Roll all double dice add modifiers after. This was a bad rule change. There is nothing worse than getting a crit and rolling double 1s. If you want to add randomness to it, you should have done roll+double modifiers. With this change a critical hit can do less than a normal hit, which sucks.
Then if you don't have any modifiers you won't get a bonus if you strike a critical. I like the double dice rule better 
Actually I think it's good. One of the biggest problems with rule design is controlling stackable modifiers. Doubling a modifier makes it all the more imperative to stack them, causing a cascading effect throughout the rest of the system as builds develop to exploit stacking rules. You then get cookie-cutter builds that dominate games and do insane amounts of damage.
That is disappointing, but double modifiers would be a bad idea not just for the reasons other people already said, but because of the oddity of your critical hits being worse than normal hits if you have a negative modifier. You'd have to make it only affect positive modifiers, which means some characters don't benefit from crits.
The max damage + extra die rule was so good. I have no idea why they would change it. Hopefully it shows up as a variant in the PHB or DMG.
Personally, I liked the Max Damage + Extra [W] rule as well. I think it makes for the big oomph that you expect from a critical hit.
However, I'm not too bothered by the change for two reasons:
1) I haven't actually seen the rules in print
2) It's one of the easiest things to house rule if you want to change it
I think the critical hit rule (the default one, anyways, we may see different options presented in the DMG later this year) is actually just about the "best" that a critical hit rule possibly could be - but then, I am of the opinion the absolute best rule for the game regarding critical hits would be "There is no such thing."
Archon007 wrote:
Archon007 wrote:
From a simplicity standpoint, I like max damage and not adding any extra dice for critical damage. But I expect there are 50 variations on preferences for critical hits. So it will be interesting to see how they treat metamagic feats or class ability to maximize spell damage in comparison to critical hits. I hope they keep it consistent.
I like double die for crit rules its the rule used in AD&D 2nd edition and always liked it. Doubling damage roll has the potential to be higher than normal damage, it increase average damage but can also still be low.
I like it. I do not like, however, what it does to greataxes and greatswords. There is no, by the rules as written, point to using a greataxe right now. I would rather critical hits just added +1 weapon damage die (so that greatswords dealt 3d6 instead of 4d6 damage on a critical hit).
Cyber-Dave beat me to my comment. I liked how the extra die for a crit made a balancing factor between a 2dX weapon and a 1d2X weapon. But it is not such a big deal in the scheme of things.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Maybe they filled the monster manual with 13 HP monsters.
Just to screw with the char-oppers who think 2d6+3 is better.
Though i'd rather see Axes get something else, like expanded crit range.
As a DM, I like it. Players always love to roll more dice.
I think that doubling any modifers is a really bad idea.
Initially I will not mess with it. I want to see what the balance of the game is. If I do mess with it, this is what I am likely to do...
For DM behind the screen rolls, I will likely just double the die roll. Much easier then double dice. For me, having to roll extra or re-roll dice that is not in response to a player action gets in the way of the story.
If I found that monsters were really strong overall, I may consider a house rule that on a critical any natural roll of a 1 on a damage die is actually a 2. This raises the average a bit, and favors small/light weapons a bit more, but keeps the damage cap the same.
And I do agree... this is a super easy rule to change.
I liked the best version of max damage + 1[W] damage die,
also some weapons could be "heavy crit" and add +2[w] or even +3[W] damage.
Overall, this reduces the impact of crits, from about 100% damage bonus, to a 50% damage bonus.
I think that's a good thing.
Ramzour wrote:
xtianstone wrote:
mellored wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
I like max damage, but it feels a little static. You roll a 20 and get excited and then just do math. And it's not any better than a really good hit.
Double damage is okay, but it's often nothing special. But there's the occasional spike, especially for things like sneak attacks where you're rolling a lot of extra damage. On average it's nice, but you only remember those times you rolled snake eyes or double eights.
For my Pathfinder game, critical hits are max damage on a 20 and if you confirm the critical you can roll again and add half modifiers. Which does the extra damage without the full damage spike of double damage and still makes 20s seem special.
House Rule 1.1bs
If you roll two ones with your critical hit and it is not Tuesday you get get to roll on the random crital table.
Roll 1d6
1 You get to keep both 1's and roll again what you do with those 1's is up to you (just don't tell us)
2 Toss one d4 at the Dungeons Masters face if you hit them in the eye you auto kill what you hit, though before the DM recovers you might want to make a run for it
3 You do 2 points of girly man damage and the creature/monster/person/block of wood begins to laugh at your girly man critical hit they laugh so hard they loose there next turn
4 The two ones have opened up a rift in time and space and all that jazz and they do 2 mega points of damage Kevin is so proud of you
5 The Great Pardieu smiles upon you and you get to treat the two 1's as 11 points of damage and the DM has to buy the pizza this time
6 Mr T takes pity on the fool that rolls two 1's for a critical hit, your attacks for the rest of the night are automatic criticals.
7 Just how the hell did you roll a 7?
If it is Tuesday the person who rolls 2 1's on there critical hit they must remove there left sock. If for some reason they do not have a left sock they will be beaten with a sack of potatoes. Note--it is a bad idea to roll multiple 1's on critical hits on Tueday, wearing more than one sock on left foot may help.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
The real problem with greataxe vs greatsword is the Great Weapon Fighting ability... compared to that 1d12 vs 2d6 is pretty negligible.
Ramzour wrote:
jaelis wrote:
They should have moved automatic damage for great weapon fighting to higher levels, because I agree that brutal damage makes any weapon with mulitple dice the primary choice.
Arithezoo wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
E-Tallitnics wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Seriously it is not a big deal. If it is to you, house rule the great axe does 2D6. Problem solved and no fundamental changes to mechanics needed.
jaelis wrote:
jaelis wrote:
jaelis wrote:
jaelis wrote:
Saying it 3 times doesn't make me more likely to agree
I don't think it takes a munchkin to favor a weapon that does a lot more damage. IRL, am I a munchkin if I buy a car that has 15% better gas mileage?
jaelis wrote:
Maybe monsters are more vulerable to slashing...
Or maybe there is other slashing bonuses elsewhere.
But until then, don't take a greataxe.
h347h50 wrote:
mellored wrote:
jaelis wrote:
I'm sorry to have a hard time understanding you, and I promise it is not on purpose.
My opinion is that the GWF rule in combination with the greatsword/greataxe design makes the greatsword too much better than the greataxe. You could adjust that by changing the weapon dice or by changing the GWF rule, either way. If you are saying you would rather change the GWF rule than the weapon, that is fine. I have no objection to that, and never meant to suggest that I did. I believe my inital post was in response to your suggest to change the greataxe to 2d6, which I agree would be a fix.
As for the damage difference, if you did 40 rolls with the GWF rule and only saw a 0.5 difference on average, then you got rather lucky with the greataxe. Calculating average damage is pretty straightforward, we aren't doing it wrong. If your definition of "munchkin" is "anyone who pays attention to damage when choosing their weapon," then OK, we just disagree on what that means. You're welcome to your definition, sorry I didn't realize it.
jaelis wrote:
Meh, I'm just gonna rule that a critical hit adds a d12 to the maximum of your base damage and call it a day. Dagger or greataxe, hitting something important does d12 extra damage. Might up the greataxe to 2d6 as well, since axe or sword should be a flavor choice, not an optimization.
Sailing_Pirate_Ryan wrote:
Leugren wrote:
jaelis wrote:
mellored wrote:
I discussed this with my players and they've decided that they would rather roll double dice on crits rather than take max damage+die. In my opinion, it's the best method because it can create tension and drama in heated battles 
DM: "The great wyrm rears on it's haunches and lashes Devo (24 HP) with it's tail. ::rolls::" CRITICAL! .....uh....take 18".
Devo: "Praise Odin!"
I would suggest that DM's talk this over with their players, find out which method THEY prefer, and go with that!
When it comes to house-ruling in my games I'll almost always go with what my players want, as far as it's not too far outside the realm of "common sense" or rules-as-written.
FFSAA wrote:
I liked the MAX+Extra style much better. Assuming you have color coded dice (so the 20 and the smaller dice can be matched). Then say you are doing 5 attacks against that big baddy as a high lvl warrior. You can drop 5 d20's and all your damage dice in one throw and just count up the crits (and take away the dice that missed). It really speeds up combat a lot. No re-rolling needed for 5 attacks at the same time. Cant do that anymore.
I like the critical hit change a lot. It brings in the crazy and put it to bed for the night.
Really not sure what the point is in making greataxes and greatswords do different damage, though. The only point would be to specifically make one worse than the other, so I guess... working as intended? The only alternative would be if the d12 weapon had a property that the 2d6 weapon didn't, but just being cheaper and heavier don't count.
As some people have intimated, all that is necessary to make the greataxe distinctive and an attractive weapon is to create a mechanic for some class (such as Barbarians) that benefits from using a large weapon die or range.
Someone mentioned: Adding one die (singular) to your weapon's damage rolls. This seems a little strange coming off of 4e, because in 4th Edition, the [W] factor of a power was indivisible. It would make a greataxe much better than a greatsword, though. (13 damage to 10.5, or over 2 dice steps better).
Another option would be a feature that allowed the manipulation (re-rolling) of only one die of a damage roll, which would favor single large dice over several smaller ones.
I'm ok with greataxe not being the best weapon for a (champion) fighter, there is generally one best weapon for a given archetype, but it'd be cool if down the road (PHB), they featured the greataxe.
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
I imagine barbarians will have something to favor axes.
Yes, critical hits seem pretty anti-climatic now. Granted, I've seen host of 1st level character fall to the massive damage from them though, not that I wouldn't rather have the playtest critical back, of course.
mellored wrote: