[OOC] Return to the Rusty Rat

[DM Surranó]

There's nothing new on roll20, really. Just rolls.
Will send a clarification post IC.

[Lugar]

In case I forget tomorrow. Happy Halloween to all I like to imagine in the fairy tale world all the elves, orcs, dwarves and such dress up like yuppie business humans with name tags or brief cases, then terrorise each other with impending death of magic and wonder...

[DM Surranó]

Pals-- I totally missed halloween. Been to hospital with kids... will try to recap in a day or two...

[Lugar]

No worries. Just hope everything is okay.

[DM Surranó]

Relatively okay, thanks. It was a routine surgery for our tiny daughter and the same surgery for our son was postponed. She already feels much better, seems to be stronger than before the surgery.

[DM Surranó]

Uh ... well... how crit works in my campaign.
It's practically almost (if not completely) the same as the "stock" version.

1. You roll attack and damage.

2. Your attack roll must fall into the threat range (in case of Lugar's dagger, 19-20) and it must hit. For this purpose, a natural 20 counts as 30.

3. You roll crit confirmation (same attack roll with same mods) and crit damage (in the dagger's case, same damage roll).

4. If the crit confirm hits (not necessarily falling into threat range) then the damage is critical: rolls of step 1 and step 3 are added up. Otherwise, damage is as rolled in step 1.

E.g. Dyrra the dayrunner orc has a total of +2 bonus with her longbow (1d8, x3) and she has hard time hitting the goblin behind improved cover (AC 24). Still, with a roll of 20 she hits AC 32 for 7hp.
If the goblin had a better shield (+2AC), banded mail (+4AC), a barkskin cast by the tribe shaman on him (+2AC) and the dodge feat (+1AC) his AC would be 33, effectively making it impossible for Dyrra to hit him, even with a natural 20.
Now that Dyrra hit she rolls again d20+2 (17+2) for crit confirm and 2d8 (9) for crit damage, for a total of 3d8 with the original roll. If her second roll would've hit she would've caused 16points of damage but this way her damage remains 7 points, still sufficient to send the goblin flying to his back as a lifeless lump.

There's a variant for this rule and if you prefer we can use it this way but as always, better crit favors the underdog, i.e. typically the party's opponents.
With the stock rules you can still go lucky with non-crit (e.g. 1d8 = 8) and unlucky with crit (e.g. 3d8=3)
The variant says that you can't go extremely unlucky with a crit damage roll: the first crit damage die is always maxed so any crit damage is automatically higher than any non-crit damage.
E.g. dagger 1d4, 19-20/x2: you roll crit confirm but don't roll crit damage as the second roll is automatically maxed out (4). Your total damage is automatically 1d4+4 (plus twice any bonus you have).
E.g. longbow 1d8, x3: you roll crit confirm and 1d8+8 for crit damage. Your total damage is 2d8+8 (plus three times your bonus)

Would you like to include this as a house rule?

[Lugar]

Apologies! I played so long with my old gaming group with natural 20's automatically critting that I forgot it was house rule. Silly me.

They both seem good. I prefer your 4 step way, it keeps with the randomness of battle. I'll roll to confirm and damage. Just to clarify, are we multiplying bonuses on a crit? For instance, Lugar has +2 str, he crits and rolls 1d4+2, confirms the crit and rolls another 1d4+2?

[DM Surranó]

Yes, bonuses do multiply. PHB is your friend

[Lugar]

Gulp, gulp, gulp. Lugar downs some Dwarven Ale at the Rusty Rat. Then leaves without paying. Any word from The Man in Black?

[DM Surranó]

Um... No? Will resume the main thread in 24 hours no matter what.