poke lvl1's with your finger and they will still die.

And there's no BBEG that died on a single crit, unless the guy that scored it had like 5 feats,30k gold, and 5-10PrC lvls dedicated in doing just this. This guy when critting at 5-10% and generally wastes 70% of his dmg cause enemies has low hp, has the right to get a 5% one shot BBEG.

Consider those two, especially the 2nd... It's like saying that someone's optimized DC caster must be fasing a +20 circumstance bonus on saves on BBEG.