As I recently discussed in gossip, I think spells should be able to crit.
MR would play a roll in determining if a spell crits and the damage done but if combat classes can crit up to 5 times in 1 round for 300+ dmg each it makes sense that a spell caster should be able to crit with any of his/her spells.
I am surprised this issue has not been raised before.
WoW works this way, let's get'er done!
Signed, a non-critting Mage.
TH
As cool as I think spell crits would be (perhaps you could base the damage on intelligence - someone may even go a Gaunt mage?) I believe that the solution needs to come from the other end in that combat damage is currently way too high. I like the idea that spell damage is a nice and reliable level of damage where combat was random. Spells were once the real damage dealers in the game, which I felt was a counterbalance to how hard the characters are to play through the early levels. I recommend you check out some of my earlier posts about adding the sixth swing back to combat and modifying/removing the q&d system (Two seperate ideas).
http://www.greatermud.com/forums/index.php?topic=2342
http://www.greatermud.com/forums/index.php?topic=2539
Have a look and by all means tell me what you think.
+1 for spell crits, healing spells should crit too
Personally I think hit's i.e targeting need to be worked on a bit. I think to balance out high damage crits we should also have an opposite like glancing blows. A chance glancing blow could spit the damage between two targets but at say maybe 1/4 to 1/2 of the normal damage rate. It's a given we love to deal out the damage however we do need to keep it in mind of a certain level of balance. This type of idea could work for both spell and physical combat when in partied combat situations for pvp and in pve based on alignment.