Kamikaze Midget said:
I'd be pretty confident that they are across the board trying to get rid of situations where only a 20 hits the AC. A 5% chance to hit something, in most cases, means that it's too hard to bother hitting.
The weapon qualities will differentiate, and can include increasing the threat range. This can still exist in 4e.
Why should crits be less common?
Late response to this due to inconsistent internet access over my Christmas vacation.
To the first point, given the information we have, we know that the basic mechanic of Bab+d20 vs AC still exists. While I am sure that level appropriate encounters will generally not have a 'only 20 hits' situations cropping up frequently, I am sure that they will legitimately happen. The way that I run games, I use alot of low HD cannon fodder, because I have found it gives me the most situational flexibility in encounters. The existence of 'minion' rules imply that such a style will be handled, but the exact mechanics of it are still a mystery.
My interests are purely selfish. I do not want to run encounters where every hit on a player is a critical hit. In 2nd edition, there were no formal rules for critical hits in the core. Even if my fodder will only score a hit on a 19, or 20, I could use enough that it works out. Simply put, I need to know more about how natural 20's are handled and how the minion rules work before I can be satisfied with the current critical hit information.
In 3rd edition, there are criticals, but they require a confirm roll. Hobgoblins with Longswords that are only hitting on 18, 19, and 20 are not going to be scoring criticals on 2/3rd's of their attacks.
In 4th edition, we know that criticals will generally maximize damage, possibly do other stuff, and only happen on a natural 20. I also know that it is not impossible for a character to get staggeringly high AC's compared to what is typical if they optimize for it. I do not want such a PC to be effectively invincible, which is the case if 20 is no longer an auto-hit. I also do not want to find myself dealing with All criticals All the Time against players.
As for the other points:
The weapon qualities point I will concede, but having more means to differentiate weapons is a good thing in my opinion. I liked how a weapon like a Sabre was balanced by having low damage but high crit rate relative to a longsword. It was a mechanical rule that fit the flavour perfectly.
As for why should crits be less common? Like I said, I use alot of minion type low HD monsters, so my chances to inflict them as a DM come up more often. It is not a question of the damage inflicted as much as it is the fact that having every hit from an opponent count as a critical hit damages my sense of immersion in the game.
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