How do you handle high crit attacks from enemies?

[Braininthejar]

I mean when you GM.  Big guys with axes ( your typical orc is the most archetypical example) are standard expected antagonists in many adventures.

However, many of those weapons are crit x3 and with a big ugly guy on the other end they might unexpectadly cause a serious damage spike.

Not to mention things like a redcap ( power attacking with a two-handed scythe one size too big for him - a crit x4 is pretty much instant death in a level-appropriate encounter.)

How do you prevent those from derailing your game session idea with an unexpected decapitation? Or do you just accept it as part of life and roll with it when it happens?

[weenog]

If death happens, it happens.  Just roll with it.  But don't forbid players from taking appropriate countermeasures, in fact point out the countermeasures within reach to your players.  A changeling beatstick using his shapechanger subtype to qualify for Warshaper, and then enjoying the benefits at all times through minor change shape, isn't pulling a fast one for an overpowered boost.  He's making a very appropriate move to mitigate the hazards of his profession, such as pulling his lungs out of harm's way when that giant axe smashes into his ribcage.

[veekie]

Generally, if I spot them in time(before they appear in the encounter), I prefer to use such creatures as part of composite encounters. So CR 1 orcs barbarians with scythes might be seen in a CR 4 encounter, comprising of 8 scythe wielding orc barbarians, versus a 4th level party that can withstand such. Its less of an issue with monsters, as natural weapons tend to have shitty crit multipliers.

[LordBlades]

My rule of the thumb is not to use such creatures(this applies both to high crit weapon wielding dudes and stuff with SoD) at the levels they can cause damage(aka character death) that the players can do nothing to prevent and/or repair.

Dying at level 1 from a random crit by a scythe-wielding cleric of Nerull in a random encounter and having to make a new character? Completely anticlimactic and unfun IMO. There was nothing they player could have done to prevent a nat 20 hit at that level or survive the damage, and any form of raising is way out of his league financially.
Dying at level 10 from looking the wrong way at a Bodak? Well, though luck. There were ample ways to make sure you can't fail that save and even if you did, you can afford resurrection.

[Alexei]

Our approach (my group and me, with both me as DM and other people DMing now) is that "sh*t happens", and that if a npc can wield that weapon, players can, too. It adds to planification (for the group when they see dangerous weapons in enemy hands), and well, risk is also a factor to take into account in these games and adds to the fun

[Basket Burner]

Same as anything else. A * 2 crit kills people just as well. At low levels it's still a OHKO and is more frequent on top of that meaning high crit weapons make enemies less likely to kill anyone.

A little beyond that and full attack + crit is still a one rounder even with * 2 crits. So it's a moot point. Whatever the weapon, if a crit comes up you die that round.

The main problem with this is that you can't get Heavy Fort until much later.

[Halinn]

An x2 or even x3 crit can be survived, if the damage roll is low. A single CR½ orc warrior with a scythe is dealing a minimum of 24 damage on a crit, though, which is insta-dead for most 1st level characters. Some level 1 characters could take the 12 damage minimum from a falchion crit and still be standing conscious, and few would die outright on an average falchion crit. In need of stabilizing, sure, but not dead.

[Basket Burner]

An x2 or even x3 crit can be survived, if the damage roll is low. A single CR½ orc warrior with a scythe is dealing a minimum of 24 damage on a crit, though, which is insta-dead for most 1st level characters. Some level 1 characters could take the 12 damage minimum from a falchion crit and still be standing conscious, and few would die outright on an average falchion crit. In need of stabilizing, sure, but not dead.

The same one does an average of 18 with a Falchion, and since it's 2d4 results are weighted towards the middle. Still a OHKO as even if it doesn't outright kill them, and it does OHKO standard Wizards and Rogues from full health it does knock them out which means if the enemy gets even a single additional action they die. The standard Cleric is taken straight to -8 so dead in 2 rounds and he's likely the only one that could get himself back up. Standard Fighter? -6.

Even minimum damage still KOs everyone from full health except the standard Fighter who KOs himself after any action.

Now which is more likely to occur - that which happens in 5/8th of all instances, or that which happens in 1/16ths of all instances?

Which is more likely to occur - that which happens in 3/20th of all instances, or that which happens in 1/20th of all instances?

When you understand that you will understand that the problem isn't high crits, it's crits.

[Halinn]

I maintain that in the groups I have played with, being knocked unconscious is not a death penalty at level 1. Someone usually has some sort of combat healing, even if the plan is not to use it. Sure, crits are bad, but I'd rather them be major inconvenience bad rather than deadly bad.

[Basket Burner]

I maintain that in the groups I have played with, being knocked unconscious is not a death penalty at level 1. Someone usually has some sort of combat healing, even if the plan is not to use it. Sure, crits are bad, but I'd rather them be major inconvenience bad rather than deadly bad.

If any enemy gets any action, you die.

Even if you heal them they still might not become conscious, and even if they become conscious they're still down, and easily finished off.

You also missed that it's a straight OHKO on the standard Wizard and standard Rogue, the Cleric is the only one that could potentially revive anyone so if he goes down he's dead, and that leaves only the Fighter as the only one with any chance of survival from a single simple Falchion Orc crit... which occurs three times more often than greataxe crits.

[Halinn]

If enemies in combat are specifically moving to kill unconscious characters in combat, I argue that they're acting stupid. That's an action they're using that is not being used to make the rest of their enemies unconscious, which would usually result in a death for team monster. Acting in such a suicidal matter would only be done if it's a monster strong enough that it can literally ignore incoming attacks.

If it's not fresh out of the gate level 1 adventurers, there's a not bad chance of the group having found some potions or a partially charged CLW wand (which the standard rogue could try, if the standard cleric went down).

While a falchion crit happens three times as often as a scythe crit, it happens around a sixth of the time a falchion doesn't crit. Adding in the fact that the weapon still has to confirm (with the orc's +4 attack), there's a reasonable chance of a group member not dying in the first level. I am not saying that the problem can be completely mitigated, but few if any problems can be, at first level.

I'm not trying to say that crits are not deadly at level 1, but I am trying to say that they are occasionally survivable with a lower multiplier, but not at all survivable with the higher ones.

[Basket Burner]

If enemies in combat are specifically moving to kill unconscious characters in combat, I argue that they're acting stupid. That's an action they're using that is not being used to make the rest of their enemies unconscious, which would usually result in a death for team monster. Acting in such a suicidal matter would only be done if it's a monster strong enough that it can literally ignore incoming attacks.

That comes down to the number of actions available. A standard Orc fight is 2 Orcs. Probably not worth it. But due to encounter distribution you can fight much, much more than 2 at a time. Suddenly, hitting them once more to be sure is much more viable. These are also the fights much more likely to drop someone by sheer volume if nothing else.

If it's not fresh out of the gate level 1 adventurers, there's a not bad chance of the group having found some potions or a partially charged CLW wand (which the standard rogue could try, if the standard cleric went down).

Potions take too long action wise. I'm not trusting low UMD vs DC 20 any more than I'm trusting Wis vs DC 15.

While a falchion crit happens three times as often as a scythe crit, it happens around a sixth of the time a falchion doesn't crit. Adding in the fact that the weapon still has to confirm (with the orc's +4 attack), there's a reasonable chance of a group member not dying in the first level. I am not saying that the problem can be completely mitigated, but few if any problems can be, at first level.

True, most random explosions don't happen from crits at all. They happen because all level 1 PCs are randomly 1-2 hit KOed by straight up output.

However the Falchion makes more random explosions, as it causes three times as many OHKOs as a Greataxe or Scythe would.

And that's why I always laugh at people that complain about high crit weapons. It's any crits that lead to random OHKOs/one rounders.

I'm not trying to say that crits are not deadly at level 1, but I am trying to say that they are occasionally survivable with a lower multiplier, but not at all survivable with the higher ones.

So a Fighter takes average damage and doesn't die provided there are no further enemy actions, he was at full HP before this, and the fight is over quickly and only the last of these is a given. Everyone else? Screwed.

[Braininthejar]

Finishing off isn't the problem. The problem is that a particularly nasty critical can kill a character outright.

The redcap I used as an example is CR2. The book dictates that he power attacks for a 2d4+7. With a x4 crit, any L2 character will be bisected. The obvious solution is not to use him - he is fairly exotic anyway. But orcs with axes can be found in every mountains.

A fighter that takes a x3 crit at the beginning of a fight might go down or stay on his feet. The same crit in the midle of a fight might take him straight to -10

The topic was actually inspired by my GMing failure from last week. The party (non-optimizers) was chasing another adventuring party who had stolen their dungeon key. Rather then chase the enemy into the dungeon, they opted to stay outside and prepare an ambush in the ruins at the exit. They spread out to avoid area effects by the enemy casters - which proved unnessessery as the team sorcerer's stinking cloud worked like a charm. They managed to cut the enemy down with little damage; the only one really injured was the sorcerer's animal companion snake, who blocked the way to force the enemy invisible rogue to reveal and ate a sneak attack. Just then the enemy fighter, the last remaining member of his team, shook off the stinking cloud effect.

While preparing the encounter, I worried about many things the enemy might do to the players (they actually got to fight together in a previous encounter, to give them the feel of the other team's best tricks, especially the bard's confusion) As it turned out, I disregared two key factors. One- at level 7, low tier characters can still be a very credible threat and two - a big guy with an axe isn't useful for many things but actually very good at one thing- hitting people with an axe. As the result, the enemy half orc fighter, whose main role in the adventure was to drop a belt of strength as treasure proceded to use it to one-shot the two of the party close combat characters over two rounds, forcing the rest to save themselves by jumping out of the window and pretty much running around the courtyard until the halforc succumbed to multiple acid arrows. Fortunately they managed to end the fight before their friends bled to death.

I'l remember that lesson.

[Basket Burner]

Finishing off isn't the problem. The problem is that a particularly nasty critical can kill a character outright.

The redcap I used as an example is CR2. The book dictates that he power attacks for a 2d4+7. With a x4 crit, any L2 character will be bisected. The obvious solution is not to use him - he is fairly exotic anyway. But orcs with axes can be found in every mountains.

A fighter that takes a x3 crit at the beginning of a fight might go down or stay on his feet. The same crit in the midle of a fight might take him straight to -10

And that means he straight up hits for 12. That's a 1-2 hit KO on all standard characters via simple output. If he crits it's a OHKO... and if he used a Falchion that happens three times more often. Exactly the same deal as the Orcs.

[Rejakor]

It's been mentioned but i'll mention it again - structure encounters such that it's less likely they'll get into melee given the level of tactical play you expect from your group; use groups of them at higher levels instead of a couple of them at CR-equal levels; hand out gear that can help players avoid getting gibbed (re-rolls, immediate action activations etc); have a homebrew 'less than 0 - dying for X rounds then dead' rule instead of the standard -10; use the -your hp total = death rule; remove crits from enemies in the earlygame.

Early crits are just an example of a save or die.  Those always need balancing against your party to not just murder people.

[CaptRory]

Anything that makes the game more deadly hurts the players in the long run. This discussion is a good example of that.

As the DM, you have complete discretion as to the makeup of encounters and the tactics that the enemy uses. As well as the terrain the party is fighting on.

I would suggest, that you build early level encounters to avoid these kind of save or die situations. It wouldn't exactly be unusual for a low level party to fight enemies wielding wicked looking knives and hatchets and such. Not the most dangerous weapons but ones that are easy to make and use.

Also consider the affect the quality of the weapon has. Maybe that wicked looking axe is made out of stone so its stats are lower than normal.

There are a number of ways to reduce or eliminate sheer terrible luck from offing a low level character with a single bad roll.

[pelzak]

I agree with CaptRory.
If you are crappy DM you will send hit squad on party and decimate them.
If you are good DM you will make well balanced encounter where rolls will be less important than tactics. Of course seven "1" in the row rolled by glass cannon can ruin everything but it happens once-twice in whole DM career, and if you are good DM you can "countermeasure" that.

Best regards,
Pelzak

[bihlbo]

I just add a house rule that says "All non-magic weapons add 1/2 weapon damage per multiplier." It only affects low-level encounters when one weapon attack's damage makes that much difference; eventually everyone's rolling in magic weapons, magic improvised weapons, and magic farts.

[Halinn]

magic farts.

Specialized item of prestidigitation to take away the smell?

[veekie]

^^
Stinking Cloud is a wee bit harder to get rid of than that.