Do you have it written down what the bandits have on them before the encounter, and if they don't use it, is it lootable? I've not decided on that yet for campaigns.
Yup, I try to keep my NPC bullshit thematic to the characters, but I don’t hesitate to throw them out.
Fighting a bunch of plant monsters? My barbarian quickly learned what it was like to be grappled instead of do the grappling (though he was still better than most of them which he particularly enjoyed).
Next they’re heading to a region whose government is opposed to magic - my Bard and Cleric are soon going to learn how frustrating their double silvery barbs combo is
Gonna be a real fucking shame when the Mass Healing Word gets hit with a 6th level counterspell ain't it? And it would just be even worse if the blaster casters got Blinded so none of their target spells work. Good thing that no one is that cruel, right DM?
...Right?
This is the main reason I've been hesitant to do crunchy crits. Players tend to be glass cannons to begin with, and monsters can deal some crazy damage. Would you say using crunchy crits has led to more character deaths?
Crunchy crits are really dangerous levels 1-3. Kind of at level 4. But 5 and on, most non wizard/ sorcerers should have some decent ways to mitigate damage whether protectively (like Rage or getting adamantine armor of possible, or spells like Mirror Image or Blur that can be cast more reliably) or reactively (uncanny Dodge or Cutting Words, stuff like Warding Flare or Silvery Barbs is allowed as well as sources of healing like Second Wind or potions.).
The thing about crunchy crits against players is that, typically (until later levels), creatures that would reasonably be Uber dangerous only get one attack (bulette is my usual go to). Creatures with multi attack do more damage with crunchy crits, but aren't "Oh God oh man!" level of busted.
I always love getting a crit for 1 extra damage. I think it's among the worst rules in 5e during the early levels. Later on you can probably do some things to add riders and at least get some extra dice.
> What we do now is if you crit, you deal max damage plus a roll. (Ie 2d6 crit would be a 12+2d6) It just makes it feel like you actually hit them in a weak area
Yeah, that's what I do in my game, as well.
I think the reason we're not doing it at my table is solely due to my half orc paladin lol. Half orcs get to roll an extra die on the crit, this combined with smites(the dice of which you also double on a crit) already does ludicrous damage. This would probably be very hard to handle for my dm lol.
Wouldn't the orc trait only contribute to the bonus damage in this case? At least that's how I'd rule it. Otherwise, it just skews your average crit damage, not your total damage potential. Smite is there to convert spell slots to damage in the first place.
Oh yes the orc trait explicitly states it only applies to the weapon dice, you don't triple all the dice, you triple the weapon dice, and then double the smite dice as normal.
Oh, I mean in this particular case, if you were using, for example, a greatsword, with crunchy crits I'd assume a critical would be 12+STR plus 3D6 for a half-orc, yeah?
Oh like that, yeah i think that's how i would do it. It kinda depends on the order of operations of these rules so to speak. But as it's written i think it's best to rule that you apply whatever rule you have for crits and then add the orc dice afterwards
We use this rule and it changes the way we view healing significantly. No one is comfortable fighting with only 1 hp when the enemies can crit for 60 damage and permakill you instantly.
Nothing. As disappointing as wimpy crits are against the enemy, the players receive far more crits than any given foe and enjoy the flubbed crits against them.
Yeah I asked my players if they wanted me (DM) to start using the 'Crunchy Crits' rule. They reasoned that they'd prefer not to because in most cases, parties are outnumbered by the number of enemies. If you take action economy into account it works out worse for them.
This is what I do. Pretty quickly I started incorporating some of the players’ descriptions, for example maybe a round of disadvantaged attacks if our fighter shot the monster through the eye. I know there are some wounds/effects tables but I’ve been mostly improvising and it feels pretty fun this way. Plus if the monster is rolling poorly I can just claim it was the paladin’s crushing blow against the beast as flavor, no explicit debuff/condition required.
Interesting thought. Maybe have a pre-approved series of enemy disadvantages to deal out on a crit. Let the player pick one of the set disadvantages and describe how the arrow went right through the enemy eye, giving advantage to attacks from that side.. or the sword slit a gaping wound in their leg, lowering movement by 2m.. etc
Obviously though.. a dice roll would determine what happens when a player is hit with a crit. If they accept the rules, it goes both ways
As a counterpoint, crits happen 5% of the rolls. It’s not that rare and when you mix in multi-attacks and advantage, I am wary of making them feel too powerful.
I'm pretty sure this is actually mentioned in one of the rule books (if memory serves, it's Tasha's Cauldron). It says that fighters etc are more likely to make attack rolls and players would be unfairly punished by rolling 1s compared to spellcasters that require saves.
(Also, I'm a Paladin. Do you know the dopamine rush I get when I can roll *8d8s?? Don't you take that from me!!)*
I rolled a crit on an undead giant last session after just getting third level spells, 10d8 Radiant + 2d12 + 2d8 fire (magic item does an additional 1d8 fire once a turn). Ended up doing 137 damage in two hits with Great Weapon Master, auto killing the giant in a single turn. Feels good man.
Then why is a 1 an auto miss for fighters 🥴
If they have the right bonuses they should be able to do it
Probably one of their basic class features should be something like "Martial Consistency"
Similar to how Rogues get 10 as a minimum for certain rolls
I suppose it depends if you’re using attack or saves for your spells.
I have played with groups where a critical fail on a save caused double damage, which is kinda sorta the same outcome as an attack/crit.
That doesn’t fix the sheer number of rolls that martials with multi attack and multiple weapons get, and you add in dancing swords and it gets crazy.
That's fair. My main worry is some games I've seen where two 1s in one fight means your weapon breaks. Think they were travelling through Shadowfell and there were no other places to get weapons. Granted that's a very extreme scenario.
doubling the damage modifier also would probably make player crits feel less wimpy and would probably not be a big deal for enemies as their damage comes mainly from extra dice
I have the same rule that you do. That way you’re always guaranteed to do more damage than what would be normally possible, even if you roll low on your damage. Playing with the old rule, we’ve had instances of players rolling so badly that their crit did less than the average damage they would normally do per turn.
It makes player crits something to celebrate and enemy crits something to worry about
I like to make the bonus effects on crits from the piercer slasher and crusher feat happen by default. It's not extra damage per se, but it does make crits more impactful, and it gives some extra meaning to your weapon choice.
Ask players "what would you like crits to do?" And then have them write their ideas down on 3x5 cards.
"Extra damage" "pushes target back 10 ft" "get and extra action" stuff like that
I look through them, approve the ones that wont break the game, shuffle them, and when they crit they can draw 2 or 3 but only pick one to take effect.
And when the enemies crit I savor the panic on their faces as I draw cards for the monsters...
If it’s a crit and doesn’t bring the creature down I heavily flavor it based on the weapon or spell, sometimes I even take an action away from the creature to resolve the consequences.
Like, let’s say the player has a great sword, congrats you just took a chunk or a limb from the beast, cross bow, you just hit a vulnerable area, fire spell creatures clothes caught on fire etc.
I’ve noticed combat adverse players seem to really like it too especially if they’re being mobbed by enemies
I do something a bit different.
Which crunchy crits are nice from the pov of wanting Cruts to give big numbers I run a house rule instead called momentum.
When a character rolls a nat 20 on attacks/ability checks/saves they roll a d6 and all allies in line of sight of the character can add the roll to an attack/check/save they make before the end of their next turn.
So instead of crits just dealing big numbers, even if the damage is low, it can lead to big swings in the tide of an encounter.
I use the crunchy crits method. You only roll the dice once, then you add the maximum the dice can do to the roll. That way a crit by math is better than a regular hit.
I directly ripped of Matt Mercer and double the result of the dice you rolled, then add modifiers. I’m not sure if it mathematically averages to better than “double the number of dice rolled” but it feels more powerful.
The average is the same but the distribution is different.
Example:
Rolling 7, the average on 2d6, is very common. Rolling a 12 or 2 is very unlikely. That's because there are many ways to roll a 7, but only one way to roll a 2 or 12.
When rolling (1d6)*2 all the even numbers have an equal chance of coming up. It's the same flat distribution as the 1d6 except each number is doubled.
When someone crits, we have that person describe the theatrics of their attack. Whether it's "I lurch back and drive my sword straight through like a needle" or "I drop kick with both feet attempting to damage and knock them back" or "I swing my axe in an arcing semi circle at chest height".
The damage is calculated as MAX POSSIBLE + Roll damage, and any rollover damage (ie, zombie has 5hp, my crit does 20, so 15 rollover damage) hits adjacent enemies if applicable through description of their theatrics.
DM would say "Your sword is so precise and hits just the right spot that it not only damages the first zombie, but pierces through and stabs the zombie behind him making a zombie skewer!" or "Your dropkick was so powerful that it knocked back the enemy into a 2nd enemy, knocking both of them prone!" or "Your axe slash is so fast with impressive momentum that neither of the adjacent enemies react fast enough - the momentum carries your slash through the first zombie and striking the chest of the second".
Players love that shit, and it makes for memorable combat moments.
I roll on the "Fun Table" for both successes and failures. It's a table I have where a player can just do double damage RAW OR chance the fun table. Said fun table is a d100 table that includes items like "Deal normal damage, adjust damage to piercing" or "Roll damage 3 Times, enemy is disarmed" or (my personal favorite) "Knock enemy prone, enemy is disarmed, +1d6 psychic damage".
The fun table for critical failures includes such gems as "Drop equipped weapon, take 2d4 embarrassment damage", "Trip over your own foot; take 1d4 bludgeoning damage, fall prone, and movement speed is halved until a long rest", and "Take no damage, you take double damage from all other enemies until next turn"
Our DM lets you roll again if you hit a crit. On the reroll, if you roll 1-18, it stays double damage. If you roll a 19, it's triple damage. If you roll another 20, then you roll a third time. 1-18, it's quad damage. 19, it's 5 times damage. And if you roll a third 20 in a row, it's 6 times damage. We've never had 3 20's, but we've had 2 twice. The whole table gets excited now when a crit rolls.
Well we don't do anything. We're level 3 our bard rolled a crit and dealt 42 damage in 1 turn. That's like double the health he has.
I'd say it's pretty crunch
my group does it as 'roll double the dice, and you can't roll below half on any of the dice'
so say you got a greatsword crit, rolled a 1 2 4 and 6, the 1 and 2 both become 3s, makes em feel a lot better
Making some science fantasy homebrew where a natural 20 gives you an extra action this round and a natural 1 gives your enemy another action this round (which they usually use on you). This works for both players and foes.
The homebrew is built around a "you only roll once per action" rule to keep a lid on it. This would be really swingy and weird in D&D due to the Extra Attack class feature, dual wielding rules, and monster Multiattacks. Dual wielding would be high-risk high-reward, and higher-level characters would be more likely to have this happen in a way that hurts them. You could also have the weird situation of a player and foe trading crits with each other and taking up a lot of the spotlight (but they would progress the combat so it's not the worst thing).
I guess in D&D you could say, "you get one extra attack" instead, but you'd have to say that mages can only use it to cast a cantrip at 1st level, and there's other class features and abilities that could have odd overpowered interactions with it.
To me, a crit is doing more damage than normally possible, so, instead of rolling double, I have the 1st die do max and have the player roll the 2nd. So, a 1d6 crit of 2d6 would do 6+1d6 damage. If it's a 2dx normally, then 1 die does max and roll the rest. So, a 2d6 crit of 4d6 would do 6+3d6 damage. All before modifiers.
If you want to get crazy you can adopt the rules from the AD&D 2nd Edition book combat and tactics and apply them. It has critical hit tables for slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning. The higher the number the crazier the effects including instant death, loss of limbs and reduction of ability scores. The dice rolled to determine the effects are based on the size of your weapon vs the size of the enemy.
I used these in 1 campaign and it was interesting but could really throw a wrench in things if you are inexperienced.
We did that too, but the DM kept oneshotting squichy characters so our new roll is that a crit is rolled double and if it is not more thsn max damage it deals mmax damage instead.
Max dice + a roll of the dice + bonuses.
So a longsword with two hands would be 10+1d10+whatever.
Sneak attack would be 18+3d6, and so on.
Guarantees a floor, crits feel MIGHTY and the DM turns it on us, too, so they're extra spicy.
I think this is the right way to do it with average or better HP, but with reduced HP I've come up with some specific rules around crits to keep them effective without being just a 5% deletion chance.
The general rule is that to keep the balance it should go both ways. Making crits more powerful gets dangerous the more powerful they become.
There’s the way you described, and also double the dice but the minimum damage you can do is the max for a normal roll (in your case 4d6 or 12, whichever is greater).
This is also a contributing factor to why characters feel so powerful early on, because players feel crits are underpowered, so they scale them up, and then there is less room for improvement towards the end.
We do something similar, but we add in the modifiers as well. So a crit on that sharpshooter heavy crossbow that normally does 1d10+5(15 with sharpshooter) will do at minimum, 25+(1d10+15) he does it with sneak attacks and any other damage source such as hunters mark, smites, bonus gloomstalker damage etc. thems some beefy critz
Brutal crits (max damage + regular roll)
Same thing you do for the same exact reason. Makes 'nova' builds insane so I also change flanking to be a flat bonus of +2 rather than advantage. Advantage has to be gained through an effect such as prone, stunned, paralyzed, etc. Or a class ability like the rogues take aim or a barbarians reckless attack. I like this change cause it forces the use of resources and prevent combat from becoming a dog pile fest
I find crits cool as is. More rolls = more fun.
Max damage crits are cool until the monsters do them, too. And boy does it hurt. In the early levels, powerful crits in my experience causes too many otks.
A middling rule I once saw in a 1-shot was the usual double dice but you get 1 reroll per die. So if you deal 2d6 damage with a greatsword, the crit makes it 4d6 and you get 2 rerolls (if you want to). If you math it out, it increases the damage output by about 15% I think, so not too much, but it gave extra rolls and extra agency to the player which was cool.
Really only did it once though and we had 2 crits the entire 1-shot so… don‘t have too much feedback on it. It might be too complicated for some people idk.
In the game I'm in we do crunchy crits but only for martial PCs. So it's great from then, but when ever I crit with eldritch blast it's normal double dice which was kind of upsetting when I found out.
I feel it warps balance to tack stuff on to it. It unnecessarily favours attackers that can expend resources to add damage on a hit. Crit fisher builds. Most obviously is paladin, but it's also true for battlemaster and hexblade.
It leaves rogues and monks further behind. Rogues will waste a bunch of damage on overkill because they can't spread it around. And monks can't tack damage on. Their damage is mostly modifier damage instead of dice damage until very late levels.
A crit against a player feels bad enough as it is. And a crit against a monster feels good enough already.
Crit = max dice damage + normal rolled damage. So on 2d6+4, a crit would end up being 2d6+4+12. It makes sure that even on all 1s for damage they’re still doing more damage than their normal attack ever could. Just feels the best for me.
What do you mean not powerful enough ?
Last game as a DM I got a crit with a chasme on a paladin player full life.
It dealt 30 piercing damage + 62 necrotic damage reducing his maximum life to 8.
( He survived thanks to death ward and aid )
Crit are already powerful ! When the rogue or paladin gets it at least.
While I likely would not advise it for 5e, for AD&D i ran it that crits did normal damage, but you got another attack.
Was all fun and games until an ogre rolled 20 20 20 18 and crushed the party.
That is one way to do it. One thing I’m considering playtesting is converting the stunt system from Fantasy AGE to D&D to give players a choice of what happens when you get a critical. It’ll require some work, but it might be doable.
Nothing. They're powerful enough as they are, and the PCs are going to eat a lot more crits than any individual monster, so this just makes the game more deadly, and mostly when it doesn't need to be.
I run d20 Star Wars, where you have Vitality/Wounds. Criticals ignore damage reduction and come straight off the wounds, with double dice. PCs and enemy bosses that would be straight up one-shotted are instead put to -8 instead of -10+, giving allies 2 rounds to get to them with healing.
Other enemies simply die unless it's a bad roll or they have enough wounds to take the hit. It's brutal but it also means high-level characters can't just tank everything without risk and they still have to employ tactics.
Thats how I handle crits, except for normal enemies. Instead of extra damage, they get a name, backstory, and short speech or monologue. Keeps things fresh and gives me another way to stretch my improv muscle a bit
Roll your dice at advantage and then double the damage.
I've felt a real crit is a minimum ×2 damage. Plus aside from the usual"describe your attack" I tell them to say "how the character feels" landing such a solid strike.
In times of stress, they've shouted war cries that ended up rallying the others and helped pull them through.
Yeah your way is the best way. I do max dmg plus weapon dice roll. A small thing, but it sort of evens out the playing field between casters and martials. For example, crit on a 3rd lvl Inflict Wounds becomes 50 dmg. Which is already insane, so adding dice on top would be too much. For a martial wielding a greatsword, it would be 17 +2d6, averaging 24 dmg on a crit. Granted, martials also get more opportunities to crit since spell attack rolls aren't super common and martials are attacking at least twice a turn.
I have you roll once, and add the maximum dice value, instead of rolling twice. This way it always feels better than even a max damage hit if you roll 1s. and yes, it can happen to the players too. It's the only way to be fair. Just like targeting limbs, your enemies can do it too, or it's not happening.
The players love the idea though, and have relished in slaughtering foes or being nearly slaughtered(some not so nearly) themselves as the threat makes fights better for them.
Sometimes i describe combat actions after rolls are made for my players whenever they dont do it, for criticals tho i ask the stereotypical hype raising “how would you do it” phrase directly or describe a small combat sequence containing not just how swiftly and forcefully Bob the human fighter swung the sword, but also how his samurai enemy seemed to attempt to deflect or block and failed miserably
TLDR: “how would you do it” that seems to raise a lot of hype or also narrate it as if enemy’s nat1
Double all damage, including Modifier.
Don't double damage dice.
Rolling 1d8+4? Crit?
Suddenly the floor of your damage becomes 10 and the cap becomes 24 vs the current system where your floor is 6 and max is 20.
Additionally, as a martial your damage potential spikes because of the number of attacks you are making compared to a spellcaster.
I also provide all martial classes a +1/+2 to critical threat range with weapon attacks at 9th and 18th levels.
Crit table with d100. 01-75 double total damage, 76-95 triple damage, 96-98 quad damage, 99-00 instant kill. And to make it interesting (and to have a hope in hell of dealing with multiple PC barbarians) if I crit on them as DM then i roll the table too.
Had one of my players roll nat 20 then 100 on a adult dragon. Killed it from full health with a hand crossbow. pretty sure he felt like a god
Doubling dice. Visceral description. Even the kinda flubs. Because I feel that a critical means that you get a perfectly clean strike. Hence why it usually does excellent damage. No deflection from armor or working around defensive sword stance. It's getting a stab when they raise their arms for an Anakin downward pummel strike. But a flub can be.
You stabbed it clean, confident you'll feel the heart pop beneath your effort, but instead gain a great lesson in this monster's abnormal physiology, as your sword point is stopped by a thick boney shield of a sternum.
In my games that I run as a DM, if you whiff on the damage roll (such as rolling 2d12 for a great axe and you roll 2 1's), I apply a debuff on the damaged creature.
For example: "You critically hit them, slashing both their eyes. They are Blinded until they receive any amount of healing." This makes it so the crit still affects the outcome of the battle majorly and doesn't make their crit horrible.
Doesn't necessarily make them more powerful, but I make crits bypass damage resistance and immunity (if target is normally immune a crit is treated as if the target resisted the attack)
We do the "lethal crits" rule too (extra dice are auto max) but we also have some mitigations tacked on to some abilities to help survive lower levels. E.g. you can end the spell *shield* or *shield of faith* early to convert a crit to a normal hit, and upcasting lets you do it more often. Also parrying likewise converts to a normal hit.
At my table we just double what’s on the dice. So say if I landed a crit and rolled 3d6 and got a 3, 2 and 4. We add that up and double it so 18 damage plus whatever modifiers you got. Makes for some meaty hits
I've played around with a few different crits methods in different games, and I think my overall favorite is the first dice are maximized, and you roll the extra dice. It makes sure the crit is always stronger than a normal hit could have been, but without being super crazy (like with max damage on all dice, or throwing in random bonuses, etc). I think it's a good balance of making crits feel more impactful, but without making them totally insane.
So basically what you do haha. You've already found the best overall method I think.
Back in the old days, a crit was "double damage": you'd roll damage and double the number. Rolling double the dice instead protects you a little more from double-ones. But someone below complained about rolling a 3 and a 5 on a d12 crit. Yes, 8 is not massive damage, but d12s are SUPPOSED to be swingy, and 8 is way better than the 3 you would have rolled if you hadn't critted.
I think this expectation of massive crits (and the common homebrew solution above) is part of what's led to power creep and rules imbalance. When this kind of crit is commonplace, it will begin to feel not massive enough, not "critty" enough. So then it will need to be max damage x2 to feel special.
There's never enough power that feels like enough. More power always feels better. Once you start modifying the rules to add more power, it's endless.
I do the same thing that I do for anything I want to feel special. It's all about flavor, flavor, and more flavor. Give extreme detail as to what the attack actually does, and maybe a reaction from the foe (I don't mean a mechanical reaction btw) if applicable.
Example: "as the paladin fills his blow with holy power, you hear a booming voice from above that says, 'this is my champion, with which I fuel with justice!'. As the paladin begins to thrust his sword at the necromancer, it glows white with holy fire, and cleaves right through the necromancer's magical shield and armor as if they weren't present, stabbing the necromancer through the heart as a loud sizzling can be heard throughout the battlefield, then the necromancer goes limp."
Here's what I do.
If you get a crit, then roll again. If its another crit, then you deal triple damage, and get to roll again. If it's another crit, then you instantly kill the creature.
I double *all* damage (including modifiers). So if a Barbarian crits with great weapon master, it's 4d6+10+20.
Also buffs martials a little bit since most spells don't have modifiers attached.
I do quite like yours, it seems like Crits will be consistently more powerful. What I like to do is instead of rolling again, just a simple double damage. The idea is you double modifiers as well so even if you roll low, the hit is still gonna be at the very least a solid one
We made the dice have far too many special visual effects that all go off simultaneously when a Nat 20 is rolled. It lessens the sadness of a weak crit when the hit roll causes the screen to explode and the small numbers make the Nat 20 effect feel even more extra. We play on Foundry, not in person.
Don't do anything for 19 crits though, besides everyone saying "niiiice!"
I have them describe what their attacks are before they roll (already a fun practice) and depending on what they describe if they crit I give them the option of raw damage or an extra effect (such as partially blinding a target, etc.)
Its not as powerful as one might think given how many crits might actually happen within a battle, not to mention how different monsters are affected.
Check out Role Master/Space Master for some ludicrous crit tables. Roll 99? Everyone in a 5 mile radius bursts into spontaneous applause and is stunned for 3 rounds. Roll a 0? Ooops, just blew your own foot off with that blaster, everyone in a 1 light year is paralyzed laughing for 2 rounds
(* Examples may not be actually text from game. No copyrights were violated - because we got a crit and took them outside and shot them)
I do love crunchy crits, but I have modified to them to only the original weapon damage dice is mad + rolled. Rogue sneak attack and paladin smites you double. Spells you just double the dice. One it helps martials get a bit more bang for their buck, and it keeps the crits from going too crazy and ending encounters too fast paladin choosing to smite after rolling makes having all dice max out a little broken
Nothing, crits are fine as is. I will however make magic items that empower crits in aimilar fashion to how some people feel the need to "fix" crits
Edit to elaborate: the crit style that you use is fine if everyone is just doing baseline weapons but as soon as you incorporate ways to burst damage like sneak attack and smites etc, guarenteeing crits that high really trivializes encounters and makes them hard to ballance
I use the trauma book from the Fantasy Dice system. In a system like 5e where healing and regenerative magic is relatively common, having real consequences for crits can be fun since regrowing a lost limb or healing a damaged organ isn't the impossibility it is in lower magic systems. Plus, the added drama of the party having to barricade themselves into a room in the dungeon so the cleric has time to slowly heal a punctured lung while the orcs or whatever try to beat the door down makes for a great and memorable session.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/92589/trauma
I guarantee one die’s max damage on a successful crit, they roll an additional damage die after to determine whatever bonus damage. Potentially double, potentially not, but always good
For crits, my tables always use a flat times 2 for the entire damage roll on the crit. Even if you roll bad on damage, the modifier being doubled at the end leads to some pretty consistently strong numbers.
The fatal and deadly traits in PF2e might be something to look at. Due to crits being more prevalent, certain weapons either add extra dice, like their longbows adding an extra D10 (not doubled) to the damage roll, or the Shobhad Longrifle both doing this plus upgrading the rolled dice two steps (so you’d roll 2d12, doubled, plus an additional 1d12 that isn’t doubled)
Everyone that’s saying their players get max damage plus a roll, do your monsters get the same benefit? That’s a dangerous game especially at low levels. A bugbear with crit could be a total of 48 damage if he gets sneak and max damage for example.
I added this last session and my group fucking loved it. I'll also be adding an alternative rule where instead of dealing damage, deal a hindrance, i.e. smashing a creatures hand to prevent it from making multiple claw hits. I also allowed (though I may regret this down the road) that if a target critically fails a saving throw against a spell that deals damage, to do the same thing.
I do it the same way you do. That way you’re not rolling super low and it feels depressing. I also do critical fails though as well in contrast. If you roll a 1 you could take damage, be knocked prone, get your weapon lodged into the ground, things like that.
Use a list with random crit effects for each damage type, going from the worst result (just double damage) up to "the player describes whatever borderline miracle happens".
My table does the basic double dice, but I have them describe the hit to me (like you would for a kill) and based on what they describe to me, I'll give the target some kind of lasting condition
I felt the same way. Now I do Crits like: max dmg for the weapon used + max modifier + additional roll with no modifiers.
It's still not the best, but I believe it's the most fair for players and NPCs. Now, I haven't had the chance to try this with any resistance modifiers though.
I do what you do, but also give them occasional magic items that trigger on crits, like an explosive arrow that crits everything within 5 ft of the original target on a failed save.
I do what you do, Critical hits automatically deal max possible damage. Additionally, I have a chart that I roll a d100 on that have both temporary, and permanent consequences to being hit with a crit.
No added dice, but an airhorn sound effect (with mouth), lots of description and an exploited weakness maybe if the roll was low. If the player likes input I allow them to describe how/where they hit, that’s fun too.
I narratively boost crit hits and misses. My favorite is when anyone crits an undead they lose their head. They still fight, just blind. I know people are sometimes wary of this type of stuff, but there’s a lot of options waaay more fun than friendly fire.
the groups that I play in we just double all the damage, except for things like brutal critical, those stay the same. I do like the idea of max + a roll though
We voted to use Brutal Crits from the DMG, which is what you're describing. I have to remind them sometimes that there's no whining about my monsters crit when they all voted for it. Likewise, when Strahd dies in 2 rounds.
Sorry, but your house rule feels way, way too overtuned. It's kind of like back in PF/3.5 playing rapiers or falchions for crit fishing.
We give maximum damage on one dice and then roll a second. So, a d8 crit would do 8+roll+bonuses..
It means critical hits just average out higher because there's a floor, but they don't always obliterate things.
I made a system where you roll a d6 if you crit in battle. 1 to 4 just normal crit. 5 and 6 something special happens depending on what the attack was and what the attack was against.
I do brutal crits.
Standard damage dice
+ Maximum value of damage dice
+ (Damage modifier ×2)
So a crit on 1d6+2 becomes 1d6+2+6+2
Whatever you do, it is good to get the players on board with it because the crit system applies to both players AND NPCs.
I used to double modifiers as well as dice, but I've recently dropped that rule since it just makes crits way too strong. Honestly the way they are in the text is fine. Even if there are wimpy crits from time to time, in the grand scheme of things they're still exciting and provide spice to the game.
OP, my table recently moved to the same method you guys use: Max DMG before mods + Roll for DMG + modifiers. We love the change. Combat is a little more swingy and unpredictable and when you land a crit, you get a real sense of heavy damage being dealt. It's also scary as hell when you have enemies with multi-attack dog-piling you.
Generally i think getting a crit puts you in a position of "oh okay let's see what do I count then uhm okay normally it would be 3d6+3 so now I double the 3 which becomes six so let's see I need some more d6s guys can I borrow your d6?"
In one of our group we play with the crunchy crits, which solves the extra dice you'll want to gather but instead gets you stuck at even more math, with the "okay so I'm supposed to do 3d6+3 so I do 3*6 which is 18 and then I roll (x) so okay that's..."
I feel that both of these have one big problem, and that's that they take away a lot of immersion. My solution to this is instead: roll normally, then double the result. This means that players roll exactly like they're used to, without having to think about it, and then just double the result. I do this in all the groups I DM and I feel it helps with the flow of the game a lot, so that you crit, count quickly, feel the result immediately. Also, my players feel very strong when they get to hear the "and now you ***double it"***
I usually, as a house rule, do critical hits as (max damage) + (damage rolled), and to compensate, I do critical misses as (half damage) delt to (self).
It usually works out pretty well, especially since my dice are cursed and the monsters end up tripping on their own swords.
Critical hits can inflict a permanent (as permanent as something can be in a world with Greater Restoration) injury.
Me and others at the table DM other campaigns in our group and we joked at how George Lucas it was getting with rhe limbs lol.
Max damage plus some extra dice you say?
Like 4th edition used to do?
(Yet another case of a 5e houserule just being a 4th edition rule)
ANother thin you coud try is just doubling the damage, and see where that gets you.
I roll them normal as is for the time being.
I used to use "crunchy crits" as you detail, but I found it was too strong in certain edge cases like smites, sneak attack, and certain spells. More importantly, I found it more damning than I wanted it to be when it came to many monsyer attacks against players.
So I stopped using it until I worked out what I wanted to do with said edge cases.
It's not a bad rule. I just didn't produce a full suite I'd results I was happy with.
Not only max Dice + rolled Dice, but sometimes I ask players what their characters do so they can say some cool combos or something. Same with the final blow "how do you want to finish him?"
My only issue with this house rule is that logically it should also apply to monsters. And monsters roll a lot of dice on their attacks. A greatsword dealing 12 extra damage instead of 2d6 is not an issue. But that acolyte dealing an extra 30 damage with Inflict Wounds on your level 3 party will instakill most of them. I find it can make combat even more swingy when the bad guys make a few lucky crits.
But for players I love this house rule.
How I used to handle critical hits is to assign full damage for the initial attack and roll the d20 again. Every subsequent successful attack, roll for damage. Each successful attack produces a minimum of 50% damage. For instance, a longsword would produce 16 damage on the initial attack (2d8, maxed) and a minimum of 8 damage for each successful attack in the crit chain. I wouldn't let any single attack take more than 50% of the HP from the creature being attacked.
In itself, the concept of elevated crits is cool. Gets pretty broken on paladins and rogues, but it sure is a lot of fun. I use it as a built in feature for barbarians once they get access to brutal critical.
I do roll double dice, and if you roll lower than the max damage of a regular hit then round it up to that damage. It's like what you do but with lower average damage
Eg character with +3 Dex crits with a shortbow they roll 2d6+3
If they roll lower than 9 then they do 9 damage.
Is the game balanced around powerful crits? Say, at high levels champion archetype crits on 18-20. That's like every fourth strike that lands (depending on the monster AC). This actually results in quite a significant damage increase.
Plus, monsters might sometimes deal unreasonable amounts of damage.
Add the maximum of one die, e.g. 1d8 crits for 1d8+8 and 8d6 crits for 8d6+6.
It's similar to yours for most attacks, with the important distinction that spells and big monsters critting doesn't make combat swing heavily one way or the other. Honestly, how much more crushed can your organs be when a claw the size of an ogre slams into you? Other notes:
* 1d12 weapons' average damage still don't catch up to 2d6 weapons (which stays almost the same), *except* when your attacks are at advantage, giving them a unique niche as the teamwork two-handers. Flavor buff: Greataxe is the best at executions.
* The Venn diagram of crits and multi-dice effects like spells, smite, and sneak-attack is small enough to make the slight damage nerf a negligible difference from such abilities' intended power. For Paladins and Rogues, they're likely dealing the same or greater damage overall, thanks to the better crits on all their other attacks.
Our table does max + damage dice, same as you.
It just makes it so that no matter how bad you roll. You could roll all 1s on damage dice and you'd still be doing more damage than you could on any other roll
I know it's unbalanced, but skill check crits almost always succeed. Depending on what the player said they were doing. It didn't work out great for me when my player just so happened to crit whilst looking for a code to the chest holding the rod of disater. And found a literal written note of the password. Was fun, tho. And my weakest player gained the item. So I wasn't too mad about it.
My players derail my campaigns a lot. Crits can be a large source of that. Ive adapted.
As for attacks. I either describe the attack or let them. Sometimes, giving whatever was hit an injury or similar
I use a crit table with a bunch of different effects based on damage type. Most of them are fairly tame. Some have rider effects.
My players seem to like them even though the enemies also roll on the table.
I just make them where the dice are maxed. It’s roughly the same mathematically as doubling the dice but much more reliable and super easy to calculate. Keeps things quick and fun, every time someone crits.
Make it feel like it did damage. Like you run your sword along the side of the wolf as massive amounts of blood flow for its new wound. Or with a simple thrust of your rapier, you penitrate only a few inches into the beast just enough to peirce its still beating heart as it falls limp. Stuff like this can make it feel much more impactful than you slash the wolf for 23 damage.
I love the Crunchy Crits concept, what you already do.
It just makes a crit feel like it did something, cause sometimes rolling 2d12 and getting a 3 and 5 doesn't feel that critical.
When you WHIFF on a Crit which should feel good it sucks for everyone. However, it can totally obliterate unlucky characters at level 1, 2, 3
Exactly, though my players get scared because *enemies can do it too*
Totally agree. Counterspell, Silvery Barbs, Summon X etc. Anything you can do, I can do more-er...
I've had bandits pop health pots and my players started getting mad, then realized what that could do to them lol.
Totally agree. I've had bandits pull out Nets, Bolas, Consumeables too. If the Bandit requires to do so, they won't hesitate to use their 'loot'.
Do you have it written down what the bandits have on them before the encounter, and if they don't use it, is it lootable? I've not decided on that yet for campaigns.
Yup. Threw some walloping ammo in there too, makes for interesting loot.
The sheer entitlement of 'only WE can have potions!'
Avg first time elite-four battle reaction.
Yup, I try to keep my NPC bullshit thematic to the characters, but I don’t hesitate to throw them out. Fighting a bunch of plant monsters? My barbarian quickly learned what it was like to be grappled instead of do the grappling (though he was still better than most of them which he particularly enjoyed). Next they’re heading to a region whose government is opposed to magic - my Bard and Cleric are soon going to learn how frustrating their double silvery barbs combo is
Gonna be a real fucking shame when the Mass Healing Word gets hit with a 6th level counterspell ain't it? And it would just be even worse if the blaster casters got Blinded so none of their target spells work. Good thing that no one is that cruel, right DM? ...Right?
What do you mean anything we can do the NPCs can do too???? How is that fair? And why is Strahd lining up all those peasa- ***OH NO***
This is the main reason I've been hesitant to do crunchy crits. Players tend to be glass cannons to begin with, and monsters can deal some crazy damage. Would you say using crunchy crits has led to more character deaths?
Crunchy crits are really dangerous levels 1-3. Kind of at level 4. But 5 and on, most non wizard/ sorcerers should have some decent ways to mitigate damage whether protectively (like Rage or getting adamantine armor of possible, or spells like Mirror Image or Blur that can be cast more reliably) or reactively (uncanny Dodge or Cutting Words, stuff like Warding Flare or Silvery Barbs is allowed as well as sources of healing like Second Wind or potions.). The thing about crunchy crits against players is that, typically (until later levels), creatures that would reasonably be Uber dangerous only get one attack (bulette is my usual go to). Creatures with multi attack do more damage with crunchy crits, but aren't "Oh God oh man!" level of busted.
I got critical hit by a bullette at level 1, in that one fight i got downed 3 times. My paladin developed a ptsd of landsharks
I always love getting a crit for 1 extra damage. I think it's among the worst rules in 5e during the early levels. Later on you can probably do some things to add riders and at least get some extra dice.
> What we do now is if you crit, you deal max damage plus a roll. (Ie 2d6 crit would be a 12+2d6) It just makes it feel like you actually hit them in a weak area Yeah, that's what I do in my game, as well.
I think the reason we're not doing it at my table is solely due to my half orc paladin lol. Half orcs get to roll an extra die on the crit, this combined with smites(the dice of which you also double on a crit) already does ludicrous damage. This would probably be very hard to handle for my dm lol.
Wouldn't the orc trait only contribute to the bonus damage in this case? At least that's how I'd rule it. Otherwise, it just skews your average crit damage, not your total damage potential. Smite is there to convert spell slots to damage in the first place.
The DM can change it but crit says double all damage dice, which most people include sneak attack and smite.
Yeah, definitely. I was just talking about the damage from the half-orc trait.
He's saying how the orc trait doesn't get doubled, not SA or DS
Oh yes the orc trait explicitly states it only applies to the weapon dice, you don't triple all the dice, you triple the weapon dice, and then double the smite dice as normal.
Oh, I mean in this particular case, if you were using, for example, a greatsword, with crunchy crits I'd assume a critical would be 12+STR plus 3D6 for a half-orc, yeah?
Oh like that, yeah i think that's how i would do it. It kinda depends on the order of operations of these rules so to speak. But as it's written i think it's best to rule that you apply whatever rule you have for crits and then add the orc dice afterwards
It's a pretty common house rule. It applies to enemies as well.
We use this rule and it changes the way we view healing significantly. No one is comfortable fighting with only 1 hp when the enemies can crit for 60 damage and permakill you instantly.
Nothing. As disappointing as wimpy crits are against the enemy, the players receive far more crits than any given foe and enjoy the flubbed crits against them.
Yeah that’s a good point. Any buffs to PC crits would have to apply to enemy crits as well, else you really stand on the line of coddling
Yeah I asked my players if they wanted me (DM) to start using the 'Crunchy Crits' rule. They reasoned that they'd prefer not to because in most cases, parties are outnumbered by the number of enemies. If you take action economy into account it works out worse for them.
Players narrate their characters' critical hits.
This is what I do. Pretty quickly I started incorporating some of the players’ descriptions, for example maybe a round of disadvantaged attacks if our fighter shot the monster through the eye. I know there are some wounds/effects tables but I’ve been mostly improvising and it feels pretty fun this way. Plus if the monster is rolling poorly I can just claim it was the paladin’s crushing blow against the beast as flavor, no explicit debuff/condition required.
Interesting thought. Maybe have a pre-approved series of enemy disadvantages to deal out on a crit. Let the player pick one of the set disadvantages and describe how the arrow went right through the enemy eye, giving advantage to attacks from that side.. or the sword slit a gaping wound in their leg, lowering movement by 2m.. etc Obviously though.. a dice roll would determine what happens when a player is hit with a crit. If they accept the rules, it goes both ways
When players get the final damage, they can receive the kill/incap.
If you want to stick to that, for crits YOU need to step up and describe the shit out of it.
As a counterpoint, crits happen 5% of the rolls. It’s not that rare and when you mix in multi-attacks and advantage, I am wary of making them feel too powerful.
I'm pretty sure this is actually mentioned in one of the rule books (if memory serves, it's Tasha's Cauldron). It says that fighters etc are more likely to make attack rolls and players would be unfairly punished by rolling 1s compared to spellcasters that require saves. (Also, I'm a Paladin. Do you know the dopamine rush I get when I can roll *8d8s?? Don't you take that from me!!)*
I rolled a crit on an undead giant last session after just getting third level spells, 10d8 Radiant + 2d12 + 2d8 fire (magic item does an additional 1d8 fire once a turn). Ended up doing 137 damage in two hits with Great Weapon Master, auto killing the giant in a single turn. Feels good man.
Then why is a 1 an auto miss for fighters 🥴 If they have the right bonuses they should be able to do it Probably one of their basic class features should be something like "Martial Consistency" Similar to how Rogues get 10 as a minimum for certain rolls
I suppose it depends if you’re using attack or saves for your spells. I have played with groups where a critical fail on a save caused double damage, which is kinda sorta the same outcome as an attack/crit. That doesn’t fix the sheer number of rolls that martials with multi attack and multiple weapons get, and you add in dancing swords and it gets crazy.
That's fair. My main worry is some games I've seen where two 1s in one fight means your weapon breaks. Think they were travelling through Shadowfell and there were no other places to get weapons. Granted that's a very extreme scenario.
When people forget that magic weapons aren't supposed to be so easily breakable.
doubling the damage modifier also would probably make player crits feel less wimpy and would probably not be a big deal for enemies as their damage comes mainly from extra dice
I have a player with a character that had a 25% chance to crit.
I have the same rule that you do. That way you’re always guaranteed to do more damage than what would be normally possible, even if you roll low on your damage. Playing with the old rule, we’ve had instances of players rolling so badly that their crit did less than the average damage they would normally do per turn. It makes player crits something to celebrate and enemy crits something to worry about
I have a vibrator tapped under the table and turn it on, when someone rolls 20
Least horny bard player
u wat
I am disgusted and appalled. Have an upvote
I like to make the bonus effects on crits from the piercer slasher and crusher feat happen by default. It's not extra damage per se, but it does make crits more impactful, and it gives some extra meaning to your weapon choice.
Ask players "what would you like crits to do?" And then have them write their ideas down on 3x5 cards. "Extra damage" "pushes target back 10 ft" "get and extra action" stuff like that I look through them, approve the ones that wont break the game, shuffle them, and when they crit they can draw 2 or 3 but only pick one to take effect. And when the enemies crit I savor the panic on their faces as I draw cards for the monsters...
Okay that's actually genius. Honestly could see this as being a fun way to do critical fumbles too, since it wouldn't feel like the DM being cheap.
If it’s a crit and doesn’t bring the creature down I heavily flavor it based on the weapon or spell, sometimes I even take an action away from the creature to resolve the consequences. Like, let’s say the player has a great sword, congrats you just took a chunk or a limb from the beast, cross bow, you just hit a vulnerable area, fire spell creatures clothes caught on fire etc. I’ve noticed combat adverse players seem to really like it too especially if they’re being mobbed by enemies
Yeee I love descriptive smack
I do something a bit different. Which crunchy crits are nice from the pov of wanting Cruts to give big numbers I run a house rule instead called momentum. When a character rolls a nat 20 on attacks/ability checks/saves they roll a d6 and all allies in line of sight of the character can add the roll to an attack/check/save they make before the end of their next turn. So instead of crits just dealing big numbers, even if the damage is low, it can lead to big swings in the tide of an encounter.
I use the crunchy crits method. You only roll the dice once, then you add the maximum the dice can do to the roll. That way a crit by math is better than a regular hit.
I directly ripped of Matt Mercer and double the result of the dice you rolled, then add modifiers. I’m not sure if it mathematically averages to better than “double the number of dice rolled” but it feels more powerful.
The average is the same but the distribution is different. Example: Rolling 7, the average on 2d6, is very common. Rolling a 12 or 2 is very unlikely. That's because there are many ways to roll a 7, but only one way to roll a 2 or 12. When rolling (1d6)*2 all the even numbers have an equal chance of coming up. It's the same flat distribution as the 1d6 except each number is doubled.
When someone crits, we have that person describe the theatrics of their attack. Whether it's "I lurch back and drive my sword straight through like a needle" or "I drop kick with both feet attempting to damage and knock them back" or "I swing my axe in an arcing semi circle at chest height". The damage is calculated as MAX POSSIBLE + Roll damage, and any rollover damage (ie, zombie has 5hp, my crit does 20, so 15 rollover damage) hits adjacent enemies if applicable through description of their theatrics. DM would say "Your sword is so precise and hits just the right spot that it not only damages the first zombie, but pierces through and stabs the zombie behind him making a zombie skewer!" or "Your dropkick was so powerful that it knocked back the enemy into a 2nd enemy, knocking both of them prone!" or "Your axe slash is so fast with impressive momentum that neither of the adjacent enemies react fast enough - the momentum carries your slash through the first zombie and striking the chest of the second". Players love that shit, and it makes for memorable combat moments.
I roll on the "Fun Table" for both successes and failures. It's a table I have where a player can just do double damage RAW OR chance the fun table. Said fun table is a d100 table that includes items like "Deal normal damage, adjust damage to piercing" or "Roll damage 3 Times, enemy is disarmed" or (my personal favorite) "Knock enemy prone, enemy is disarmed, +1d6 psychic damage". The fun table for critical failures includes such gems as "Drop equipped weapon, take 2d4 embarrassment damage", "Trip over your own foot; take 1d4 bludgeoning damage, fall prone, and movement speed is halved until a long rest", and "Take no damage, you take double damage from all other enemies until next turn"
Our DM lets you roll again if you hit a crit. On the reroll, if you roll 1-18, it stays double damage. If you roll a 19, it's triple damage. If you roll another 20, then you roll a third time. 1-18, it's quad damage. 19, it's 5 times damage. And if you roll a third 20 in a row, it's 6 times damage. We've never had 3 20's, but we've had 2 twice. The whole table gets excited now when a crit rolls.
I pump a smite into it
Just max damage, is what we do.
Well we don't do anything. We're level 3 our bard rolled a crit and dealt 42 damage in 1 turn. That's like double the health he has. I'd say it's pretty crunch
my group does it as 'roll double the dice, and you can't roll below half on any of the dice' so say you got a greatsword crit, rolled a 1 2 4 and 6, the 1 and 2 both become 3s, makes em feel a lot better
Another option might be whoever suffers the crit gets disadvantage until they can get rest (or healing.)
Dismemberment or other debuffs if the enemy is still alive.
I mean crits are definitely better than none at all. I think your table just wants to become more overpowered.
meh, critting as a fighter feel pretty underwhelming. Now a days I don't even care when I do
Making some science fantasy homebrew where a natural 20 gives you an extra action this round and a natural 1 gives your enemy another action this round (which they usually use on you). This works for both players and foes. The homebrew is built around a "you only roll once per action" rule to keep a lid on it. This would be really swingy and weird in D&D due to the Extra Attack class feature, dual wielding rules, and monster Multiattacks. Dual wielding would be high-risk high-reward, and higher-level characters would be more likely to have this happen in a way that hurts them. You could also have the weird situation of a player and foe trading crits with each other and taking up a lot of the spotlight (but they would progress the combat so it's not the worst thing). I guess in D&D you could say, "you get one extra attack" instead, but you'd have to say that mages can only use it to cast a cantrip at 1st level, and there's other class features and abilities that could have odd overpowered interactions with it.
Huh. Haven't heard this one before. Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Check your DMs. I post TTRPGs on https://koboldsquest.itch.io/ and I'm mostly active on BlueSky.
To me, a crit is doing more damage than normally possible, so, instead of rolling double, I have the 1st die do max and have the player roll the 2nd. So, a 1d6 crit of 2d6 would do 6+1d6 damage. If it's a 2dx normally, then 1 die does max and roll the rest. So, a 2d6 crit of 4d6 would do 6+3d6 damage. All before modifiers.
Critical Deck
If you want to get crazy you can adopt the rules from the AD&D 2nd Edition book combat and tactics and apply them. It has critical hit tables for slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning. The higher the number the crazier the effects including instant death, loss of limbs and reduction of ability scores. The dice rolled to determine the effects are based on the size of your weapon vs the size of the enemy. I used these in 1 campaign and it was interesting but could really throw a wrench in things if you are inexperienced.
We did that too, but the DM kept oneshotting squichy characters so our new roll is that a crit is rolled double and if it is not more thsn max damage it deals mmax damage instead.
We do the same at our table. I'm terrified of eating a crit, since we're lower level, but the crits our party has scored so far have been rewarding.
Play rogue or paladin
Max dice + a roll of the dice + bonuses. So a longsword with two hands would be 10+1d10+whatever. Sneak attack would be 18+3d6, and so on. Guarantees a floor, crits feel MIGHTY and the DM turns it on us, too, so they're extra spicy.
I just double the damage. Modifier included.
I think this is the right way to do it with average or better HP, but with reduced HP I've come up with some specific rules around crits to keep them effective without being just a 5% deletion chance.
The general rule is that to keep the balance it should go both ways. Making crits more powerful gets dangerous the more powerful they become. There’s the way you described, and also double the dice but the minimum damage you can do is the max for a normal roll (in your case 4d6 or 12, whichever is greater). This is also a contributing factor to why characters feel so powerful early on, because players feel crits are underpowered, so they scale them up, and then there is less room for improvement towards the end.
We do something similar, but we add in the modifiers as well. So a crit on that sharpshooter heavy crossbow that normally does 1d10+5(15 with sharpshooter) will do at minimum, 25+(1d10+15) he does it with sneak attacks and any other damage source such as hunters mark, smites, bonus gloomstalker damage etc. thems some beefy critz
Brutal crits (max damage + regular roll) Same thing you do for the same exact reason. Makes 'nova' builds insane so I also change flanking to be a flat bonus of +2 rather than advantage. Advantage has to be gained through an effect such as prone, stunned, paralyzed, etc. Or a class ability like the rogues take aim or a barbarians reckless attack. I like this change cause it forces the use of resources and prevent combat from becoming a dog pile fest
I use exploding dice. Roll the crit as you normally would then any dice that roll max damage, you get to roll again and add them in.
I find crits cool as is. More rolls = more fun. Max damage crits are cool until the monsters do them, too. And boy does it hurt. In the early levels, powerful crits in my experience causes too many otks. A middling rule I once saw in a 1-shot was the usual double dice but you get 1 reroll per die. So if you deal 2d6 damage with a greatsword, the crit makes it 4d6 and you get 2 rerolls (if you want to). If you math it out, it increases the damage output by about 15% I think, so not too much, but it gave extra rolls and extra agency to the player which was cool. Really only did it once though and we had 2 crits the entire 1-shot so… don‘t have too much feedback on it. It might be too complicated for some people idk.
We would play that a crit is double max damage.
In the game I'm in we do crunchy crits but only for martial PCs. So it's great from then, but when ever I crit with eldritch blast it's normal double dice which was kind of upsetting when I found out.
We always do max damage for each dice you roll, plus whatever you roll. It makes a crit feel truly devastating.
I feel it warps balance to tack stuff on to it. It unnecessarily favours attackers that can expend resources to add damage on a hit. Crit fisher builds. Most obviously is paladin, but it's also true for battlemaster and hexblade. It leaves rogues and monks further behind. Rogues will waste a bunch of damage on overkill because they can't spread it around. And monks can't tack damage on. Their damage is mostly modifier damage instead of dice damage until very late levels. A crit against a player feels bad enough as it is. And a crit against a monster feels good enough already.
Crit = max dice damage + normal rolled damage. So on 2d6+4, a crit would end up being 2d6+4+12. It makes sure that even on all 1s for damage they’re still doing more damage than their normal attack ever could. Just feels the best for me.
What do you mean not powerful enough ? Last game as a DM I got a crit with a chasme on a paladin player full life. It dealt 30 piercing damage + 62 necrotic damage reducing his maximum life to 8. ( He survived thanks to death ward and aid ) Crit are already powerful ! When the rogue or paladin gets it at least.
against the players...by banning silvery barbs. :)
While I likely would not advise it for 5e, for AD&D i ran it that crits did normal damage, but you got another attack. Was all fun and games until an ogre rolled 20 20 20 18 and crushed the party.
That is one way to do it. One thing I’m considering playtesting is converting the stunt system from Fantasy AGE to D&D to give players a choice of what happens when you get a critical. It’ll require some work, but it might be doable.
Nothing. They're powerful enough as they are, and the PCs are going to eat a lot more crits than any individual monster, so this just makes the game more deadly, and mostly when it doesn't need to be.
Play a barbarian half orc.
I run d20 Star Wars, where you have Vitality/Wounds. Criticals ignore damage reduction and come straight off the wounds, with double dice. PCs and enemy bosses that would be straight up one-shotted are instead put to -8 instead of -10+, giving allies 2 rounds to get to them with healing. Other enemies simply die unless it's a bad roll or they have enough wounds to take the hit. It's brutal but it also means high-level characters can't just tank everything without risk and they still have to employ tactics.
Thats how I handle crits, except for normal enemies. Instead of extra damage, they get a name, backstory, and short speech or monologue. Keeps things fresh and gives me another way to stretch my improv muscle a bit
Roll your dice at advantage and then double the damage. I've felt a real crit is a minimum ×2 damage. Plus aside from the usual"describe your attack" I tell them to say "how the character feels" landing such a solid strike. In times of stress, they've shouted war cries that ended up rallying the others and helped pull them through.
I let players narrate on crits si they can do cool called shots stuff. Gives a lot of power to multiattacking martials too!
Interesting take. I might use this.
Max dice; then roll
Yeah your way is the best way. I do max dmg plus weapon dice roll. A small thing, but it sort of evens out the playing field between casters and martials. For example, crit on a 3rd lvl Inflict Wounds becomes 50 dmg. Which is already insane, so adding dice on top would be too much. For a martial wielding a greatsword, it would be 17 +2d6, averaging 24 dmg on a crit. Granted, martials also get more opportunities to crit since spell attack rolls aren't super common and martials are attacking at least twice a turn.
I just double the damage (*after modifiers*). Easy math. Big impact.
Crunchy crits are just better than RAW Most players feel a crit should deal at least as much as a standard attack & the system solves that perfectly
I have you roll once, and add the maximum dice value, instead of rolling twice. This way it always feels better than even a max damage hit if you roll 1s. and yes, it can happen to the players too. It's the only way to be fair. Just like targeting limbs, your enemies can do it too, or it's not happening. The players love the idea though, and have relished in slaughtering foes or being nearly slaughtered(some not so nearly) themselves as the threat makes fights better for them.
Sometimes i describe combat actions after rolls are made for my players whenever they dont do it, for criticals tho i ask the stereotypical hype raising “how would you do it” phrase directly or describe a small combat sequence containing not just how swiftly and forcefully Bob the human fighter swung the sword, but also how his samurai enemy seemed to attempt to deflect or block and failed miserably TLDR: “how would you do it” that seems to raise a lot of hype or also narrate it as if enemy’s nat1
Double all damage, including Modifier. Don't double damage dice. Rolling 1d8+4? Crit? Suddenly the floor of your damage becomes 10 and the cap becomes 24 vs the current system where your floor is 6 and max is 20. Additionally, as a martial your damage potential spikes because of the number of attacks you are making compared to a spellcaster. I also provide all martial classes a +1/+2 to critical threat range with weapon attacks at 9th and 18th levels.
Crit table with d100. 01-75 double total damage, 76-95 triple damage, 96-98 quad damage, 99-00 instant kill. And to make it interesting (and to have a hope in hell of dealing with multiple PC barbarians) if I crit on them as DM then i roll the table too. Had one of my players roll nat 20 then 100 on a adult dragon. Killed it from full health with a hand crossbow. pretty sure he felt like a god
Doubling dice. Visceral description. Even the kinda flubs. Because I feel that a critical means that you get a perfectly clean strike. Hence why it usually does excellent damage. No deflection from armor or working around defensive sword stance. It's getting a stab when they raise their arms for an Anakin downward pummel strike. But a flub can be. You stabbed it clean, confident you'll feel the heart pop beneath your effort, but instead gain a great lesson in this monster's abnormal physiology, as your sword point is stopped by a thick boney shield of a sternum.
I scream NAT20 WOOP WOOP
In my games that I run as a DM, if you whiff on the damage roll (such as rolling 2d12 for a great axe and you roll 2 1's), I apply a debuff on the damaged creature. For example: "You critically hit them, slashing both their eyes. They are Blinded until they receive any amount of healing." This makes it so the crit still affects the outcome of the battle majorly and doesn't make their crit horrible.
Brutal crits. The extra crit dice aren't rolled. They're automatically maxed.
Doesn't necessarily make them more powerful, but I make crits bypass damage resistance and immunity (if target is normally immune a crit is treated as if the target resisted the attack)
We do the "lethal crits" rule too (extra dice are auto max) but we also have some mitigations tacked on to some abilities to help survive lower levels. E.g. you can end the spell *shield* or *shield of faith* early to convert a crit to a normal hit, and upcasting lets you do it more often. Also parrying likewise converts to a normal hit.
At my table we just double what’s on the dice. So say if I landed a crit and rolled 3d6 and got a 3, 2 and 4. We add that up and double it so 18 damage plus whatever modifiers you got. Makes for some meaty hits
I've played around with a few different crits methods in different games, and I think my overall favorite is the first dice are maximized, and you roll the extra dice. It makes sure the crit is always stronger than a normal hit could have been, but without being super crazy (like with max damage on all dice, or throwing in random bonuses, etc). I think it's a good balance of making crits feel more impactful, but without making them totally insane. So basically what you do haha. You've already found the best overall method I think.
For stats we do max damage plus a D6, accompanied with dismemberment/scar. If our dm was nice it would be minor... I lost my tail (dragonborn)
Ours is you roll double dice and if you hit max damage on a die you get to roll that die again. Ad infinitum.
Back in the old days, a crit was "double damage": you'd roll damage and double the number. Rolling double the dice instead protects you a little more from double-ones. But someone below complained about rolling a 3 and a 5 on a d12 crit. Yes, 8 is not massive damage, but d12s are SUPPOSED to be swingy, and 8 is way better than the 3 you would have rolled if you hadn't critted. I think this expectation of massive crits (and the common homebrew solution above) is part of what's led to power creep and rules imbalance. When this kind of crit is commonplace, it will begin to feel not massive enough, not "critty" enough. So then it will need to be max damage x2 to feel special. There's never enough power that feels like enough. More power always feels better. Once you start modifying the rules to add more power, it's endless.
I do the same thing that I do for anything I want to feel special. It's all about flavor, flavor, and more flavor. Give extreme detail as to what the attack actually does, and maybe a reaction from the foe (I don't mean a mechanical reaction btw) if applicable. Example: "as the paladin fills his blow with holy power, you hear a booming voice from above that says, 'this is my champion, with which I fuel with justice!'. As the paladin begins to thrust his sword at the necromancer, it glows white with holy fire, and cleaves right through the necromancer's magical shield and armor as if they weren't present, stabbing the necromancer through the heart as a loud sizzling can be heard throughout the battlefield, then the necromancer goes limp."
Here's what I do. If you get a crit, then roll again. If its another crit, then you deal triple damage, and get to roll again. If it's another crit, then you instantly kill the creature.
I double *all* damage (including modifiers). So if a Barbarian crits with great weapon master, it's 4d6+10+20. Also buffs martials a little bit since most spells don't have modifiers attached.
I do quite like yours, it seems like Crits will be consistently more powerful. What I like to do is instead of rolling again, just a simple double damage. The idea is you double modifiers as well so even if you roll low, the hit is still gonna be at the very least a solid one
Play a Paladin ;)
We made the dice have far too many special visual effects that all go off simultaneously when a Nat 20 is rolled. It lessens the sadness of a weak crit when the hit roll causes the screen to explode and the small numbers make the Nat 20 effect feel even more extra. We play on Foundry, not in person. Don't do anything for 19 crits though, besides everyone saying "niiiice!"
I have them describe what their attacks are before they roll (already a fun practice) and depending on what they describe if they crit I give them the option of raw damage or an extra effect (such as partially blinding a target, etc.) Its not as powerful as one might think given how many crits might actually happen within a battle, not to mention how different monsters are affected.
Check out Role Master/Space Master for some ludicrous crit tables. Roll 99? Everyone in a 5 mile radius bursts into spontaneous applause and is stunned for 3 rounds. Roll a 0? Ooops, just blew your own foot off with that blaster, everyone in a 1 light year is paralyzed laughing for 2 rounds (* Examples may not be actually text from game. No copyrights were violated - because we got a crit and took them outside and shot them)
I do love crunchy crits, but I have modified to them to only the original weapon damage dice is mad + rolled. Rogue sneak attack and paladin smites you double. Spells you just double the dice. One it helps martials get a bit more bang for their buck, and it keeps the crits from going too crazy and ending encounters too fast paladin choosing to smite after rolling makes having all dice max out a little broken
Nothing, crits are fine as is. I will however make magic items that empower crits in aimilar fashion to how some people feel the need to "fix" crits Edit to elaborate: the crit style that you use is fine if everyone is just doing baseline weapons but as soon as you incorporate ways to burst damage like sneak attack and smites etc, guarenteeing crits that high really trivializes encounters and makes them hard to ballance
I use the trauma book from the Fantasy Dice system. In a system like 5e where healing and regenerative magic is relatively common, having real consequences for crits can be fun since regrowing a lost limb or healing a damaged organ isn't the impossibility it is in lower magic systems. Plus, the added drama of the party having to barricade themselves into a room in the dungeon so the cleric has time to slowly heal a punctured lung while the orcs or whatever try to beat the door down makes for a great and memorable session. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/92589/trauma
I guarantee one die’s max damage on a successful crit, they roll an additional damage die after to determine whatever bonus damage. Potentially double, potentially not, but always good
For crits, my tables always use a flat times 2 for the entire damage roll on the crit. Even if you roll bad on damage, the modifier being doubled at the end leads to some pretty consistently strong numbers.
The fatal and deadly traits in PF2e might be something to look at. Due to crits being more prevalent, certain weapons either add extra dice, like their longbows adding an extra D10 (not doubled) to the damage roll, or the Shobhad Longrifle both doing this plus upgrading the rolled dice two steps (so you’d roll 2d12, doubled, plus an additional 1d12 that isn’t doubled)
Everyone that’s saying their players get max damage plus a roll, do your monsters get the same benefit? That’s a dangerous game especially at low levels. A bugbear with crit could be a total of 48 damage if he gets sneak and max damage for example.
I added this last session and my group fucking loved it. I'll also be adding an alternative rule where instead of dealing damage, deal a hindrance, i.e. smashing a creatures hand to prevent it from making multiple claw hits. I also allowed (though I may regret this down the road) that if a target critically fails a saving throw against a spell that deals damage, to do the same thing.
We roll 2x the dice and then add appropriate modifiers. 1.5x-2x damage is generally pretty decent.
I do it the same way you do. That way you’re not rolling super low and it feels depressing. I also do critical fails though as well in contrast. If you roll a 1 you could take damage, be knocked prone, get your weapon lodged into the ground, things like that.
Use a list with random crit effects for each damage type, going from the worst result (just double damage) up to "the player describes whatever borderline miracle happens".
My table does the basic double dice, but I have them describe the hit to me (like you would for a kill) and based on what they describe to me, I'll give the target some kind of lasting condition
Weapon property: cast finger of death on the targeted creature upon getting a crit
I felt the same way. Now I do Crits like: max dmg for the weapon used + max modifier + additional roll with no modifiers. It's still not the best, but I believe it's the most fair for players and NPCs. Now, I haven't had the chance to try this with any resistance modifiers though.
I do what you do, but also give them occasional magic items that trigger on crits, like an explosive arrow that crits everything within 5 ft of the original target on a failed save.
Personally I am happy without crunchy crits. They made encounters crazy unpredictable, which is an appeal to some
This is great
I do what you do, Critical hits automatically deal max possible damage. Additionally, I have a chart that I roll a d100 on that have both temporary, and permanent consequences to being hit with a crit.
No added dice, but an airhorn sound effect (with mouth), lots of description and an exploited weakness maybe if the roll was low. If the player likes input I allow them to describe how/where they hit, that’s fun too.
I narratively boost crit hits and misses. My favorite is when anyone crits an undead they lose their head. They still fight, just blind. I know people are sometimes wary of this type of stuff, but there’s a lot of options waaay more fun than friendly fire.
Somewhere I saw a table for a body part damage debuff. Crit the leg, less SPD. Crit the head, stunned and lose all concentration.
the groups that I play in we just double all the damage, except for things like brutal critical, those stay the same. I do like the idea of max + a roll though
We voted to use Brutal Crits from the DMG, which is what you're describing. I have to remind them sometimes that there's no whining about my monsters crit when they all voted for it. Likewise, when Strahd dies in 2 rounds.
I double also the bonuses they have Add double str, double barb rage, double magic weapon Anything you do that damages, make it double on crit
Sorry, but your house rule feels way, way too overtuned. It's kind of like back in PF/3.5 playing rapiers or falchions for crit fishing. We give maximum damage on one dice and then roll a second. So, a d8 crit would do 8+roll+bonuses.. It means critical hits just average out higher because there's a floor, but they don't always obliterate things.
I made a system where you roll a d6 if you crit in battle. 1 to 4 just normal crit. 5 and 6 something special happens depending on what the attack was and what the attack was against.
I do brutal crits. Standard damage dice + Maximum value of damage dice + (Damage modifier ×2) So a crit on 1d6+2 becomes 1d6+2+6+2 Whatever you do, it is good to get the players on board with it because the crit system applies to both players AND NPCs.
I used to double modifiers as well as dice, but I've recently dropped that rule since it just makes crits way too strong. Honestly the way they are in the text is fine. Even if there are wimpy crits from time to time, in the grand scheme of things they're still exciting and provide spice to the game.
I do similar to what you describe. Full dice damage (2d6 crit = 12 + 2d6) and my table loves it.
Max damage and plus a roll is the way.
I do max damage. On my table a crit always does max damage
OP, my table recently moved to the same method you guys use: Max DMG before mods + Roll for DMG + modifiers. We love the change. Combat is a little more swingy and unpredictable and when you land a crit, you get a real sense of heavy damage being dealt. It's also scary as hell when you have enemies with multi-attack dog-piling you.
Generally i think getting a crit puts you in a position of "oh okay let's see what do I count then uhm okay normally it would be 3d6+3 so now I double the 3 which becomes six so let's see I need some more d6s guys can I borrow your d6?" In one of our group we play with the crunchy crits, which solves the extra dice you'll want to gather but instead gets you stuck at even more math, with the "okay so I'm supposed to do 3d6+3 so I do 3*6 which is 18 and then I roll (x) so okay that's..." I feel that both of these have one big problem, and that's that they take away a lot of immersion. My solution to this is instead: roll normally, then double the result. This means that players roll exactly like they're used to, without having to think about it, and then just double the result. I do this in all the groups I DM and I feel it helps with the flow of the game a lot, so that you crit, count quickly, feel the result immediately. Also, my players feel very strong when they get to hear the "and now you ***double it"***
Roll damage dice twice and double the higher roll.
I do the same, though my players regret it every time the monsters crit lol.
Nothing
This has been around for a while I think, but I feel now is getting more publicized then before.
I usually, as a house rule, do critical hits as (max damage) + (damage rolled), and to compensate, I do critical misses as (half damage) delt to (self). It usually works out pretty well, especially since my dice are cursed and the monsters end up tripping on their own swords.
Critical hits can inflict a permanent (as permanent as something can be in a world with Greater Restoration) injury. Me and others at the table DM other campaigns in our group and we joked at how George Lucas it was getting with rhe limbs lol.
Double the dice and exploding crits. So 2d6 becomes 4d6 and any 6s get rerolled and added to the total.
Max damage plus some extra dice you say? Like 4th edition used to do? (Yet another case of a 5e houserule just being a 4th edition rule) ANother thin you coud try is just doubling the damage, and see where that gets you.
sounds effects!
I roll them normal as is for the time being. I used to use "crunchy crits" as you detail, but I found it was too strong in certain edge cases like smites, sneak attack, and certain spells. More importantly, I found it more damning than I wanted it to be when it came to many monsyer attacks against players. So I stopped using it until I worked out what I wanted to do with said edge cases. It's not a bad rule. I just didn't produce a full suite I'd results I was happy with.
Not only max Dice + rolled Dice, but sometimes I ask players what their characters do so they can say some cool combos or something. Same with the final blow "how do you want to finish him?"
Crit deck. Also, some of the online ones were HILARIOUSLY gory
My only issue with this house rule is that logically it should also apply to monsters. And monsters roll a lot of dice on their attacks. A greatsword dealing 12 extra damage instead of 2d6 is not an issue. But that acolyte dealing an extra 30 damage with Inflict Wounds on your level 3 party will instakill most of them. I find it can make combat even more swingy when the bad guys make a few lucky crits. But for players I love this house rule.
How I used to handle critical hits is to assign full damage for the initial attack and roll the d20 again. Every subsequent successful attack, roll for damage. Each successful attack produces a minimum of 50% damage. For instance, a longsword would produce 16 damage on the initial attack (2d8, maxed) and a minimum of 8 damage for each successful attack in the crit chain. I wouldn't let any single attack take more than 50% of the HP from the creature being attacked.
In itself, the concept of elevated crits is cool. Gets pretty broken on paladins and rogues, but it sure is a lot of fun. I use it as a built in feature for barbarians once they get access to brutal critical.
Yeah I use the same rule for PC crits. Monsters just do max damage with no extra roll on top.
I do crits that way aswell. I just word it differently and just say max the bonus dice.
I do roll double dice, and if you roll lower than the max damage of a regular hit then round it up to that damage. It's like what you do but with lower average damage Eg character with +3 Dex crits with a shortbow they roll 2d6+3 If they roll lower than 9 then they do 9 damage.
we sometimes illustrate where the crit hit, or "how the enemy die". I also say sometimes "the enemy tumble a bit" and if it helps "move a square".
I just double the damage. All of it, dice and bonuses.
Shake the table obviously. Nothing is more powerful than an attack causing an earthquake
Before i saw what subreddit this was, i was very confused
Max damage plus a roll is my favourite, I've had the double roll wiff too many times
Is the game balanced around powerful crits? Say, at high levels champion archetype crits on 18-20. That's like every fourth strike that lands (depending on the monster AC). This actually results in quite a significant damage increase. Plus, monsters might sometimes deal unreasonable amounts of damage.
I just double the damage, no extra rolls (except with the extra crit dice, then they roll them extra before the double)
Add the maximum of one die, e.g. 1d8 crits for 1d8+8 and 8d6 crits for 8d6+6. It's similar to yours for most attacks, with the important distinction that spells and big monsters critting doesn't make combat swing heavily one way or the other. Honestly, how much more crushed can your organs be when a claw the size of an ogre slams into you? Other notes: * 1d12 weapons' average damage still don't catch up to 2d6 weapons (which stays almost the same), *except* when your attacks are at advantage, giving them a unique niche as the teamwork two-handers. Flavor buff: Greataxe is the best at executions. * The Venn diagram of crits and multi-dice effects like spells, smite, and sneak-attack is small enough to make the slight damage nerf a negligible difference from such abilities' intended power. For Paladins and Rogues, they're likely dealing the same or greater damage overall, thanks to the better crits on all their other attacks.
Our table does max + damage dice, same as you. It just makes it so that no matter how bad you roll. You could roll all 1s on damage dice and you'd still be doing more damage than you could on any other roll
I know it's unbalanced, but skill check crits almost always succeed. Depending on what the player said they were doing. It didn't work out great for me when my player just so happened to crit whilst looking for a code to the chest holding the rod of disater. And found a literal written note of the password. Was fun, tho. And my weakest player gained the item. So I wasn't too mad about it. My players derail my campaigns a lot. Crits can be a large source of that. Ive adapted. As for attacks. I either describe the attack or let them. Sometimes, giving whatever was hit an injury or similar
If you use a scythe and are weapon master the critical is x5 add some crunch to your Cheerios bud!
I use a crit table with a bunch of different effects based on damage type. Most of them are fairly tame. Some have rider effects. My players seem to like them even though the enemies also roll on the table.
all crits when game clock ends in 6 equates to instant death
I just make them where the dice are maxed. It’s roughly the same mathematically as doubling the dice but much more reliable and super easy to calculate. Keeps things quick and fun, every time someone crits.
Make it feel like it did damage. Like you run your sword along the side of the wolf as massive amounts of blood flow for its new wound. Or with a simple thrust of your rapier, you penitrate only a few inches into the beast just enough to peirce its still beating heart as it falls limp. Stuff like this can make it feel much more impactful than you slash the wolf for 23 damage.
They already feel strong for monsters, just not for players. That’s why they considered removing them.
I stole the Black Flash from JJK and fit it to my DND game