crit dice doesn't pull properly form the monster sheet.

[Paladin's Pride]

I am using the 4th edition D&D ruleset, and I just realized that the game will actually read the crit dice of monster attacks directly from the sheet, which is pretty cool. However, it doesn't seem to be working properly. For example, I had a greataxe attack that did 3d12 + 11 damage. Since it was a high-crit weapon at paragon tier, it's crit dice was 2d12 + 47. However, when I hold shift to use critical damage, it rolls 3d12 + 47 instead. When I changed the crit dice to a higher number, it works correctly, but so long as the dice component of the critical hit damage expression is less than the dice component of the normal attack, it seems to take the dice from the normal attack rather than the critical hit damage expression. Anyone else experience this bug?

[Griogre]

It seems to work fine for me. What may be confusing you is there isn't any logic by weapon or level in the ruleset - it just reads the attack entry. You do need to input the damage entry into the monster attack just like it is in the monster entry, ie for an old style monster the Orc Berserker: +8 vs AC; 1d12+5 damage (crit 1d12+17).

Many of the newer monsters don't have high crit entries even when they are using a high crit weapon (I don't think any of the new monsters do but I wouldn't swear to it). Monsters don't have to follow the high crit rules. IE the epic tier Tulgar Warrior out of MM3 has a Greataxe entry of Attack: +28 vs. AC; Hit 2d12+19 damage... with no high crit entry. If you did want to convert this to have a high crit you would change to entry to +28 vs. AC; 2d12+19 damage (crit 3d12+43) - then when you held down shift and did damage or if you had something targeted and rolled a crit you could just click on the entry and it would do the extra crit damage.

[HoloGnome]

I have definitely just seen crit dice failure from the Combat Tracker after executing a Full Attack instead of a Single Attack. I did a full attack (2 daggers, 1 critical hit, 1 normal hit), the crit rolled out and determined that a critical hit occurred, but when I went to roll damage, the critical damage did not auto-roll. Both attacks rolled normal damage.

I was about to write it up as a bug. In your case, I realize you were holding the shift key and that should always work - so don't know if this info helps or not. But, maybe there's another variable at work.

[Moon Wizard]

The crit tracking only tracks a binary state between a source and a target. Only the last attack roll against a target determines whether critical damage is applied on the next damage roll. If multiple attacks are rolled, then critical damage rolls will need to be specified using modifier key.

Regards,
JPG

[HoloGnome]

OK - I understand. But, why not set a state flag for the specific weapon that rolled a critical hit that is cleared when damage for that weapon is rolled? It's just like a character effect, except for a weapon.

[Moon Wizard]

So, how do you reset the critical state for that weapon/source/target combination then? The only way now is to roll a different attack or same attack as non-crit.

Creating an interface to manage each and every source/target/weapon combination would be just as difficult for GM to manage.

I have not found a good interface to realistically manage this in an automated way that wasn't more work than the current system, especially considering full attacks and spell attacks vs multiple targets.

If someone created an extension that handled this more elegantly. (ie didn't require separate window to manage all the crit states), I would be very likely to include.

JPG

[HoloGnome]

Sorry - maybe I'm not understanding something based on my limited use so far or moderate familiarity. But, presumably, after the critical hit, the player will roll damage and that clears the flag for that weapon. Alternately, if damage is not rolled with that weapon for some bizarre reason, the flag would be cleared at the start of the next round.

Here is what I am suggesting (even incorporating special damage for multiple attacks with the same weapon):
1. Each action gets a linked list (or dynamic array) of bitfields for special damage or other capabilities.
2. Whenever there is a special form of damage (critical, sneak, etc.), a list object/element is added and the corresponding bit for special damage is set in the bitfield for that action/weapon (or multiple bits in the case of more than one type of damage). If there are multiple, successful, special attacks with the same weapon, additional objects/elements are appended, corresponding to the order in which they occurred (FIFO).
3. When the player rolls damage, the bitfield drives additional damage dice no matter how many attacks there were. Each damage roll pops an element off the top of the list, queue, etc. and clears it.
4. For as many special hits with a weapon as there have been, there will be elements/list items.
5. The list/array is always cleared at the start of each player's turn

It's all done behind the scenes programmatically - no UI required. It just works...I think. Does it? :)

[Moon Wizard]

Perhaps. The challenge is in getting the implementation worked up in Lua such that it works the way you suggest. It's not on the top of my radar, so I personally won't be looking at this for a while.

In addition to moving my family this week, I am heads down getting 5E ready for Gencon launch, and talking to publishers in preparation for the same convention.

Regards,
JPG

[HoloGnome]

Good luck with the move and 5E!