I'm thinking of changing how criticals work in my game as a houserule, since I think the critical confirmation roll is overcomplicated and often a big anticlimax. I've also killed two players in fights that weren't meant to be too rough by critting and rolling max damage, and while some parties may be cool with that, it doesn't feel right for us.
I was thinking of adopting the critical rules from 4th edition; a natural 20 is a critical hit, and a critical hit deals maximum damage. So if you have an attack that hits for 2d6+6, it would deal 18 damage automatically on a crit. This seems to suitably tone down crits while making them much easier to get. Of course this kind of messes with weapons with high crit ranges and crit multipliers. I was wondering what people thought about:
1.Allowing high crit range weapons to keep those ranges. If a player has a scimitar then it crits on a natural roll of 18-20 and deals max weapon damage. Since most crit weapons have relatively low damage dice, critting more often would be balanced out. The only problem I foresee here is Magus crit fishing.
2.High crit multiplier weapons... would be a bit screwed. I'd appreciate any creative but uncomplicated ideas for dealing with this. I was thinking that letting extra multipliers apply to the weapon damage only might work? So a player who hits with a longbow for d8+4 would crit for 20 (8+8+4)? Or max damage plus an extra weapon damage roll (8+4+d8)?
Any thoughts?
For the crit multiplier issue, either one of those could work.
Let's say we have a great axe that normally deals 1d12+14, which averages to 20.5. On a normal X3 crit we end up with 61.5 points of damage.
On your crits, it would deal either 38 or 32.5. That's less than what it would deal using standard rules and a X2 crit (41). Really what it comes down to is how you and your players want the game to run, and that monsters follow the same rules. Your home rule would make crits more damaging than normal hits, but less likely to outright kill with a lucky damage roll.
The only snag I can see is that some monsters have bigger damage dice, such as a claw that deals 3d6+9. However, this wouldn't be a problem unless it also had a higher multiplier.
Alternatively:Critical Multipliers
Multiplier _ Damage
Regular __ Roll damage dice + Damage modifiers
2x _______ Max damage dice + Damage modifiers
3x _______ Max damage dice + Damage modifiers + Weapon damage dice
4x _______ Max damage dice + 2x Damage modifiers + Weapon damage dice
The first one you described was what I was trying to explain, hah. The alternative one is interesting. I was worrying at later levels that martial classes would be screwed by not having all their modifiers multiply. Crits would only be varying by 11 damage at most.
For the crit multiplier issue, either one of those could work.
Let's say we have a great axe that normally deals 1d12+14, which averages to 20.5. On a normal X3 crit we end up with 61.5 points of damage.
On your crits, it would deal either 38 or 32.5. That's less than what it would deal using standard rules and a X2 crit (41). Really what it comes down to is how you and your players want the game to run, and that monsters follow the same rules. Your home rule would make crits more damaging than normal hits, but less likely to outright kill with a lucky damage roll.
The only snag I can see is that some monsters have bigger damage dice, such as a claw that deals 3d6+9. However, this wouldn't be a problem unless it also had a higher multiplier.
Thanks for the maths breakdown, that's reassuring.
Monsters would follow the same rules, yes, though I'd be more willing to fiddle with them behind the screen to prevent the problem you describe. One of the main reasons I want to change it is that most of my players aren't particularly good at keeping all the different rules in their heads, so anything that speeds up combat will be helpful.
For high crit weapons in 4E (weapons with the High Crit weapon property), they did maximum damage +1 weapon die of bonus damage at 1st-10th levels, and +2 weapon die of bonus damage at 11th-20th levels.
Examples:
High Crit Longsword (1d8) would deal 8 + 1d8 on a crit (lvl 1-10), or 8 + 2d8 (lvl 11-20)
High Crit Greatsword (2d6) would deal 12 + 2d6 on a crit (lvl 1-10), or 12 + 4d6 (lvl 11-20)
For Pathfinder, especially if you keep the current threat ranges, I'd just take the "Flaming Burst" route that says you deal +1d10 extra damage on a crit with a High Crit weapon (normally x3). Perhaps +2d8 for normally x4 weapons, +3d8 for x5 weapons (x4 weapons in the hands of a fighter with Weapon Mastery).
Critical Focus (and other abilities that grant bonuses/penalties to crit confirmation rolls) could simply add +4 damage on crits.
I kinda dislike the "confirmation roll" part of the crit rules, so I quite like the idea. Having less swingy damage rolls for critical is also a good bonus.
Please note, however, that not having to confirm the critical increase the frequency of effects that trigger on a critical (like Critical feats or the gunslinger's grit recovery). You may want to limit the more powerful of them to trigger only on a natural 20.Math time !
In the old crit system, the average damage of critical can be approximated to :
Damage = Multiplier x (1/2 Max Weapon Damage + Multiplied Modifiers) + Non-Multiplied Modifiers.
With the new system, if we want the kind of damage, we can use this rule as basis, which gives the following :Crit x2 : Damage = Max Damage + 2 x Multiplied Modifiers + Non-Multiplied Modifiers.
Crit x3 : Damage = 1.5 x Max Damage + 3 x Multiplied Modifiers + Non-Multiplied Modifiers.
Crit x4 : Damage = 2 x Max Damage + 4 x Multiplied Modifiers + Non-Multiplied Modifiers.
Using this method, a STR 14 character would do on a critical :With a greatsword : 18 damage instead of 20 damage
With a greataxe : 27 damage instead of 28.5 damage
With a scythe : 28 damage instead of 32 damage
This method slightly disadvantage weapons with both multiple dices and high crit modifier, but otherwise keep close to the original average crit damage.
The confirmation roll of a critical strike has a subtle mathematical trick that should be incorporated into the alternate crit rules.
Suppose that my character has h chances out of 20 of hitting. For example, if my character hits on a d20 roll of 14 or more, he hits on 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20, so h would be 7. Also suppose that the crit range for his weapon has c critical values out of 20. For example, if his weapon crits on 19-20, then c is 2.
We refer to a crit range as chances out of 20, for example, 19-20 is 2/20. However, my character has h chances of hitting but c out of those h are critical threats. That gives that c/h is the fraction of hits that are critical threats. But we want c/20 to be the fraction of hits that are critical hits. c/h is a lot bigger than c/20.
To convert c/h into c/20, we multiply by h/20. But h/20 is the chance of hitting! Thus, we roll a confirmation roll that is the same as the attack roll in order to multiply c/h by h/20 and get c/20 for our chance of critting on a hit.
How about instead of dropping the confirmation roll, we drop the damage roll and use the confirmation roll to determine the damage?
If the confirmation roll succeeds, then the damage follows Aralicia's calculations.
- Crit x2: Damage = Max Damage + 2 x Multiplied Modifiers + Non-Multiplied Modifiers.
- Crit x3: Damage = 1.5 x Max Damage + 3 x Multiplied Modifiers + Non-Multiplied Modifiers.
- Crit x4: Damage = 2 x Max Damage + 4 x Multiplied Modifiers + Non-Multiplied Modifiers.
If the confirmation roll fails, then the hit deals average damage, which we round up to half max damage plus 1.
- Crit failed: Damage = 1 + 0.5 x Max Damage + Multiplied Modifiers + Non-Multiplied Modifiers.
The difference between this system and the old crit rules is the lack of variance. The new crit always deals good damage, in fact, it deals close to the average of the old crit, but it never deals amazing damage, such as max damage on all the dice, nor terrible damage, such as 1s on all the dice.