One thing I use for martials to make them feel more impactful is give the crit some kind of status effect for the next turn. Maybe the fighter slashes across the dragons face in an epic swipe and effectively blinds the dragon until the start of the fighters next turn

@myakuza4366

Жыл бұрын

personnally I give monks a ki point when they crit

@Nortarachanges

Жыл бұрын

Yo! I’ve been doing that and not really considering it something extra for some reason. Just makes sense to do. Also “mark” that enemy as more likely to run away than stay and fight until dead

@brycedecker7142

Жыл бұрын

Pathfinder be like:

@carloscaro9121

Жыл бұрын

It's always fun watching 5e players reinvent Pathfinder 2e.

@brycedecker7142

Жыл бұрын

@@carloscaro9121 can’t blame them tho. Took me like 6 months of blatantly copying pathfinder into my 5e game before I final had the bright idea to just switch systems.

Love that last one with inspiration. Dms forget to hand those out and this keeps it showing up regularly so you aren't scared to use it.

@sixoffcenter80

Жыл бұрын

Yeah I get that inspiration was originally to encourage roleplaying, but I think I prefer it as a gameified resource that is less in the DM's control. DMs can just give out advantage in the moment for good roleplaying.

@oystersaucee_

Жыл бұрын

​@@sixoffcenter80 thats usually how it works in my games, theyre rewarded for rp then save that reward (typically) for combat encounters

@haravikk

Жыл бұрын

I think inspiration is a nice thing to hand out for natural 1's as well, so you can feel like your character is inspired to try harder. I might also do it if a player has a run of bad rolls (that aren't 1's) to try and help them break it.

@TheBucketOfTruth

Жыл бұрын

I think the OneD&D playtest had a thing like this

@RaethFennec

Жыл бұрын

I play online, and give inspiration to my players for showing up on time ready to play. They never hesitate to use it, even for attack rolls if they really felt like it was a cool narrative moment for them to hit or finish an enemy off, so the power level of handing it out is far lower than campaigns where it's rare and hoarded for desperate moments.

I've never heard the term "Perkins critical," but my table has been using that house rule for years.

@Mark-ki7ic

Жыл бұрын

Mine too

@georgercop

Жыл бұрын

It just makes sense to me. I recently did hit a crit in a "double the damage roll" game, and I rolled a 2 on a d8, totalling 4 (final damage of 8 with my STR mod added). Felt kind of crappy that I rolled a natural 20, scoring a critical hit and doing less damage than I could have done on just a normal hit if I rolled, like, a 7 on the damage die. Does feel like crits can just lose their impact in cases like those =/

@Trumpeter42

Жыл бұрын

Same. I just stole it from Call of Cthulhu, haha! 😂

@HealsLFW

Жыл бұрын

I "created" the same crit rule at my table years ago as well. This is the first time I've heard it attributed to Perkins. 🤔

@demonicdonut22

Жыл бұрын

He most likely uses it and it got attributed to him due to his popularity. I've always heard it referred to as "Explosice Criticals"

Fun fact: that "Perkins Critical" was actually the rule as written in 4th edition (with the additional weapon dice of damage added on for magical armaments). Combining that rule with 5e "advantage" rules can make for some very happy rogues if you apply it to sneak attack damage die as well.

@DazzleCamo

Ай бұрын

There was no 4th edition it went straight from 3.5 to 5. /S

@jovianarsenic6893

12 күн бұрын

In the time ive been playing, i've learned that rvery good homebrew rule for 5e was there in 4e

@Dragowolf_Rising

8 күн бұрын

​@@jovianarsenic6893"Good" is subjective but no edition is all good or all bad.

@jovianarsenic6893

8 күн бұрын

@@Dragowolf_Rising Not saying 4e was perfect or all good, just that a lot of the ideas lost in the transition that are being rediscovered now are good

@leandronc

Күн бұрын

@@jovianarsenic6893 4e was great in my book. 5e used a lot of its ideas, just repackaged them a bit to appear less "gamey" (the main criticism against 4e, I think).

I give out inspiration on Nat 20s and Nat 1s. I also have little inspiration cards as a physical reminder. This way they get used every session!

@DannyboyO1

Жыл бұрын

That's... pretty smart.

@Awes0m3n3s5

Жыл бұрын

I might try this, Im the worst at giving out inspiration (I just forget)

@gildedbear5355

Жыл бұрын

love the idea of inspiration for nat 1s. "yeah, that sucked, but at least you learned what NOT to do next time!"

@DominoPivot

Жыл бұрын

That kinda encourages crit fishing and creates a feedback loop though. Some characters have features that lets them attack multiple times per turn (extra attack, eldritch blast), occasionally reroll a d20 (luck, elven accuracy, magical guidance) or count 19's as crits, so they would get advantage way more often as a result. Meanwhile the inspiration on nat 1s is kinda stepping over the halfling's luck feature.

@Awes0m3n3s5

Жыл бұрын

@@DominoPivot okay, dont use it then, you didnt understand it anyways

we use a min crit rule: if your weapon has a d6, you will at least deal 6+1dmg. if you have a d8 it is min 8+1. if you roll better (like a 8 and a 2 on a d8 crit), you take the better result. So crits always do more dmg than normal hits and feel good even if you roll bad

@doms.6701

Жыл бұрын

Sounds like a complicated version of the first method. Just give them the max die and roll the other. Why have extra rolling

@tattoodude8946

Жыл бұрын

@@SwissStrawberry I like this idea - and you can bump it to +2, +3 or whatever you want until it feels right. We are using the Perkin's Rule right now but I can see it dealing way too much damage for my PCs - especially my ranger who just received an Oathbow (and also does psychic damage every round and has hunter's mark... and sharpshooter)! I also never applied it to enemies to avoid the TPK situation you described above. PCs use the Perkin's rule - NPCs and monsters (essentially the DM - me) uses the traditional roll twice model.

@WindsorMason

Жыл бұрын

​@@tattoodude8946what was the TPK scenario? The comment is gone.:(

@mr.pineapple3447

Жыл бұрын

​@@doms.6701Because some people just like rolling dice tbh haha. I honestly would use the perkins crit, but I want to roll a solid chunky handful of dice goddamnit!

@DominoPivot

Жыл бұрын

​@@doms.6701 I don't like how Perkins' method makes crits more powerful, but I have to agree with you, the method described here just turns all rolls below average into the average. You're rolling twice as many dice yet the roll matters half as much because you're likely going to deal the average damage anyway. Might as well just skip the damage roll altogether and say crits just deal max damage (no dice doubling involved). That way a crit is never OP but also never underwhelming, and gameplay is sped up by crits instead of slowed down. I think taking risks and rolling many dice is fun for players though, so I'd probably stick with the vanilla rules for player crits and use my highcrit variant only for monsters so I have less things to roll as a DM and lower chances of killing a player without warning.

When my table scores a crit, they roll once and then decide if they want to double that roll or roll a second time.

@jhonedwardmoramora4672

Жыл бұрын

Double it and pass it onto the next person

@sapphireclawe

Жыл бұрын

​@@jhonedwardmoramora4672 Gonna do this for a campaign

@doms.6701

Жыл бұрын

So they can still get 2 damage of a crit? 😂 Ya, I'd leave the game. But also why i never play, only GM

@sapphireclawe

Жыл бұрын

@@doms.6701 I've heard of people doing a "crit die" which is labeled with different body parts, and there's a one in six chance of instant death upon a crit due to decapitation.

@hellfrozenphoenix13

Жыл бұрын

​@@doms.6701i personally like the chaos. Its still chance, but its a bit more fair than RAW.

I'd never heard of those methods before, but I did use an open-ended crit roll. Each time a 20 is rolled, you roll another attack. It rarely makes a difference but we did over the years have some triple hits and I remember one quad hit. Note that on the subsequent rolls, it was only a nat 2o that got rerolled, regardless of the initial crit-range.

@can-i-go-now

Жыл бұрын

I've done that method then I had the unicorn roll by kept rolling crits... I had 3 critical roll of fireball which when it hit goblins with explosive I wiped out the entire room in one hit.

@mpeterll

Жыл бұрын

@@can-i-go-now You don't roll to hit with wide-area spells, so that makes no sense at all.

@classarank7youtubeherokeyb63

Жыл бұрын

Pathfinder does this. We had one quintuple roll.

In older versions when one would have to confirm the crit, a rule we used was if you roll another natural 20 it would increase the multiplier and one would continue to roll until they missed the nat 20. Highest we saw was a ×4 multiplier.

@tugrequired

Жыл бұрын

As a Pathfinder player, I've played with cascading Crits for years. If you roll a nat 20 on your confirmation roll, you double the extra dice from the crit and roll again. Repeat until you stop rolling nat 20s

My table has always used a simple 'double the weapon damage' rule, though I'm intrigued by the Perkins crit as doubling a 1 doesn't feel great. Also, there was a phase where we doubled everything, including things like Smite, which made paladins completely ridiculous.

@WindsorMason

Жыл бұрын

In the standard rules you double roll all dice rolls related to the attack's damage, so sneak attacks, smites, and say 1d4 fire damage properties... All get doubled :)

When I was running 5E I used the Perkins Crit, though I never knew it by that name. These days I have exploding dice and difference bonus to damage in my OSR game (ex: the AC is 14 and you get a 17, you get +3 damage), which is a bit more fun to us than simple nat 20 crits.

We do the Perkins crit - although at my table it’s referred to as a “crunchy crit”

How I do it is when someone gets a crit I ask them to describe how the attack happens and then apply a debuff to the enemy depending on how they say it happened Examples someone says they run up and slash the enemy across the face Enemy is now blinded Or they run up and hit him in the balls with a club Enemy is knocked prone

I'd never heard of it described as the Perkin's Crit, but that's the one I've been using.

I like how in ours, instead of rolling two dice, we just double the one dice, but we also explain what the attack did and the DM will choose a permanent or temporary effect on the struck creature

I often just allow something narrative to happen on a natural 1 or 20. On a 20 you might be able to disarm or trip an opponent, and if an opponent rolled a 1 maybe they fell out a window lol.

@Concord003

Жыл бұрын

That's a good and interesting and engaging approach. Thank you for the tip.

@DominoPivot

Жыл бұрын

I like flavoring the description to justify the damage of the crit but... those are perhaps not great examples since disarming and shoving already have pretty clear rules in D&D x)

@Ninjamanhammer

Жыл бұрын

Do you only do nat 20s for the players and nat 1s for enemies, or do you do nat 20s for enemies and nat 1 for players too?

My tables have used the Perkins Crit since I've been with them... Didn't know it had a name. I will be stealing the inspirational crit idea though.

A couple of my groups do deadly crits instead of doubling the dice, you get max damage plus the normal Roll. So if your attack does 2 D6 damage, on a crit it would do 12 damage +2 D6 critical damage plus the other modifiers. But in the very rare chance you roll 2 natural 20s (Weatherby advantage or disadvantage) you don’t roll damage, you do maximum damage so in the attack above would just be 24 damage plus the other modifiers.

We use a variation of the Perkins Crit. Only the first die is maxed. The "first die" is typically just the largest die you would have normally rolled for damage. The rest of the doubled dice are rolled. This prevents crits from being absolutely insane for spells with buckets of dice or sneak attacks at higher levels

Very cool ideas. I think I like the ideas of the last being a pseudo-bardic inspiration, tied to the damage dice.

I myself would use the Perkins Crit. Make the critical hit feel like a critical hit.

mmmmm that inspiration rule is pretty neat.

@CapnAlces

Жыл бұрын

Doing it on a Nat 1 is also a neat way to liven up play and remember handing out Inspiration.

My table's rule is that you roll double the dice, but to make sure its still special, you also get a special effect like disarming them or forcing them to one knee

Never heard it called the Perkins Crit before. We call it Massive Crits. It ensures that crits always do more damage than a normal attack. I also hand out inspiration for any rolled nat 1's and 20's that you use.

Never been this early and now I'll have to come back later to see what cool house rules others have to offer xD

@jacksondipietro4899

Жыл бұрын

I ask my players to describe how they hit the monster, and based on there description I assign a negative condition like prone or there now blind.

@jacksondipietro4899

Жыл бұрын

Oops meant to post that in the actual comment

Nat 20s at my table equals Max Damage x2. No extra rolls for damage are needed.

@Ninjamanhammer

Жыл бұрын

Does it count for enemies too?

@dolly4359

Жыл бұрын

@@Ninjamanhammer yes, but not when the players are below level 4. It's pretty much an auto kill if I did that.

@Ninjamanhammer

Жыл бұрын

@@dolly4359 It pretty much still is. A CR 1 bugbear will deal 34 damage, while a 14 con level 4 fighter will have 36 hit points.

@dolly4359

Жыл бұрын

@@Ninjamanhammer details, besides, nat 20s are rare at my table.

@Ninjamanhammer

Жыл бұрын

@@dolly4359 About 1 in 20 :P

That first is the same House Rule I use. Didn't know Perkins also created it before me, that's pretty cool!

We have a Called Shot table that we use in the Wild West campaign that we're playing. Players can make a called shot to a specific area with a penalty to the attack roll (ranging from -2 to -10, depending on the location), or roll for a random location on a critical hit. Depending on where the hit lands, it can incur additional effects, from additional damage to penalties to speed or particular checks. Targeting hands is a great way to get targets to drop items, and it really fits well with the flavor of a Western.

In my campaign, I wanted crits to feel like a nova type of attack so when you get a critical hit you roll 1d6 in addition to your normal damage die. On a 1-4 you get an extra damage die, on a 5 you get x2 damage and on a 6 you get triple damage.

The only one of those I would consider is the inspiration. Anything that makes crits do more damage should rightfully also apply to the bad guys. The PCs are exposed to more potential crits than any other entity in the game - after all, they're in every fight, unlike the monsters. So anything which makes crits deadlier actually increases risk to the PCs. This isn't necessarily too big in 5e - although it can be - but, in older editions this could wreak significant statistical havoc with anything which resembling game balance.

I use that first one, but i heard of it being called "crunchy crits" I really like that. It also saves on some math

A campaign I'm currently using the Perkins rule. However, we also receive the max hp when leveling up because enemies also use the same rule for criticals.

One of my old (AD&D from the 80's) house rules is that a Nat 20 guarantees a crit not just on this attack, but the next one as well. It's essentially giving a player a nice boost when they "figure out" an enemy, which is what I've always seen natural 20's as, instinctively figuring out where to hit for one attack. Like going into the zone, ya know. This way, they stay in the zone a little longer and may even stay in it if they roll another 20 on the next attack. That means the next 4 attacks are crits btw, (the first 20, the next attack, the 2nd 20 and the next attack) but that's incredibly rare.

I keep the doubling of damage the same, but I let my players choose whether they want to double the damage they rolled (if it's high) or roll an extra set of dice (if it's low), and if both were bad, reroll ones

The inspiration bit is a rule ive been using for the better part of a year now and it adds to the team's camaraderie, cool to see that its always been an option for other people. Another fun house rule we use we call "glancing blows" - if your attack roll is equal to the target's AC you deal half damage to it instead of the attack being a miss.

I really like the inspiration one. It feels good to the players to have the extra + to a role and it gives the DM an opportunity to really hype the combat up. It's sort of like a morale bonus.

we use a crit chart for both Nat 20 and Nat 1

I use a rule where HP is treated as stamina rather than life, and characters and enemies never actually get hurt unless they are critically hit or downed. So critical hits are how you can injure an enemy (break an arm, leg, poke an eye out, that kind of stuff) and everything else is just people getting tired. It's also a pretty neat way to justify how characters get beaten nearly to death and just sleep it off in 8 hours.

That last one is great! Personally, I like doubling any damage modifier added to the roll on top of doubling the dice. Yes, spellcasters might still lose out on bad crits with this (unless they get a special ability), but for martials it *guarantees* the damage will be more than if they didn't crit Plus, it's applicable to both pcs AND npcs without having to worry about how it scales at higher levels, for those who like to use the same ruling for both sides. Some of those damage dice npcs get later are... intense... and doing something like maximizing and rolling on top of it is murder for pcs

i use the explosive die rule, where if you roll the maximum on your damage die you get to roll another one, this could mean that they deal infinite damage in one turn, but if something like that happens would be so memorable for the players that its not an issue to me as a DM

We use a critical hit/miss chart that was published back in the day in Dragon magazine #39, July 1980. It's a percentile roll offering everything from instant death to double damage and weapon fumbles, etc.

Those are cool ones. I'd seen the Perkins rule or a variant on High Rollers and thought about doing it when I run my eventual game. I love the other two, though. Thanks for bringing those to our attention! You're the best!

I remember hearing about a storytelling Crit where regardless of score, the player narrated that made it so memorable, and it became a canon “local legend”. Good for RP-leaning and collaborative world building tables

Minimum of the normal max damage. I’ve tried so many different methods and this is the most stable by far. The Perkin’s Crit does not check out when the numbers get really big. It’s fine if you want crits with smites or sneak attack to do >20 damage ABOVE AVERAGE for a normal crit at modestly high levels. That just made combat way too swingy for me, so I started ruling that crits do, at minimum, the maximum damage that a normal such attack could do. You still roll twice as many dice, so a 1d8 hit would roll 2d8, but if you roll snake eyes on those d8s, you’re at least always doing 8 damage. Every crit now has potential to be as big as it normally could be, without busting out the math ceiling and without ever falling flat! My players love it! Works great from both sides of the screen!

My party have talked about using the perkins rule but we're hesitant because the enemies would also get that benefit and that's scary :p I like the inspiration idea though, I'll suggest that one

We just double the dice but these might be best. Especially the last one! Easy to implement and powerful enough + someone else might get a time to shine later at their leisure.

I really like the idea of the inspirational crit! I would maybe call it "battle inspiration" or something along those lines.

We use a crit table - we roll a D100 and determine on that list what additional effects the hit has. This can go from "You feel inspired and nothing happens" up to "You deal 3 times that damage and your target suffers one permanent scar" etc. Thats really cool because the players really feel rewarded for that. And yes, theres always the chance that you deal minimal damage and roll low on the D100, but theres also the chance that you just kill the encounter completely, nocking it prone, steal their weapon etc.

Class-specific crit features can be fun. I'm playing a swords bard who gets one bardic inspo die back on a critical hit!

We use a rule I borrowed from an actual play podcast called Crit Sandwich, with the mechanic sharing the same name. When you crit, roll 2d20. Add an addtional damage die for each additional nat 20 or if you roll doubles. Then repeat with 3d20, 4d20 and so on. The most we have had was a triple Crit Sandwich. It doesnt always work, but when it does its a super exciting moment.

I use a slight modification of the Dragon Compendium's "Good Hits and Bad Misses" crit/fumble table, with a modification to make fumbles vanishingly unlikely (but still possible) the higher you get your Base Attack Bonus (3.5 edition). The standard crit is that you roll twice and add them, except that 31% of the time, replace one of the rolls (including all modifiers) with the maximum possible for the dice alone (1d8+3 becomes 1d8+3+8). A further 31% of the time, the crit multiplier is increased by +1 and you replace two of the rolls (including all modifiers) with the maximum possible for the dice alone (1d8+3 becomes 1d8+3+16).

Critical hit that we do is double everything. So you double your dice and then double your attack modifier. It works out really well, and our group has been doing it for our 4 year campaign. Really easy to do

I love Perkin’s rule personally. It’s effective, powerful, and still variable. I’ve also implemented a rule that involves inspiration as well and that is that a player may, upon rolling a critical, expend one of their inspiration points to simply do max damage doubled.

An interesting wrinkle that we use at my table is that each character gets an extra background feature, called either "inspired by failure" or "inspired by success". This allows more "character" in these critical rules.

I’ve had many instances with critting on Initiative so what I’ve done historically is offer an extra Action, Bonus Action, OR Movement. Players love this and it makes Nat 20s on Initiative feel valuable.

In our group, rolling more dice is more fun so we roll double the number of dice. Helps keep things normally distributed. Love the inspiration though, thats a great touch

I use a variant of Perkins' Crit where you roll double the dice, but you can maximize one die of your choice. So for 2d6 you get 6 + 3d6 (Max + rest of the dice rolled twice). This makes it so that crits with few dice will always have "oomph", but huge number of dice won't go out of the roof. So a crit on a 1d12 will always be impactful with the guaranteed 12 base damage, but a 5th level smite won't deal a 56 + 7d8 damage (assuming 1d8 weapon). Perkins' Crit works nicely when the number of dice being doubled is low, but gives an escalating boost to attacks with a lot of dice. This design is meant to maintain the power with low number of dice while fixing the issue with multiple dice spiking in damage.

Ooo. These are interesting but I really like that last one with giving inspiration.

We use the player's choice (before rolling damage, of course) between the Perkins Crit or what we call the Dynamic Crit - Roll standard damage but the DM adds an effect based on the attack you described. For example, a Crit where you swung with a maul, or a slashing weapon? you wrecked his leg, and now he's Slowed. A Crit with a polearm? You can choose to take a free five foot step during the six seconds it's lodged in him, taking advantage of the weapon's Reach to keep him from getting close enough to hit you. Crit with a slashing weapon? You damaged their arm, and now they have disadvantage on attack rolls with two-handed weapons. Describe swinging for the head? They're temporarily blinded by the blood running into their eyes. Etc. We also added a small change to potions, to address the fact enemies can do these crits, too - shotgunning a potion down still takes it's usual time, but if you instead drink it as a full-round action, making sure you get every last drop, you heal the maximum amount the potion could heal instead of rolling to see how much of it you spilled or swallowed when trying to chug it.

At our table I split it by weapon type. Melee weapons are max plus rolled, traditional ranged are double rolled and modifiers, and firearms double rolled and will hit the next nearest thing behind the target for half the total. The real trick for firearms is that they always have at least two dice of damage, so with a crit you will have 4 dice instead of 2 at minimum. Their drawback is namely special ammo scarcity. Using the old d8 this works out to an average of 17.5 for melee, 14 for ranged, and 23+11.5 for firearms.

at my table we play a lot with the permanent scars rules so whenever someone scores a critical hit (which, admittedly, isn’t often because all my players have terrible luck) I usually choose something to happen to the npc like losing a hand, getting brain damage, or smashing their weapon. This also opens up the door to Shadow of Mordor type comebacks where some random npc they messed up comes back with a bunch of steampunk modifications for revenge.

I love how often I see 4e style house rules in 5e. Crits in 4e deal maximum rolled damage, then add the crit effect of the magic weapon, which is normally +1d6 damage per enchantment bonus. Some weapons deal more crit damage, or deal more to specific enemies. Some even have ongoing damage or have some other effect like teleporting them around. So much more interesting then 5e.

Our DM's house rule: double all dice (including all effects like Brutal Critical) *and* modifiers, and ALSO make dice exploding (on rolling max value, add it to the total and reroll). Most criticals, especially beyond level 5, feel pretty damn good, but occasionally you get a chain of two or three extra dice - it doesn't matter whether they make much of a difference (like it could be the difference between doing 20, 24 and 28 damage, which against HP pools of 200 don't *really* matter), the pure hype of resolving the exploding dice and seeing it hit max more than once makes the crit feel super special and exciting

At my games criticals are a chance for weird stuff to happen. I have a player roll a second d20, and use that to judge the severity of what happens... A crit fail with a high severity might be the string on a bow breaks, or a weapon slips from their hands. A crit success might mean the characters manage to break the enemy's shield, or one of their fangs off. Tripping, stumbling a square right or left, breaking a bone (rendering a limb useless for the combat or til healed), cutting a boot lace... All of those things that happen in 'real' or hollywood fight scenes that just make things epic... One such encounter was a crit success followed by a 1 on the severity... The player got full damage but also got sprayed by the blood... as the character was very fussy, it became a roleplaying moment that eventually became a running theme among the players. These events add so much flavor, and fun, and give characters reasons to have things like an extra bow-string on their character sheets. Or even to find a magic unbreaking bow-string after having one to many snap on them.

My party received weapon upgrades after their first bounty mission that mostly augment crits. On crits the barbarian’s axe applies a bleed, the paladin’s hammer can knock enemies 5’ in any direction, and the ranger’s staff poisons. The only exception is our gunslinger fighter. His already overpowered laser rifle received a handy bayonet since he carries no other weapons!

I use the Perkins rule plus allowing the player to narrate how the attack happens,like a cutscene or a how do you want to do this, for the attack, & depending on what they say happens may get an extra boon from it. The only time this came into effect in my campaign, my party was fighting a custom monster that was based on a shadow. The barbarian crit & jumped through with the creature with a torch and left it inside the creature. On the creature's next turn I announced it would take damage from the torch left inside it until it was removed. It caused the fight to be defeated quickly.

When I ran 5e a lot my table loved having Double Max Damage crits. That means that you maximize all the dice for the attack, and then double that number, and any modifiers that would have gone into the damage as well. It's absolutely brutal and I've lost more than one boss to it, but the door swings both ways and my players have learned to fear monsters getting criticals. Overall, for something that happens only 5% of rolls, it went from a disappointing occurrence to a table of excitement and suspense.

I've encountered a few. My favorite of the bunch was having each damage die rolled be upgraded two tiers - as in, instead of a d4, roll a d8 (skipping over d6). Critting a d12 roll leads to rolling a d20 as with a d10. Crit an attack that is 1d10 + 2d4? Roll 1d20 + 2d8, doubling your theoretical max damage but not changing the minimum. After one player got more or less minimum damage on all three of the crits he got in one session, a second house rule was added allowing you to, once per die, reroll any individual dice that rolled at least 2 less than the max of the original die - can reroll a d8 if you roll 2 or less, a d10 if you roll 4 or less, d20 if you roll 8 or less (10 or less if it was originally a d12), take the higher roll for those dice. The latter house rule was later taken to another table that used just the regular old "roll two sets and add them together". There, it became a reroll on any dice that totaled to at least 2 less than the max of a single die. If rolling multiple naturally, you pair the highest of the first set with the highest of the second set, second highest with second highest, etc. Rerolls are, again, take the higher result. Any pairs that're low like that get rerolled. d4 can only be rerolled if you get a pair of 1s, d6 can be rerolled with a 1 and a 3 or two 2s... you get the idea. It worked pretty well. I've had another fun rule working around minimum rolls for crits: Instead of doubling the dice, add +1 of each type rolled, however, any dice that roll 1/3 or less of the max of that type are kept but also rerolled, and this can happen as many times as you're unlucky enough to encounter. As in, you crit a 2d12 attack. Instead of rolling 4d12, you roll 3d12, but any that roll 4 or lower add another d12 to the mix. Roll 2, 4, and 9? Total of 15, but also roll 2d12 more. 3 and a 7, now you're at 25 and still have to roll another d12. Oh, a 1? 26, roll again. Full 12 this time? 38 damage from a 2d12 attack, because you got unlucky. Most I've seen was base 8d6 turning into 37d6, something like 80 damage from the dice alone.

My DM has a crit table that we roll on for both 20s AND 1s, using a d100. For 20s, the minimum effect is double damage, and the max is insta-kill (which we’ve seen twice. It’s amazing). For 1s, we might stumble and lose our turn, fall prone, lose our weapon, attack an ally, or something of the like. It’s a fun rule, because we all get to chant “TABLE! TABLE! TABLE!” whenever someone crits.

I have a house rule for both critical hits and critical misses, and it's a stagger/stun mechanic. Depending on the action, the person can stagger an enemy, take away a stagger from themselves, or resist a stagger. Critical fails stagger the user, regardless of action. It takes 4 staggers to make a stun. The stuns can stack, since a stun is losing one turn per stun. However, the amount of staggers for a stun can be messed around with for difficulty :)

Been using the Perkins Crit rule without knowing it was called that for ages. Really gives the rogues some added OOMPH.

My favorite at the table is always, “ok, nat20. Extra damage or something cool?” If they take extra damage, the game resumes business as normal. If they take something cool, their character does normal damage but, well, something cool happens: an ally npc shows up to join the fight (that Jedi knight you had a nice conversation appears out of nowhere and ignites his lightsaber ready to fight at your side), an environmental effect happens that can completely change combat around (a fire breaks out in the area and now the barbarian can throw critters into the flames), or the character wounds the target in a way that stuns the enemy stopping it from using some of its nastier abilities for a few rounds (the big bad loses legendary actions, the dragon gets a stone lodged in its throat and can’t use their breath attack etc). One of those things happens. Sometimes you sock the baddie in the face so hard everyone gets advantage to attacking that creature for the next round. Whatever it is, when the dice roll that nat20 everyone cheers at the table. If you wanna keep it spicy, when someone rolls a nat1 you can also have something like the above hit the players too: maybe the spell caster gets punched in the throat and can’t cast spells for a round or 2 or the dragon’s breath attack auto recharges, back up arrives etc. it’s worked really well at my table!

cypher system uses an interesting mix of the perkins crit and the inspiration one. players can choose to take a +4 to their damage, or receive a “major effect”, which is essentially a very good thing happening for them. scaring away lesser enemies, stunning or disarming your target, inspiring your allies, etc.

I wanted to implement "injury crits". Basically, when you score a critical hit, you decide what lasting injury you inflict. Bleeding, loss of an eye, fingers cut off. Just no decapitation, unless you reduce the target's HP to 0. None of my friends wanted it, because we always go by the rule that states that whatever the players can do, the enemies can do as well. So, we just use the Perkins crit. First time I heard "roll twice, double highest. Neat.

These are GREAT ideas! I hate getting a crit and then getting a wimpy amount of damage, definitely takes the wind out of my sails.

I use a house rule called "Compound Critical", which can be applied to anything requiring a D20 success roll, such as attacks, saves, skills, etc. The player makes a d20 roll, and if it's a natural 20, it's an automatic success. The player then makes a subsequent "confirmation" d20 roll, and if it is a successful result, it's a critical hit with an individual damage roll for each damage modifier (x2, x3, etc.) with a minimum damage of the damage maximum damage for a x1 damage roll +1 per damage modifier (minimum with x2 modifier = max damage roll +1). If the confirmation roll fails, then the roll is merely an automatic success with no additional effects. Now comes the "compound" part of the rule. If the subsequent roll is also a natural 20, the critical hit can "compound", which results in the player gaining 1 point towards inspiration to be used at the moment or saved for the future, and will roll a for another "confirmation" s20 roll, and if it's successful, it will result in an increase in the damage modifier (x2 becomes x3, etc) and therefore another damage roll to be added to the total and an additional +1 to the minimum damage. If this confirmation roll is also a d20, then the critical hit can be compounded yet again by rolling an additional confirmation roll. This process can repeat for as long as natural 20's are rolled, thus potentially compounding the result repeatedly and increasing the damage modifier by x1 for each successful result and gaining an additional point of inspiration to be applied at the moment or saved for later. The compounding will stop when the confirmation roll results in any result not a natural 20. Additionally, a natural on on a confirmation roll will result in an automatic fail of the critical regardless of any bonuses that may have applied to it. Inspiration cannot be used to elevate a confirmation roll to a natural 20 in any circumstance.

I have a set of Critical Hit cards that provide unique effects based on the kind of damage dealt (magic, piercing, slashing, bludgeoning) each time. One time, it might give the enemy a con save or become stunned, the next, might do 2, 3, or even 4 times damage. Then depending on what card is pulled we narrate how that effect happened.

oooo i like the last one!

You could always look at how PF2E has crit effects based on the type of weapon used as well. It makes the crits more crunchy, and flavourful.

I'm watching Brett Ultimus in his World of Io campaigns, and he is using the inspiration rule, but his players just never used it. So, he created abilities that use inspiration. More eldritch blast blasts, more dice on a sneak attack, the works. He's now changed it so that if you have inspiration, you basically have a legendary action.

never heard of chris perkins but I've been using that rule for my crits forever. it's the best way to make sure crits feel like crits

I love the Perkins Crit because it guarantees that the minimum damage output from a critical hit is always higher than the maximum damage output of a non-critical hit from the same attack.

I use Perkins in my homebrew, we call them "Crunchy Crits" 😂 Had quite a few, when our Necro-Paladin Smites, it's a blast!

Great reel, would love a short video going over these and others!

I've seen the Inspiration crit in the World of Io games' current campaigns, with the bonus rule that you can spend Inspiration to essentially take a Legendary Action outside of your turn instead of using using it to reroll if you want. Makes for some very interesting tactical options!

Worth noting that doubling the dice is a house rule too, for perspective. It's just one that's gotten so common that everyone forgets. Rules as written you just add a single die. So a damage roll of 2d6 becomes 3d6 instead of 4d6

I run crits as being "double the total damage". This includes: all dice rolled (yes including sneak attack, smites, and secondary damage values), ability score modifiers and any extra damage values from the weapon being magical and such. This results in crits feeling very chunky if rolled well; it also puts my players into a complete panic because this rule applies to enemies too.

These are all great ideas to make them feel better. Thanks for this!

I am so glad that the rule I use is called the Perkins Critical. Bless that man

'rule of cool' for my table. Usually means the roller gets to describe exactly how they succeed, often resulting in fun finisher moves on an enemy!

I feel like the inspirational critical would be better as a feat than plain house rule. At least I think I would enjoy it better that way.

I like to add a choice attack with the double damage. Like going for the eyes to inflict blindness or targeting the legs to knock them prone

with my table i love doing combat flavoring that matters such as the fighter cleaves down breaking a piece of armor or the mages fire blast hits so hard it stuns the enemy or causes disadvantage for a turn.

I use a combo of crunchy Perkins (perkins plus double modifiers) and condition crits,player gets to choose a location and effector the crit, eg head can be blindness/deafness/stunned, leg can be a movement reduction, arm can be disarm weapon, so on and so forth. Basically choose extra damage, or normal crit and a condition (that has to make sense for the creature type you're fighting). One cool thing about this is you can accidentally work out condition immunities, attempt to stun a creature only to piss it off 🤷‍♂️

My group plays Pathfinder, and we like using their critical hit and critical fumble cards. Some very exciting moments come out of those, and even a character with low damage is excited to draw a card.

DM chooses an additional effect of the attack, including but not limited to: inflicting a condition, pushing 5ft, disarming

I made up a house rule for our d20 nats after introducing my family to the game. We like faster combat so we come up with house rules to help speed it along. My nat 20 rule is called flourish. If you roll a natural 20 you get to either roll again for max damage plus the second roll or describe an action you want to try to do such as as cut off a creatures arm. I give it a difficulty rating appropriate to the action and they roll again. If they succeed, they get to describe in detail how they stab out a monsters eye, decapitate it, etc. This gives my players a chance to shine with unique and fun actions and encourages them to role play a bit. Otherwise they still end up doing damage. It’s a win win and has not broken a single encounter.

Ginny! The shocks of green look great!

I'm a massive fan of Crunchy Crits. The gist of it is that anytime any creature rolls a critical hit, roll the d20 again. This new roll is looked up on a table to control how the crit works. If you roll around 10 its a vanilla crit, if you roll a nat 1 you lose the crit and roll damage normally, and to top it off if you crit ON the crit it does Double Max damage dice (24 dmg on 2d6). In addition to modifying the damage, most numbers on this table will also apply status effects to the victim depending on the damage type, for example Thunder damage concussing the victim and giving them disadvantage for the next couple turns.

We do normal damage rolls, but added with a positive effect e.g. Disarming, or tripping (determined via dice roll). But with a crit fail the same effects can apply to you