Patch 9 has crit hits and crit fails in and out of combat. We can tell Larian how each of these situations feel. For me, the relevant questions are:
1. Does the crit do anything special?
2. Would anything be different if I'd rolled a 19 (or 2) instead of a 20 (or 1)?
3. If I miss, can I try again?
In Combat- Critical Hit: Double damage feels great! Rolling a 19 would probably have been a hit, but with less impact. Thumbs up for crit hit!
- Critical Miss: A crit miss is just a miss. Also, rolling a 2 probably misses. A miss never feels great, but the critical part is *shrug emoji*. Just try again next turn.
Skill Ckecks- Critical Success: Feels like nothing. The only reward is not having to sit through the animations of every bonus added one at a time (which should be streamlined anyway). Unless attempting a check the PC has no business trying, a 19 also succeeds. Nat 20s aren't special here.
- Critical Fail: Crit fails are just fails. No feel-bad in that sense. But, assuming the PC's skills line up with the check, rolling a 2 will succeed a good chunk of the time. Worse, rolling a 1 sometimes would have been enough if the crit fail rule didn't exist. That feels awful.
There are rerolls: Fine with thieve's tools as those are in good supply; not great with inspiration, especially if several successive checks are required, especially especially if your paladin seems to be rolling persuasion checks with a d10. Emotionally, crit fails range from annoying to let's-stick-a-few-more-needles-in-the-Swen-Vincke-voodoo-doll.
In the end, I agree with OP's suggestion: Please remove the one case which provides nothing but grief.
