Critical Hits?

[skyzo]

Maybe I missed something (I probably did) but I can't find anything about critical hits in the core book (or fantasy hero since I'm mostly interested in crits in the fantasy genre). Any reference in the books?

 

Any experience with houseruling? What about...

 

- 3, 4 critical hit, 5 too if you rolled with a 14- or more?

- x2 Damage? Roll damage twice?

- Ignore armor?

 

I'm open to suggestions and experience .

 

edit: I messed up the numbers.

[Vondy]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

There is an optional critical hit rule in the Ultimate Martial Artist. If you want to be official then that's the way to go. When my group has used crits we generally used the UMA rule pretty much as written. There are plenty of house-rules out there, however. Another option is to simply add DCs to the attack. One option we fiddled with that worked pretty well (but didn't pan out because we had one rules lawyer who would whine* if we house-ruled something there was an official option for) was to add 3DC to an attack that hit by half or less of the needed roll (+3d6 Normal Damage, +1d6 Killing Damage).

 

*We kept him because he had been with us for years, because aside from making everyone groan with pedantic rules nit-picking on occasion, and because he matured enough to understand that there were times that the group simply didn't care, or didn't agree, and that it was time to put a sock in it.

[skyzo]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Thanks! Rules for crits in UMA are definately nasty and they also occur more easily but they are also less exciting for the players, they usually like rolling more dice instead of less .

 

I'm open to more houserulings but I'm definately testing the ones in UMA.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Aside from the UMA optional rule, the only "official" reference of this type that I'm aware of is under "Attack Rolls And Combat Value" on 5ER p. 371, where it suggests that "A result of 3 on an Attack Roll always succeeds, and may entitle the character to some extra benefit or advantage (perhaps some extra dice of damage, or an Armor Piercing effect)." You could try taking these examples and expanding them to apply to a larger range of results. For my part I've never gone further than allowing an attack to do its maximum possible Damage roll on a 3; I'm generally not fond of "critical" rules.

[McCoy]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Only house rule on crits I've used is 3 = max damage.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Thanks! Rules for crits in UMA are definately nasty and they also occur more easily but they are also less exciting for the players, they usually like rolling more dice instead of less .

 

I'm open to more houserulings but I'm definately testing the ones in UMA.

 

I've been using the UMA Crit rules for a rather long time (virtually all of my Heroic level and some Superheroic games since they were first published) and find that they work well to establish the "threat" inherent in smaller attacks, which can tie in to the occasional complaints about the system that attacks are a bit spotty about inflicting harm. In pratice, it adds a couple of dramatic considerations to a fight.

First, you start gauging attacks based on maximum damage rather than average.

Second, it works out for the feel of play that a crit is a "solid" hit... it does as much damage as that weapon can inflict.

Third... it creates a noticeable divide, which can track as something of a gamble. When going for damage, do you increase OCV hoping for a crit, or do you add to straight damage?

Fourth... Fear and Loathing of Normal attacks. Especially when combined with hit locations. That 6d6 Normal Damage punch that normally gets shrugged? Crit to the head and you're looking at 12 body, minus defences, then doubled. Enought to kill a 10 body 2pd normal dead with one punch. This goes a long way towards increasing in the play 'feel' of Brick style Archtypes in Heroic games.... your 25 Str Conan-clone or 30 Str Marv ripoff will both play like they are uber-strong.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Fourth... Fear and Loathing of Normal attacks. Especially when combined with hit locations. That 6d6 Normal Damage punch that normally gets shrugged? Crit to the head and you're looking at 12 body' date=' minus defences, then doubled. Enought to kill a 10 body 2pd normal dead with one punch. This goes a long way towards increasing in the play 'feel' of Brick style Archtypes in Heroic games.... your 25 Str Conan-clone or 30 Str Marv ripoff will both play like they are uber-strong.[/quote']

 

Should also help Grond finish off that darn cow.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Should also help Grond finish off that darn cow.

 

This has seldom been better illustrated than in one session of our old Star Hero game. We had crashlanded on a jungle planet, and my ex-military cyborg turned bodyguard got pounced by what was essentially a Sabertoothed Tiger with a funny paintjob. My second attack was a critical uppercut to the head, dropping it dead with that one shot.

 

25 Str, +4d6 maneuver

Critical hit: 18 Body 54 Stun base damage, on a x2 Body x2 stun location.

8 pd

result 20 Body, 100 stun after defences are applied approprately.

[Tech]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Although I have considered Critical Hits, I have never implemented them as the players don't like them. The group realizes that what is good for the heroes is good for the villains, so something like this has never come into our campaign.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Critical hits work against the players as the villains will almost always outnumber the players and so get more rolls, and there is little that is more aggravating than your Champion of Truth and Justice being one-shotted by a cheap hood with a lucky roll.

 

If you are going to do them, to stop that kind of mularkey, I'd suggest that you critical on a hit that succeeds by at least 4 points (i.e. you need 13 or less and you roll 9 or better). I'd make it an automatic add (say +4d6 damage, like a haymaker) rather than multiplying damage. It wills till be very nasty, but not necessarily a fight ender.

 

Mind you this favours high OCV characters.

 

I think the game is betetr off without criticals, really.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

critical hits are damn nasty espeically with high CSL characters, and can you crit an AoE? i've never used them

[CourtFool]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

What exactly do you want from critical hits? Do you want someone (PC or NPC) to occasionally be dropped by a lucky hit? I think the Hit Location chart would do this nicely for you. You could adjust the multiple if you want it to be even more deadly. Or are you looking for awesoming up the PCs and allowing them to make called shots and take down mooks? There are optional rules that can be used for mooks or you could allow PCs to have the Deadly Blow talent right out of the Fantasy Hero book.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Our house rule has always been that if the attack roll was half or less of what was needed to hit (i.e. if you need a 12 to hit and you roll a 6 or less) then you get to roll twice for damage and take the better of the two rolls (or occasionally best of three if the GM is feeling generous).

 

This prevents some of the aggravation of having a great roll to hit and then doing pathetic damage. It makes the players happy but does not have a huge impact on combat. It also it not enough of an advantage to do a critical hit that a character wouldn't try doing a placed shot under the appropriate circumstances.

 

_____________________________________________________________

Those who are too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

[Blue]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

I've generally done one of the following on a roll of "3" (Since that's around 1/2 a percent):

 

If it's an attack roll, I give it Armor Piercing (Opponent defense is halved for that attack only)

 

Skill Roll, Opposed Roll, etc... I let the player store up one "reroll". So at a later time they can spend it on rerolling one do-over.

 

I've also, when someone had a very important critical hit, I once gave an XP point, but I don't want that now; I don't want their xp to be all about how well they rolled, rather than how they roleplayed.

 

I seem to recall once substituting the effect of a couple levels of luck (in a situation where AP would have been irrelevant), and in another I think I allowed Maximum damage. I'd maybe consider that one again in a crucial situation, though some CVK types might opt against it.

[feralucce]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

We've been more generous with our house rule...

 

A nat 3 is a crit... and doubles damage...

 

a nat 18 is a crit failure resulting in catastrphic effects, and it goes across the board - PCs and NPCs alike...

 

We use the Pulp hero heroic action points. They can cancel the effects of a crit failure with the expenditure of a HAP (heroic action point)

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Our house rule has always been that if the attack roll was half or less of what was needed to hit (i.e. if you need a 12 to hit and you roll a 6 or less) then you get to roll twice for damage and take the better of the two rolls (or occasionally best of three if the GM is feeling generous).

This is similar to what I was going to suggest: For every X the hit roll was made by, you get an extra damage roll, and take the biggest of them. X can be whatever you like. If X=1, you get *lots* of extra rolls (which could take a while). X=2 works pretty well. And yes, you could also base it on a fraction of the roll: Make it by half - one extra roll; make it by 1/3 - two extra rolls; make it by 1/4 - three extra rolls, etc. Or the "binary" way: half = one extra roll, 1/4 = two extra rolls, etc.

 

Another method which would take less time is to re-roll individual dice for each X the hit roll was made by. In this case X=1 would work nicely. You can re-roll one '1' for each point you made it by. If you run out of 1's, you can start on the 2's, etc.

 

And I've often used natural 3 = max damage.

 

The possibilities are unlimitless.

[skyzo]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Just to clarify, this would be for PCs and NPCs alike and not for KOing mooks. I want that extra flavour and danger of critical hits.

 

And thanks for all the replies, I have ideas for years to come.

[schir1964]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Another Critical Hit Method

Final Roll Value (including all modifiers):

3: +1d6 Damage

2: +2d6 Damage

1: +3d6 Damage

0: +4d6 Damage

-1: +5d6 Damage

-2: +6d6 Damage

-3: +7d6 Damage

.

.

.

 

You can always change the Damage numbers to get more lethality and so forth.

 

Such as:

Final Roll Value (including all modifiers):

3: +2d6 Damage

2: +6d6 Damage

1: +8d6 Damage

0: +10d6 Damage

-1: +12d6 Damage

-2: +14d6 Damage

-3: +16d6 Damage

.

.

.

 

Or even:

Final Roll Value (including all modifiers):

3: +1d6 Damage

2: +2d6 Damage

1: +4d6 Damage

0: +8d6 Damage

-1: +16d6 Damage

-2: +32d6 Damage

-3: +64d6 Damage

.

.

.

 

Just An Idea

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Rapier]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

I have some crit charts on my GM screen (both Hits and Fumbles).

 

I've seen some others in action including the DCV-Double. If the attacker hits or exceed the defenders DCV by x2 then its a crit (eg Defender has DCV 4, a crit would occur when the attacker hits DCV 8 and fumbles when he hits DCV 2).

 

My GM Screen are hyah: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=864035#post864035

 

They are, specifically, on page 4.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

I just go with 3 = max damage, and 18 = something bad happening.

 

I don't make the critical misses very bad; the only one I can actually remember happening involved a half-succubus character charging forward through some woods to punch someone. When the player rolled an 18, I ruled that she caught her wings on a low-hanging branch and wound up on her back.

[CUnknown]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

I have a critical hit and a fumble chart, House rules of course. You critical on a 3, 4, or 5 (3 being better criticals and 5 being worse criticals), and fumble on a 16, 17, or 18 (again, with 16 being not so bad fumbles and 18 being horrible fumbles).

 

This works out to roughly equivalent to the chance in d20 for critical hits and fumbles (1 in 20 for each).

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

I have a critical hit and a fumble chart, House rules of course. You critical on a 3, 4, or 5 (3 being better criticals and 5 being worse criticals), and fumble on a 16, 17, or 18 (again, with 16 being not so bad fumbles and 18 being horrible fumbles).

 

This works out to roughly equivalent to the chance in d20 for critical hits and fumbles (1 in 20 for each).

 

That's one reason I generally dislike d20 criticals. It seems unlikely that 1 in 10 attacks end in a critical hit or critical fumble. I like the 3rd Ed structure requiring a second roll to confirm a critical, reducing the likelihood somewhat.

[CUnknown]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Well, my critical hit and fumble charts are weak compared to the way other people do them, so it's not so bad having them happen often. In order to get max damage, for example, you have to roll really well on the critical chart. +1 or +2 damage (up to max) is a more common roll.

 

I enjoy the random element, but I made the charts weak so they wouldn't unbalance combat too much.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Critical Hits?

 

Critical hits work against the players as the villains will almost always outnumber the players and so get more rolls, and there is little that is more aggravating than your Champion of Truth and Justice being one-shotted by a cheap hood with a lucky roll

 

In my games, only the Heroes and Major NPC's get to use the Critical Hit rules. As far as villians are concerned, only the Big Boss and his sub-boss lieutenants get to use the Critical Hit rules. Scrubs aren't so lucky.

 

Of course, other than the Optional UMA critical hit rule (which I absolutely love, by the way) there are a ton of House Ruley ways to handle crits:

 

If you roll less than half of what you needed to hit its a crit. Add +1DC per point below half the roll is. For example: Ryu needs a 16 or less to hit a street punk. He rolls a 6, which is 2pts less than half, thus he gets a bonus of +2DC to his attack damage.

 

For an extremely brutal or deadly game (say you want to play 300-HERO) you could couple the above House Rule with the optional Critical Hit rule from the UMA...that is +1DC per point below half rolled and it does maximum damage. Using the example above, Ryu has a STR of 20 and is using a Martial Strike (+2D6) for a total of 6D6 damage. With his crit roll, that would increase to 8D6 damage which translates to 16 Body and 48 stun. OUCH.

 

Note that the House Rule to add DC is over and above any DC maximums based on weapon type etc.

 

Of course, for those players who like to roll their crits, you could always make a critical hit chart.

 

Crits could occurt when rolling less than half, or on a roll of 3 and 4 or whatever the GM deems appropriate. When a critical hit roll occurs, roll on the following chart: (3D6 roll)

 

3: Double Damage! (multiply the base DC by 2 then add bonuses)

4: Maximum rollable damage (after bonuses are added)

5: Achilles Heel! No defenses apply!

6: +3 Damage Class

7: X2 Stun Damage or +2 Stun multiplier

8: Choose your hit location result! (head or vitals? No problem!)

9: +2 Damage Class

10: X1.5 Stun Damage or +1 Stun multiplier

11: +2 Damage Class

12: Chink in the Armor! 1/2 Defenses

13: Stunned result 1/2D6 phases (irregardless of the opponents CON)

14: +3 Damage Class

15: Crippling blow! Target takes 2D6 STR Drain (REC 5pts/month)

16: Crippling blow! Target takes 2D6 DEX Drain (REC 5pts/month)

17: Crippling blow! Target takes 2D6 CON Drain (REC 5pts/month)

18: Disabling wound! No matter the actual damage, location hit is disabled. If this is Head or Vitals, death is instantaneous!

[CourtFool]

Flavour and Danger

 

I want that extra flavour and danger of critical hits.

 

How about anytime one of the dice shows a 5 the defender is automatically K.O.ed. Anytime two die show 3's, the defender is killed. Anytime one of the dice shows a 1, the attacker drops their weapon on their foot and takes an imparing wound.