|
thespaceinvader posted:I suck at dice maths, but I just worked out that a 1d8 weapon crits less than an average hit (i.e. 4 or less) about 10% of the time. A house rule I've heard of to partially modify this is to give the player the max damage of the roll (in the cast of a 1d8, 8) and then have him roll a second time, adding modifiers.
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 02:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 00:11 |
|
|
Jimbozig posted:Changing a d20 to 3d6 for skill rolls also happens to exacerbate my biggest peeve about D&D - setting reasonable target numbers. As a DM, I often set what seemed like a reasonable number, only to be told by my players that they didn't need to bother rolling - sometimes because of automatic success, other times because of automatic failure. Narrowing the range on the dice by going to 3d6 makes that worse. I generally agree that the whole +modifiers vs DC thing is difficult to pull off in actual gameplay as far as judging what an appropriate DC is on the fly, but that's really more a problem with the sheer number of moving parts to the equation rather than the die roll mechanic used. The argument for switching to 3d6 is that it makes the modifiers more important than the die rolls, which in a way increases the feeling of competence and character-powered success. "I made that check because my proficiency + stat modifier has a high enough margin over the DC that the die roll was almost irrelevant", although I suppose there are more meta ways to handle this. It also avoids the potential comedy of errors of whiffing in combat so much. If I have a +5 attack bonus against an AC 14 target, that's a 60% chance to hit, and then a +2 flanking bonus ups that to 70% If we convert to 3d6, I'd have a 74% chance to hit, and then the +2 flanking bonus cranks it up to 90%
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 02:59
|
|
|
Radio Talmudist posted:A house rule I've heard of to partially modify this is to give the player the max damage of the roll (in the cast of a 1d8, 8) and then have him roll a second time, adding modifiers. This is pretty much how 4e does it. 4e also gives PCs extra HP, so they don't die to an early crit.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 03:24
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:The argument for switching to 3d6 is that it makes the modifiers more important than the die rolls, which in a way increases the feeling of competence and character-powered success. The problem with this is that it means more in a system like 3.5 where BAB progressions aren't the same for everyone; it might have been a dull/boring way to make Fighters "best at fighting" but it actually did give them a bit of a distinction. Likewise, in 5e if you have less than a +3 on your weapon ability at level 1, you can basically throw your character in the garbage, so the math is the same for everyone in this regard, too. vvv E: compared to 5e's math, where everyone is literally the same, having different math is a distinction, even if bullshit spells like Divine Power/whatever the other thing is makes math moot. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Dec 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 03:32
|
|
|
A Fighter's full BAB is in no way distinct
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 04:17
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I generally agree that the whole +modifiers vs DC thing is difficult to pull off in actual gameplay as far as judging what an appropriate DC is on the fly, but that's really more a problem with the sheer number of moving parts to the equation rather than the die roll mechanic used.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 06:37
|
|
|
A Short History of Critical Hits in D&D Simply put, critical hits did not exist as official rules in D&D for a long time. The reasoning was that it was outside of what Gygax thought was appropriate for what D&D's hit point/attack roll/combat system was supposed to represent, especially when you combined it with his insistence that both NPCs and players must follow the same rules: AD&D 1st Edition DMG posted:Combat is a common pursuit in the vast majority of adventures, and the participants in the campaign deserve a chance to exercise intelligent choice during such confrontations. As hit points dwindle they can opt to break off the encounter and attempt to flee. With complex combat systems which stress so-called realism and feature hit location, special damage, and so on, either this option is severely limited or the rules are highly slanted towards favoring the player characters at the expense of their opponents. (Such rules as double damage and critical hits must cut both ways — in which case the life expectancy of player characters will be shortened considerably — or the monsters are being grossly misrepresented and unfairly treated by the system. I am certain you can think of many other such rules.) At best, natural 20s were sometimes considered automatic hits: In Original D&D or Holmes Basic, there was no rule for this, but the highest attack roll you'd ever need to hit was a 17, if you were attacking a target with AC 2 and you were a 1st level Fighting Man. BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia D&D specifically states that natural 20s are considered automatic hits (and natural 1s are automatic misses) When you get to AD&D 1e though, no such rule is in effect, and you also get attack roll matrices where you sometimes need higher than a 20 to hit. In all other cases, critical hits were only houserules or third-party products. Although Gygax/TSR was very much aware that this was something that players did, they remained quite firm in never officially supporting them. Our first actual mention of critical strikes is in AD&D 2nd Edition, where even there it is an optional rule. It mentions two systems: 1. Every natural 20 rolled while making an attack will let the character roll their damage dice twice. It's explicitly mentioned that you should not just roll damage once and multiply it by two. Flat modifiers to damage are left as-is. 2. Every natural 20 rolled while making an attack will let the character make another attack right after that one. If that second attack also comes out to a natural 20, then a third attack will be made, and so on and so forth. The damage rolls are otherwise completely normal, and you might not even get any benefit from the natural 20 if your second attack misses. For the first method, I want to call attention to the phrasing: quote:The simplest critical hit system makes every natural 20 rolled on the attack roll count for double damage. Note that there is no expectation here that the natural 20 is an automatic hit, only that it will count for double damage. If you're particularly cynical, you might read this as saying that it only counts if the natural 20 would normally result in a hit anyway, because remember that we're still in this phase of D&D's encounter design where you might have the Magic-User rolling attacks against a monster with negative AC and he needs a 23 to hit per the attack roll tables. That brings us to the next step in critical hits, in AD&D 2e's Player's Option - Combat & Tactics C&T presented two critical hit systems. The second one was rather detailed and resembled the more elaborate unofficial critical hit systems that other people created: 1. If the attacker rolls a natural 18, and the margin of success of the attack roll vs the target's AC is 5 or more, then the target makes a saving throw vs Death. 2. If the saving throw succeeds, damage is dealt as if it were a normal hit. 3. If the saving throw fails, then a critical hit happens. Roll damage dice twice, and leave flat bonuses as-is, and then proceed further for more specific injuries 4. Your weapon is either going to be slashing, piercing or bludgeoning 5. Your target is either going to be a humanoid, an animal or a monster 6. From #4 and #5, look at the correct table for your weapon versus your target, such as an animal hit by a slashing weapon 7. Roll a d10 to determine where you hit the target, such as on the torso, the leg, the arm, the head, etc 8. Roll for the severity of the hit. The dice here can be as small as a 1d6 if your weapon size is smaller than the target's size, or as high as 2d8 if your weapon is two sizes larger. 9. Check the specific injury dealt depending on the severity roll. A 6 might cause a broken foot to reduce speed by half, a 10 might break ribs and prevent all action, and higher results can cause triple damage dice and/or instant death It's also worth noting that this is where we get the mention of only certain enemies being vulnerable to critical hits: quote:Some monsters are naturally resistant to the effects of certain critical injuries. Creatures such as golems, undead, or elementals don't bleed and therefore ignore any such effects. A monster like a hydra can lose a head without being instantly slain. However, these injuries can still be important because it might affect the way a monster moves or attacks. A skeleton that's had a leg knocked off can't move at its full rate, even if it is less troubled by the injury than a living person would be. Slimes and jellies have no parts that are more specialized or important than the rest of the body, and are therefore immune to the effects of most critical hits. Use common sense to handle these situations as they arise. This principle would rear its head again in 3rd Edition. That brings us back to the first critical hit system in C&T. This one was much simpler: quote:Critical hits occur when a character rolls a natural 18 or higher and hits the target by a margin of 5 or more after all adjustments. If the character scores a critical hit, he inflicts double damage dice, calculated before adjustments for Strength, magic, or special circumstances. In a situation where the damage is doubled for another reason (such as a charge with a lance or backstabbing), all multipliers are calculated before adding Strength, magical, and other adjustments. I described this in the previous critical hit system, but take note of how crits are triggered: natural 18+, but the margin of success over the target's AC must be 5 or higher The book actually goes on to explain why the rule is structured this way: They wanted to avoid a situation where a character can only hit their target on a natural 20, and then all of those hits are also critical hits. This is important because it's going to lead us straight into 3rd Edition, with its crit confirmations. In 3rd Edition: 1. A natural 20 is always an automatic hit 2. Your weapon is going to have a "critical threat" property, which defines which natural numbers on a d20 might trigger a critical threat. A longsword, for example, has a critical threat of 19-20, which means a critical threat is triggered on a natural 19 and 20, although only automatic hits are always only natural 20s 3. If you make an attack roll and the d20 comes up on a number that's within the weapon's critical threat, you make a second attack roll identical to the one you just made. 4. If that second attack roll is a miss, then it's a normal hit 5. If that second roll is still a hit, you score a critical hit. You roll your damage dice a second time and you take your flat modifiers a second time. If your weapon has an x3 or x4 critical hit multiplier, you can even roll your damage dice and add your flat modifiers that many more times. There's a bunch of design considerations that would come out of this: You can differentiate weapons more, since "threat range" and "critical multiplier" are two additional properties that you can manipulate. A kukri is a 1d4 light melee weapon, same as the dagger, but the kukri has a critical threat of 18-20 to the dagger's 19-20, but then the dagger can be thrown. Meanwhile a light pick is another 1d4 weapon and has a threat range of just 20, but has a 4x critical multiplier. It's also another avenue for character progression, since you can have feats, spells and class abilities that manipulate your threat range and your multiplier. One easy example is the Warblade getting a bonus that specifically only applies to its crit confirmation attack rolls. That said, this can also turn ugly if you don't do the math, as it is easy to create a feature that's severely undercosted if you're playing with numbers that only come up 5-15% of the time. For the next part, check out this sidebar from James Wyatt, in the 3rd Edition Rules Compendium: quote:EVOLUTION OF SPELL RESISTANCE Wait, what does spell resistance have to do with critical hits? Well, look at the emphasis on "clean scaling" and consistency across various levels. I'm pointing this out because the crit confirmation roll is essentially the "hits the target by a margin of 5 or more" clause in the AD&D 2e system, except it scales with the characters involved. That is, the margin adjusts to whatever it is you need to hit the target in the first place, but you're still avoiding that same situation they wanted to prevent in AD&D 2e where only a natural 20 will hit, and all of those hits are automatically crits. Having tackled all of this so far, the next part of our discussion will have to delve into the issue of critical hits always doing more damage than normal hits. In video games, it's easy to take this sort of thing for granted, but mostly because A. some if not most attacks are automated, B. you have a computer to do the math for you and C. you're generally making a lot more attacks per combat. In a tabletop environment, most combats are decided if not ended within a dozen rolls, so it can feel not-good to have a critical hit system where your crits are potentially just as strong as normal hits. Sure, the average might bear that out, but if you're not seeing that average within a typical gaming session, it can be difficult to tell yourself that it works out in the long-run. So, going back to the AD&D critical hit system, suppose your normal attack is a 1d8+4. That has a maximum value of 12 damage. If you score a critical hit, double damage dice plus flat bonuses will give you a 56.25% chance of getting at least 13 damage. With 3rd Edition critical hits, 2d8+8 has a 90.63% chance of dealing 13 damage or more. That's much better! The trade-off though, is that between a narrower critical threat range and the need for crit confirmation rolls, the odds of actually scoring a critical hit are that much lower. This brings us to 4th Edition, which further iterated on the critical hit mechanics: 1. When you roll a natural 20 on an attack, that is an automatic hit 2. If 20+modifiers is not high enough to meet or beat the target's defense, then it's just a normal hit. For all practical purposes this should never happen though 3. If 20+modifiers is high enough to meet or beat the target's defense, that is a critical hit (in effect, the roll that triggered the crit, is also its own confirmation roll) 4. The damage of a critical hit is then defined as the maximum value of a normal hit, plus a rolled value (typically 1d6) per +1 enhancement bonus, which is generally accessible to players as early as level 1 This addressed the perceived issues with the 3rd Edition critical hit system: Critical hits would now always deal more damage than normal hits, and they would generally occur more frequently. There's still that clause in there about how you don't get an automatic crit on a 20 if you needed a 21 to hit, but that's never really come up outside of edge cases where the party is fighting a Soldier that's 3 levels above them while taking an attack penalty of some sort. Finally, we get to 5th Edition: 1. A natural 20 is an automatic hit, and also an automatic crit. No confirmation rolls necessary 2. A critical hit's damage is defined as rolling damage dice twice, with flat bonuses left as-is This edition gets rid of the crit confirmation entirely, although at this point it was really more of a formality because of how the game as-written shouldn't place players in situations where they're fighting monsters that need such high rolls in order to be hit. It does dial-back the damage rolling to AD&D standards, but with the added wrinkle of "additional damage dice from special abilities such as Sneak Attack are also rolled twice", which hasn't been allowed since 3rd Edition.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 06:38
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:It does dial-back the damage rolling to AD&D standards, but with the added wrinkle of "additional damage dice from special abilities such as Sneak Attack are also rolled twice", which hasn't been allowed since 3rd Edition. It's also worth noting that in 4e, any damage dice that would've happened on a normal hit are maxed, such as Sneak Attack or Power Strike or just the straightup damage [W]s of whatever power you hit with. Then crit dice based on ENH bonus (i.e. magic item or Inherent bonus) and/or the High Crit property are rolled, on top of everything you just maxed. 5e is just "roll everything twice, forever" so classes that can stack a bunch of damage dice get more mileage out of crit-op'ing, while those that can't are (as has been said) left with crits that potentially are less-damaging than normal hits. For Example: Sage Genesis posted:It depends a lot on which class and abilities you're using - which is an insane piece of design in and of itself. Rogues can sneak attack once per turn, and Paladins can choose to smite (with whatever level of slot they want) after a crit is rolled; Battle Masters can basically only ever add 1 Superiority Die to a crit, or you're just flatout rolling craps if you're a Champion (whose crits don't improve in damage Thanks, Mearls! P.d0t fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Dec 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 07:19
|
|
|
The funny thing about this is that the Fighter is the class that gets Champion which is an archetype that improves the odds of critting, but it gets no benefit from its crits beyond what everyone else gets. And no P.d0t the Champion does not increase the damage of their crits at 15th level, at 15th level the crit range expands again to 18-20. That is all the Champion gets for crits. Now. The Paladin can Smite, or even use a Smite spell, or combine a Smite spell and a Divine Smite, and also gets to add a d8 to every hit at like 14th level or something. All these extra dice from Divine Smite, the base Smite at 2nd level and the spell Smites can be doubled on a crit. So if the Paladin could somehow take the Champion archetype it would benefit from the expanded crit features at 3rd and 15th level, considerably more than the Fighter does. Especially since the only Fighters that could get extra dice from anything are the ones who took a different archetype. Now. The Rogue gets Sneak Attack, and gets quite a few d6s as they get up in level, and again each of these d6s would be doubled on a crit. And so again if the Rogue could take Champion it would benefit from it quite well, considerably more than the Fighter does. Now. The Barbarian doesn't get any actual extra dice on attacks, generally, however at certain levels they gain a feature much like what the Half-Orc gets, a feature that adds an extra die of damage on a crit. A Half-Orc Barbarian could eventually add something like 5 extra dice on a crit. Now these dice don't get doubled on a crit, because they are brought into being by the crit. Still it means the Barbarian has features that benefit from critting, also the Barbarian has Reckless Attack which kind of increases the odds of critting, and combines real well with an expanded crit range. And so the Barbarian, especially a Half-Orc Barbarian with a Greataxe, would really benefit from being able to take the Champion Archetype. Some Clerics eventually get to add 1d8 or 2d8 elemental damage to a melee attack, and would benefit from an expanded crit range. Though those are archetypes already instead of a class so would have been mutually exclusive with Champion even if the Champion was available to clerics. Moon Druids would probably benefit from an expanded crit range, as some of the forms have big damaging melee attacks, of course the Moon Druid is an archetype so obviously mutually exclusive. Rangers and Warlocks can get spells that add a d6 to their damage, and the Hunter Ranger has an option to add a d8 to one attack per turn as well. Again would benefit from expanded crit range.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 07:34
|
|
|
Which basically just reinforces that 5e is "Knights of the Old Republic" mode, i.e. you're only supposed to be a Fighter for 2 levels. To wit: P.d0t posted:Yeah this is a thing that a couple of us PbPers picked up on; 5e probably would have been a whole lot better if it was like "you have 20 levels to build your character out of, but each Class only goes up to level 6."
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 07:56
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:A Short History of Critical Hits in D&D That is a good summary. To expand on your 4th edition entry for completionism (as you had this info on 3rd edition), weapons also had stats which interacted with crits. Some weapons were "high crit" as a property, which lets you roll extra dice on top of the standard Some magic weapons did other things on a crit (either in addition to the extra damage or instead of) - like rolling bigger dice than the default d6, or applying an effect. There were a bunch of feats and character abilities that interacted with the crit system too, like expanding the crit range, allowing extra attacks after a crit etc.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 12:55
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:Max damage plus extra dice equal to enhancement bonus. Crits in 4e were pretty meaningful even if you didn't buff them up. Crits in 5e are very swingy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 15:07
|
|
|
That was a fantastic summary. One question: is 2e the only version where you can crit hit with spells (that don't have an attack role)?
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 15:23
|
|
|
Just want to reiterate that the treatise on critical hits in DnD was fascinating. It definitely helps me see how they work in context of the system they were used with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 15:42
|
|
|
mastershakeman posted:That was a fantastic summary. One question: is 2e the only version where you can crit hit with spells (that don't have an attack role)? 3.5e specifically disallows crits from spells that don't use attack rolls 4e uses attack rolls for everything, so all those powers can crit 5e, like 3.5e, also disallows crits if you don't use an attack roll for it So I guess? I've not run into this spell crit thing you're referring to though. How does that work?
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 15:44
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:So I guess? I've not run into this spell crit thing you're referring to though. How does that work?
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 17:15
|
|
|
Digging through the books, it was in Spells & Magic:quote:Critical strikes occur when the target rolls a natural 3 or less on his saving throw and misses his saving throw by a margin of 5 points or more. If the spell in question does not allow a saving throw, the target still checks for a critical strike by rolling a saving throw versus the attack; this special saving throw has no other purpose than determining whether or not the character suffers a critical strike. That's a fairly straightforward way of doing it, I suppose. The 3rd Edition version of it would be "roll a save. If you get a nat 1, you fail the save and the spell might critically hit. Roll a save again. If you fail this second save, the spell critically hits" The 5th Edition version of it would be a critical hit as soon the target rolls a nat 1. Of course, it has to be done in this roundabout way because saves are still something the defender does.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 17:27
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:It also avoids the potential comedy of errors of whiffing in combat so much. But you could accomplish the same goal by adjusting the target's AC and/or the attacker's Attack Bonus. I get your point about skills, but I don't see what 3d6 brings to the table in D&D combat other than obscuring the value of a bonus and the cost of a penalty.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 19:12
|
|
|
TheAwfulWaffle posted:I get your point about skills, but I don't see what 3d6 brings to the table in D&D combat other than obscuring the value of a bonus and the cost of a penalty. It makes high bonuses and penalties more meaningful. Take a DC 15 roll for level 1 characters. A rogue might have +6 to his check, while a fighter has +0. With a d20, the Fighter has a 30% chance of success, and the rogue has a 60% chance with 3d6, the fighter as 9.26% chance, while the rogue as a 74.07% chance. This means that characters tend to be far more consistently competent in their chosen areas, while being less so outside of them. It means that characters actually can and must be relied upon to fulfill their party roles, rather than leave it up to who can roll a natural good roll. e: oh I misunderstood what you were talking about. In combat, it makes high AC more of a bonus and low AC more of a liability, which imo is a positive in itself. fool of sound fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Dec 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 19:27
|
|
|
TheAwfulWaffle posted:But you could accomplish the same goal by adjusting the target's AC and/or the attacker's Attack Bonus. It accomplishes those goals without stressing out about restatting everything in the game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 20:14
|
|
|
fool_of_sound posted:e: oh I misunderstood what you were talking about. In combat, it makes high AC more of a bonus and low AC more of a liability, which imo is a positive in itself. I'm curious why. cheetah7071 posted:It accomplishes those goals without stressing out about restatting everything in the game. But does it? I mean, 4E is tuned so that most of the time most PC attacks hit, what? 60 to 70% of the time, right? So switching the d20 for 3d6 should have the result of pushing that up to I dunno 80 or 90% or whatever. But in 3E, monster stats are all over the place. I don't think anything can be done for 3E that doesn't require restatting everything in the game. I don't know much about 5E, but the impression I get is that it lacks 4E's mathematical consistency. If that's the case, I'm not sure that just shifting to a bell curve will work. Or maybe 5E is so screwed up that it doesn't make a difference?
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 20:42
|
|
|
TheAwfulWaffle posted:I'm curious why. Because it makes heavy armor proficiency much more valuable, and that in turn makes tank classes like Fighter and Paladin much better at their jobs, since it partially solves the 'tanks don't have enough HP/recovery dice' problem by simply making them take HP damage less often. It also makes Advantage/Disadvantage less absolutely vital to reliably hitting/avoiding damage.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 20:54
|
|
|
That sorta goes against the intent of 5e PCs, though. They're not supposed to be superheroes who can weave through the fray blindfolded, felling enemies left and right. That was a 3.0 thing. 5e is all about creating situations to gain advantage and/or inflict disadvantage.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 21:07
|
|
|
Hello Sailor posted:5e is all about creating situations to gain advantage and/or inflict disadvantage. And this never happens in my 5e campaigns I noticed, because the PCs hate the advantage/disadvantage system. They just want to roll high numbers, not have to worry that the natural 20 they rolled is about to get invalidated by a lovely disadvantage roll. Of course said campaign features a naked werebear man who is banned from all inns in the immediate area because he likes to start fires randomly. Honestly I forgot about the advantage/disadvantage system because the one time it was used in a session we only ever saw disadvantages come our way, nothing ever seemed to give us an advantage; climbing a wall with a rope so you are secured as you climb? That's just common sense, no need to give you an advantage- oh you fell to your death, oops.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 21:21
|
|
|
Hello Sailor posted:That sorta goes against the intent of 5e PCs, though. They're not supposed to be superheroes who can weave through the fray blindfolded, felling enemies left and right. That was a 3.0 thing. 5e is all about creating situations to gain advantage and/or inflict disadvantage. Unfortunately, the advantage/disadvantage system requires a lot of optional rules and DM fiat, especially to gain advantage through tactical positioning (ie Flanking), so it can't be about that either. Then again, this IS the Ask Your DM edition.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 21:25
|
|
|
Hello Sailor posted:5e is all about creating situations to gain advantage and/or inflict disadvantage. My experience is that Advantage/Disadvantage are used nowhere near often enough, because they make actions dramatically more/less reliable. Players tend to resent Disadvantage and argue for Advantage so often that the GM is reluctant to give them out. I understand that making gaining Advantage/inflicting Disadvantage the focus is supposed to encourage creative play and stunting, but what it often does instead is simply give pushy or talkative players a substantial mechanical advantage. fool of sound fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Dec 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 21:30
|
|
|
fool_of_sound posted:Because it makes heavy armor proficiency much more valuable, and that in turn makes tank classes like Fighter and Paladin much better at their jobs, since it partially solves the 'tanks don't have enough HP/recovery dice' problem by simply making them take HP damage less often. It also makes Advantage/Disadvantage less absolutely vital to reliably hitting/avoiding damage. Fair enough. As I said, I haven't played much 5E. I'm supposed to DM a 15th level game sometime in January. Is Ad/Dis that vital to hitting (for PC's) and/or avoiding damage (from Monster Attacks)?
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 21:54
|
|
|
At early levels, having advantage doubles your to hit modifier with your main attacks. So yes. At later levels, the bonus becomes less important as your flat modifiers increase, but it still gives you a really hefty bonus and increased chance for crits. My biggest beef with advantage is that it's too binary. It doesn't reward players who are clever and inventive in combat, managing to stack multiple things that should rightly give them multiple benefits. It doesn't really promote tactical fighting by any stretch of the imagination, or function like Exalted Stunts to promote interesting descriptive play. It's just an excuse to not think up better ways to reward play mechanically. Is it a good thing? Lump it into the advantage mechanic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2015 22:07
|
|
|
TheAwfulWaffle posted:But does it? I mean, 4E is tuned so that most of the time most PC attacks hit, what? 60 to 70% of the time, right? So switching the d20 for 3d6 should have the result of pushing that up to I dunno 80 or 90% or whatever. But in 3E, monster stats are all over the place. I don't think anything can be done for 3E that doesn't require restatting everything in the game. I don't know much about 5E, but the impression I get is that it lacks 4E's mathematical consistency. If that's the case, I'm not sure that just shifting to a bell curve will work. Or maybe 5E is so screwed up that it doesn't make a difference? At least from an attack bonus vs AC standpoint, there is a consistent pattern of players having a 60-65% chance to hit monsters, while monsters have a 40-45% chance to hit players*. Switching to a 3d6 makes that more pronounced, such that a battle you should win is a battle you will win faster and by a larger margin than if you were using a d20. I will grant though that there's more than one way to skin this cat, whether in the form of the Escalation Die, or damage-on-a-miss, or as you said a global change to stats. * actually, since proficiency does not add to AC, players will slowly lose this battle and will get hit more often as they go up in level.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 01:08
|
|
|
Do we have a D&D 3.0/3.5 thread? Don't want to pollute this one if there's a dedicated thread for it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 01:38
|
|
|
Red Hood posted:Do we have a D&D 3.0/3.5 thread? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3416565 It's actually impossible to make this thread worse, however.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 01:39
|
|
|
fool_of_sound posted:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3416565 Yo, thanks. Posted A Thing about my upcoming Eberron 3.5 game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 01:55
|
|
|
Dragon + is now available through a browser, rather than requiring the mobile app. http://www.dragonmag.com/5.0/ It's still 100% ads, adverticles, and low effort community scrapings, though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 03:45
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:That's a fairly straightforward way of doing it, I suppose.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 03:48
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:Maybe it was resolution that was tricky? There were tables like "if the spell used acid then calculate THIS and add THAT and then roll dice and compare stuff and see if things happen" etc. Then someone loses an eye to acid. Its always the drat eye! Yeah it went on to describe a system of hit locations and crit severity and specific injuries like the more detailed physical crit system from Combat & Tactics. It'd be much simpler to just go "if you roll a 1 on your saving throw, you take double damage from Fireball"
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 03:52
|
|
|
TheAwfulWaffle posted:Is Ad/Dis that vital to hitting (for PC's) and/or avoiding damage (from Monster Attacks)? Dodging is super important to not dying when you're the "tank" because monsters all get multi-attacks (pretty much) so you need to disadvantage all those incoming swings. Truly the height of heroism and tactics: spending your turn doing nothing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 05:32
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Dodging is super important to not dying when you're the "tank" because monsters all get multi-attacks (pretty much) so you need to disadvantage all those incoming swings. why are the monsters attacking the pacifist guy they can barely hit? seems counterintuitive
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 11:46
|
|
|
The Real Foogla posted:why are the monsters attacking the pacifist guy they can barely hit? seems counterintuitive Because in a dungeon you can just stand in a doorway or narrow corridor and make yourself the only target within reach. But in a scenario with more room to maneuver yeah you're right, there is no real way to be a brave front line who protects the meek. Maybe you have one reaction per turn which can be useful, if you're lucky.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 13:12
|
|
|
The Real Foogla posted:why are the monsters attacking the pacifist guy they can barely hit? seems counterintuitive Well they have to in order for the DM to present a believable fantasy milieu
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 13:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 00:11 |
|
|
If a conflict is in progress, how do I add additional combatants? Do I wait till the beginning of the next round and ask them to roll initiative?
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2015 16:57
|
|