New Critical Hits... good or bad?

[Traken]

Back in the day, with the Critical Hits preview it was said that a natural 20 is a critical, end of story.

Now, Critical Hits have changed a tad bit. A natural 20 is still an automatic hit, but it's only a critical if your overall attack would beat the defense you're attacking.

So basically, you can't have a level 1 person go up to Orcus and score a critical hit.

I can see where this is coming from, but I'm not sure if I like it. It either goes too far or not far enough.

Goes too far: Brings back another check on critical hits. Granted, it won't matter much unless facing things 20 levels above or below you, but it's still there.

Not far enough: Why would a natural 20 result in an automatic hit if you could never hope to hit the defense?

*shrug*

 

[scadgrad]

thumbs up

You forgot the bit about max damage vice double damage (or worse). It's streamlined, plays quickly, and is not as punitive to the PCs; I like it as is.

 

[Traken]

You forgot the bit about max damage vice double damage (or worse). It's streamlined, plays quickly, and is not as punitive to the PCs; I like it as is.

Ah, I didn't forget about it, I just thought that was self-explanatory by now. By "New," I meant changed since the preview.

 

[Shroomy]

This is the first that I've heard about this rule change and I quite like it. Its pretty much just a tweak to the 3.x rule that eliminates the confirmation roll.

 

[hong]

I thought that was the rule all along.

 

[psionotic]

I love it. Reduces the swinginess of criticals, while also eliminates the oddities of earlier versions in which sometimes a character could never hit a target... except for when they critted (or threatened to). /

 

[Obryn]

I think it's great. It covers the situation the "confirmation roll" was expected to cover - that is, if you can only hit on a 20, it shouldn't necessarily be a critical hit.

I like pretty much everything about the new crits. Confirmation rolls are exciting, but so are natural 20's. Max damage is a good shorthand for double rolled damage.

-O

 

[doseyclwn]

Okay, lemme see if I got this straight. A nat 20 is still a hit, no matter what. BUT, it's only a crit if rolling a 20 would have hit the foe anyway, right?

 

[Andur]

Minion rules were suppose to take care of quite a bit of this, I think it will be fairly rare for either the PC's or the baddies to roll a 20 and not score a critical as long as everything is level appropirate.

What I hated about 2e was the fact that the only way Mr. Skeleton could hit an AC -5 was to crit, so you either took no damage or lotsa damage. 3e took a step in the right direction with the confirmation roll, but then it had the opposite effect for the PC's of "taking down the high" of rolling a 20. At least now the PC's will know pretty quick in the fight if they are able to crit or be critted, and a decent DM will make sure both can happen almost all the time...

 

[Mort_Q]

4e just keeps getting better and better.