Talk:Sub-Critical (5e Variant Rule)

After some thought, this rule is actually makes some physical attacks and low level spells, become a critical. For example, if you're using shortsword, normally you only get 1d6, but with sub-critical strike, you get 2d6 instead, essentially making it a critical Meanwhile, if you had something like Firebolt which deals 1d10, a sub-critical strike will make it to 2d10, essentially making it a critical

This gets more skewed towards the physical attackers at higher levels, For example, classes with Extra Attack, would be able to attempt at a sub-critical hit at least twice per round, and since the damage dice of weapons don't change, the attacks would basically become a critical. Meanwhile, for spellcasters and taking Firebolt as an example, Firebolt would deal 2d10 damage at 5th level, and a sub-critical hit would make it 3d10, essentially making spells seem weaker than physical attacks since this isn't a full critical, unlike what a physical attacker would have.

And giving it only to players is also kind of weird, why can't monsters sub-critical strike a player? --Alearori (talk) 20:26, 12 January 2018 (MST)

Critical hits do not double the damage, they only double the damage dice, meaning that anyone using a single damage die weapon or spell would not be scoring sub-criticals when using this rule, they'd be scoring full criticals.

I'm not sure what the probabilities come out to with this, but they're certainly better than 1/20. Consider specifying that in the event of a sub-critical, the extra damage die should be less than the standard damage dice for that weapon or ability. I'd personally set it as a flat +1d4 on a sub-crit, or plus 1 if the weapon's standard die is already a d4. Unarmed attacks cannot sub-crit, but a creature with natural weapons (such as bite, claw, tentacles, etc.) can, since the attacks have damage dice.

Naturally, monsters can also score sub-crits on players as well. Vobria (talk) 15:06, 1 September 2018 (MDT)