D&D 5E Critical Hits: Why not x2 damage?

[Xeviat]

Why did the designers change critical hits from x2 damage to "double dice"? Were damage modifiers seen as too big to be multiplied? With the capping of ability scores at 20, and with reducing magic weapons to +3 max, it seems like multiplying modifiers are the least of our worries. Spell attacks have a large number of dice, and they get multiplied. Sneak attacks have a large number of dice, and they all get multiplied. Smites and Improved Smites too, as well as Hex damage and Hunter's Quarry. Several magic items add an extra dice of damage too, but only a few add modifiers (I'm looking at you, belts of giant strength).

The only thing that really stands out as something you probably wouldn't want to be multiplying would be GWFing and Sharpshooter's +10 to damage; which always looked like a lot to me.

4E changed up critical hits too; 4E's crits were max damage dice and then you rolled extra damage dice for magic weapons. This worked out to a bit less than simply doubling damage at the low levels, but added up to more than double damage at the higher levels. Again, it struck me as an odd choice. I've always wanted to go with a strict double damage again, for simplicity. Especially now that finesse and ranged weapons use Dex to damage, no one is at risk of getting a crit on a 1d6 and dealing 2 damage.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Minigiant]

I guess because as my friend says "it feels more fun and less likely to feel bad".

Rolling a 1 or 2 and doubling it makes a crit feel... bad. More rolls brings more of the law of averages into the picture.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Critical hits should be fun, without entirely derailing the game. One of the (many) issues with 3.x was that a single lucky hit could kill a PC, even at high levels, if the enemy was using Power Attack.

Rolling dice is fun, so the 5E critical hit allows you to roll more dice. It is not much fun when your character dies instantly, so the 5E critical hit skews strongly toward averages. For the most part, enemy's don't have Sneak Attack or Smite, so they won't be used much against the party.

 

[JohnLynch]

In Pathfinder dice modifiers are vastly more important then which dice is rolled. I'd say as part of trying to avoid this critical hits were designed only to double dice. As for why? Probably just aesthetic reasons. Potentially for balance reasons for TWFing? TWFing tends to be a bit wonky.

 

[hawkeyefan]

We houserule it; max damage plus the extra die. This way you never get a critical hit that does less than max damage +1.

Nothing worse than getting a crit and then rolling two dice and seeing a pair of snake-eyes.

 

[Jester David]

It's likely in response to 3.5e where modifiers got crazy. 4e was also pretty cautious with crits.

 

[Rushmik]

I can't remember where I read it, but someone said one reason for the advantage/disadvantage system is that "rolling more dice is fun" and I think that carries over to critical hits.

I for one love the sound of a hundred dice colliding with table, and the twisted smile of the player as he counts them up.

 

[Xeviat]

But then why don't we double the modifier also? The damage modifiers in 5E are really reigned in; on low level monsters, it's like +1 or +2 usually, but we also have low level monsters like Hobgoblins which can deal an extra 2d8 damage in certain cases.

By not doubling the modifier, which aren't out of control in this edition, certain classes are hurt more than others. It just seems kind of odd.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

I'd suggest houseruling this at your table and seeing how it goes, because it sounds like an interesting experiment. But yes, doubling the +10 damage for GWM on a critical hit could be a real game-breaker. I'd make an exception for that.

 

[Imaculata]

When a rule reads "You do double damage", plenty of players will wonder whether this means you double the damage you did on your first roll, or whether it means you roll damage twice. By saying "you roll for damage twice" the rule is a lot more clear in my opinion.