Critical Hit Idea

[EggKookoo]

Time for another random shower thought.

There have been some complaints that critical hits can sometimes be disappointing. If you roll low even on the crit dice, it feels weak and not really worthy of a CRITICAL! One homebrew idea is to simply apply max damage to the extra dice, which makes crits hit nice and hard, but it also means monster crits hit nice and hard and is one reason why, I think, WotC kept them underpowered.

An alternate idea came to me. Maybe someone else has thought of this already, but whatever. What if you roll both damage dice and then assume both dice use the higher value? So you hit with a longsword for 1d8. If you crit, you roll 2d8 and get, say, a 3 and a 6. You'd treat it as though both dice rolled a 6 and proceed from there (adding mods and whatnot).

This would keep crits from ever going above what they can do RAW, but it kind of encourages them toward the upper end of the spectrum. This would be devastating with high-level rogue SA dice, as it's pretty likely that you're going to get at least one 6 in there, but at the same time, maybe that's okay? I mean especially if you were already doing the "assume max damage" thing.

Anyway, poke holes at it. Just thought I'd get it out.

[False God]

What do you do when you roll snake eyes?

Which, to me, sums up the problem with crits in 5E entirely. This fairly rare outcome of the nat 20 can often result in worse rolls than just a single die.

I don't feel like I need to treat monsters and players equally. Players can crit and get max damage(8+8+mod), and monsters can just do double average(4+4+mod).

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly, just doing more damage is disappointing. I'm not saying that every game should have Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay levels of critical hits (although it would be nice), but something cool should happen on them instead of just 'yeah more damage'.

Sadly to do this justice you'd probably want to rebuild classes to grant Critical Hit Abilities every X levels. While Fighters might be able to get automatic shoves, grabs, or other combat thingies you could have Clerics dispelling on a critical hits and Sorcerers immediately being able to cast another spell.

[EggKookoo]

What do you do when you roll snake eyes?

In such a case it's no worse than RAW, I suppose. The intent was to provide a buff in the "advantage" sense -- something that encourages a high result, rather than brute-forcing an increase to the result.


I don't feel like I need to treat monsters and players equally. Players can crit and get max damage(8+8+mod), and monsters can just do double average(4+4+mod).

Yeah, I'm not hung up on PC/NPC parity, but I also don't like to break it if I can avoid it. But I could be persuaded...

[False God]

In such a case it's no worse than RAW, I suppose. The intent was to provide a buff in the "advantage" sense -- something that encourages a high result, rather than brute-forcing an increase to the result.

Yeah, I'm not hung up on PC/NPC parity, but I also don't like to break it if I can avoid it. But I could be persuaded...

It's mostly a speed of gameplay issue. Monsters have dice too if you want to roll them. And sure rolling dice is fun...but after the 3rd claw attack for 2d4+1 it's easier to just say "5 damage". Same is true for multi-attacking PCs, so I let my players choose to deal half damage too. Honestly a lot of the game can be reduced down to just the d20, and I've done that. It makes for a much faster game, especially for combat, though a little bit less of the "OH WOW MAX DIE ROLL!", but there's still that with the d20.

So, I guess that's more an argument that PC/NPC parity should go the other way.

[BigRedJedi]

Just max their initial weapon damage and roll bonus damage as normal, e.g. a crit with a longsword would be 8 + MOD + 1d8. Then just double additional dice from class features or spells (Sneak Attack, etc.). Crits cannot ever be worse than a normal hit but don't skew the math too far, and PC/NPC can use the same rules or the normal rules as the DM prefers.

[Cheesegear]

There have been some complaints that critical hits can sometimes be disappointing.

There have been complaints that some people have built up the idea that getting a 5% chance on something you don't even control should somehow be a more special event than it actually is.

Remember kids, a '1' is just a miss, it has an identical outcome to many other dice rolls.
Rolling a 1-5 on any attack, usually results in the same outcome. A miss. No more. That is, rolling a '1', is the same as rolling a 5.
Rolling a 15-20 on any attack, usually results in the same outcome. A hit. Except rolling a '20' is actually better than every other number.
Rolling a critical is already better than every other outcome. Rolling a critical miss, isn't actually always worse than rolling something else similarly low.

Critical hits don't need to be made better, unless you are making critical misses, worse. Which you aren't.


...disappointing.

You should probably find other ways to feel powerful than shooting for a 5% chance you don't even control.

[stoutstien]

Time for another random shower thought.

There have been some complaints that critical hits can sometimes be disappointing. If you roll low even on the crit dice, it feels weak and not really worthy of a CRITICAL! One homebrew idea is to simply apply max damage to the extra dice, which makes crits hit nice and hard, but it also means monster crits hit nice and hard and is one reason why, I think, WotC kept them underpowered.

An alternate idea came to me. Maybe someone else has thought of this already, but whatever. What if you roll both damage dice and then assume both dice use the higher value? So you hit with a longsword for 1d8. If you crit, you roll 2d8 and get, say, a 3 and a 6. You'd treat it as though both dice rolled a 6 and proceed from there (adding mods and whatnot).

This would keep crits from ever going above what they can do RAW, but it kind of encourages them toward the upper end of the spectrum. This would be devastating with high-level rogue SA dice, as it's pretty likely that you're going to get at least one 6 in there, but at the same time, maybe that's okay? I mean especially if you were already doing the "assume max damage" thing.

Anyway, poke holes at it. Just thought I'd get it out.

I made a critical hit deck for some games. Basically when you crit to can forgo the extra damage and draw from the deck to add a special rider or effect. Could just as well use the extra weapon dice roll to give "bigger" weapons more options but players liked the cards.
The effects themselves were fun to come up with and can be personalized for tables/players.

[JellyPooga]

I made a critical hit deck for some games. Basically when you crit to can forgo the extra damage and draw from the deck to add a special rider or effect. Could just as well use the extra weapon dice roll to give "bigger" weapons more options but players liked the cards.
The effects themselves were fun to come up with and can be personalized for tables/players.

I approve of the addition of a card deck. So much more visceral and tactile than a boring old table! Also comes with the option of exciting and gore-filled artwork :smallwink:

[stoutstien]

I approve of the addition of a card deck. So much more visceral and tactile than a boring old table! Also comes with the option of exciting and gore-filled artwork :smallwink:

If only I could draw. I'm so bad I just write the words on the map of what stuff is lol.
I might eventually get one commissioned though.

[EggKookoo]

If only I could draw. I'm so bad I just write the words on the map of what stuff is lol.
I might eventually get one commissioned though.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

[Ashe]

It's mostly a speed of gameplay issue. Monsters have dice too if you want to roll them. And sure rolling dice is fun...but after the 3rd claw attack for 2d4+1 it's easier to just say "5 damage". Same is true for multi-attacking PCs, so I let my players choose to deal half damage too. Honestly a lot of the game can be reduced down to just the d20, and I've done that. It makes for a much faster game, especially for combat, though a little bit less of the "OH WOW MAX DIE ROLL!", but there's still that with the d20.

So, I guess that's more an argument that PC/NPC parity should go the other way.

Losing my mind at the idea that martials would rolling ~1-4 dice a round in the name of faster combat. They already basically aren't playing half the time!

[Bjarkmundur]

It solves your problem nicely. It allows you to fudge creature crits behind the screen, and it increases the average outcome of a player crit. Very elegant.

[Pex]

It is disappointing to get a critical hit and then roll a 1 and 2 for damage, but that's the game. There needs to be that risk. Just last night an NPC the party was protecting died because my d20 did not believe in numbers greater than 2 in attacking an archer with Agonizing Repelling Blast to knock him off his horse thus enabling the archer to attack and get a critical hit against the NPC. It absolutely sucks when the dice fail you, but the chance to roll low is in my opinion not a reason to house rule it away. There are class features to help mitigate low rolls. Those are great, but being a class feature is what makes them cool. Great Weapon Style lets you reroll 1s and 2s, including critical hits. The proposed house rules doesn't completely make it redundant, but it does cause it to lose some glory.

[Cheesegear]

It is disappointing to get a critical hit and then roll a 1 and 2 for damage, but that's the game.

I guess for me, the problem stems from 'Why stop at critical hits?'

Doesn't it suck when you hit a bad guy, and deal 3 damage? That's disappointing. When you hit a creature, it should feel impactful. After all, you've hit them so hard that you've bypassed their armour and stabbed them in chest.

Doesn't it suck when you miss a bad guy, and deal no damage at all? That's disappointing. When you like, 'miss' a creature, the creature's armour class is what makes you miss, not their ability to dodge. Getting hit repeatedly in the Shield actually does hurt after a while.

Critical Hits are not special. Please don't make them more than they are.

I repeat, if you change how good you make Critical Hits, you must also change how bad Critical Misses, are. Since you're not doing that, you're giving a straight power upgrade to the players, since your intent is also trying to figure out how to not apply the same effect to hostiles who might kill a player if they were given the same abilities.

Whenever the word 'disappointing' is used, that essentially means that the intent of whatever comes next, is to make people feel good, not actually do good...And if players want to feel good, there's loads of things that they could be doing with their characters that don't even involve changing the rules of the game.

If your way of making your players feel good about themselves, is changing what happens 5% of the time...Something's gone wrong.

[stoutstien]

I guess for me, the problem stems from 'Why stop at critical hits?'

Doesn't it suck when you hit a bad guy, and deal 3 damage? That's disappointing. When you hit a creature, it should feel impactful. After all, you've hit them so hard that you've bypassed their armour and stabbed them in chest.

Doesn't it suck when you miss a bad guy, and deal no damage at all? That's disappointing. When you like, 'miss' a creature, the creature's armour class is what makes you miss, not their ability to dodge. Getting hit repeatedly in the Shield actually does hurt after a while.

Critical Hits are not special. Please don't make them more than they are.

I repeat, if you change how good you make Critical Hits, you must also change how bad Critical Misses, are. Since you're not doing that, you're giving a straight power upgrade to the players, since your intent is also trying to figure out how to not apply the same effect to hostiles who might kill a player if they were given the same abilities.

Whenever the word 'disappointing' is used, that essentially means that the intent of whatever comes next, is to make people feel good, not actually do good...And if players want to feel good, there's loads of things that they could be doing with their characters that don't even involve changing the rules of the game.

If your way of making your players feel good about themselves, is changing what happens 5% of the time...Something's gone wrong.
False dichotomy. Natural ones on a attack rolls suck because they miss regardless of your attack modifier and target AC. Natural 20 are generally underwhelming because a 20 is going to hit regardless unless we are talking about extreme circumstances and the damage added by weapon dice doubling is noticably underwhelming. NPCs generally already can leverage critical Hits better because they add more dice per attack and more attacks rather than flat modifiers as they go up. They also negate the natural ones in the same vein due to the same progression. It's the basic concept of the law of large numbers.

Critical Hits not only feel bad, they are bad. The issue is it's also really easy for players to stack a lot of action free riders on a critical hit. This has a uneven effect on weapon users where where the classes that you would assume would be really good at critical Hits are the worst and vise versa. Barbarians get next to nothing from it even with three different levels of features supporting it. Champion fighters have the same issue. Turn around and the paladin can drop almost 3x their base line damage on a critical with no supporting features.

If you wanted a very simple fix that didn't mess with the math too much to make players feel better just exchange doubling your weapon die for double ability modifier damage with features that add dice just adding some fixed value to this. Prof bonuses, or level would work.

[Reynaert]

Honestly, just doing more damage is disappointing. I'm not saying that every game should have Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay levels of critical hits (although it would be nice), but something cool should happen on them instead of just 'yeah more damage'.

Sadly to do this justice you'd probably want to rebuild classes to grant Critical Hit Abilities every X levels. While Fighters might be able to get automatic shoves, grabs, or other combat thingies you could have Clerics dispelling on a critical hits and Sorcerers immediately being able to cast another spell.

You could just replace the double damage with: "If you roll a clean 20 on an attack(*), then you get an additional action this turn."

At first glance, this would help martials the most, especially against high numbers of small mooks, but that's arguably a good thing.
Maybe if it's OP, you could add "only once per round", or more severely, "the additional action cannot be used to make an attack", but my gut feeling is it would be pretty much OK as is, and "that one round where Joe critted four times in a row" will certainly be remembered for years.

(The one where additional action cannot be attack might encourage players to be more creative/tactical, though?)

*) (edit) Or 19 if you're that thingy that crits on 19

[clash]

Honestly I find just doubling all the damage instead of just rolling one more dice keeps it fast and makes them seem impactful enough

[Speely]

I think critical hits are fine as-is given how often they happen. That said, my DM for an upcoming campaign has a house rule for them: one dice being rolled for the critical damage is maximized. The rest are rolled normally.

I am ok with it, I suppose.

My problem with making crits more lethal is that it skews things even more toward crit-fishing. Mechanically, why not just always build for crits if they are more potent than they already are? As it is, things like Elven Accuracy and SA/Smites/Shadow Blade favor this approach. I am not sure that course-correcting to avoid lackluster crit rolls is worth having more players chasing mega-crits... at least from the perspective of build diversity.

[Cheesegear]

False dichotomy. Natural ones on a attack rolls suck because they miss regardless of your attack modifier and target AC.

Rolling a '1' doesn't suck because the vast majority of the time, any low number will still miss.


Natural 20 are generally underwhelming because a 20 is going to hit regardless unless we are talking about extreme circumstances and the damage added by weapon dice doubling is noticably underwhelming.

You used 'underwhelming' twice. More stuff about feelings.


Critical Hits not only feel bad, they are bad.

I mean I think we agree on that. I would just as soon as rolling a '1' or '20' do literally nothing different (as in a Skill check or Saving Throw), but apparently we live in a world where damage is all that matters, and when people roll crits they want to see big numbers...But if a hostile rolls a crit they want to see small numbers. Except that the game is kind of based around the assumption that you kind of do a fixed amount of damage per round, and that's why when you crit, I kind of understand that you're not supposed to do massive damage. Since that's the design.

Crits are designed to do extra damage, not massive damage.


This has a uneven effect on weapon users where where the classes that you would assume would be really good at critical Hits are the worst and vise versa.

Since I've read the book, I only assume that Paladins and Rogues are 'good at crits', and to a much lesser extent, Half-Orcs. I do not assume that Champions are 'good at crits' because they have nothing in their abilities that make crits, good.


Turn around and the paladin can drop almost 3x their base line damage on a critical with no supporting features.

So what you're saying is that you think Paladins need to be nerfed? There doesn't need to be a buff to critical hits.


If you wanted a very simple fix that didn't mess with the math too much to make players feel better just exchange doubling your weapon die for double ability modifier damage...

I like this simply for the fact that the vast majority of attack spells don't add ability modifier damage, so a crit on a spell would do nothing.
But somehow I don't think caster classes would like that.

[stoutstien]

Rolling a '1' doesn't suck because the vast majority of the time, any low number will still miss.



You used 'underwhelming' twice. More stuff about feelings.



I mean I think we agree on that. I would just as soon as rolling a '1' or '20' do literally nothing different (as in a Skill check or Saving Throw), but apparently we live in a world where damage is all that matters, and when people roll crits they want to see big numbers...But if a hostile rolls a crit they want to see small numbers. Except that the game is kind of based around the assumption that you kind of do a fixed amount of damage per round, and that's why when you crit, I kind of understand that you're not supposed to do massive damage. Since that's the design.

Crits are designed to do extra damage, not massive damage.



Since I've read the book, I only assume that Paladins and Rogues are 'good at crits', and to a much lesser extent, Half-Orcs. I do not assume that Champions are 'good at crits' because they have nothing in their abilities that make crits, good.



So what you're saying is that you think Paladins need to be nerfed? There doesn't need to be a buff to critical hits.



I like this simply for the fact that the vast majority of attack spells don't add ability modifier damage, so a crit on a spell would do nothing.
But somehow I don't think caster classes would like that.

AC scale much slower and cap lower than attack bonuses. It's not uncommon to get to the point would one would hit a decent portion of the range even with a 1 if it wasn't for the auto miss.

Spell casters aren't really concerned with attack spells because they scale like NPCs with more dice so they have a better return with criticals then weapon users. Under the change they would just add modifier. If you see that as a nerf then it's proof the average weapon user is getting hosed because they get about half that.

[icedraikon]

Critical hits don't need to be made better, unless you are making critical misses, worse. Which you aren't.



I actually had a DM do this once. Crits would do max weapon die + mod + rolled weapon die similar to what other people suggested, but natural 1 on attack roll meant a d4 roll.
1 - Damage to Form (Go Prone)
2 - Damage to Equipment (Break/fracture/crack weapon/armor)
3 - Damage to Ally (Hit would miss enemy and instead hit ally)
4 - Damage to Self (You would somehow damage yourself)

Personally, I would rather lackluster crits if it were between great nat 20s bad nat 1s and okay nat 20s and normal nat 1s, because that Natural 1 rule really put a damper on high attacking builds if you didn't have advantage.

That said, I do like the idea of taking higher value that OP suggested. Usually better than normal crits, usually worse than taking max on one die and rolling the other.

[Hytheter]

Honestly, just doing more damage is disappointing. I'm not saying that every game should have Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay levels of critical hits (although it would be nice), but something cool should happen on them instead of just 'yeah more damage'.

Unless you're a paladin or something it's probably not even that much extra damage. An extra d10 is a drop in the bucket against a monster with 150HP.


Critical hits don't need to be made better, unless you are making critical misses, worse.

That doesn't make sense. Why would increasing the impact of critical hits necessitate increasing the impact of natural 1s? It's not like they have direct symmetry to begin with.

[Chad.e.clark]

Crits are fun when they happen. In any game, fun things should be celebrated. I for one like the "additional rider" idea for scoring a crit. Have it be tied to your chracter's first class level to keep multiclassing shenanigans/ headaches to a minimum.

Off the top of my head, some ideas for each class for scoring a nat 20 on an attack roll (no additional action or bonus required for any):

Barbarian: recover an expended use of rage. Alternatively, double your Rage damage bonus for a number of attacks equal to your proficiency bonus.

Bard: generate and grant a Bardic Inspiration to a creature you can see within 30 feet (or whatever range it is normally from BardicInspiration).

Cleric: Immediately recover a use of Channel Divinity or expend a use of Channel Divinity as part of your attack.

Druid: Recover an expended use of Wild Shape or a spell slot equal to half your proficiency bonus rounded up.

Fighter: Add proficiency bonus to damage or apply one known damage generating maneuever (Trip Attack, Pushing Attack, etc) to attack without expending a superiority dice. Any maneuver used as part of this crit bonus only applies its rider, disregarding any additional damage dice that would normally be included in the maneuver for the original target.

Monk: Recover a number a Ki equal to half your proficiency bonus rounded up.

Paladin: You may cast any prepared Smite Spell (Searing Smite, Wrathful Smite, etc.) as part of this attack. If no Smite Spell is prepared, add 1d8 radiant damage to the attack.

Ranger: You may make a number of additional attacks equal to half your proficiency bonus rounded up. These attacks do not generate attacks from any resulting nat 20s.

Rogue: You may utilize an additional use of Cunning Action as part of this attack.

Sorcerer: Generate Sorcery Points equal to your proficiency bonus.

Warlock: Double the effect of any invocation applied to your attack. Or apply the invocation to any other creature within range of the critical attack.

Wizard: What are you doing making an attack roll? Cast a cantrip as part of this crit bonus.

Artificer: I don't know much about artificers. Would recovering a Spell Slot equal to half proficiency be out of line?


Another idea would be to have each subclass give an alternate crit bonus option that you could choose to override the base class crit bonus, but I'd have to think about what would be appropriate and flavorful and fun.

And on the opposite side of the DM screen, have a monster or NPC crit rider be determined by its creature type (Monstrosity, Fiend, Abberation, etc.)

Edit:
On the other side of the dice, I also think critical misses present an opportunity for fun. Not all fun has to beneficial. Roll a d20. The higher the number, the less haphazard the result (targeted creature gets advantage on its first attack against you next round) . The lower, the more unfortunate (falling prone , or damaging either an adjacent friendly creature or [if no friendly creatures are adjacent] damaging yourself, or dropping your weapon, or your weapon slips from your hands and goes flying a number of feet equal to Str mod x 5.) None of which are a necessarily a death sentence, but, in my opinion, would add to the fun, one way or another.

[Anonymouswizard]

Unless you're a paladin or something it's probably not even that much extra damage. An extra d10 is a drop in the bucket against a monster with 150HP.

I mean, that used to be an end game dragon, D&D has suffered massively from HP inflation post 2e.

But yeah, I'd love to see more interaction with critical hits in some way. I want to see classes get different things to do on a crit, various riders or effects you can pair with certain damage types of the like. If you want Fighters to tension simple you could give them extra dice or exploding dice.

[TyGuy]

One homebrew idea is to simply apply max damage to the extra dice, which makes crits hit nice and hard, but it also means monster crits hit nice and hard and is one reason why, I think, WotC kept them underpowered.


Just my 2 copper, but applying this double edge sword has been pretty fun at my table. That extra level of "Oh sh!" when a PC is on the receiving end of a crit builds suspense and tension to a acceptable degree.
I find monster crits are already obnoxious in T1 anyways; and I run that tier softer and expediently. In T2 with magic items it hasn't been a problem whatsoever.

[Kane0]

My table does the quick and dirty 'crits are double damage'. Has worked so far, even rolling all 1s amounts to solid damage because your stat and other modifiers are also doubled.

And it's easier for me when DMing since I use average damage often.

[Hytheter]

My table does the quick and dirty 'crits are double damage'. Has worked so far, even rolling all 1s amounts to solid damage because your stat and other modifiers are also doubled.

And it's easier for me when DMing since I use average damage often.

As a Sharpshooter user I like this but as a DM I hate it. :p

[Kurt Kurageous]

Just max their initial weapon damage and roll bonus damage as normal, e.g. a crit with a longsword would be 8 + MOD + 1d8.

I've been running this as my house rule since 2016:
Roll damage as normal, then add the max value of all dice thrown on top.

The reasons I did this:
1. No more unhappy crits, per OP.
2. Speeds up combat if the players roll the d20(or two) AND damage dice at the same time. Read results.

The effect:
1. Crits feel special again.
2. No one is unhappy with it.
3. I don't see it as a balancing issue.

[Osuniev]

Just max their initial weapon damage and roll bonus damage as normal, e.g. a crit with a longsword would be 8 + MOD + 1d8. Then just double additional dice from class features or spells (Sneak Attack, etc.). Crits cannot ever be worse than a normal hit but don't skew the math too far, and PC/NPC can use the same rules or the normal rules as the DM prefers.

This is one of my favourite House Rules, and my players agree.