Do you use critical hits?

[vivsavage]

Have you implemented a critical hit system for your C&C games? Or, if you're a player, has your CK implemented one? If so, what is it like?

[Lord Dynel]

Roll of 20 = critical hit = Double Damage

I'm thinking of using the charts from Dragon #39 ("Good Hits and Bad Misses") for crits.

[Omote]

I do also use critical hits in my games. Such things are a function of my Weapon Mastery rules.

-O
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[bighara]

Yes, I use an exploding damage version of critical hits (basically ripped off from WFRP ). Bear in mind I use a custom armor/weapon chart, so my weapon damages are slightly different than the book's.

If you roll max damage (i.e. a 10 on a d10), you roll your to-hit again in order to confirm. If successful, you re-roll and add your damage. As long as the die keeps coming up max, you keep rolling and adding. You only re-roll the to hit the first time.

[Julian Grimm]

No crits here. I stopped using them awhile back and never looked back.
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[Maliki]

We use them. A natural 20 grants a free attack.
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[Jonathan of White Haven]

Lord Dynel wrote:
Roll of 20 = critical hit = Double Damage

I'm thinking of using the charts from Dragon #39 ("Good Hits and Bad Misses") for crits.

I (and my confederate, skerns) use GH & BM. The only drawback is that it doesn't include a table for unarmed critters scoring crits, so I default to either Edged (for claws & teeth) or Blunt (for unarmed fist or foot damage, mainly from Monks.) Various odd encounters can't score crits (Gelatinous Cubes, slimes, oozes, et cetera).

Contrary to BtB rules, a "natural 20" always scores a hit, no matter what the opponent's AC happens to be. And I don't rely on a single "natural 20" roll, but require the player to roll a second time. 18-20 (unmodified) on the second roll scores a crit.
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[CKDad]

I keep it pretty simple - natural 20s (if they hit) are double damage; a natural 1 is a miss and something bad happens that fits the circumstances (weapon dropped or stuck in something, hits a nearby friendly, etc.).
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[serleran]

No. Monsters do not need more advantages.
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[Go0gleplex]

Critical Hits in my game give a damage bonus of + (Level x2).

Fumbles result in an automatic initiative of "1" for the next round.
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[Hrolfgar]

I haven't allowed them yet some players expect them. If I cave in to pressure I would give a natural twenty maxium damage.

I like serlerans' point if the palyers get them so do the monsters.

[Lord Dynel]

I don't know, I never saw monsters having crits as an advantage. I know if you look at it on a monster-by-monster basis, the characters will face more crits than any one monster. That, to me, is how it should be - monsters are (for the most part) are "disposable." I don't look at it like that. In this instance, I look at all the rounds of combat the characters will ever face as one big battle. Looking at it this way, the amount of crits and fumbles even themselves over time.

Jonathan of White Haven wrote:
I (and my confederate, skerns) use GH & BM. The only drawback is that it doesn't include a table for unarmed critters scoring crits, so I default to either Edged (for claws & teeth) or Blunt (for unarmed fist or foot damage, mainly from Monks.) Various odd encounters can't score crits (Gelatinous Cubes, slimes, oozes, et cetera).

Yes sir, I like that article. I kind of did what you said (about natural attacks) when I first started using the tables back in the 1st Edition days. I used it briefly when it was updated for 3e in the Dragon Compendium. The players thought it was a bit too lethal, but they sure loved it when they scored crits.
I'll most likely use it again coming up, but for now I use the aforementioned method (20=damage x 2).

[Traveller]

I don't use critical hits, despite having an article on my site explaining how to shoehorn Rolemaster/HARP critical hits into the game. Using a sword as an example, if I used critical hits that sword instead of doing 1d8 would do 1d8+8. On critical hits the sword would do maximum damage, and as a bonus an additional die of damage would be rolled. Of course, this assumes that a 20 is rolled.
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[Treebore]

Maliki wrote:
We use them. A natural 20 grants a free attack.

This is how I do it now a well.

Critical Hits and Bad misses are cool can even be fun, but its difficult enough as is to keep PC's alive for a campaign without using deadly or incapacitating rules like full crit tables.

So I settled on something that rewards the rare "20" being rolled with a extra attack. With regards to spell saves I allow them to take no damage what so ever if its something like a fireball.

On "1"'s I allow a DEX check, failure means they lose their attack action on the next round, likely due to being prone.

A "1" on failed spell saves can be very ugly. Double damage on something like a fireball.

So my system is deadly enough without being detailed with charts.
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[Jonathan of White Haven]

Lord Dynel wrote:
I don't know, I never saw monsters having crits as an advantage. I know if you look at it on a monster-by-monster basis, the characters will face more crits than any one monster. That, to me, is how it should be - monsters are (for the most part) are "disposable." I don't look at it like that. In this instance, I look at all the rounds of combat the characters will ever face as one big battle. Looking at it this way, the amount of crits and fumbles even themselves over time.

I don't see monsters having crits as an "advantage", per se. It's more of a "if you're going to allow PCs to have crits, then monsters should get them too" kind of thing. Sauce for the goose, if you will.

Jonathan of White Haven wrote:
I (and my confederate, skerns) use GH & BM. The only drawback is that it doesn't include a table for unarmed critters scoring crits, so I default to either Edged (for claws & teeth) or Blunt (for unarmed fist or foot damage, mainly from Monks.) Various odd encounters can't score crits (Gelatinous Cubes, slimes, oozes, et cetera).

Quote:
Yes sir, I like that article. I kind of did what you said (about natural attacks) when I first started using the tables back in the 1st Edition days. I used it briefly when it was updated for 3e in the Dragon Compendium. The players thought it was a bit too lethal, but they sure loved it when they scored crits.

I'm willing to ignore or alter some of the crit results at my discretion. For example, in this past Saturday's session, one of the PCs took a triple damage crit that should have included having his "sword arm" (the PC is a Monk) lopped off at the shoulder. I decided against that, and just inflicted the triple damage (1d10+2, rolled an 8, for a total of 26pts), instead. PC went below 0HP, tp -3, failed his save vs. CON, and fell to the ground, mewling piteously. Gnome, of course.
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[Galadrin]

I do, but only for the PC's, not for the monsters. It feels more heroic that way. A natural 20 results in an extra damage die (so 1d8+3 damage would become 2d8+3). I thought about a crit doing x2 damage, but math is boring and rolling buckets of dice is awesome.

[Lord Dynel]

Jonathan of White Haven wrote:
I don't see monsters having crits as an "advantage", per se. It's more of a "if you're going to allow PCs to have crits, then monsters should get them too" kind of thing. Sauce for the goose, if you will.

Indeed. I don't either. Monsters have crits in my game, for sure.

Jonathan of White Haven wrote:
I'm willing to ignore or alter some of the crit results at my discretion. For example, in this past Saturday's session, one of the PCs took a triple damage crit that should have included having his "sword arm" (the PC is a Monk) lopped off at the shoulder. I decided against that, and just inflicted the triple damage (1d10+2, rolled an 8, for a total of 26pts), instead. PC went below 0HP, tp -3, failed his save vs. CON, and fell to the ground, mewling piteously. Gnome, of course.

Heh. Yeah, those tables can result in some nasty results. I swear my party began to look like wounded war veterans, all bandaged up and missing limbs.

[Lord Dynel]

Galadrin wrote:
I do, but only for the PC's, not for the monsters. It feels more heroic that way. A natural 20 results in an extra damage die (so 1d8+3 damage would become 2d8+3). I thought about a crit doing x2 damage, but math is boring and rolling buckets of dice is awesome.

That's how I do it - I roll extra damage dice. If a crit is x2 and the damage is 2d4 + x, then I roll 4d4 + 2x, not 2(2d4 + x). I agree, that is kind of boring.

[Treebore]

I see monsters getting to do what players get to do as a key element of maintaining game balance.
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[serleran]

Let's look at why critical hits for monsters is an advantage: one -- they are non-recurring events, where a bit of luck is just that, a bit of luck: they are meant to threaten and engage, not decimate (especially those of the wandering variety) so even a slim chance of such is teetering toward the unfair. And then, consider the number of attacks a monster can make per round -- many are at the 2+ range, some even up to 4; compare that to the typical C&C character who has to take severe penalties to have two attacks (only fighters and monks can do it without negatives and then, only if the fighter is 10th level or higher) giving the monsters much increases odds of scoring at least one critical per encounter. We haven't even considered what happens for some when they do roll exceptionally well, like a giant frog that can simply kill outright -- a critical for them would seem to need to be different since anything else (ie, he standard critical rule) is not a critical but instant death (though I suppose that can be an effect of a critical...) And, now one of the final reasons: volume encountered. Monsters do not typically come in singles -- they come in bands, somewhere around 4 - 10 on average, and sometimes more than double the party size. This extends the already higher likelihood even further, swaying the favor to the monster brigade since, amongst all of them, it is far more likely critical hits will be scored.

So, in the whole of it -- monsters allowed to score critical injuries = less survivability for the party. Factoring in other aspects of the C&C game (ie, difficulty to resist via saves) this is not, necessarily, something to encourage... though, if you want even more lethal games, go for it.
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[Treebore]

Which is why I went to giving a free extra attack. They still have to roll to hit with it. So even when a crit is scored it still will only have the effect of two hits being scored instead of just one, if they successfully hit the second time.

Which at low levels I try to have a 15% or less chance against the front line fighter(s). In higher level games I rarely give the monsters/bad guys better than a 50% chance.

Which is another way of controlling how severe crit systems can effect your games. Keep the monsters chance to hit low.

IE if the Front line AC's is an 18 the monsters are only 2 or 3 HD.

I also do this to give more XP's by being able to throw more monsters, with bigger treasure hoards, at them.

RPG mechanics are number games. Manipulate those numbers to get the results you want.
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[Lord Dynel]

Well, most groups are of the 3-5 PC range. Not counting multiple characters per player and henchmen/hirelings. Usually every one is going to have an attack of some sort to contribute to the attack. So looking at 4 characters, one getting an extra attack, that's 5 attacks per round for the hero side. That's not too shabby.

I'm not trying to arguementative, serleran, but you make it sound like players as a whole are at a terrible disadvantage as it is, without the crits for monsters. I politely disagree. Monsters with more attacks are usually "solo" encountered monsters. Sheer numbers are usually made up of inferior creatures. Luck of rolls can apply for both sides. I remember one 3.5 session where there were the players scored 13 threats in one 4-hour session (I don't remember who many turned to crits, though). I feel that the trick of the above is balance - don't throw six creatures with 3 attacks each against a 4 person party. If you have that then adding crits to the equation shouldn't mess things up too bad.

[serleran]

The PCs are at a distinct disadvantage compared to monsters -- there are only so many PCs.
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[Treebore]

serleran wrote:
The PCs are at a distinct disadvantage compared to monsters -- there are only so many PCs.

That depends. If the PC's have an effective Sleep spell to use and the monsters don't...
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[Aladar]

I use the critical hit and fumble rules as outlined in the Great Hits & Terrible Misses article in Crusader #4. I also use the armor and shield damage rules as outlined in the Armor Damage Rules article in Crusader #2. These seem to work out really well for our group.
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[Go0gleplex]

If you get into armor and weapon damage...then I'm using a venerable article from Dragon #84ish.... Repair or Beware. An oldie...but goodie.
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[serleran]

Sleep is effective for maybe 2 levels in my game (it is far more useful in town, against zero-level NPCs) against monsters -- after the party hits level 3, they're expected to start facing monsters with 5+ HD. So, sure, sleep is useful, but not everything is affected (elves, undead, plants, elementals, etc...) so, that's a "so?" Just like fireball is useless against something immune (or gets more powerful) to heat / fire.

The thing is -- there are only X number of PCs in the party, and Y number of monsters. Only, Y is unlimited... the Castle Keeper can keep adding more. There might be an artificial limit, such as "there are only 80 kobolds in this clan" but, still -- that's 80 vs. 4-10 (an average.) Advantage = monster.
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[Treebore]

serleran wrote:
Sleep is effective for maybe 2 levels in my game (it is far more useful in town, against zero-level NPCs) against monsters -- after the party hits level 3, they're expected to start facing monsters with 5+ HD. So, sure, sleep is useful, but not everything is affected (elves, undead, plants, elementals, etc...) so, that's a "so?" Just like fireball is useless against something immune (or gets more powerful) to heat / fire.

The thing is -- there are only X number of PCs in the party, and Y number of monsters. Only, Y is unlimited... the Castle Keeper can keep adding more. There might be an artificial limit, such as "there are only 80 kobolds in this clan" but, still -- that's 80 vs. 4-10 (an average.) Advantage = monster.

Yep. That is just another part of the numbers game. How many of "X" monsters you throw at a group is just another aspect of it. An aspect a CK needs to know how to manipulate well in order to consistently have balanced encounters.

It definitely helps to understand how spells can effect the over all picture. A CK needs to have a decent understanding how an effective, or ineffective, Sleep, Web, Fireball, Prayer, etc... can have on the out come of a given combat. Giving a likely number going to be effected, what the average of the damage is going to be so you can predict the most likely out comes. Still no guarantee, but helpful nonetheless.
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[Tadhg]

Yes, I use simple crit hits rules in my game.

PC crit hits = double damage (100%)

Monster crit hits = add only an additional 50% of damage roll

PC crit fumble = lose turn (2 crit fumble rolls in a row = weapon break + loss of turn)

Monster crit fumble = lose turn + broken weapon

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[Lord Dynel]

serleran wrote:
The thing is -- there are only X number of PCs in the party, and Y number of monsters. Only, Y is unlimited... the Castle Keeper can keep adding more. There might be an artificial limit, such as "there are only 80 kobolds in this clan" but, still -- that's 80 vs. 4-10 (an average.) Advantage = monster.

See, monsters are unlimited...but in a given encounter? There should (hopefully) be a finite number of creatures in a given encounter, and that number should be relatively proportional to the number of characters in the party, and their power should also be proportionate to their power level. When that encounter is over, the slate is whiped clean and shouldn't be considered when making the next encounter...only the basic rules should - don't overwhelm the characters with a number of creatures that are too powerful for them to face. I still feel that with the right balance crits won't make monsters too overly powerful.