HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

[shnar]

One aspect of Hero's combat that I've never really liked is their "critical". Basically, just dbl damage. I hate that, seems too boring. My other favorite roleplaying system is Rolemaster, partially because of the way they handle criticals. Has anyone devised any kind of a critical system similar to RM for Hero?

 

-shnar

[caris]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

Critical doing double damage? I'm not familiar with the official rule for that.

 

The closest Hero has are the Imapairing, Disabling and Bleeding rules which are under Optional Effects of Damage section of the rules. Sorry, at work and do not have book to be able to get you closer than that.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

Just use the Chartmaster charts and substitute Hero terms where applicable and you should be good to go. Sure, you could modify it to be driven by d6 rolls, but why go through all the effort?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

One aspect of Hero's combat that I've never really liked is their "critical". Basically, just dbl damage. I hate that, seems too boring. My other favorite roleplaying system is Rolemaster, partially because of the way they handle criticals. Has anyone devised any kind of a critical system similar to RM for Hero?

 

I assume you're talking heroic level campaigns. Are you not using Impairing and Disabling Wounds and Bleeding?

 

Try this on for size: use the Hit Location chart and Impairing/Disabling Wounds and Bleeding. On a critical, defined as half or less of what you need to hit, you automatically do the maximum damage your attack is capable of. It's not often that you won't get at least an Impairing wound out of that.

 

Or are you looking specifically for humorous entries like "You nailed that sucker good. Foe expires messily in 1-6 rounds."?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

I assume you're talking heroic level campaigns. Are you not using Impairing and Disabling Wounds and Bleeding?

 

Try this on for size: use the Hit Location chart and Impairing/Disabling Wounds and Bleeding. On a critical, defined as half or less of what you need to hit, you automatically do the maximum damage your attack is capable of. It's not often that you won't get at least an Impairing wound out of that.

 

Or are you looking specifically for humorous entries like "You nailed that sucker good. Foe expires messily in 1-6 rounds."?

 

I'm likely off topic here. Two things:

 

Remember that critical hit systems ultimately work to the PC's disfavour. When the PC rolls "Foe expires messily in 1-6 rounds", one opponent is dead and another comes along. That opponent would likely never have reappeared in the campaign again anyway. Over time, sooner or later that critical will come up for the PC and you get to make a new character. PC's will have vastly more rolls on the critical chart than any other campaign feature, so they will ultimately suffer more of the "bad" criticals than any NPC.

 

Personally, I always hated critical systems that provide for destruction, but not injury. How many Chart systems (and I'm not familiar with RM's) have "arm severed", but not "arm broken" or "arm badly bruised"? They generally come headed up with praise for their greater "realism"

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

I'm likely off topic here. Two things:

 

Remember that critical hit systems ultimately work to the PC's disfavour. When the PC rolls "Foe expires messily in 1-6 rounds", one opponent is dead and another comes along. That opponent would likely never have reappeared in the campaign again anyway. Over time, sooner or later that critical will come up for the PC and you get to make a new character. PC's will have vastly more rolls on the critical chart than any other campaign feature, so they will ultimately suffer more of the "bad" criticals than any NPC.

 

There's ways around that. You can say they don't apply to PCs, or that they don't apply to PCs and "named" villains, or that they don't apply to PCs and "boss" villains, or something else to give the player a feeling of "Crunch!" when they make a good roll. I think we played with critical hits across the board, and I honestly don't remember a lot of player characters lost in combat to them.

 

Personally, I always hated critical systems that provide for destruction, but not injury. How many Chart systems (and I'm not familiar with RM's) have "arm severed", but not "arm broken" or "arm badly bruised"? They generally come headed up with praise for their greater "realism"

 

As far as I recall, in Rolemaster, on a critical hit, you rolled d100 and added the amount by which you hit (which, also being rolled on a d100 could have been anywhere from 1-99 points, or more if you had big bonuses). The higher you rolled on this critical hit chart, the nastier the effect was. So you could easily get anything from "Foe has a nasty bruise. Congratulations, you've made him mad!" to "Your blow enters his stomach. Unfortunately for him, it comes out the other side with several vital organs attached. He dies immediately and messily." I swear, the Rolemaster critical hit charts were some of the most entertaining reading in roleplaying. In fact, I daresay they were entertaining enough that you didn't mind it when it happened to your PC, because it was just that funny.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

As far as I recall' date=' in Rolemaster, on a critical hit, you rolled d100 and added the amount by which you hit (which, also being rolled on a d100 could have been anywhere from 1-99 points). The higher you rolled on this critical hit chart, the nastier the effect was. So you could easily get anything from "Foe has a nasty bruise. Congratulations, you've made him mad!" to "Your blow enters his stomach. Unfortunately for him, it comes out the other side with several vital organs attached. He dies immediately and messily." I swear, the Rolemaster critical hit charts were some of the most entertaining reading in roleplaying. In fact, I daresay they were entertaining enough that you didn't mind it when it happened to your PC, because it was just that funny.[/quote']

 

To specify my pet peeve, I assume they included "limb severed". Did they include "Limb broken" and "limb sprained" (ie lesser effects on the limb, as well as its total loss)?

[caris]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

Personally' date=' I always hated critical systems that provide for destruction, but not injury. How many Chart systems (and I'm not familiar with RM's) have "arm severed", but not "arm broken" or "arm badly bruised"? They generally come headed up with praise for their greater "realism" [/quote']

 

The RoleMaster critical system did have a wide range of possible effects of damage. For example, a blunt trauma concussion could range from nothing to really good hit have some extra damage to mildly impaired target at penalties to bone broken extra damage and penalities until break heals to bone shattered more damage, bigger penalities and longer healing times to target dies from system shock.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

To specify my pet peeve' date=' I assume they included "limb severed". Did they include "Limb broken" and "limb sprained" (ie lesser effects on the limb, as well as its total loss)?[/quote']

 

Yes. Pretty much every injury it is possible for one person to inflict on another. Even oddball effects like "You lacerate your opponents forehead. Blood drips into his eyes, blinding him for 1-6 rounds."

 

Edit: The Rolemaster charts were extensive; there were seven to nine of them, broken out by damage type (blunt force, slashing, bullets, etc.) and in some cases part of the body affected, each with dozens (as in, five to six dozen, or more) of possible results, with a total of perhaps hundreds of possible critical hits. Almost all of them humorously entertaining.

[caris]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

Almost all of them humorously entertaining.

 

I wouldn't go quite that far. Many of them were, but given the sheer number of critical tables and possible results they couldn't go that far. My favorite was always the on Electrical Crit table: E100, IIRC, (Crits ranged in severity from A (mild) to E (most severe), and than a d100 roll with higher numbers generally being worse than lower numbers) "Foes returns to the dust from wence he came." I maybe paraphrasing, due to poor memory.

[Nolgroth]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

On topic: I would just stick with the Impairing/Disabling wounds along with Bleeding and Hit Locations. You can tailor the descriptive elements to the situation at hand.

 

Off topic: One of my old GMs used the Chartmaster criticals. He happily flayed the flesh from our bones and giggled insanely in the process. One day, my character had two attacks. The first was a critical hit on a bad guy. The second was a critical fumble; one that severed the spine on his Mary Sue character.

 

Funny how the Critical charts stopped appearing in game....

[shnar]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

Thinking about it a little more, the main difference is predictability and probably just general flavor. Just noting a limb is disabled seems stale with the effects rather predictable, but reading about bruising an arm and specific effects for immediate phases that varied just seems more organic. (and yes, the RM crits did a lot more bruise/breaking then death and mayhem. Most deaths were only on the 66, 94-100 rolls).

 

Well, was just a thought, probably not applicable to HERO...

 

-shnar

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

The impairing/disabling wounds have varying, long term effects, though there are a limited number of them based on hit location (I think 6 per, allowing you to roll on 1d6). So, let's see.... I think there are four "major" location groups (head, torso, arms, legs), with 6 results per... 24 possible results. I think (don't have my book with me) that the only difference between impairing and disabling is that disabling is long term.

[Sean Waters]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

I've always assumed that the hit that kills you was a critical one, whatever the roll to hit, or damage, might have been.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

Ah, yes, Rolemaster ... the game with a 'Depression Critical Hits' chart.

 

As stated above, you already have, if you want it, the Impairing, Disabling, and Bleeding rules. That should cover it nicely; you can fluff it as you like.

[Vondy]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

Crits have to be genre appropriate making a universal critical hit chart a bad idea from the outset. As a result, we have a generic critical hit rule. I suppose such rules could have been included in the genre books, or the ultimate combat handbook or whatever its called, but for whatever reason they weren't. Also, hero already has optional rules for more granular and critical wounds (as noted above). If you want more than bleeding, impairing, and disabling provide you pretty much have to do it yourself.

[Sean Waters]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

OK. here's an idea.

 

Not my idea, blame (or praise) Bob Greenwade (for I think it was he).

 

What you do is remove the damage rolling step. You relate the damage you cause to the amount that you make your 'hit roll by (or fail it by!).

 

Here's a table that will let you do it.

 

It is, to some ways of thinking, the ultimate critical system.

 

I like the idea a lot, but it does change the dynamics of the game significantly, so you might not be so keen. Having said I like it a lot, it is not the way I normally play. There's just something about a double handful of dice....

[Sean Waters]

Re: HERO's crit system (wanting a Rolemaster version)

 

Actually, having looked at it, that is my take on Bob's idea. instead of a major success indicating a major damage result, you get your best damage result with the one I posted if you only just make the roll you need to hit.

 

This is far less intuitive than Bob's system, but does mean that your potential damage is related to your relative skill. If that is important to you.

 

The way you work it (I should ahve explained) is tht you do damage based ont he roll you make.

 

Roll to hit normally. Take that roll to the table. If you roll '11' and hit, on an 8d6 attack, you do 29 stun and 10 Body.

 

If you hit with a '14' then you would do 47 stun and 12 Body. (Why do I alweays capitalise 'Body' but not 'stun'?) - because onlt a skilled combatant (or relatively skilled combatant) could actually hit with a 14.

 

Bob's system had a relationship between how much you made the roll by and how much damage you did.

 

This is not it, but it is the sort of thing he suggested:

 

Made roll by         Stun  Body
-1                   DC    Nil
0                    DCx2  DC/2
1                    DCx3  DC
2                    DCx4  DCx 1.25
3                    DCx5  DCx 1.5
4 or more            DCx6  DCx2

 

Given the bell curve, this sort of thing works pretty well. It does mean that skilled opponents tend to wipe the floor with 'brutes' though.

 

You can get around that, and if you are interested, I'll expound further