The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

[Epiphanis]

I have been familiarizing myself with the 6E rules and doing a bit of toolkitting for a superhero campaign. I was thinking that I don’t want to use the optional Hit Locations rules, but may want to incorporate the optional Critical Hits rules (6E2 118). I thought about modifying them in the following ways:

1) Applies only to attacks that target individual DCV. No crits for AoEs or attacks that target DMCV like Mental Blasts.

2) Apply only to attacks that inflict Normal Damage or Killing Damage – not to things like Drains.

3) Normal Damage when critted is rolled normally. Although the max possible STUN (i.e. 6 per d6) would be substituted for the STUN indicated by the roll, the BODY damage inflicted would be unaffected (i.e., averaging 1 per d6 rather than the flat 2 per d6 by the rules as written). This is to mitigate the lethality of the crit rules a bit.

4) Killing Damage when critted would result in the max possible BODY (6 per d6) but the STUN damage multiplier would be randomized normally (averaging 2.x rather than flat 3x ). Because the BODY multiplied is itself maximized, arguably you would get a lot more out of a critted Killing Damage attack than a critted Normal Damage one, but I don’t think this would be a problem.

5) Any effect that would normally prevent a Called Shot attack or other Hit Location specific attack (such as the No Hit Location power on a target like a blob or robot) would prevent a crit and is treated as a normal hit.

I haven’t actually playtested the Crit rules or my modifications thereof. I think the ramifications would be desirable for what I’m after.

1) Higher OCV and DCV expenditures would be more desirable relative to Attack and Defense Powers than they are in the basic rules; by the base rules OCV plus relevant CV averages out at 10 for most 400-450 pt characters and have sharply diminishing returns above 12. I think these rules make high-accuracy, high-evasion characters more viable and flavorful.

2) DCV-penalizing effects become more scary (and tactically useful), particularly DCV-halvers like Entangles and Surprise, and make things like Haymakers much riskier. Too much so?

3) The book warns that the crit rules make combat more unpredictable and lethal. I think the unpredictability is not necessarily a bad thing, but am concerned a bit about the lethality.

Do you have any impressions or experiences with Critical Hit rules that I may not have thought of? I’d like to hear them.

[Christopher]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

1) While this ins't expressed in the rules, I never asumed you could score them with AOE anyway. After all your "Target Point" is certainly not living. Not allonwing it for mental attacks is new.

2) What about Drain STUN or Body? What about Drains or other attacks targetting PD or ED? What about Blasts/KA targetting Mental Defense?

3) How about letting the player choose if he want's to use the rules for criticals/fumbles before any attack? The same way you can pull a punch, you can choose to fight all out or hold back a little (against mooks for example) - with the result of neither very good nor bad results. Or how about rolling the Body normally like you do with the STUn for KA's?

4) I would not worry about that. 12 DC Normal Damage and Killing Damage have the same Stun Maximum (72). Even with increased Stun Multiplier (+1/4 for +1 to the STUN roll) a 12 DC KA (62 AP; 3d6+1; x4) would still not do much more (76 STUN). Starting with two levels (2.5d6; x 5) it starts getting worse (75).

5) Similar to how things work in D&D

 

Generally one problem with that is, that the PC's will suffer more from it than the NPC's. But that always happens when adding more random factors into the game.

It could lead to the group being sqprised and the tanks being stunned - wich means another round without cance to act. At worst one Player Character could be hit and would never be able to recover, because he is critted time and again. PC's need a certain amount of defense or a first strike could just knock them deep into the negatives.

Also players will think three times before doing anything that drops their DCV so don't expect many Grapples, Haymakers or Autofire skill use.

[Epiphanis]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

My crit rules wouldn't apply to anything except Normal and Killing Attacks targeting individual DCVs. Drains, Mental Blasts, AoEs, etc. just don't crit. Though perhaps a Mental Blast with an ACV targeting DCV could... for instance, Psylocke's mindblade would probably be built that way and would be crittable.

 

Letting the attacker choose not to crit... why not?

 

I'm slightly inclined to prefer a little more unpredictability disadvantaging the PCs; it adds a bit more tension/interest to combat I think. But I'll be the first to admit that it is difficult to fine-tune the balance between that tension and long-term playability. Fortunately the less-lethal Hero System STUN damage allows one to ameliorate that problem more than many other systems.

 

Yes, the DCV-penalizing (and especially halving) maneuvers become significantly riskier. I really don't know if, looked at holistically, I will find that a good thing or not.

 

Certain character types, like stealthy ninja-types and Entangle-users like CU's Binder and Medusa became significantly more dangerous in combat.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

Depending on the manner it is implemented, a critical hit structure can also motivate certain types of characters over others. If, for example, a critical occurs when the attack roll is made by half, big, slow bricks are very disadvantaged and likely disappear from the game, while sharpshooters who are extremely accurate become able to routinely, or at least commonly, bulk up their damage, making OCV a much (even) more desirable stat.

 

Disallowing critical hits by all but normal and killing attacks will also demotivate characters based around other forms of attack (other than entangles, Flash and other DCV reducing attacks, which become far more valuable in allowing teammates to score critical hits. Over and above using Multiple Attack to hit that 0 DC target with multiple hits, at least some will likely be critical hits.

 

While the down side is mitigated in that characters will not often be killed, no one likes spending a major combat watching TV because a lucky hit at the outset took their character out.

 

And, with an Entangler on the team, that becomes the logical strategy - you Entangle a target, and we'll hit him with everything we have to take him out of the fight, hopefully with some criticals. Then we move on to the next target.

 

A multiple attack with a credible killing attack on a 0 DCV target probably means "new character time", so there is definitely a lethality issue. You won't bump the 12d6 normal attack to 24 BOD, but the 4d6 KA does the same 24 BOD, against only resistant defenses.

[Epiphanis]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

I've been tinkering with programming functions with MapTool, and I experimented with an alternate mechanic. What if, instead of making crits dependent on a threshold of half the target's DCV, we make it double the 3d6 roll to determine "to hit"? I.e.: An ordinary "to hit" threshold can be expressed as:

 

11+[Attacker's modified OCV]-[3d6]=[Highest DCV hit]

 

Now, using the same roll, express the critical hit threshold as:

 

11+[Attacker's modified OCV]-[2x(3d6)]=[Highest DCV critted against]

 

This makes the mechanic significantly more random than the rule at 6E2 118. The difference between the hit threshold and the critical hit threshold will be equal to the actual number rolled on the dice, on a bell curve ranging from 3 to 18 with a median of 11. That means a typical OCV 10 attacker will not be able to crit against anybody regardless of how low their DCV is on most rolls, but could hit a DCV 18 and crit against a DCV 15 if he rolled a "3". Would this be preferable to the 6E2 118 "half the target's to-hit DCV threshold?

[bigbywolfe]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

You expect a lot of characters running around with 15-18 DCV?

[Epiphanis]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

With respect to the DCV-target only limitation for critting, factor in that there are many, many conditions, maneuvers, and effects that modify OCV and DCV in the game, but relatively (relatively) few that modify OMCV and DMCV. This cuts both ways; it would be harder to find an exploit rendering a target more vulnerable to a mental crit, but also harder to cripple a Mind Blast attacker's OMCV. The relative number of modifiers already effectively causes the system to treat Mental and Physical CVs differently, does making criticals physical-only significantly exacerbate the problem? There are still lots of reasons to use DMCV-targeting attacks rather than DCV targeting.

 

Do 1/2-DCV criticals render low-Evasion, high-Defense tanks like The Thing "nerfed" relative to high-Evasion, low-Defense acrobatic dodgers like Spider-Man? Umm... maybe? On the other hand, I think the opposite is definitely true with respect to the system without criticals. In practice, in the basic rules once you get your DCV up to about 8 you are much better off spending points on Combat Luck and Resistant Protection than on additional DCV-- yet, conversely, there is never any upper limit of how much Defense is "too much". Do 1/2-DCV criticals overcompensate for that? Is there a better balance to be found?

[Epiphanis]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

You expect a lot of characters running around with 15-18 DCV?

 

No. That was sort of the point: statistically, most attacks with that mechanic would not crit against anyone, but a rare good roll could crit against most everyone.

[Christopher]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

Letting the attacker choose not to crit... why not?

I actually meant "Letting the Character choose if an attack roll can crit or fumble".

 

One idea for an alternative mechanic:

How about taking the targets DCV times two as "Crit Treshold". Examle:

OCV 6 vs DCV 6 - it takes a 11- (63%) to make a normal hit, but a critical requires hitting DCV 12 (5% for OCV 6). This would of course mean PC/Supers are far less likely to be hit by a critical, while mooks have to deal with it fairly often.

 

Regarding Body of a Ciritical KA:

Hugh was a little off, a Critical 4D6 KA does 28 Body against fewer defenses.

 

After some thinking I realised that allowing crits can skew the balance between Killing and Normal Damage. They were designed to work out best on average rolls:

On average Blast does 3 BODY, 10.5 STUN per 3 DC, while KA does 3.5 BODY, 7 STUN with the body only beign stopped by some defenses.

 

That OCV/DCV looses it's effectivesness after soem amount soudsn okay for me. After all these values should not be that far from each other anyway. Every +/- 1 OCV or DCV means +/-10% chance for beign hit.

Once the difference reaches 3, we talk about 14- (90%) vs. 8-(25%) to hit. At 4 it is 95% to 16%. At 5 it is 98% to 9%.

While people like Green Dragons Champions 6E Writeupt can dish out 12 OCV attacks, those don't do realy damage (to any brick) and those that do (12 DC or more) have a way lower OCV or other disadvantages (like requiring a Grab).

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

I've considered using a mild system for crits and fumbles. A critical success must exceed average damage, and a fumble either takes a half-phase action to recover from or a -2 CV penalty until the character's next Phase (player's option). Critical effects generally happen when a player rolls either a 3 or 18, but the overall chance of success modifies this slightly. If the roll would be a 7- or worse, a critical success is impossible, and a fumble happens on a 17 or 18. If the roll would be a 15- or better, a critical success happens on a 3 or a 4, and a fumble is impossible.

[Christopher]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

Regarding Body of a Ciritical KA:

Hugh was a little off, a Critical 4D6 KA does 28 Body against fewer defenses.

Apparently my Brain couldn't grasp the Multiplciation Table Yesterday. 4 tim 6 is really 24. No idea how I got to 28.

[Christopher]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

I've considered using a mild system for crits and fumbles. A critical success must exceed average damage' date=' and a fumble either takes a half-phase action to recover from or a -2 CV penalty until the character's next Phase (player's option). Critical effects generally happen when a player rolls either a 3 or 18, but the overall chance of success modifies this slightly. If the roll would be a 7- or worse, a critical success is impossible, and a fumble happens on a 17 or 18. If the roll would be a 15- or better, a critical success happens on a 3 or a 4, and a fumble is impossible.[/quote']

I liked D&D's way of "confirming" Crits or Fumbles. It's not enough to roll a 20 (5% chance; can be 15-30% depending on weapon and feats), you also needed to still "hit" normally to archieve a critical hit. It#s not only a question of luck and the right weapon, but also of having the Skill for it.

[Ozymandias]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

I liked D&D's way of "confirming" Crits or Fumbles. It's not enough to roll a 20 (5% chance; can be 15-30% depending on weapon and feats)' date=' you also needed to still "hit" normally to archieve a critical hit. It#s not only a question of luck and the right weapon, but also of having the Skill for it.[/quote']

 

Personally, I didn't like this as much. It really had no effect on critting or not. Perhaps it's just me, but at lower levels, nearly everyone could hit something on a nat 20. By the time you get to where a Nat 20 won't hit (say, for Wizards or Sorcs, or second and third attacks) the Magic users will be using magic almost exclusively, and the second and third attacks are just supplementary. Besides, I don't know about anybody else, but for me D&D doesn't scale well, so I rarely play long enough for those to have a huge effect.

 

That's one of the reasons I like the hero Crit system. It scales well, and allows more skilled characters, who get diminishing returns on accuracy (Someone who hits an enemy on 14- isn't going to be much less accurate than one who hits on a 15-), to get crits more often (an 8- is Significantly more likely to succeed than a 7-). I'm not sure how much I like fumble rules, since I feel that fumbles should also depend on the skill of the character (A master swordsman fumbles on the same roll as someone who just picked up a sword an has no idea how to use it).

[Epiphanis]

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof)

 

I agree with Ozymandias. The existing optional Hero crit rule permits nearly anyone to crit against someone, including potentially some who they would have trouble merely hitting on an average roll, and yet it does factor in relative offensive and defensive skill -- with a single die roll rather than two.