Perfect 3 and 18's

[Tech]

In a Champions setting, I'm curious what you do when someone rolls a Perfect 3 or an 18 - what you actually use in your campaigns currently. Soooo, let me hear them.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Generally, nothing.  I used to use crits but neither I or my group really liked them that much.

[Netzilla]

My group used to use automatic max-damage on a nat-3 but, IMO, that can get way out of hand for something that's purely random chance.  We never really did anything with a nat-18.

 

These days, my preference is to treat any roll of triples as a crit.  Whether it's a crit success or failure depends on if the roll is good enough to be a success or failure.  That way, character skill matters in regards to the crit.  On a crit-hit, my default rule is +4 DCs (basically a free haymaker); though I've been toying around with a deck of Crit Cards for varying effects.  On a crit-fail I make up something suitably embarrassing/slightly disadvantageous on the spot; though (again) I've been toying with the idea of Fumble Cards.  The crit-on-triples also applies to skill rolls but that's entirely in the realm of GM whimsy as to effect.

[Ninja-Bear]

18 is a fumble! Something disadvantageos happens like maybe lose a weapon it gets stuck. 3 ones something very good happens to the player. Say maybe that acrobatics roll allows extra damage. A thug will be taken out one hit or perhaps two thugs with one punch. Forgot minions who roll 18 tend to hit either themselves ir fellow minions! : )

[Chris Goodwin]

If you roll a 3, make a Luck vs. Unluck roll.  If you have net levels of Luck, something lucky happens!  

 

If you roll an 18, make a Luck vs. Unluck roll.  If you have net levels of Unluck, something unlucky happens!  

 

Net levels of Unluck on 3, or net levels of Luck on 18, don't have any extra effect.

[Cantriped]

Beyond automatic success or failure, I don't do anything special for natural 3s and 18s. Sometimes I'll put a little pizazz into the description of the success or failure, but nothing mechanically advantageous.

[Ndreare]

We have always said a natural 18 is automatic failure.

 

Some time ago (around when FRED came out) we added a natural 3 did maximum effect.

A sudden brutality was added to a small percentage of cambat encounters.

[dsatow]

Usually nothing unless I am feeling sadistic. 

[GCMorris]

Never happened for me.

[Ninja-Bear]

Forgot the max damage!

[Nolgroth]

I only deal with 3 and 18 in a peripheral sense. I always liked the "Headshot" case from the Hit Location table. If you hit with 8 or more than needed, then you get something special. Usually that is double damage or something that would fall under "Succeed with Style" from FATE. Similarly, missing a hit roll by 8 or more invokes something bad. I usually judge situational conditions before making a decision. I don't like random tables because the mechanics are random enough as is. 

 

Those rules apply to non-combat skills as well as combat. Some sort of Fast Talk (Persuasion) roll, for example, that succeeds by 8+ is going to have some "better than mere success" benefits.

[Doc Democracy]

In a Champions setting, I'm curious what you do when someone rolls a Perfect 3 or an 18 - what you actually use in your campaigns currently. Soooo, let me hear them.

An 18 is a miss always. I have planned on using a dice pool system for a 3 but never done it yet. The plan is that when you roll a 3 you add the number of dice that you make your roll by. So if you fired a 12d6 blast needing a 10 to hit and roll 3, you roll 19d6, taking the best 12 -allowing you to manipulate BODY and STUN as desired through that choice.

 

Haven't done it, don't know how it will work.

 

Doc

[Ninja-Bear]

I think i also allow someone who was blocking that rolled 3 auto blocked everything.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah 3 is an auto-success, 18 is an auto-fail (although I'm more flexible on that, if someone has high enough skill it doesn't matter if you roll 18).

 

The way I used to do crits is that if you roll a 3 or hit more than double the target's DCV, you got a crit.  So a guy with DCV 3, if you hit a 7: crit.  They only came up in heroic, not superheroic games.

Critical hits gave you a choice: you did max damage/effect, or you could choose the hit location.  So there still was an element of randomness involved, and some strategy or thought.

 

But we realized none of us really cared for the idea.

[Sketchpad]

In my old campaign, a Natural 3 allowed the player to edit the scene to be favorable. Maybe he hit a target into a building, or into a truck of liquid adhesive, or even caused the target be stunned for 1d6 rounds. A Natural 18, on the other hand, had the opposite effect. After rolling an 18, one of the heroes hit a villain so bad that the hero broke every bone in their hand, and gained a temporary Physical Limitation due to it. Max/Double Damage always seemed a bit much.

[Chris Goodwin]

Max damage on a critical hit was a heroic games rule.  I would definitely never use it in superhero games.

[kevinn1243670]

ha ha ha, make a Luck vs. Unluck roll.  If you have net levels of luck, something unlucky happens!

[NuSoardGraphite]

Crits = Max rolllable damage.

 

Fumbles = GM fiat giving the character a disadvantage. In the midst of combat thats generally a slip and fall and 1/2 DCV or disarmament as the weapon slips from their fingers and flies away in a random direction.

[Hyper-Man]

Considering the odds against a natural being so high (nearly 1in 200) I am usually in favor of the max damage or effect.

 

HM

[Cantriped]

Crits = Max rolllable damage.

 

Fumbles = GM fiat giving the character a disadvantage. In the midst of combat thats generally a slip and fall and 1/2 DCV or disarmament as the weapon slips from their fingers and flies away in a random direction.

The reason I don't do anything like this myself, is that one the one hand a critical has a clearly defined effect that is fairly likely to end the fight for the target entirely, yet on the other hand a fumble requires GM Fiat.

 

In Pathfinder (which already has rules for Critical Hits deeply entrenched into the system) I use a Fumble house rule for NPCs (but not PCs).

Fumble: If an NPC rolls a natural 1 they automatically miss the target (as per standard rules for natural 1s), and make a fumble confirmation roll. If the result of the fumble confirmation roll would have also missed target, the attacker damages themselves; taking the minimum amount of damage possible for the attack they fumbled. For example, a skeleton with a 1d3+2 claw would take 3 damage if it fumbled a claw attack.

[Ninja-Bear]

Let me add that we also have as much fun with the near 3s or 18s. As in darn I just rolled a 4 - so close. And Holy Cow I rolled 17! I just missed that fumble!

[Armory]

18 is a fumble! Something disadvantageos happens like maybe lose a weapon it gets stuck. 3 ones something very good happens to the player. Say maybe that acrobatics roll allows extra damage. A thug will be taken out one hit or perhaps two thugs with one punch. Forgot minions who roll 18 tend to hit either themselves ir fellow minions! : )

 

I do this as well, something additionally helpful or disadvantageous happens, depending on the situation and the dramatic/comedic value.

[bigdamnhero]

Amusingly we had both a nat 3 and a nat 18 in last week's game. In the same battle. By the same player! It was a fantasy game, so the for the 18, he dropped his sword. Next Phase he makes an Acrobatics Roll to dive, snatch up the sword, and roll to his feet. Next Phase, rolls a 3; I called it a head shot, which ended the fight.

 

The other rule we use is that 18s not only auto-fail, but can't be re-rolled by using a HAPs or whatever.

[Tasha]

I don't do fumbles at all or auto fails. I hate them

I in Combat a 3 or rolling less than half you needed to hit. I give +4 DCs on your attack. Max Damage was WAY too powerful. Also there's not supposed to be absolutes in the system

OOC I just give them the next best thing that a good roll would give them. IT's a bit more up in the air and open to my interpretation and ideas.

[bigdamnhero]

Max Damage was WAY too powerful.

Yeah, Max Damage in Hero is way overpowered compared to non-bell-curve games. If we're not using Hit Locations I'll sometimes just say "Re-roll anything 3 or less" or something along those lines. The key IMO is to ensure they get a good solid hit, not necessarily a one-shot.

 

Fumbles I usually let the players narrate what happens, typically something along the lines of dropped weapons et. al. More for humor effect than anything else.