I was thinking about critical hits in 5e.
I like how it was done in 3.5e, where a natural 20 (or 19 or 18, weapon-depending) woudl automatically hit -- but you would still have to confirm the critical hit.
Now 5e seems to have done away with that, going back to the 1e/2e mantra of a natural 20 being not only an automatic hit, but an automatic critical as well.
Not sure I agree with that.
So here's my house rule suggestion:
1. A roll of a Natural 20 is an automatic hit on the target.
2. That strike is a Critical Hit only if the resultant roll of 20 + "to hit bonus" is equal to or greater than the target's Armor Class.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Criticisms?
Or meet in the middle and have the ensuing confirmation roll be rolled with advantage.
pfloyd wrote:
pfloyd wrote:
pfloyd wrote:
Slightly off topic, but I am considering intorducing that old White Dwarf rule of if you roll a 20, you get to roll again. If you roll a 20 you do double damage, and get to roll again. If you get another 20 then you double again. Rinse and repeat. With this you can do immense amounts of damage with a single blow, it makes it possible for a child with a dagger to kill a 20th level character (though the odds are astronomically high) etc. this would not replace 5th edition criticals, just sit on top of those rules.
When we talk about the old days of D&D, it is often these insane criticals that we remember - the 3rd level character killing a frost giant in one blow etc. It is so tempting just to bring it back 
woif wrote:
pfloyd wrote:
Shared files from OneDrive http://1drv.ms/1qnZvtN
I think I have the permissions set right so that anybody can view the tables, can somebody please verify that it works?
Also keep in mind that the table is for an older edition so you kind of have to hack it in a little.
I have another standing rule that I almost forgot about that I only remembered reading lorwerth's response, it is that if they roll a 20 on the confirmation roll I have them roll the D20 a third time, if it's also a 20, it's an instant death and I'd let the player describe the specifics of his kill. It's only ever occurred once in my years of playing, but it was epic.
pfloyd wrote:
Awesome share, but the reason I'm just going with "a crit is a crit" is simple: 5e is built for speed of resolution and throwing all the extra rolls and conditions on top is just slowing things down. As was already pointed out there's not much chance of scoring a crit where a lesser number wouldn't have already been a hit, just given how the AC and accuracy scaling works in 5e. I used to play RoleMaster, so I know all about charts and lookups and effects...I just don't know that you gain as much as you lose by slowing the game down with all the extra rolls.