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I hate that approach. A friend of mine used to do that when he DMed, and we all hated it and in the end convinced him not to use it anymore. What happens if you roll a 1 on your crit? It isn't fair to just multiply a single roll like that. Rolling criticals doesn't slow play down. It is a single or two additional dice. What, do you also tell your 15th level wizard to roll a single die for his fireball and then have him multiply the roll by 10?
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Does anyone else house-rule that a crit just straight up multiplies your damage result, minus precision damage?
I am always eager to speed up play, and picking out a bundle of dice to roll for a crit just slows things down at my table.
I just wanted to get a feeling on how common my approach was.
My group does, but we give the option to roll or multiply. 99% of the time we multiply (I assume you don't let energy damage and such multiply, since that's "extra" and doesn't crit)
Nothin like a 1st level druid hitting the giant spider with a scythe for 44 damage during the 1st round of combat. (I make DMs cry, I have a habit of gettin mad damage crits on bosses)When I dm I let people pick if they wanna multiply or reroll and add AFTER they roll the first time, so if you roll high multiply, if you roll low reroll. The only stipulation is if there are multiple dice, like a great sword, its all or nothing. So if you roll a 6 and a 1 with a greatsword on a crit you can multiply the 7 (getting 14) or roll 2d6 and add the result.
We don't like crits doing crappy damage
We also don't confirm crits (in your crit range is a crit if you hit their AC), and have several options for the feat needed (crit focus?)for the "condition" critical feats. We normally do something like let the feat add double your crit multiplier to damage on a crit (not multiplied, but not precision, just added after all the other numbers)
Then again I've accidentally TPK'd 5 level 10 (not counting their free +2 level adjustments)
With 5 level 6 kobold fighters and 4 level 3 kobold warriors. But that's not because of crits, that's a group of "Leeroy Jenkins's'ss"
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I hate that approach. A friend of mine used to do that when he DMed, and we all hated it and in the end convinced him not to use it anymore. What happens if you roll a 1 on your crit? It isn't fair to just multiply a single roll like that. Rolling criticals doesn't slow play down. It is a single or two additional dice. What, do you also tell your 15th level wizard to roll a single die for his fireball and then have him multiply the roll by 10?
Seriously? Fireball is your example? Never mind not the same ballpark - not even the same sport. I asked for an opinion, not a smart-a$$ remark.
Take a weapon that uses 2d4 for damage like scythe. Crit multiplier of x4.
I don't even own 8 d4's.
I have found that often with the groups I play with there is a scavenging of dice and then the interesting attempts to do the math.
And as to the 1, yes, sometimes you do crappy damage. The inverse is of course that you could roll a 12 on your d12.
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My group does, but we give the option to roll or multiply. 99% of the time we multiply (I assume you don't let energy damage and such multiply, since that's "extra" and doesn't crit)
Oh, that sounds like a good approach. I think I will offer that to my players in the future.
And no, we don't multiply the extra damage from elemental effects.
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Seriously? Fireball is your example? Never mind not the same ballpark - not even the same sport. I asked for an opinion, not a smart-a$$ remark.
Take a weapon that uses 2d4 for damage like scythe. Crit multiplier of x4.
I don't even own 8 d4's.
I have found that often with the groups I play with there is a scavenging of dice and then the interesting attempts to do the math.
And as to the 1, yes, sometimes you do crappy damage. The inverse is of course that you could roll a 12 on your d12.
Sorry, it's just that i have so much hatred for that method. It ruined so many combats. As for the scythe, it is an extreme example, i don't know any other weapond that has a x4 multipier and 2 damage dice...and again, just roll 4d4 twice...no big deal.
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The problem with multiplying is that it increases the likelihood of both min and max damage. This may not be a huge deal mid to late game but early game this can be a killer. What do you do when a CR 2 Orc Barbarian, who raging will have 22~23 strength crits? They are already going to be doing a minimum of 20 damage if they don't have power attack and are using a x2 weapon. Now lets say they are using a greataxe if you roll max damage and multiply it you just did 63 damage 72 if you were power attacking. Not many characters are going to survive a hit like that. Given that this is an extreme example it just shows you that you are increasing the lethality of your game overall and that you are going to have to be even more careful what kind of tactics, gear selection, and feat selection you are going to use for you NPCs.
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The problem with multiplying is that it increases the likelihood of both min and max damage. This may not be a huge deal mid to late game but early game this can be a killer. What do you do when a CR 2 Orc Barbarian, who raging will have 22~23 strength crits? They are already going to be doing a minimum of 20 damage if they don't have power attack and are using a x2 weapon. Now lets say they are using a greataxe if you roll max damage and multiply it you just did 63 damage 72 if you were power attacking. Not many characters are going to survive a hit like that. Given that this is an extreme example it just shows you that you are increasing the lethality of your game overall and that you are going to have to be even more careful what kind of tactics, gear selection, and feat selection you are going to use for you NPCs.
Early game I find even regular hits to be fatal. Any reasonably strong opponent with a two-handed weapon that rolls well will be dropping most low-level characters quickly. If an orc barbarian crits with a greataxe, you are almost assuredly going down. Big weapons often do big damage. With the straight multiply method though, I can say I rolled a 1 behind the screen and they will buy it easier than if I say I rolled several 1's on multiple dice repeatedly.
I like the hybrid method that Name Violation mentioned - I hadn't really considered that before and it really seems like the best of both worlds for my players - which I have no problem with since they are the stars of the show.
I'm working on a basically entirely reworked Iron Heroes system. In that, critical hits with an x2 "multiplier" deal max base weapon damage +1d10. A x3 deals +2d10, and a x4 deals +3d10. There is no multiplying.
My group does, but we give the option to roll or multiply. 99% of the time we multiply (I assume you don't let energy damage and such multiply, since that's "extra" and doesn't crit)Oh, that sounds like a good approach. I think I will offer that to my players in the future.
And no, we don't multiply the extra damage from elemental effects.
It's what my group does, but you have to declare it before you roll.
I'm working on a basically entirely reworked Iron Heroes system. In that, critical hits with an x2 "multiplier" deal max base weapon damage +1d10. A x3 deals +2d10, and a x4 deals +3d10. There is no multiplying.
I am working on a similar system so I now have to ask what is the purpose of your idea?
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Does anyone else house-rule that a crit just straight up multiplies your damage result, minus precision damage?
I am always eager to speed up play, and picking out a bundle of dice to roll for a crit just slows things down at my table.
I just wanted to get a feeling on how common my approach was.
When we first started 3.0 we did it this way but it's far, far too swingy. If you don't have enough dice, just call a crit maximum normal damage and be done with it.
Oh and really dice aren't that expensive and make great birthday/holiday presents.
--Vrock n' Roll
In our game, on a critical hit you do maximum base damage, plus the additional dice, so a longsword crit will do 8+1d8 dmg, or a longbow will do 8 + 2d8 dmg.
Since we use the Critical Hit Deck for PCs, any one of the 'multiplier' dice for a draw from the deck (for a longbow, 2 potential draws).
as with everyone else, no 'bonus dice' are affected in any way.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I go with the RAW on this one. Roll multiple dice. If it's a scythe, yeah, you roll 8d4. Greatswords are 4d6. etc. etc.
Of course, I also own a crapload of dice, so this isn't an issue. I don't find it slows the game down much at all. People with x3 and x4 multipliers also tend to have the narrowest critical threat range and thus it shouldn't really come up all that often anyway, and the x2 crits are adding 1 whole die. Not exactly hard math, IMO.
I'm working on a basically entirely reworked Iron Heroes system. In that, critical hits with an x2 "multiplier" deal max base weapon damage +1d10. A x3 deals +2d10, and a x4 deals +3d10. There is no multiplying.I am working on a similar system so I now have to ask what is the purpose of your idea?
My reason for it is threefold. Most importantly, I wanted to reduce the massive damage increase that things like Power Attack give on critical hits. Second, it guarantees that critical hits will always deal more damage than regular hits. Third, it reduces the time it takes to calculate your damage on a critical hit.