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Enhanced criticals?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
aeythreval
Apr 23, 2009 10:25:29 A player of mine was grousing about the combat system in that there is no chance of crippling injury or death on any particular weapon strike assuming you have more hit points than the strike does damage.

Bad guy does X damage on average, you have Y hit points which is (X*5), so you can stand there absolutely nekkid and so long as you're not "helpless" the Bad Guy has to hit you at least 3 times with two of them scoring crits for you to fall.

This means that combats are all wars of attrition. You are at no risk of any permanent or semi-permanent negative effect so long as you have hit points.

We both come from Rolemaster backgrounds where there were elaborate (and time consuming) critical tables, and any scrub could get lucky, roll a 96-100 and really get in a good blow. No combats could be taken for granted.

Now I don't want to go back to that, as 3-6 hour fights are not what I want. But I would like a way to spice up the critical system so that players have to be cognizant that anyone can get in a lucky hit that could do some real damage.

Has anyone tried house rules like this? Something like (off the top of my head) max damage on a crit and 1.5x or 2x max damage on a confirmed crit (using the old crit confirmation rules)?
#2
mplindustries
Apr 23, 2009 10:56:24
Bad guy does X damage on average, you have Y hit points which is (X*5), so you can stand there absolutely nekkid and so long as you're not "helpless" the Bad Guy has to hit you at least 3 times with two of them scoring crits for you to fall.

If you just stand there naked doing nothing, you're absolutely fair and correct to rule them helpless, or insta-killed.

Hit Points are an abstraction.
#3
Stuntman
Apr 23, 2009 11:18:28
But I would like a way to spice up the critical system so that players have to be cognizant that anyone can get in a lucky hit that could do some real damage.

If the player wants to do some real damage, he should use his encounter or daily powers. These powers tend to do more damage than normal and/or apply some status effects. Since the daily and encounter powers are limited, these effects are also limited in how often they happen. The difference between using powers like this versus these things happening on crits is that players have control on when they apply it. There's no point in critting a minion and chopping off his head when it only has 1 hit point. You can save your big powers for bigger targets.

Has anyone tried house rules like this? Something like (off the top of my head) max damage on a crit and 1.5x or 2x max damage on a confirmed crit (using the old crit confirmation rules)?

If you want more damage on criticals, use magical or high crit weapons. These types of weapons already do additional damage dice on criticals. Tell your player to use high crit weapons if he wants bigger effects on criticals.
#4
Kynesis
Apr 24, 2009 1:32:21 I've tinkered with such things in the past, there were once books for 2e that had buckets of tables for critical damage, not only from different weapon types (piercing, slashing and bludgeoning) but also for each and every 'energy' type of magical effect.
2e however didn't really have room to add critical failures or hits on magic attacks, really added some punch and its fun to land that extra punch... not-so-much when one of your party loses an arm on a random-encounter combat though.
They add real spice to average combats where the players aren't in real danger of haphazardly suffering life-long debilitating effects but it tends to seem completely unwarranted if the effects don't go both ways.

Its arguably overpowering, but if you're keen for it you might rule that criticals allow either an bonus (free) use (immediately) of a class or racial feature (though you'd see players stacking up on classes & races that best support that).

The alternative that my group used to run with was a small table of random events in combat that critical hits & misses would roll against and provide extra benefits / penalties - most of that's better covered by 4e but its still worth considering.

Over the years 'critical' systems for various games have generally come to the conclusion that cool as more graphic combat is, the price is often too high both in terms of PC's and villains suffering story-breaking injuries and the time it takes to reference said tables, as the vast majority of the time the effects are little more than dressing, which you could've achieved with a couple of extra words rather than people scrambling over books for several minutes to resolve a single strike.

There are alot of interesting ideas though, I used to have a handy reference of my favorite effects to brush up on every so often and just verbally drop into combat to dress it up.
4e offers flavor text with each and every power, working with your players on those descriptions can quickly lead to a much more visceral 'look & feel' while keeping the action fluid.

Having said all that, the new system (4e) has many more and varied opportunities to resolve combat without necessarily exchanging blows in turn until somebody dies - something I personally try to support wherever I can as having players simply kill everything they encounter seems to me rather boring and frankly, psychotic.
#5
aeythreval
Apr 24, 2009 9:33:56
Over the years 'critical' systems for various games have generally come to the conclusion that cool as more graphic combat is, the price is often too high both in terms of PC's and villains suffering story-breaking injuries and the time it takes to reference said tables, as the vast majority of the time the effects are little more than dressing, which you could've achieved with a couple of extra words rather than people scrambling over books for several minutes to resolve a single strike.

I think this is the direction I'm leaning as well. In my experience, when game masters added or were using rules that had chances of random ignominious death, there were safeties added in as well (fate points, storytelling points, easy resurrection) to counter-act the effect. Or the GM made all his rolls behind the screen and if a PC was going to get squished at a bad time in the story he just fudged the numbers.

So it seems like adding in a mechanic which I would just have to counterbalance some other way. I may just go with a "That was a really solid blow to your leg, so you're going to be at -1 speed until you have an Extended Rest or expend 2 healing surges" kind of thing.
#6
Namagem
Apr 24, 2009 19:07:22 I use a sort of a "confirmed crit" system, in that if you crit or fumble, you roll another d20. Instead of a simple yes or no, the d20 determines what happens.

1-5 (or 1-10 if the enemy is heavily armored or otherwise durable): Simple max damage
6: Max damage + Additional Damage die
7: Max damage + knocked prone
8: Max damage + Additional Damage die + Cha mod
9: Max damage + immobilized Save Ends
10: Max Damage + Additional Damage die + Weakened Save Ends
11: Max Damage + Additional Damage die + Str mod
12-14: Max Damage + Knocked Prone
15: 2x Max Damage
16: 2x Max Damage + Slowed Save Ends
17: 2x Max Damage + Knocked Prone
18-19: 2x Max Damage, Unconsious Save Ends
20: Vorpal Blow, Auto kill (Unless powerful enemy, then 2x max damage + 2 additional damage dies)
#7
Bathnor
Apr 25, 2009 18:03:15 Our group uses the Critital Fumble Deck, and Critical Hit Deck from Game Mastery. We don't roll to comfirm the critical hits or misses. We just go with whatever's rolled and draw from the appropriate deck. The card tells you what happenes, it depends on the type of damage the attack used. We even roll crit and fumble for spells, good times . The decks are about 10 bucks esch at the hobby shops.

Here's one from the Critical Hit Deck,

Bludgeoning - Staggering Blow - Normal damage and double nonlethal damage.

Piercing - Heart Shot - Triple Damage and 1 CON bleed.

Slashing - Leg Swipe - Double damage and target is knocked prone.

Magic - Terrifying Display - Normal damage and target is frightened for 1d4 rounds. (WILL negates)

And one from the fumble deck :

Melee - Wrong End - If you are using a slashing weapon, you take 1d6 points of damage and 1 point of bleed.

Ranged - Phantom Wind - You compensate for a breeze that isn't there. You take a -2 penalty on ranged attack rolls for 3 rounds.

Narural - Overthink It - Your target's armor and natural armor bonuses are doubled against you for 3 rounds,

Magic - Power Down - You take 1 point od INT bleed.

The number of cards that you draw from the Critical Hit deck is based on the crit multiplier of the weapon used. If it's x2 you draw one, x3=2, x4=3, ect. You pick the card that you want to use.

If you have weapon focus with the weapon that you fumbled with you draw 2 cards and pick the one that you want to have happen. (Well, based on the type of attack on the card, can't use the melee one if it was a ranged attack for example) Hope this helps.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 aeythreval Apr 23, 2009 10:25:29	A player of mine was grousing about the combat system in that there is no chance of crippling injury or death on any particular weapon strike assuming you have more hit points than the strike does damage. Bad guy does X damage on average, you have Y hit points which is (X*5), so you can stand there absolutely nekkid and so long as you're not "helpless" the Bad Guy has to hit you at least 3 times with two of them scoring crits for you to fall. This means that combats are all wars of attrition. You are at no risk of any permanent or semi-permanent negative effect so long as you have hit points. We both come from Rolemaster backgrounds where there were elaborate (and time consuming) critical tables, and any scrub could get lucky, roll a 96-100 and really get in a good blow. No combats could be taken for granted. Now I don't want to go back to that, as 3-6 hour fights are not what I want. But I would like a way to spice up the critical system so that players have to be cognizant that anyone can get in a lucky hit that could do some real damage. Has anyone tried house rules like this? Something like (off the top of my head) max damage on a crit and 1.5x or 2x max damage on a confirmed crit (using the old crit confirmation rules)?
#2 mplindustries Apr 23, 2009 10:56:24	Bad guy does X damage on average, you have Y hit points which is (X*5), so you can stand there absolutely nekkid and so long as you're not "helpless" the Bad Guy has to hit you at least 3 times with two of them scoring crits for you to fall. If you just stand there naked doing nothing, you're absolutely fair and correct to rule them helpless, or insta-killed. Hit Points are an abstraction.
#3 Stuntman Apr 23, 2009 11:18:28	But I would like a way to spice up the critical system so that players have to be cognizant that anyone can get in a lucky hit that could do some real damage. If the player wants to do some real damage, he should use his encounter or daily powers. These powers tend to do more damage than normal and/or apply some status effects. Since the daily and encounter powers are limited, these effects are also limited in how often they happen. The difference between using powers like this versus these things happening on crits is that players have control on when they apply it. There's no point in critting a minion and chopping off his head when it only has 1 hit point. You can save your big powers for bigger targets. Has anyone tried house rules like this? Something like (off the top of my head) max damage on a crit and 1.5x or 2x max damage on a confirmed crit (using the old crit confirmation rules)? If you want more damage on criticals, use magical or high crit weapons. These types of weapons already do additional damage dice on criticals. Tell your player to use high crit weapons if he wants bigger effects on criticals.
#4 Kynesis Apr 24, 2009 1:32:21	I've tinkered with such things in the past, there were once books for 2e that had buckets of tables for critical damage, not only from different weapon types (piercing, slashing and bludgeoning) but also for each and every 'energy' type of magical effect. 2e however didn't really have room to add critical failures or hits on magic attacks, really added some punch and its fun to land that extra punch... not-so-much when one of your party loses an arm on a random-encounter combat though. They add real spice to average combats where the players aren't in real danger of haphazardly suffering life-long debilitating effects but it tends to seem completely unwarranted if the effects don't go both ways. Its arguably overpowering, but if you're keen for it you might rule that criticals allow either an bonus (free) use (immediately) of a class or racial feature (though you'd see players stacking up on classes & races that best support that). The alternative that my group used to run with was a small table of random events in combat that critical hits & misses would roll against and provide extra benefits / penalties - most of that's better covered by 4e but its still worth considering. Over the years 'critical' systems for various games have generally come to the conclusion that cool as more graphic combat is, the price is often too high both in terms of PC's and villains suffering story-breaking injuries and the time it takes to reference said tables, as the vast majority of the time the effects are little more than dressing, which you could've achieved with a couple of extra words rather than people scrambling over books for several minutes to resolve a single strike. There are alot of interesting ideas though, I used to have a handy reference of my favorite effects to brush up on every so often and just verbally drop into combat to dress it up. 4e offers flavor text with each and every power, working with your players on those descriptions can quickly lead to a much more visceral 'look & feel' while keeping the action fluid. Having said all that, the new system (4e) has many more and varied opportunities to resolve combat without necessarily exchanging blows in turn until somebody dies - something I personally try to support wherever I can as having players simply kill everything they encounter seems to me rather boring and frankly, psychotic.
#5 aeythreval Apr 24, 2009 9:33:56	Over the years 'critical' systems for various games have generally come to the conclusion that cool as more graphic combat is, the price is often too high both in terms of PC's and villains suffering story-breaking injuries and the time it takes to reference said tables, as the vast majority of the time the effects are little more than dressing, which you could've achieved with a couple of extra words rather than people scrambling over books for several minutes to resolve a single strike. I think this is the direction I'm leaning as well. In my experience, when game masters added or were using rules that had chances of random ignominious death, there were safeties added in as well (fate points, storytelling points, easy resurrection) to counter-act the effect. Or the GM made all his rolls behind the screen and if a PC was going to get squished at a bad time in the story he just fudged the numbers. So it seems like adding in a mechanic which I would just have to counterbalance some other way. I may just go with a "That was a really solid blow to your leg, so you're going to be at -1 speed until you have an Extended Rest or expend 2 healing surges" kind of thing.
#6 Namagem Apr 24, 2009 19:07:22	I use a sort of a "confirmed crit" system, in that if you crit or fumble, you roll another d20. Instead of a simple yes or no, the d20 determines what happens. 1-5 (or 1-10 if the enemy is heavily armored or otherwise durable): Simple max damage 6: Max damage + Additional Damage die 7: Max damage + knocked prone 8: Max damage + Additional Damage die + Cha mod 9: Max damage + immobilized Save Ends 10: Max Damage + Additional Damage die + Weakened Save Ends 11: Max Damage + Additional Damage die + Str mod 12-14: Max Damage + Knocked Prone 15: 2x Max Damage 16: 2x Max Damage + Slowed Save Ends 17: 2x Max Damage + Knocked Prone 18-19: 2x Max Damage, Unconsious Save Ends 20: Vorpal Blow, Auto kill (Unless powerful enemy, then 2x max damage + 2 additional damage dies)
#7 Bathnor Apr 25, 2009 18:03:15	Our group uses the Critital Fumble Deck, and Critical Hit Deck from Game Mastery. We don't roll to comfirm the critical hits or misses. We just go with whatever's rolled and draw from the appropriate deck. The card tells you what happenes, it depends on the type of damage the attack used. We even roll crit and fumble for spells, good times . The decks are about 10 bucks esch at the hobby shops. Here's one from the Critical Hit Deck, Bludgeoning - Staggering Blow - Normal damage and double nonlethal damage. Piercing - Heart Shot - Triple Damage and 1 CON bleed. Slashing - Leg Swipe - Double damage and target is knocked prone. Magic - Terrifying Display - Normal damage and target is frightened for 1d4 rounds. (WILL negates) And one from the fumble deck : Melee - Wrong End - If you are using a slashing weapon, you take 1d6 points of damage and 1 point of bleed. Ranged - Phantom Wind - You compensate for a breeze that isn't there. You take a -2 penalty on ranged attack rolls for 3 rounds. Narural - Overthink It - Your target's armor and natural armor bonuses are doubled against you for 3 rounds, Magic - Power Down - You take 1 point od INT bleed. The number of cards that you draw from the Critical Hit deck is based on the crit multiplier of the weapon used. If it's x2 you draw one, x3=2, x4=3, ect. You pick the card that you want to use. If you have weapon focus with the weapon that you fumbled with you draw 2 cards and pick the one that you want to have happen. (Well, based on the type of attack on the card, can't use the melee one if it was a ranged attack for example) Hope this helps.