Critical Hit & Critical failures... Do you use them in your games?

[tesral]

The problem with D&D and other games is that critical failures happen too frequently 5% on a d20..

One reason I don't like the standard system. I don't even stick weith a 1 is always failure. I use roll through, both for impossible numbers and for misses.

If a natural 20 will not hit the players rolls again and adds the unmodified roll to the last roll.

On a one if that would not miss the player rolls again and subtracts the result from the last roll.

It cuts out automatic misses and automatic hits or can't possibly hit. To get a critical hit, if you need a 20 and roll through to hit you have to roll the second result in you critical threat range.

[cplmac]

LOL, I agree with you there. I was in the USMC and went through a little extra CQB training than most and even after I left the service, I was a white belt in Wado-ryu and my instructor was also a former Marine. We were sparring, and he told me to use what I learned in class that day and he would throw simple attacks my way to see how I responded. This guy had military training and he had a hard earned black belt (anyone who knows the style knows they don't hand out black belts like Tae-kwon do). This guy threw 3 different attacks that left his inner thigh open everytime, to which I kicked him next to the huevos all three times and received a warning from him each time, "If you do it again, I'm gonna put you on your a**." I replied, "Stop leaving it open." After 3 tries, he stopped doing it and did not exact said revenge. But it goes to show ... even the best get beaten by the newest.

I personally use Crits for both hits and failures, and I balance it by making this an option for the monsters as well. Once you get in high levels though, they can become a little ridiculous. They either remain small damage, or you have to make them as epic as your characters which can ruin a game quickly when someone's 20th level wizard blows himself up with a fireball.

Then again, we are trained to take those types of advantages in hand to hand combat.


Depends on what is happening in the game also. One time that a PC rolled a 1 on an attack roll, was after spurring his horse forward toward the attacking goblins. This was after they had already killed off the first wave that came at them. Told the player that with all the dead bodies laying about, his horse caught one and stumbled, sending him flying off the horse. When I rolled a couple of dice, he asks, "What's that roll for?" Told him that it was to see if he landed on his sword or not. He didn't land on the sword, but now he was on foot instead of on horse where he had the advantage.

[Dytrrnikl]

I don't use critical failures, figuring it was bad enough if the player's didn't hit or succeed on the roll. I've always used critical hits. In 2E it was a simple double damage on a natural 20. In 3E, I despised how they set it up for a threat then a check for a crit. I went with it, however, on a threat, player's did max damage for the hit...so if a character with 18 strength was struck target with a +5 Great Sword, they did 21 points of damage on a threat. If the weapon had some sort of discharge effect like thundering, that still had to be rolled. Sneak Attack damage was never maxed, only the base weapon damage. If an actual critical was confirmed, then the player would roll the additional damage and add it to the threat damage. In the above example, that same player would do 21 points of damage plus an additional 2d6 + 9, since great sword only a x2 crit multiplier. Damage would range from 33 to 42 points of damage on crit with this example. Made threats mean something and crits be particularly lethal. Of course what's good for the player's was also good for the DM controlled creatures.

[Xandros]

I use them. It's something that I feel adds some flavor to combat. Anything that can be added to combat to get past the mundane "I attack enemy a with my sword." "you hit." or "you miss." combat descriptions is good to me. I don't use the criticals that some people do where you can lose a limb. The things I have on crit hit and failure charts are things like, a critical hit may know the target off of their feet, a critical failure could result in slipping or tripping over their own feet, and needing to spend next turn getting up, or losing the grip on their weapon and dropping it.
--- Merged from Double Post ---

In 2E it was a simple double damage on a natural 20. In 3E, I despised how they set it up for a threat then a check for a crit.

I liked the change myself. If a character needed to roll a 20 to hit it was unlikely that it would automatically be a critical hit if it did hit. It is very unlikely that you will be able to hit them, but if you do it will do double damage. "I don't hit often, but when I do I hit hard." Even if a 20 isn't necessary to hit, an automatic critical on a roll of 20 means that 5% of all attacks are severe. It makes sense that a better fighter still has a better chance of causing a critical hit (better chance of succeeding at the check). It would be odd if a 'Joxer' character succeeded rarely, but every time they did they did as well as 'Xena' at her best.

[Panthro82]

I personally think a critical miss in which you wind up loping off one of your own limbs or killing yourself is way too far, but I completely agree with critical misses that destroy your weapon or wreck it beyond repair, or even knock a few HP off of an alley, ally, or yourself.

[BrotherDog]

So Panthro, how many hitpoints does an alley have? Is it similar to a street or hallway? Yes, I have that kind of sense of humor.

I don't use limb loss unless they're also attempting something unusual enough to warrant it. Such as tumbling by the target while attacking and rolling 1(miss), fail on reflex confirmation, then a fail on the tumble/acrobatic trick. However only if it lends to the story enough to do something so drastic. If the next treasure includes that mechanical arm(I forget what it's called), or someone in the party has one of those grafting feats/PrC. Mainly it has to fit the story. But killing one's self or an ally by accident? No way.

[Panthro82]

So Panthro, how many hitpoints does an alley have? Is it similar to a street or hallway? Yes, I have that kind of sense of humor.

LOL, that was a mistake but I left it in because it actually did happen in a game I was in once due to critical failure. Surprisingly an alley has a large amount of HP's!

One of my friends rolled a Nat. 1 doing something incredibly stupid while trying to attack(on top of controlling a cleric who only took out his mace and swung into enemies everytime we got into an altercation) Well he wound up missing the ghast and slamming his mace into the wall. We learned that whenever our friend plays again, he should probably just control fighters and rangers(I wound up doubling up with the cleric).

It has been fun though roleplaying it that the cleric was just facing enemies where he lost his nerve and just attacked with blunt objects instead of casting spells instead. The cleric has learned composure since.

[revolution 9]

I like using the Rolemaster critical hit and fumble charts. They're not difficult to use in any system.

[Parzival]

I like them, and I use them when possible.
(Although I hate charts for this purpose.)

That said, their function depends on the system and setting assumptions. (And it's always important to pick a system that matches the setting assumptions.)
In some (like Hero) Cyrano is simply the best swordsman on earth. Lucky rolls mean little, if anything.
In level-based games (like D&D) they're flavor. A burly peasant has essentially no chance against an experianced fighter.
In others (like GURPS or BRP) they're part of the core mechanic, and a half-trained peasant can potentially bring down Richard the Lionheart.

[Harwel]

Critical Success and Critical Failures work well in BRP-style games and GURPS, but in a d20 based game, ugh. (Simple probability, easier to scale to character's effective skill, etc).

[korhal23]

In D&D I use critical hits, but not failures, and I like how 4E handles them (maximum damage, plus a bonus if you have a magic weapon/implement). It's simple and elegant, and really doesn't super-overpower critical striking.

But in my preferred system, Spycraft (who didn't see me talking about this?), there's a system I like even better. First, let me explain a basic mechanic of Spycraft. Players begin the game with a number of "Action Dice", the quantity and size of which are determined primarily by your level. For every action dice each player has, the GC has one as well (so, say there's 4 players with 4 d6s apiece, the GC has 16 d6s.). Action Dice are awarded with XP and for things like good roleplaying, at the GC's discretion, though it is a good thing for him to award because he gets another one himself when he awards one out. These Action Dice can be used for things like healing, to requisition gear in the field or make other requests of your home Agency, to boost a roll by the value you roll (if used before the initial roll) or by 1 (if used after the initial roll), or most importantly for our purposes, to activate critical misses and successes. Another important thing to note is Vitality and Wounds... both are measures of "HP", though Vitality is your superspy ability to seemingly magically not get hit, while Wounds represents you taking physical damage. Typically, damage taken comes from Vitality if it is available, and then from your Wounds only when there are no more Vitality Points left.

Every attack has a potential error and threat range. By default, most weapons have an error range of "1" and a threat range of "20" though this does vary based on the particular weapon, condition of said weapon, your selection of feats and talents, your background, your class, etc, and it is possible to remove error range, or to not have a threat range. Skills also have threat and error ranges, and they can be activated into crits in the same manner I'm about to describe, but skills oftentimes also have special benefits for threats or certain penalties for errors even when no dice are spent.

So, let's say this particular weapon, we'll say it's a pistol of some kind, in your hands has an error range of "1" and a threat range of "19-20". When you roll the attack, if your attack hits (and btw, 20 is not an auto-hit), you may spend 1 or 2 action dice to activate the critical hit. When 1 die is spent, you inflict your damage straight to the enemy's wound points, regardless of how many Vitality Points are left. If you spend 2 dice, you deal damage as normal, and you can roll to inflict an extra, typically very nasty status effect. These 2 effects, however, are mutually exclusive, and you can not activate both. It should also be noted only certain NPCs can achieve critical hits, if they possess the quality "Treacherous", which is typically not included in minions, or even all Henchmen.
When a player rolls in their error range and misses (1s are not auto-misses), the GC can spend up to 4 dice to activate bigger and more dangerous critical failures. 1 dice is along the lines of a gun jam, one turn to clear, 4 dice is along the lines of misfire and explode and take damage and gun ruined. When the GC rolls errors, players may spend their dice to activate the NPC's critical failure in the same way.

[Bob the Dalek]

I bought the game mastry crit deck and have used it with a lot of fun results. Roll for the natural 20 and pick a card. For crit failures a 1 always means a dropped or broken weapon. Screwing up only hurts if it makes sense (ie drop a hammer on foot and lose an hp or the grenade falls to the floor at your feet, roll reflex to get out of the way).

[Arkhemedes]

I use critical hits and misses because it adds to the enjoyment and unpredictability of the game. But I have very simple rules which do not slow the game down at all.

If a natural 20 is rolled I have the player roll again; 1-5 is no extra damage, 6-15 is double damage, 16-19 is triple damage, and another 20 is quadruple damage. Very simple.

If a natural 1 is rolled I have a percentage chart copied from a Dragon mag. that has anything possible from nothing happens to dropped weapon to broken weapon to strike party member to strike self. I keep it clipped to my DM's screen - no searching for a chart. And if weapon break is indicated its gets a save vs. crushing blow. Very simple, no math involved. Plus it helps to eliminate weapons from the game making room for new weapons. And you can't accidentally kill yourself or chop an arm off.

[DarQuing]

I've never played in a game that didn't use critical hits and fumbles, though I don't recall them doing anything special beyond extra damage or some amusing effect.

[Q-man]

The critical hits are used all the time. I like the idea of being able to get a lucky strike that hits just the right spot and really wounds the target. If your group is into describing their attacks it can really be something to spice up the RP.

The failures I like for the same reasons. However, a lot of the guys I play with struggle to come up with good failures so we leave those out about half the time.

When we do use either the critical attacks or failures we make sure its balanced and effect both the players and the NPC's the same way.