Critical hit special effects

[mhd]

We don't really use critical hits in our current game (I put it to a vote), but instead I'd like to introduce some special effects. Not quite sure what they'll be, but I imagine something like a damage boost or a free disarm attempt. So a set of special powers, triggered by a especially good hit.

 

Now, at first I took "triggered" quite literally, but in the end this isn't really an advantage -- although one could do something for a "critical miss" of an enemy. In the end, this looks like a LInked power, with the additional requirement of the first attack being especially good. The specific powers would come from the weapon groups or special combat techniques.

 

How would you price that? Seems like special case of Limited Power, although the specific maths depend on the effective combat skill. Would a flat -1/4 be to low?

[Lucius]

? Can you buy a Linked Power that's linked to equipment?

 

"Linked, to any bladed weapon?"

 

edit: Requires a Skill Roll has an option to require an Attack Roll, with the usual Active Point penalties. I assume that means "If attack is made by x pts, where x equals 1/5, 1/10, or 1/20 of the Active Points."

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Linked to a palindromedary

[Chris Goodwin]

I would give it the equivalent value to Activation Roll.  I wouldn't require a separate roll, though, just use the same value.

[mhd]

I definitely want this to be a fixed value, to prevent choice paralysis when you've got multiple maneuvers ("So I've made my roll by 6, that means I can use maneuver #1, #3 and #8"). That might be bad enough with critical hits, but at least people don't have to figure out what threshold they crossed for each successful attack.

 

And compared to critical hit thresholds, activation rolls are a bit too static. Quite often it's a pretty unlikely scenario, so if I give the equivalent limitation of that the power gets really cheap. But in other circumstances, critical hits aren't that rare. I don't really want to model the statistic likelihoods of all my previous combats to arrive at the proper average