TheRPGSite

QuoteTo score a critical hit in 4th Edition D&D, do the following:

Roll 20.

Simple enough, right? Just one number to remember. And more importantly, just one roll.

Yes, the confirmation roll is gone. So why did we get rid of it? Because we, like so many players, had rolled crits only to have the confirmation roll miss. And we didn't like it. We don't think that many people did. (I look forward to reading the posts of people who disagree.) Having one roll is faster, and it's more fun. It keeps the excitement of the 20, and ditches the disappointment of the failure to confirm.
Critical Damage

Here's the part that's going to take some getting used to: Critical hits don't deal double damage. This changed because doubling everything 5% of the time led to some pretty crazy spikes that were very unpredictable.

Let's say you roll a crit with a power that deals 1d10+4 normally. So the crit deals 2d10+8. The next turn, the monster attacks you using a power that deals 3d6+4 damage. He crits, dealing 6d6+8. Between the extra dice and the doubled ability modifier, that's a pretty huge difference! (And a pretty painful one.)

Instead, when you roll a critical hit, all the dice are maximized. So your 1d10+4 power deals 14 damage and the monster's 3d6+4 deals 22. Generally speaking, randomness is more of an advantage to monsters than PCs. More predictable critical damage keeps monsters from insta-killing your character.

Having maximized dice also helps out when you have multitarget attacks. You'll roll an attack roll against each target, so maximized dice keep you from needing to roll a bunch of dice over and over -- you can just write your crit damage on your character sheet for quick reference.
Beefing Up Your Crits

PCs also have some extra tricks up their sleeves to make their criticals better. Magic weapons (and implements for magical attacks) add extra damage on crits. So your +1 frost warhammer deals an extra 1d6 damage on a critical hit (so your crit's now up to 14+1d6 damage in the example above). Monsters don't get this benefit, so PC crits outclass monster crits most of the time.

Crits can be improved in a couple of other ways. Weapons can have the high crit property, giving extra dice on a crit. Like this:
Weapon    Prof.    Damage    Range    Cost    Weight    Category    Properties
War pick    2    d8    --    15 gp    6 lb.    Pick    High crit, versatile

In addition, some powers and magic items have extra effects on a hit. So crits are doing just fine without all those dice.
Crits in Play

In playtest, it does seem like critical hits come up more often. The subtitle of this article is stolen from Chris Tulach, who sings a bit of, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Crit-mas" whenever the natural 20s come out to play. Fortunately, hit points are higher, especially at low levels, so there's a bigger buffer to keep those crits from killing people too quickly. It still feels great to roll one, but the fight goes on.

We've tried to corral the numbers but keep the feel that a critical hit is a special event. So grab your d20 and your big, nasty magic axe, and get ready to crit for the fences!

Link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20080104&authentic=true

[Note: I made a few lines of interest bold]

This article has made me slip off the fence onto the doom and gloom side. It looks like PCs will have access to better critical hit abilities than monsters. It also looks like they will have a lot more starting hit points too.

The design philosophy does seem to be about not only defanging most things from previous editions, but also to add a lot of padding to the PCs at the same time too. It sounds like the scales will be tipping in favor of the PCs quite a bit in 4E.

This was predictable. :)

Yeah, right from the very first press conference it's been more-or-less a given that confirmation rolls are gone. I can definitely see the logic - nothing sucks more than failing the confirmation roll - but it's clearly made the maths go a bit whacky, and they've had to compensate in all sorts of different ways to make it right again, resulting in this horrible, overpatched monstrosity. I have to say, I'm beginning to lose interest in 4E too.

Here's how I'd handle crits, incidentally:

- You crit on a natural 20, no confirmation roll required.
- Crits do double damage, maximised.
- Monsters and NPCs do not get crits, period.
- PCs only get crits against monsters with at least twice their hit dice.

That way, the crits only come out to play when they're needed. There is nothing cool about eviscerating an orc with a crit when the orc would have been just as eviscerated with a normal roll. There is plenty cool about getting a crucial critical hit in against a dragon that is kicking your party's ass.

I would do this. Do a critical hit, roll damage as normal, but your opponent is stunned for a round, whatever it is.

I like the single roll, and while partial to "double damage" I think anything like:
* double dice-roll(s), then add bonuses
* maximized damage
* stun opponent / disarm / etc
would be okay.

Not allowing monsters and NPCs to benefit from a "natural 20" seems like it's unnecessarily easy on the players.  Each time they see that 20 they'll know they've got the training wheels on. :)

If WotC doesn't want character death in the game, why not just say: Characters are unconcious at 0 hp.  A character only 'dies' when agreed upon by the player and GM.

Quote from: jedimastertThe design philosophy does seem to be about not only defanging most things from previous editions, but also to add a lot of padding to the PCs at the same time too. It sounds like the scales will be tipping in favor of the PCs quite a bit in 4E.

(http://www.big-bounce-entertainment.co.uk/images/sumo.jpeg)
We never used the confirmation roll in our group.  If you critted, great.  If you rolled again and got a 20, it was an insta-kill.  So it wasn't really confirming anything.

Quote from: jedimastertLink: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20080104&authentic=true

[Note: I made a few lines of interest bold]

This article has made me slip off the fence onto the doom and gloom side. It looks like PCs will have access to better critical hit abilities than monsters. It also looks like they will have a lot more starting hit points too.

The design philosophy does seem to be about not only defanging most things from previous editions, but also to add a lot of padding to the PCs at the same time too. It sounds like the scales will be tipping in favor of the PCs quite a bit in 4E.

I told you so.

RPGPundit

I told you so first! :hehe:

I'm fine with single-roll, 20 = max damage. In fact, I'll probably use it in my D&D.

Of course, the comments about how monster crits are unfair to players only confirms how much WotC is sheltering whinging players from all scary and 'unfair' outcomes in the game (although I fail to understand what's unfair about PCs and their adversaries both having access to same abilities and dangers).

If 4E is about doing away with sacred cows to make D&D appealing to today's RPG market, then why keep PC death at all? It's clear that the most vocal RPGers in the market they're gearing 4E towards hate it. It seems absurd to keep PC death in the game, while at the same time allay the pissing and moaning of players by doing everything to make PC death all but impossible.

Looks good to me. They've removed the annoying part of crits like having to make more rolls and possibly fail, and needing to balance the 18-20 weapons against the 20 only ones. Removing the rolling means getting a crit actually speeds up your turn instead of slowing it down (not that the slow-down was usually very big).

I wish they'd gone whole hog though. They took away the need to roll crit damage, but then added in magical properties that require rolling. IMO they should have just made frost add 3 or 6 damage instead of 1d6.

I'll leave the discussion of whether or not we should bitch and moan about increased hit points to the thread that was already talking about it.

I can understand the logic behind these changes, although I'm pretty "meh" on the issue.  Personally, I think this change has some merit because of the "critical rape" rules we had in a group of mine:  any natural 20 was an automatic crit, no matter what.  This led to at least two TPKs and a number of pointless deaths.

Jeez, I remember the arguments between Arneson and Gygax over whether there even should be such a thing as a critical hit.  I remember when rolling a natural 20 meant you rolled double the normal number of damage dice.

I am officially old.:(

QuoteIt looks like PCs will have access to better critical hit abilities than monsters.

I'm not sure he meant that. From what I read beings with class levels and magic weapons have better critical hits than others.

Or do you seriously think that monsters won't be allowed to wield magic swords (provided they have hands)?

Still I find the name a bit odd. Maximising instead of doubling sounds more like a Solid Hit.

Quote from: 1of3I'm not sure he meant that. From what I read beings with class levels and magic weapons have better critical hits than others.

Or do you seriously think that monsters won't be allowed to wield magic swords (provided they have hands)?

Still I find the name a bit odd. Maximising instead of doubling sounds more like a Solid Hit.

Interestingly, it works out to have a somewhat similar result for a single die:

The average result of an n-sided die is (0.5n + 0.5).
Doubling this gives you an average result of n + 1 on a critical.
Just taking the maximum gives you a result of n on a critical.

The more dice you roll, the greater the difference is.  If I had designed this, I probably would have said that non-random modifiers still get doubled.  But if critical hits are going to become more common, it makes sense for them to be less powerful.

I'm not sure if they're becoming more common or not. Because of the 18-20 weapons, Keen magic, and Improved Critical feat it's possible to be rolling confirmation rolls in 3.x on a little under half your attacks (or over half if you really go insane). Whether that's going to mean more or less than 5% of your hits are crits depends on the attack bonus vs. AC ratio of the average opponent.

Quote from: James McMurrayI'm not sure if they're becoming more common or not. Because of the 18-20 weapons, Keen magic, and Improved Critical feat it's possible to be rolling confirmation rolls in 3.x on a little under half your attacks (or over half if you really go insane). Whether that's going to mean more or less than 5% of your hits are crits depends on the attack bonus vs. AC ratio of the average opponent.

Keen/Improved Critical don't stack in 3.5.  Thank goodness.  In 3.0, rapiers could have what, a 12-20 crit range?

Quote from: 1of3Or do you seriously think that monsters won't be allowed to wield magic swords (provided they have hands)?

I am starting to believe that. It sounds like monsters won't get the better crit even if they were to pick up the sword in the article's example.

Why do you think that?

Quote from: MelanThis was predictable. :)

After seeing some of the WotC design philosophies in the development articles I think you are on to something with that Tyranny of Fun idea.

Quote from: B.T.Keen/Improved Critical don't stack in 3.5.  Thank goodness.  In 3.0, rapiers could have what, a 12-20 crit range?

That just slows the crit build down, it doesn't stop it. Using a little splatbook mining you can get 7-20 falchons in 3.5, assuming the GM is not allowing a conversion of the 3.0 Weaponmaster, but does allow material from the Book of Vile Darkness, which is kind of a 3.25 product.

Most characters won't have near that much, but depending on the to-hit vs. AC ratio, even a 15-20 Keen Rapier can come crit more than 5% of the time.

Quote from: B.T.Why do you think that?

QuotePCs also have some extra tricks up their sleeves to make their criticals better. Magic weapons (and implements for magical attacks) add extra damage on crits. So your +1 frost warhammer deals an extra 1d6 damage on a critical hit (so your crit's now up to 14+1d6 damage in the example above). Monsters don't get this benefit, so PC crits outclass monster crits most of the time.

Because that was what was written in the article. (I just mean to point this out and I do not mean it sarcastically)

I tool that to mean that there won't be a lot of +1 Frost Zombies running around, not that monsters are not allowed to use magic weapons.

Or maybe monsters won't use magic weapons (maybe they'll have mundane weapons but get an enhancement bonus to attack or something).  I know they're trying to reduce equipment-dependency, but I'm hoping that it's just sloppy writing.

If there's arule that monsters can't use magic weapons, I can see that being house ruled almost universally.

Quote from: James McMurrayI tool that to mean that there won't be a lot of +1 Frost Zombies running around, not that monsters are not allowed to use magic weapons.

Well actually...

QuoteThe simplest monsters are cooler in the new edition of the D&D game, and zombies are no exception. But even though they're soulless animated corpses, zombies don't have to be dead simple. The 4th Edition designers threw the new zombie a bone, coming up with a few ways that everyone's favorite corpse creatures can function in the game to give more chills and kills.

To this end, in the Monster Manual, three exotic zombies appear. The first is the chillborn zombie, the coldness of the grave given just enough volition to be bent on murder. The corruption zombie is a paragon of rot with a great throwing arm. The final new zombie is the gravehound zombie.

That list might spark some preconceived notions about what these undead do. All three possess the implacable resilience of regular zombies, but each comes with an added spin. You might expect easy clichés and predictable performances, but the ideas behind these new breeds of zombie aren't dead on arrival.

A chillborn is cold, but it's not merely an icy zombie. Whatever accursed rites or foul maledictions gave a semblance of life to the chillborn made it even tougher than normal, its body and mind hardened by the freezing hand of death. Life-sapping cold streams from the creature, and the more chillborn zombies in a group, the deeper the freeze. As might be expected, the remorseless fists of the chillborn deal some cold damage, but when a chillborn strikes you, you just might freeze in place, still able to fight back but unable to flee the biting aura the zombie exudes. All chillborn deal more damage to immobilized victims, and your inability to maneuver certainly benefits anyone relying on the chillborn to provide a defensive front line.

One creature that requires such a line of defenders, although probably provided by allies other than the chillborn, is the corruption zombie. This creature is so tainted that its body constantly exudes putrid flesh. It tears off chunks of its own rotting body to hurl at its foes, but leaving itself unharmed due to the supernatural nature of its tissues. If one of its thrown motes of corruption strikes you, however, you're in trouble -- not only does the gobbet hurt, but the unclean flesh also weakens you. Your instincts might dictate charging the zombie to stop its ranged attacks. But the stink of death is so strong near the creature, so sickening, that it can overwhelm the fortitude of the hardiest warrior, slowing his movement and enfeebling his attacks. Even so, if you can stand the smell, pressing the corruption zombie into melee might be an effective way to put an end to the creature.

This isn't true of a gravehound zombie. So named because it's usually created from the corpse of a sizeable dog, a gravehound zombie is a melee monster like many other zombies. It's much faster than normal zombies, and its bite makes up in damage what it lacks in accuracy. The real problem with gravehounds is that their bite causes continuing decomposition around the wound. That trouble can persist even after the gravehound is destroyed. When the gravehound goes down, it lashes out one final time. If it hits you, its jaws lock. Until you can use brute force to open the death grip, you have to drag the hound around and deal with the decay its teeth cause. Being hindered like that during a battle can be more than just a minor nuisance.

When you're playing D&D, you want exciting entertainment. Defeating these exotic zombies is all the more satisfying, the possibility of horrible death all the more threatening, given their terrifying abilities. They set a great precedent for the zombie category's future expansion, and the prospect of even more terrifying fun.

Link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20071022

 :D

Quote from: James McMurrayIf there's arule that monsters can't use magic weapons, I can see that being house ruled almost universally.

I think they can use the magic weapon, but the implication is that only PCs will get the extra damage die on a crit.

Quote from: jedimastertI think they can use the magic weapon, but the implication is that only PCs will get the extra damage die on a crit.

That's one way to read it, but it seems kinda silly for them to design it like that. It becomes a complicating factor for monsters instead of a simplifying one, because now you have to remember which effects they can and can't benefit from. I'm much more inclined that this was just a guy penning his thoughts and leaving unintentional loopholes in his words than that their design team opted to go so far afield.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that's not what they meant.

Quote from: jedimastertWell actually...

Link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20071022

 :D

Sorry, he's not +1. ;)

Regardless of whether monsters can use magic weapons, the upshot of the new crit rule is that PCs always have a chance for a crit, while monsters will rarely have a chance for a crit. The PCs have kewl new powers, HP inflation, etc. while monsters don't keep pace. It's pretty clear by now that 4E is aiming for a superheroic powergaming feel, with more and more of the lethal dangers to PCs being mitigated or done away with. Spider-Man never gets killed by his opponents. Why should PowerAxeDwarf-Man? I'm really curious if we'll see some sort of script immunity hard-coded into the 4E rules: Mooks cannot kill PCs, only Named Foes can, or something like that.

Quote from: Haffrungthe upshot of the new crit rule is that PCs always have a chance for a crit, while monsters will rarely have a chance for a crit.

What is your basis for this statement? I see nothing that limits how often a monster is allowed to roll a 20, and there's even an example of a monster critting in the article.

I have a million problems with what I've seen of 4e, but maximizing damage on a crit doesn't sound so bad. They're starting to go in the right direction, but not far enough. What I think might be a good idea, is have creatures inflict maximum damage on a natural 20, and then in addition to that, have weapons inflict crit damage.

So if I normally inflict 1d10+5 dmg on an attack, then on a natural 20, I inflict 15 pts of dmg. In addition to that, I'd add crit damage dice that will vary depending on the weapon type, and I'd make that crit damage an "exploding die", so that every time you roll maximum crit damage, you roll that die again, and add to it.

For example, a dagger inflicts d4 crit damage. On a 4, roll another d4 and add the result to the damage total. If you roll a 4 again, you repeat this process.

This would be grittier and more dangerous than what they're proposing, but personally, I like the faint possibility of an insta-kill. :D

If you have the crit die explode by rerolling itself -1 you simplify the math. The average roll goes for 2.5 for a d4 to 3, a d6 goes from 3.5 to 4, etc. But then you step even farther away from the ease and simplicity of just rolling max damage.

Quote from: HaffrungI'm really curious if we'll see some sort of script immunity hard-coded into the 4E rules: Mooks cannot kill PCs, only Named Foes can, or something like that.

With no snark at all, I fully expect that in, or by, 5th edition, we will see "Death is a small inconvenience" like WoW, Guild Wars, and most other MMORPGs.

The MMORPG industry makes much, much more money than the TTRPG industry.  Well over an order of magnitude more.  Simple economic selfinterest means that TTRPGs will continue to look more and more like MMORPGs.

Quote from: Old GeezerWith no snark at all, I fully expect that in, or by, 5th edition, we will see "Death is a small inconvenience" like WoW, Guild Wars, and most other MMORPGs.

The MMORPG industry makes much, much more money than the TTRPG industry.  Well over an order of magnitude more.  Simple economic selfinterest means that TTRPGs will continue to look more and more like MMORPGs.

With a tiny amount of snark, smaller than "roll up a new character in minutes, find old character's map, pursue revenge against monsters that killed old character (if feasible)"?

Not to my liking.  Too much Precious Snowflake Syndrome.

This change just bugs me.  Not because I'm in love with 3e's crit system, or that I don't like the pre-3e crit system.  But because they dedicated a whole article to it, as if it were marginally important.  It's so inconsequential (to me).

First time in the 4e drama cycle where I've felt that I was seeing a change for the sake of change.

I'm on board with the new traps.  I like the new cosmology.  I don't mind what's in races and classes (from what little I've seen).  I even like SWSE.

This just leaves me, not quite shaking my head, but rolling my eyes and shrugging my shoulders.

Quote from: Christmas ApeWith a tiny amount of snark, smaller than "roll up a new character in minutes, find old character's map, pursue revenge against monsters that killed old character (if feasible)"?

Despite my problems with the current edition, Christmas Ape has a point. See this situation:

DM: "Okay, chief....the ogre just inflicted 12 points on your fighter.

Player: "Oh, Hell! My fighter, Battleaxe Bob, is dead. :mad:

DM: "Everyone else continue. Dude, roll up a new character."

Player: "Fine." :mad:  

(five minutes of furious scribbling and rolling)

Player: "I'm done." :D

DM: "Let me see that. Okay, you've got another fighter. Stats look all right, and...what the Hell?! His name is Battleaxe Bob, the Second? :what:

Player: "Yep. When he finds out what happened to his clone....er, his "cousin", he'll have his revenge. And revenge is a dish best served cold...." :hehe:

DM: :rolleyes:

Repeat this seven or eight times. Hilarity ensues! :haw:

Seriously though, I don't mind characters coming back from the dead, but I want it to be something that contributes to the story. Like if you ressurect the character, you run the risk of bringing back Something Really Bad. :hehe:

Or maybe the characters need to journey into the Realms of Death to bring back their dear, departed buddy, and maybe even the dead character has some "adventures" of sorts while in the afterlife, at least before he reaches his FINAL destination in said afterlife. :)

But just raising the dead without consequence is boring. I want some story potential there. Know what I mean? :raise:

I like this change because it's a step towards less dice rolling in combat -- fewer things slow down combat more than rolling three or more iterative attacks (something I hope goes away in 4e) and scoring a couple of crits.  More crits is also a nice boost for weapon wielders.

Quote from: Christmas ApeWith a tiny amount of snark, smaller than "roll up a new character in minutes, find old character's map, pursue revenge against monsters that killed old character (if feasible)"?

Yes.

Have you played World of Warcraft?  Your character's ghost reappears at the nearest graveyard.  You can run back to your body and voila! instant resurrection.  

Or, you can resurrect at the graveyard with a penalty to your equipment condition.

In Guild Wars you simply "pop alive" at the nearest "Resurrection Shrine".  You take a minus for a while, but you just come back to life.

I truly, seriously expect to see something like that.  No "Reroll Stupid Bob with the Axe the Second (third, fourth, eighty-ninth)", no find a cleric.  Just "Poof!  Tinker Bell is Alive."

Quote from: Old GeezerYes.

Have you played World of Warcraft?  Your character's ghost reappears at the nearest graveyard.  You can run back to your body and voila! instant resurrection.  

Or, you can resurrect at the graveyard with a penalty to your equipment condition.

In Guild Wars you simply "pop alive" at the nearest "Resurrection Shrine".  You take a minus for a while, but you just come back to life.

I truly, seriously expect to see something like that.  No "Reroll Stupid Bob with the Axe the Second (third, fourth, eighty-ninth)", no find a cleric.  Just "Poof!  Tinker Bell is Alive."

Will be it be explained on a Wizards design blog with the increasingly familiar "most gamers disliked or did not utilize..."? :p

If all it took for success was MMORPG emulation, Everquest d20 would have outsold everybody instead of bombing hard. So far WotC seems capable of drawing a line between what MMOs offer and what TT games offer. The shape of that line will largely determine how much I like 4E when it finally rolls out.

Quote from: HaffrungRegardless of whether monsters can use magic weapons, the upshot of the new crit rule is that PCs always have a chance for a crit, while monsters will rarely have a chance for a crit. The PCs have kewl new powers, HP inflation, etc. while monsters don't keep pace. It's pretty clear by now that 4E is aiming for a superheroic powergaming feel, with more and more of the lethal dangers to PCs being mitigated or done away with. Spider-Man never gets killed by his opponents. Why should PowerAxeDwarf-Man? I'm really curious if we'll see some sort of script immunity hard-coded into the 4E rules: Mooks cannot kill PCs, only Named Foes can, or something like that.

Way to blow it out of proportion.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: B.T.Way to blow it out of proportion. :rolleyes:

Please. Every single developer note thus far has discussed how PCs are going to have their power levels ramped up, with at least most of them hinting or flat out stating that "monsters" (which I read as including NPCs; basically, anyone not a PC) will be made less powerful than an equivalent PC.
 
They've even stated that the default assumption for combat is that every PC will be fighting a seperate opponent, each of which will be weaker in combat than the PC.
 
Saying 4e is aiming for a superhero powergaming feel isn't hyperbole or even speculation, anyone with any reasoning abilities whatsoever should be able to see that coming a mile away (unless these articles they are releasing are just flat-out lies).
 
If you like the new direction of D&D, fine. But some of us are really fucking tired of suffering fools who keep insisting that the feel of the game hasn't changed when even a blind deaf five year old can clearly determine it has by this point.
 
The criticism isn't of this one small change - it's about seeing yet another piece of the larger puzzle (which keeps looking suspiciously like a WoW/Exalted hybrid and not traditional D&D).

So how does that turn into NPCs never critting?

The Dungeon Master's Guide will come with a special d19.

Quote from: 1of3The Dungeon Master's Guide will come with a special d19.

If it came with a d18 I'd buy it immediately.  No kidding.

Personally, I've always liked using the Arduin Grimore critical hit charts as they add a bit more excitement to the melee rounds   from simply knowing  that your next naturally rolled 20 might just possibly lobb off your opponents head :D --or if your on the receiving end of an attack  -- your own :eek: