Is there a section for this yet?
Anyway, I was reading the latest Dragon article and I thought; 'It is stupid to have criticals do maximum damage and then add +1d6 from a magic weapon. You need to stop and find a 1d6 or else add another die to the dice you roll 'just in case' you get a twenty.'
Since I am always right, I said; 'Wouldn't it be easier just to make the extra damage due to a critical equal to the weapon damage rolled?' Basically a magic weapon that does extra critical damage does damage equal to the damage die of the weapon. So if you get a critical you do maximum damage then add your damage roll as the magic weapon damage. And for those who are persnickety, just add one damage for those piercing weapons that do 1d8 extra damage on a critical.
Of course I have only read the rules once here, I might be way off. But one of the points of 4e was to speed play after all.
EDIT: Or is there a House Rules section for 4e and this has been suggested about 3 times?
One thing you may want to note is magic items do +1dX PER PLUS on a crit. So your +6 Holy Avenger is popping +6d6 on a crit (assuming they do d6s ... would have to look them up to check)
That changes things a bit. You'd definitely lose some power on crits with lower level attacks, although I guess a high level attack might have a greater potential ...
(As far as I know, this is the only 4E board on Paizo. There is, however, a board devoted entirely to house rule/home creations over at ENWorld. They've already produced a rocking Druid and Bard, as well as some REALLY nice power cards. A bunch of other stuff too ... check it out, I recommend it! Linky)
Is there a section for this yet?
Anyway, I was reading the latest Dragon article and I thought; 'It is stupid to have criticals do maximum damage and then add +1d6 from a magic weapon. You need to stop and find a 1d6 or else add another die to the dice you roll 'just in case' you get a twenty.'
Since I am always right, I said; 'Wouldn't it be easier just to make the extra damage due to a critical equal to the weapon damage rolled?' Basically a magic weapon that does extra critical damage does damage equal to the damage die of the weapon. So if you get a critical you do maximum damage then add your damage roll as the magic weapon damage. And for those who are persnickety, just add one damage for those piercing weapons that do 1d8 extra damage on a critical.
Of course I have only read the rules once here, I might be way off. But one of the points of 4e was to speed play after all.
EDIT: Or is there a House Rules section for 4e and this has been suggested about 3 times?
I see your point for the low plus items but when your getting an extra 3d6 damage I think its a big enough deal that having to find the dice is an excuse to savour the moment and an opportunity for others around the table to get excited. It appears that Crits get much more 'swingy' later in levels when there are more dice being maximized and bigger and nastier magic items are being factored in. At low levels their kind of nice but at high levels they would seem to have the ability to really change the momentum of a battle.
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Anyway, I was reading the latest Dragon article and I thought;'It is stupid to have criticals do maximum damage and then add +1d6 from a magic weapon. You need to stop and find a 1d6 or else add another die to the dice you roll 'just in case' you get a twenty.
I totally agree. The whole point of 4E crits is not rolling. Then rolling for crits with magical weapons (which will eventually be most weapons a player carries) messes that up.
'Wouldn't it be easier just to make the extra damage due to a critical equal to the weapon damage rolled?' Basically a magic weapon that does extra critical damage does damage equal to the damage die of the weapon.
Good idea. Though, as someone already pointed out, at 1dX per plus, that's going to get really high. Maybe that's okay. Or maybe consider assigning the average of each die rather than the max. So if the weapon's damage is d6 then instead of rolling a d6 you'd just add 4 per plus on crits. #1, that's what happened to hit points (I think), no more rolling just add flat averages. #2, by keeping with averages you'll stay in the same range as intended by RAW; by going with max values, your crits will end up doing more damage than the author's intended.
But, yeah, one way or another adding a flat number to crits with magical weapons makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, it seems like if there's one place you really don't want swing, and messing around looking for how many dice you have to roll, it's once you get up into the high levels. Stuff slows down enough--besides some day some of that magical juju is going to get pointed at your character. I like the general rule of keeping things to flat numbers if you can.
So yeah, if the number is too low, boost it a bit. I don't know if it's be terrible to just go flat average and add +3 damage per level of the magical weapon on a crit. That'll bring the disappointing low rolls and the horrific high rolls to an end and more or less even things out.
Part of me rankles at the whole idea that you double normal damage on everything except magical weapon criticals. It feels like much more elegant design to just double that too--but then, yeah, you're looking at a whole lot of damage on a crit. Loads.
Likewise I can understand why not doing it the old way, since all the little pluses to damage that you get for magic weapons are pretty dinky by the time they start showing up in game. I mean what's an extra +5 damage against something with 900 hit points? 5d6 is much beefier--and feels like a magic weapon against a target like that.
Shoot. I did not notice that it was plus 1d6 per +1 bonus. Now my idea sucks. Thanks for reminding me about ENWorld. I always forget they have boards.
Is there a section for this yet?
Anyway, I was reading the latest Dragon article and I thought; 'It is stupid to have criticals do maximum damage and then add +1d6 from a magic weapon. You need to stop and find a 1d6 or else add another die to the dice you roll 'just in case' you get a twenty.'
Since I am always right, I said; 'Wouldn't it be easier just to make the extra damage due to a critical equal to the weapon damage rolled?' Basically a magic weapon that does extra critical damage does damage equal to the damage die of the weapon. So if you get a critical you do maximum damage then add your damage roll as the magic weapon damage. And for those who are persnickety, just add one damage for those piercing weapons that do 1d8 extra damage on a critical.
Of course I have only read the rules once here, I might be way off. But one of the points of 4e was to speed play after all.
EDIT: Or is there a House Rules section for 4e and this has been suggested about 3 times?
Why not just house rule that magic weapons add X damage to the critical damage pool. So in the case of a holy avenger +6 it would add 36 damage (Max Damage which is the rule for criticals) and allow you to expend a healing surge.