Critical Hit range language (BG3 vs PHB)

[Oramac]

Pretty much what the title says. The language used in each system is rather noticeably different.

BG3 uses verbiage such as "The number you need to roll a Critical Hit while attacking is reduced by 1. This effect can stack." (Taken from the Champion Fighter, but other sources are similar)

PHB et. al use verbiage such as "...your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20." (PHB Champion Fighter, but other sources are again similar)

Personally, I far prefer the BG3 version, and would quite prefer if WOTC would adopt it for the 2024 PHB. (I know they won't, but still)

It does introduce some potential shenanigans with stacking multiclassing and magic items, but I don't believe it would be too big an issue in actual play. Reason being, many such features are locked behind (sub)class levels, which greatly limits the available crit range. Also, the true power of increasing crit range is, I think, not understood by the average player. I say this because I've often given my groups a magic sword with the verbiage "for every non-critical attack that hits, the critical range of this weapon increases by 1" (it was written long before BG3). Having tested the item myself, it is ludicrously powerful; turning roughly every 5th to 7th attack into a critical. However, my players have almost universally ignored it, as the true power is not readily intuitive.

Anyway, what say you? Which language do you prefer?

[JonBeowulf]

I don't like the concept of critical hits in the first place. It's a sacred cow and it's not going anywhere, but "always miss on a 1 and always hit on a 20" is good enough for me. It's kind of like the 3-point line in basketball; congratulations, you did something a little bit special so here's a bonus for no reason other than letting you feel good. Applying the alternative crit verbiage to basketball, we'd have a 4-point line, 5-point line, etc.

Since it's a permanent fixture, though, I'm wary of letting them stack. There will be a optimizers who find a way to crit on... I dunno... a 16. A 25% crit chance is stupid strong and makes balancing encounters darn near impossible and will likely break published campaigns. Keep the original with defined ranges so the DM can keep building encounters like they've been doing for decades.

[Oramac]

I don't like the concept of critical hits in the first place. It's a sacred cow and it's not going anywhere, but "always miss on a 1 and always hit on a 20" is good enough for me. It's kind of like the 3-point line in basketball; congratulations, you did something a little bit special so here's a bonus for no reason other than letting you feel good. Applying the alternative crit verbiage to basketball, we'd have a 4-point line, 5-point line, etc.

Since it's a permanent fixture, though, I'm wary of letting them stack. There will be a optimizers who find a way to crit on... I dunno... a 16. A 25% crit chance is stupid strong and makes balancing encounters darn near impossible and will likely break published campaigns. Keep the original with defined ranges so the DM can keep building encounters like they've been doing for decades.

That's fair. I know there's some BG3 builds that can get the crit range down to 13-20. The trick there is that you're giving up a LOT of other really good gear to do it, so you're pretty much a one-trick pony.

I don't think it would break anything as long as it's [mostly] all gated behind class features and such; especially if most of those features are in the late Tier 2 to Tier 4 range.

That said, I'm more curious if people find the language itself better or worse. Personally I like the BG3 language, but I'm only one person.

[Gullintanni]

I don't like the concept of critical hits in the first place. It's a sacred cow and it's not going anywhere, but "always miss on a 1 and always hit on a 20" is good enough for me. It's kind of like the 3-point line in basketball; congratulations, you did something a little bit special so here's a bonus for no reason other than letting you feel good. Applying the alternative crit verbiage to basketball, we'd have a 4-point line, 5-point line, etc.

Since it's a permanent fixture, though, I'm wary of letting them stack. There will be a optimizers who find a way to crit on... I dunno... a 16. A 25% crit chance is stupid strong and makes balancing encounters darn near impossible and will likely break published campaigns. Keep the original with defined ranges so the DM can keep building encounters like they've been doing for decades.

I've played in games (albeit 3.5) where "crit-fishing" builds would crit on an 11-20. Keep in mind that a critical hit in those cases isn't an automatic hit. Only a natural 20 carries that particular advantage.

It wasn't broken. I will grant endgame HP scaling made damage scaling a less efficient way to end encounters in general, and there were lots of enemies innately immune to critical damage in 3.5, so it'd play differently in 5e, but the bottom line I think is that even with a wide crit range, and especially by the time it comes on-line, spells are still king for ending encounters.

[Mastikator]

The BG3 version is mathy, BG3 gets away with it because the computer does all the math for you, it remembers everything for you. In tabletop players forget things, or remember them after the fact. The game is bogged down by players researching conditions on their turn, the game is bogged down by players arguing with the DM about getting various advantages.

It's really cool to stack crit increasing multipliers and add extra effects and riders to the moon, but it's not worth the cost over the table. It gets old very fast, as are the players sitting next to you waiting for you to just end your goddamn turn already. Yes I'm salty.

[Salmon343]

WOTC have made strides to bound nova potential in 5e 2024, such as by making Paladin smites 1/turn (and even trying to make the Rogue's sneak attack 1/round), so I feel like this language is intentional to avoid crit stacking and thus big spikes in damage.

I personally like expanded crit ranges. It's a cool way to optimise for more damage. In the 3.5 era games you could massively expand your crit range and damage on a crit - I had a Pathfinder (Path of War!) character that had a high crit range, and at later levels would've been able to debuff on a crit too - and man did he feel awesome.

[JonBeowulf]

I've played in games (albeit 3.5) where "crit-fishing" builds would crit on an 11-20. Keep in mind that a critical hit in those cases isn't an automatic hit. Only a natural 20 carries that particular advantage.

It wasn't broken. I will grant endgame HP scaling made damage scaling a less efficient way to end encounters in general, and there were lots of enemies innately immune to critical damage in 3.5, so it'd play differently in 5e, but the bottom line I think is that even with a wide crit range, and especially by the time it comes on-line, spells are still king for ending encounters.

I was running with the assumption that crit == hit. This adds an interesting wrinkle that may cause me to rethink my position. I still don't like the double damage thing, but if you still gotta land the blow then it doesn't seem as broken as I thought.

[Cikomyr2]

I've played in games (albeit 3.5) where "crit-fishing" builds would crit on an 11-20. Keep in mind that a critical hit in those cases isn't an automatic hit. Only a natural 20 carries that particular advantage.

It wasn't broken. I will grant endgame HP scaling made damage scaling a less efficient way to end encounters in general, and there were lots of enemies innately immune to critical damage in 3.5, so it'd play differently in 5e, but the bottom line I think is that even with a wide crit range, and especially by the time it comes on-line, spells are still king for ending encounters.

I think the wide range of crit-fishing in 3.5 was tempered by the need to CONFIRM your crit.

Remember that?

[stoutstien]

I think the wide range of crit-fishing in 3.5 was tempered by the need to CONFIRM your crit.

Remember that?

Id rather not.

If you really thing about it it's a triple confirm to see what a critical does. Critical >roll to confirm> roll good damage.

[sithlordnergal]

I've played in games (albeit 3.5) where "crit-fishing" builds would crit on an 11-20. Keep in mind that a critical hit in those cases isn't an automatic hit. Only a natural 20 carries that particular advantage.

It wasn't broken. I will grant endgame HP scaling made damage scaling a less efficient way to end encounters in general, and there were lots of enemies innately immune to critical damage in 3.5, so it'd play differently in 5e, but the bottom line I think is that even with a wide crit range, and especially by the time it comes on-line, spells are still king for ending encounters.

I was actually about to talk about this. You could easily make a crit build in 3.5 where your crit range was 12-20. And they were exceptionally dangerous, especially when you began to mix feats and multiclassing. In particular, they added Swift Hunter, which allowed Ranger/Scouts to ignore the Crit Immunity of their Favored Enemies. It also allowed them to apply Skirmish damage, which was effectively a special Sneak Attack. Toss in levels of Dervish, and you were a Crit Machine Blender.

I'd be concerned of such a crit machine in 5e, because there are a lot more ways for martials to add multiple dice to their damage rolls. Usually they added flat damage bonuses. Case in point, compare the 3.5 Paladin to the 5e Paladin. 3.5 Paladins could add their Charisma Modifier to a damage roll a handful of times per day. That's not a lot, and a crit isn't going to make that spike.

In 5e, Paladins get to add a number of d8's based off the spell slot they spend, with a range of 2d8 to 6d8 depending on the target's type and spell level. It maxes out with 4th level spell slots. So imagine, if you will, a Sorcadin, with 4th and 5th level spells, Extra Attack, and a Bonus Action Attack, that has a crit range of 14-20. That's a 35% crit chance per attack roll that will double all smite damage

[Skrum]

The advantage system has a pretty bag impact on crits - At first glance, 5e only has crits on a 20, while 3.5 had many weapons with a 19-20 crit range (just as base examples). But the chance of getting a crit when attacking with advantage is nearly as high as a 19-20 crit range (9.8% vs 10%).

Stack champion fighter and advantage, that's a 19.1% chance to crit.

Throw in Elven Accuracy, and it's a 27% chance to crit. That's slightly better than a 16-20 crit range.

Depending on your party and house rules, advantage may be really easy to get or really tedious - but the topic of flanking variant rule is a whole other topic.

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Personally, I don't think it's *chance* to crit that makes crit fishing kinda silly/waste of time in 5e. It's the way crits are calculated. IMO, there's exactly one viable crit fishing build, and that's a hexadin with elven accuracy IF flanking rules are being used. Crits are really only worth fishing for if you have extra damage dice, and paladin is essentially the only option in that regard (sneak attack being once/turn just piles more uncertainty on top of the crit chance itself; this is not a basis for a build).

[Cikomyr2]

The advantage system has a pretty bag impact on crits - At first glance, 5e only has crits on a 20, while 3.5 had many weapons with a 19-20 crit range (just as base examples). But the chance of getting a crit when attacking with advantage is nearly as high as a 19-20 crit range (9.8% vs 10%).

Stack champion fighter and advantage, that's a 19.1% chance to crit.

Throw in Elven Accuracy, and it's a 27% chance to crit. That's slightly better than a 16-20 crit range.

Depending on your party and house rules, advantage may be really easy to get or really tedious - but the topic of flanking variant rule is a whole other topic.

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Personally, I don't think it's *chance* to crit that makes crit fishing kinda silly/waste of time in 5e. It's the way crits are calculated. IMO, there's exactly one viable crit fishing build, and that's a hexadin with elven accuracy IF flanking rules are being used. Crits are really only worth fishing for if you have extra damage dice, and paladin is essentially the only option in that regard (sneak attack being once/turn just piles more uncertainty on top of the crit chance itself; this is not a basis for a build).

And this is why i love it in BG3!! It goes beyond this one specie-exclusive build.

[Rukelnikov]

In 3e a friend's brother had some Keen Vorpal Bladed Gauntlets with Improved Critical, meaning he would decapitate his target on a roll of 9 or more lol, he was either doing minuscule damage or decapitating, a pretty weird build.

That kinda build is likely why they changed how Keen, IC and Vorpal interacted in 3.5.

[Cikomyr2]

In 3e a friend's brother had some Keen Vorpal Bladed Gauntlets with Improved Critical, meaning he would decapitate his target on a roll of 9 or more lol, he was either doing minuscule damage or decapitating, a pretty weird build.

That kinda build is likely why they changed how Keen, IC and Vorpal interacted in 3.5.

I always rules that Vorpal blade works on a nat 20.

No exception. Crit works normally. But decapitation is nat 20.

[Rukelnikov]

I always rules that Vorpal blade works on a nat 20.

No exception. Crit works normally. But decapitation is nat 20.

That's how they fixed it in 3.5, but in 3.0 it worked on all crits, OG bladed gauntlets having a nat 17-20 threat range was also pretty insane. (I think they were later changed to 19-20 which killed the weapon entirely)

[Gullintanni]

I was running with the assumption that crit == hit. This adds an interesting wrinkle that may cause me to rethink my position. I still don't like the double damage thing, but if you still gotta land the blow then it doesn't seem as broken as I thought.

I'd agree that if you automatically hit with a crit range increase, then that'd break combat pretty hard. With an 11-20 range, your hit rate is always 50% at minimum. I'd argue that that's a lot more impactful than the double damage. I think a guaranteed hit 50% of the time is probably more impactful than double damage 50% of the time, but you still have to land the hit.

[Dalinar]

I personally like expanded crit ranges. It's a cool way to optimise for more damage. In the 3.5 era games you could massively expand your crit range and damage on a crit - I had a Pathfinder (Path of War!) character that had a high crit range, and at later levels would've been able to debuff on a crit too - and man did he feel awesome.

I believe this sort of design was specifically cited by WOTC recently as something they wanted to avoid (I want to say it was in comments about the recent UA Barbarian and replacing Brutal Critical). They were concerned that things could get a little wild if they allowed easy access to big crit ranges AND had things that did fun stuff on critical hits. It's one thing for Brutal Critical (which I think they refused to admit is undertuned LOL), it would be another if they one day decided, for instance, to release a subclass or magic item or whatever that added scary riders to crits. I don't think they've taken much advantage of it in 5e materials, but I'm reminded of the BG3 version of GOOlock, where critical hits force the target and nearby enemies to make WIS saves or be frightened. Considering Eldritch Blast hits multiple times, and the fact that that game makes getting big crit ranges a little easier than 5e, that seems pretty good.

[KorvinStarmast]

Pretty much what the title says. The language used in each system is rather noticeably different.

One is a TRPG, one is a CRPG. Of course they are different.

It does introduce some potential shenanigans with stacking multiclassing and magic items, but I don't believe it would be too big an issue in actual play.

You posted this on a forum populated by a lot of optimizers.