Post/Author/DateTime	Post
mearrin69 12-24-07, 03:33 AM	Was running the very end of Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde this afternoon and thought I'd share the wild success of the players with the forums. Didn't keep track but they rolled about 7 crits in one encounter. Twice they got a 20 to confirm (and for fun we roll again and another confirmation makes it a 'double crit'). The fighter-type took out the fiendish half-ogre (or whatever it was) in one attack with a double crit (first attack) and a normal crit (second attack). Since I use the Gamemastery crit deck there were some interesting effects as well. Most of these were on the redspawn firebelcher which has <60 HP and many were 'normal damage but also x effect' cards. So, even though he was whittled down in hp pretty slowly he had a ton of nasty effects on him (crushed windpipe can't breathe, slashed jugular d6 hp bleed per round, cut achilles tendon half speed and flatfooted, etc.) That poor thing was a wreck by the time they finally took him down. They've had a multi-session run of bad rolling while many of my rolls (made in the open for most things) have been scary good with many near deaths over the past couple of weeks. It was nice to see them get the luck for a bit - even if it did make short work of my encounters. Man, that module's a bit of a dungeon crawl, though...looking forward to moving into Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (yeah, we run pre-mades mostly but with quite a bit of customization.) M
SavedSaint 12-24-07, 04:20 AM	Interesting you share this. I had a guy who would do all kinds of crazy stuff. One time he asked what it would take to shot a certain item out of the hand of a NPC of mine. HE was a good 2 increments away. Can't tell him no cause its D&D and you should be able to try anything. Well he crits. Ruins my attempt with that NPC. Another player was playing an elephant out of Faeron Races(forgot name). After about 4 level ups he finaly gets a great jump/tumble skill rank. But this guy is a 500lb elephant jumping over door ledges sumersaulting around like a little fairy. One time he did a crit skill roll jump/tumble check. So i give him another roll. And he lands on a shield or something on the ground and skates across a 3 foot wide ice bridge like nothing. All the while rolling 19/20 balance checks. The other party members had taken like 5 turns to just make it half way. He passes each of them up in one turn. Was funny now that i think of it, but annoying when i look back at it.
Ecalsneerg 12-24-07, 07:00 AM	My DM has special crit dice. They're small, they're metal, they nearly killed us in an encounter in a module supposed to just scare us a bit. The fighter got critted once, critted next round, went down, got healed back up again, got sneak attacked and critted.
mearrin69 12-24-07, 10:56 AM	I try not to say no when the players want to try something interesting that's not a *direct* contravention of the rules - it often results in cool, cinematic stuff. Example: A female 'grey guard' (HoH, IIRC) in Ravenloft wanted to pick up a table in an alchemist's lab and whack the bad guy with it. Had her make a strength check (which she aced) and attack with it as an inprovised weapon (rolled well). So I just made up some damage (thrown, so I gave it 'falling damage' for the distance she threw it plus str bonus, I think). I think I also stunned the guy (he was a wimpy warlock). A female 'archivist' (same player, HoH as well...hmmm) in this game wanted to try throwing a grappling hook at the howler in the lab. She connected with a good roll so I ruled that it stuck into the thing's flesh - but I was thinking that next round she was going to go for a ride. Instead she delays, tells her heavier buddies to delay, and then three of them jump off a ledge holding the rope. I said their combined weight (and force of their fall) pulled the creature 5' to the limit of its travel (it could only go in certain squares as it was trapped in a magical 'maze') and then held it there as long as they held onto it. The fighter finished it up really fast. I also like to reward really good rolls: 20 to threat, 20 to confirm, roll again and 19 to confirm equals a 'double crit'. For really low or high skill rolls there's no 'auto succeed/fail' but I usually make the result just a little better or worse than just pass/fail. It's a little more fun to me that way. M
Dunsel 12-24-07, 12:42 PM	I am confused as to whether this is a question or you are just sharing. I DM about 20 times a year and I use the standard crit system but my DM does not and it drives all of us crazy! His involves results like "knocks opponent back 5'" instead of doubling or tripling the damage! Your system seems fairly nasty and a lot of fun. I have created a couple critical fumble charts but the critical hits are as DMG.
mearrin69 12-24-07, 03:40 PM	Just sharing. No questions...but it's always nice to hear how others run their games too. We used the standard crit system for a while but liked the Gamemastery cards. Only PCs (and a select few important NPCs) use the deck. We're using a home-brew crit fumble table (not my choice...players voted it in) but will be switching to the crit fumble deck when it comes out. M