Greetings,
My very first house rule for 5E-made on my very first sweep through the basic rules-was to adjust critical hits. I made it so you just roll full damage twice. Now though, I wonder why the designers only wanted the dice to double, rather than dice + mods? Any idea why that is?
Cheers.
I think in part to de-emphasize crits. In 3.5, I had a character that could do massive amounts of damage between having a lot of attacks and a high damage multiplier.
So now a crit is cool, it's fun but it doesn't really mess with the basic math too much. It's a little bump in damage instead of a potentially huge increase. All part of their "flattening the curve".
Plus, powerful crits tend to hurt PCs more than it helps. Anything that allows for randomly large damage is bad for PCs. PCs will kill lots of bad guys, with or without crits. Lots of bad guys will come *close* to killing the PCs... with big hitting crits, more and more of those 'close' fights become 'deadly' fights. Since PCs are in a *lot* more fights than the monsters are... it will eventually catch up with them.
And if you consider those -5 attack, +10 damage feats (which are clearly strong enough), you might get the idea why.
take a look at the broken multipliers that can be had from that ... paladin gains 2d8 damage via an ability combined
1d8 (long sword) +5d8 (using a 5th level spell slot) = the same as rolling 12d8 for one attack
vs
1d8 (sword) + 1d8 (crit) + 5d8 (spell slot) = 7d8 damage from one attack
thats a net differance of between 5 and 40 extra damage.
the core math will break down with that significant a shift in damage potential
Drycanth wrote:
no when you crit you only roll the weapon die you do not double any bonuses nor any aditional die
Actually, I think the last sentence in the Critical Hits section (PHB196) about Sneak Attack would indicate you roll the damage from Smite twice, too.
The rule in the book regarding critical hits is that any dice being rolled for damage, no matter where it is that they come from, are rolled twice and totalled together.
The only part of damage that is not doubled is the static numerical part, such as strength modifier, the +10 granted from a feat, or the +X granted by a magical weapon.
I'm not saying I approve of that rule - I don't. I think critical hits being a general rule is, and has always been, a poor choice - but it is what it is.
Crits + advantage = massive (potentially unbalanced) damage.
Sure, Champion fighters look boring, but pair them with anything that can reliably grant advantage and they are beasts. 28% crit chance is fun!
I'd caution against a house rule increase on crit damage as well, namely because as stated above, it ends up penalizing the PCs more than your monsters. I like to see crits have more of a mechanical impact myself, though. To that end, I rule that critical hits bump you up one spot in the initiative, and critical misses bump you down one. Admittedly, this can make end of turn/start of turn mechanics a little wonky, but I think it has enhanced the combat narrative more than detracted from the mechanics tied into those time markers.
It appears the lingering wounds module in DMG can trigger off crits (as well as going to zero hp and failing a death save by 5 or more). So there is already a built in "make crits worse" option in DMG.
Drycanth wrote:
mellored wrote:
Jay_Ibero_911 wrote:
AndyDay wrote:
I would only rule that you do max damage with your weapon + weapon die extra.
so longswor crit would be 8 + str + 1d8,
because nothing beats 5 damage crit with longsword 
A point on the Crits killing the party, as the group gets higher in level they tend to fight more and more creatures at one time. This is not always the case but happens more then not. More creatures = more chances for crits and there are alot more crits aginst the party then for the party.
K-Ray
Jay_Ibero_911 wrote: