Critical Hits in the Hero System

[tigersloth]

Hey guys, another question from my players as I start to convert over from using Fantasy Flight's Star Wars system to Hero. One of the fun things in that system is the critical hit rules for each weapon making them more or less deadly. I know Hero has rules for misfires and problems with guns if you roll a 17-18 depending if you have been taking care of your weapon, but I am asking has anyone ever put in critical hits or a system of effects or bonuses if a player rolls particularly low? the system GURPS uses comes to mind.

 

Does anyone use any house rules for this or do you let the variable damage roll for each hit do the talking for you in the system. Let me be clear I am not saying I want to put crit rules into the hero system, just asking what other people think and do about this?

[assault]

If you use the Heroic rather than Superheroic combat options, there are lots of critical hit type effects.

 

Shoot someone in the head and they get real dead.

 

Called shots, where you target a particular hit location, allow for a "roll real low" effect.

It's been a long time since I've used these rules, so my memory of them is very dim.

[Doc Democracy]

I think the question should be, if there were to be critical hits in your game, what would you want them to do in game terms.

 

sometimes the best thing is not to kill your opponent and, if you roll a critical hit it should benefit you rather than deliver a result (like a killing blow) which might be contrary to what you wanted to achieve.

 

I like a critical hit giving a bonus to your next action.  So, you might roll a critical in one action meaning that you get a +5, +8 or +10 (depending on your game) to your next related action.  This is the time to try that thing you would never do, like do a head shot, or shoot a gun out of your opponents hand, or any number of things that have large OCV penalties associated with them.

 

Doc

[IndianaJoe3]

I don't like systems that give too much importance to critical hits. That said, letting players reroll a poor damage roll on a, "crit" does add fun to the game.

[Hugh Neilson]

I like Doc's idea.

 

Many "do more damage" critical hit models for Hero use a "roll less than half of the number needed to hit" approach, so if you hit on 11-, you get a critical hit on 5-.  Most commonly, that means either maximum damage or double damage.

 

Some use critical hits only on a 3 - 1 chance in 216, so rarely occurs. 

 

However, as assault notes, the system has a lot of existing potential for critical hits which are not connected to the to hit roll.  3 - 5 is 4.63% likely (as close as we get to 1 in 20).

 

I think it is important to recall that, over time, critical hits will penalize the players more than the opposition.  The players will have a lot of rolls against them, so they will be the subjects of critical hits as often as they deliver them.  If a critical hit is likely to be lethal, a PC gets a critical and nameless Orc #263 is instantly killed - lots more where he came from.  When the opponent gets a critical and the player needs a new character, they may start to question why they wanted critical hits in the game. 

 

I find that, often,  the less likely the critical is, the more impact it is given.  A 1 in 20 chance of doing some extra damage that will help, but not likely end the battle, is one thing.  One chance in 216 of rolling a 3 and decapitating the opponent?  The players will have more than 216 attack rolls against them over time.  Do we want a random "time for a new PC" event arising every few sessions?

 

If we don't, but we do want criticals, then less devastating, perhaps more frequent, criticals seem like they are in order.

 

Keep in mind that whatever the critical is based on becomes more powerful.  "Half what you need to hit" incents more OCV to land a critical, and more DCV to avoid one.  The tank, easy to hit but hard to hurt, is a much less viable build when "easy to hit" also means also means greater exposure to critical hits.

[Lucius]

 

I tend to wing it.

 

You rolled a 3? I'll likely say something like "Okay, you bypass armor" or "Okay, you do damage and also knock them down."

 

You rolls an 18? I might say you roll damage against yourself or an ally.

 

But it's based on the situation in play, not a formal "this roll means this result" or "roll on this table now" thing.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders how Lucius Alexander wings it so much without wings

[Joe Walsh]

Regardless of system, when I'm using critical hits, my default is to say they automatically do max damage. If it's a system that has active defence, I tend not to allow it against critical hits.

 

But I don't really use them with HERO System. Off the cuff, I'd go with the GURPS default of a roll of 3 or 4 being  a critical success.

 

[dsatow]

I've run using all the optional rules, just to see how effective it is.  End result, its pretty lethal.  As noted, a hit to the vitals or head at x2 Body and max damage will usually kill any heroic character or STUN and/or knock out most Champions characters.  Also using all the rules tends to encourage the use of killing attacks, especially in the pre 6th editions when killing attacks still had a 1d6-1 stun modifier and a good CV allowed you to hit that lottery more often.

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

For Frits, I tend to use standard hit locations as written like in Danger International, or Fantasy Hero. For that crit effect, roll location randomly. Three dice to hit, three dice for hit location, and you damage dice, all in one satisfying handful. You can also declare “aiming high”. Or “aiming low” , but that adds pluses to the target’s DCV.  Aim high is 2D6 +1. Aim low is 2D6+6. ( aim for the legs 1D6+12). 

[sentry0]

I think I'm lazy or something

 

My go to crit rule is rolling 3 ones...automatically hits and does maximum damage.

 

I'm not generally a big fan of systems that do x2 or more multipliers on crits (especially when crits are 5% or more of the time).  Maximum damage is a lot in HERO and rarely seen like in other games where you're rolling something like  a 1d8 (12.5%) vs a 12d6 blast  (0.0000000459393657998%).  Additionally, giving players 2x damage in HERO ends up being quite a bit, even on an average roll (assuming 3.5 per die) a 12d6 attack ends up being 84 vs a flat 72 if you just say max.  If they roll well it gets crazy....

[Duke Bushido]

 

I am going to run out of reaction on this thread alone!  Lots of stuff in here I agree with so much.  I'm surprised to find out how like-minded so many of us are on this subject. 

 

Not say "uhnga-- critical hit bad!"  Not at all.  Just a lot of "is it a good thing" and "what is it?"

 

 

7 hours ago, assault said:

If you use the Heroic rather than Superheroic combat options, there are lots of critical hit type effects.

 

Shoot someone in the head and they get real dead.

 

Called shots, where you target a particular hit location, allow for a "roll real low" effect.
 

 

 

The hit location chart is the built-in critical hit system already in place.  I can't tell you how many of us use it, or how often, but I can tell you that a significant number of us also _don't_ use it.  I'm not opposed to it; I just find it slows things down: extra steps and all that-- and HERO already has one of the most cumbersome combat resolution systems out there.  It's my favorite, of course, but I'm not going to pretend it's any kind of quick.  About the only time I use it is for called shots (which don't happen a lot in our games, but once in a while they pop up), just because I don't believe that missing a called shot to the knee automatically means you missed the entire person, you know?

 

I really think Doc raises an important question (and I'm not sure how I ended up wiping his quote out, but I did):  it's more important to first decide what you want an exceptionally-well-struck attack to mean in your game, and model from that.

 

5 hours ago, Lucius said:

 

I tend to wing it.

 

You rolled a 3? I'll likely say something like "Okay, you bypass armor" or "Okay, you do damage and also knock them down."

 

You rolls an 18? I might say you roll damage against yourself or an ally.

 

But it's based on the situation in play, not a formal "this roll means this result" or "roll on this table now" thing.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders how Lucius Alexander wings it so much without wings

 

3 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Regardless of system, when I'm using critical hits, my default is to say they automatically do max damage. If it's a system that has active defence, I tend not to allow it against critical hits.

 

But I don't really use them with HERO System. Off the cuff, I'd go with the GURPS default of a roll of 3 or 4 being  a critical success.

 

 

Personally, I am the most like these two guys: I wing it.  I tend to allow a small bonus of some sort-- a bit of knock-back, perhaps an automatic stun-- but it's not guaranteed, and it's tied more to the moment and what would be the most appropriate dramatically.  Maybe max damage if the player is trying to deliver a coup-de-grace. I'm not big on the automatic double-damage thing for the very reason Hugh points out: it works both ways.

 

5 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I like Doc's idea.

 

Many "do more damage" critical hit models for Hero use a "roll less than half of the number needed to hit" approach, so if you hit on 11-, you get a critical hit on 5-.  Most commonly, that means either maximum damage or double damage.

 

Some use critical hits only on a 3 - 1 chance in 216, so rarely occurs. 

 

However, as assault notes, the system has a lot of existing potential for critical hits which are not connected to the to hit roll.  3 - 5 is 4.63% likely (as close as we get to 1 in 20).

 

I think it is important to recall that, over time, critical hits will penalize the players more than the opposition.  The players will have a lot of rolls against them, so they will be the subjects of critical hits as often as they deliver them.  If a critical hit is likely to be lethal, a PC gets a critical and nameless Orc #263 is instantly killed - lots more where he came from.  When the opponent gets a critical and the player needs a new character, they may start to question why they wanted critical hits in the game. 

 

I find that, often,  the less likely the critical is, the more impact it is given.  A 1 in 20 chance of doing some extra damage that will help, but not likely end the battle, is one thing.  One chance in 216 of rolling a 3 and decapitating the opponent?  The players will have more than 216 attack rolls against them over time.  Do we want a random "time for a new PC" event arising every few sessions?

 

If we don't, but we do want criticals, then less devastating, perhaps more frequent, criticals seem like they are in order.

 

Keep in mind that whatever the critical is based on becomes more powerful.  "Half what you need to hit" incents more OCV to land a critical, and more DCV to avoid one.  The tank, easy to hit but hard to hurt, is a much less viable build when "easy to hit" also means also means greater exposure to critical hits.

 

 

Probably the single biggest reason I don't use a standing "critical hit" type rule is that the game system doesn't really have room for it.  I know there are lots of house rules for such a thing, but what you run into eventually is that there are those times when only a 3 will hit.  Does that mean that the guy with the poorest chance of hitting will only score critical hits or miss completely?  You can rule that if only a 3 hits then it can't be a crit, but even at that...

 

I _do_ incorporate the "made it by half" and "made it by fourth" models, but even then, the benefits are more dramatic than an additional pile of damage.  Made it by a fourth?  Okay, every "1" in your damage pool is now a "6."  Things like that.  By half?  Every "1" is still a one, but count it as 1 BODY as well.

 

To sum it up:

 

I don't think a critical hit system as found in other systems works really well in HERO, which has its own 'mega damage' system with the hit location chart.

I don't care for either, simply because, as Hugh points out, it works both ways, and it's just as brutal on players as it is on their opponents.

 

I do like to reward especially good rolls, but in small, story-driven ways as opposed to multiples of damage.  Like a "Critical" computer programming gets you in much faster than it should, or allowed far more access than you were hoping for-- critical on Detective Work finds a particularly telling clue (usually something I have to whip up on the spot, depending on where the story has gone so far; so hey-- fun for all of us! ).

 

However, I don't think even that sort of thing works well hard-wired into a system where your target number floats widely.

 

 

Final thought?  If you really want to model spectacular success with phenomenal damage, use the HL chart.  After a couple of sessions, check with your players to see how they like it (very few of mine do, once they've been hit in a X2 location more than once).

 

 

 

[EDIT:  Not my group, but one I have shared a room with uses a "critical" system that intrigued me at the time, but I hadn't given it much thought since.  When a hit is declared as "critical," then the damage dice are converted into equal DC of Killing Damage dice and Damage is rolled.  I don't know what they did if the character in question was already using a Killing Attack, as it didn't come up while we where sharing a room. 

SIDE NOTE:  should anyone wish to play a game at a game store or other hosting facility, check to see if the tables are arranged in such a fashion that GMs do _NOT_ sit back-to-back.  That is _insanely_ distracting!   ]

[Ninja-Bear]

Our group uses the the 3 ones rule. It works out well. And I disagree with the notion that crits used by Heroes should be also used by Villains.  I’d use the made by half if I can remember the math better. .  Crits are fun!

[Ninja-Bear]

Btw we also use the roll 3 6’s. And that also adds great fun.

[mallet]

The equipment book (and I think the 6th Ed 2nd book) has some optional rule ideas for HtH weapons and what a great success when hitting with those gives characters. If I remember right, if using a piercing weapon you get Armor Piercing with it for that hit, a bashing weapon gives you a +1 STUN Multiplier, and a Slashing weapon gives you +1 DC. 

 

So using that might give some ideas for Critical Success roles. A punch might do extra Knockback, a blast might get Armor Piercing for that hit, etc... 

[bluesguy]

In my heroic games, we use Hit Locations and Placed/Called shot.  Please remember the X Body is applied after appropriate defenses are taken into account (6E2 108).  If combined with Critical Hit Damage (6E2 118), which requires rolling less than 1/2 of what is needed to hit the target.  So if a character decides to take the extra time and shot their opponent in the head and needs a 12- to hit the head (PSL to offset hit location and PSL to offset range mod) and then rolls a 5- with a weapon that does 3d6 RKA.  The target took 18 Body and 90 Stun and if the target was wearing a really tough helmet that had 8 resistant PD and they have 8 PD, then the target would take 20 Body [(Body - rPD) * 2] and 74 Stun [Stun - rPD + PD].  Unless they are fighting a dragon it is very likely that the target is dead or so unconscious they will only wake up if they receive medical attention.

 

I had a game where this happened a couple of times (more often to NPCs than to PCs).  The players very quickly learned to plan ambushes and be on the look out for ambushes.

[Asperion]

With the good crits, I am a big fan of those things like bypassing def, or automax dam, although the bit about benefit that must be used next attack sounds like a good concept.  Going the way of the crit fumbles, I have been known to make them hit a teammate or even them self (even if using a blast attack).  More than one char (either PC or NPC) has been killed in such a manner.

[bluesguy]

The biggest thing I do with critical fumbles is drops weapon, broken bow string, device is broken for the combat, etc.  No one accidentally kills someone else (self or others)

[Joe Walsh]

Yeah, I've never been a fan of fumbles outside of appropriate games like Paranoia. Didn't do it, could do it at a cost/did it at a cost, did it, did it well -- those are the most I need for most campaign types.

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

I included a section on Critical Hits in my "Lethality Guidelines" 

 

http://www.killershrike.com/fantasyHero/HighFantasyHERO/shrikeLethalityOptions_Unofficial.aspx

 

CRITICAL HITS

Some other games have a concept of "critical hits"; strikes that randomly do more damage than normal. The HERO System tends to shy away from "random" and lacks such an option natively. However different variations of critical hits have been suggested at or described as possible options in some supplements over the years, and some play groups have versions that they use. Described below is my version of "critical hits", which I call the "Rule of Three", that I've used successfully for years. I also describe a Critical Hit concept based on a "lucky die" mechanic, and a mechanic based on degree of success.

NOTE: You should probably only implement one kind of Critical Hit rules in a given campaign; two or more can get severely out of hand.

RULE OF THREE

If a character (PC or NPC) rolls a natural three on a 3d6 roll under type of check then they have the option of either taking "max effect" or an "epiphany".

MAX EFFECT

If the three was made for an Attack Roll max effect is the maximum possible damage or effect with that attack (treat all effect dice as having rolled 6's).

If the three was made for a non attack roll, not only does the character win any opposed roll (even if the opponent made their roll by more) or succeed at their task, but they do so in a stylish looked-cool-doing-it fashion which is also justification for gaining a "Display of Power" bonus to a Presense Attack made sometime within the next few actions against anyone that observed them.

EPIPHANY

The character has a flash of insight regarding the skill or ability that they rolled a three for and their competency with that ability is expanded. The character gains +2 character points to allocate towards a bonus with that skill or attack. For attacks this translates into a +1 OCV Combat Skill Level with that attack. If a skill this translates into either a +1 or +2 with that skill depending on whether the skill is on the 3/2 or 2/1 costing model. If the three was rolled for a familiarity, the familiarity becomes a full skill instead.

This can not be used to upgrade existing levels; for example a character could not opt to bump an All Combat level to an Overall Level with the 2 free points gained in this fashion -- the 2 pts must be spent specifically for the task they were gained from.

However, levels gained in this fashion can themselves be upgraded later with experience. For example a 2 pt +1 OCV level with a specific kind of pistol could be upgraded to a 3 pt "Pistols" tight group level later on.

LUCKY DAMAGE DICE

Some other games have the idea of a "lucky die" which is rerolled and cumulatively added if its max value comes up. In other words, if the lucky die is a d6, then if it rolls a 6 it is rerolled and the result adds to the original 6; if another 6 comes up it is rolled and added in again and so forth until it stops rolling 6's.

The HERO System already grants more damage to a 6 when doing Normal damage in the form of +1 BODY inflicted but Killing damage gets no such consideration. In the interests of increasing lethality you as the GM can decide to up the ante further by implementing a "Lucky Damage Dice" House Rule for Killing damage.

You can specify that this rule applies to all Killing damage dice, which is a powerful / dangerous kind of critical hit that will occur often and can result in one-hit kills vs. even protected targets, or you can specify that only one die (represented by a physically different die) is "lucky" which is much less extreme.

DOVETAIL WITH LUCK POWER

Alternately, you can converge this with the Luck Power and allow characters to buy Luck dice defined as "Lucky Damage Dice" instead of the normal function of Luck dice, and a character can roll as many Lucky Damage Dice on a given attack as they have purchased up to the limit of the attack (a character with 3d6 Lucky Damage Dice using a 2d6 Killing Attack would only roll 2 dice but both would be "lucky"; if they later picked up a weapon that does 4d6 Killing they would roll 4d6 and 3 dice would be "lucky").

CRITICAL SKILL / DEGREE OF SUCCESS

Some games feature a mechanic whereby more skilled attackers inflict more damage due to their increased skill. The HERO System allows this to some extent if Hit Locations are being used since a more skilled attacker can overcome to hit penalties for choicer hit locations, but using Called Shots can result in a total miss which can seem very odd in practice.

An alternative to relying on Called Shots (and even Hit Locations in general) is a mechanic whereby characters that hit by more than they needed inflict more damage.

The base mechanic is +1 Damage Class per 1 point a character made their Attack Roll by; thus in a 3 OCV vs 3 DCV scenario, an Attack Roll of 10 is made by 1, which grants the attacker +1 Damage Class. This is easy to remember and scales evenly, but doesn't overly reward characters that make truly impressive to hit differentials.

BASIC EXTRA DAMAGE SEQUENCE Hit by: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Extra DC: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This can be scaled up or down by the GM to suit their campaign by varying the ratio of extra success to extra damage; for instance a GM could set the ratio at +1 Damage Class per 2 points a character makes their Attack Roll by.

LESS EXTREME EXTRA DAMAGE SEQUENCE Hit by: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Extra DC: 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5

A GM could also make hitting by a little not make much differenct but hitting by a lot being extremely lethal by basing the to hit vs DC ratio on a Fibonacci sequence instead as displayed in the following table. Basically using this kind of progression hitting by 5 or less is not much different than the basic progression (and is in fact more moderate overall), but an Attack Roll that hits by 6 is more comparatively deadly, and anything that hits by 7 or more is almost absolutely fatal.

FIBONACCI EXTRA DAMAGE SEQUENCE Hit by: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Extra DC: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55

Any other progression of this sort is equally valid based on the GM's preferences, of course. The following displays the same concept on an exponential progression which is easier to remember and more consistent with HERO System doubling rules but would result in excessively higher damage if on the same scale as the Fibonacci sequence; thus this chart is based on a progression of hitting by 2 more than needed per step.

EXPONENTIAL EXTRA DAMAGE SEQUENCE Hit by: 0 2 4 8 10 Extra DC: 0 1 2 4 8

And so on; it's just a numbers game. Any approach that is easy to remember and apply at the table that rewards hitting with a margin of succes at a rate acceptable to the GM and players is equally valid for that group.

[Norm]

I was introducing a couple of new people to Hero at the time and did not want to worry too much about critical hits.  Since we were playing heroic level (Fantasy Hero), I did the following for (and against) them.  They seemed to really like it at the time.

 

Great to hit rolls:

• If a to-hit roll is made by 5 or more points, they can effect the hit-location by one in either direction.
• If a to-hit roll is made by 10 or more points, they may choose the following (but the decision has to be made before the hit-location and damage are rolled):
  • they can effect the hit-location by two in either direction
  • they can effect the hit-location by one in either direction and re-roll one damage dice.
  • they can roll the hit-location and get max damage.

On a roll of 3, I think that I have them one free XP to put towards that skill be it combat or non-combat.  Stopped doing this after people received 10 or so free XP.

[sentry0]

12 hours ago, Norm said:

On a roll of 3, I think that I have them one free XP to put towards that skill be it combat or non-combat.  Stopped doing this after people received 10 or so free XP.

 

That's an interesting idea...if you use HAPs a critical hit could reward one.  Gives the player a chance to decide on how to use their extra success. 

[Norm]

9 hours ago, sentry0 said:

 

That's an interesting idea...if you use HAPs a critical hit could reward one.  Gives the player a chance to decide on how to use their extra success. 

 

Player choice is what I was trying to go for.....  If the player had something like a critical success, give them a choice on how to use it.  Not just something automatic like max damage.  I think that they were more excited to get the free XP.

 

When I GM again, I will still probably use something like the above....  and try to come up with ideas for non-combat skills that give the players more freedom than 'You succeed very well'.  Basically like Lucius said earlier.  Wing it but have 2 or 3 examples ready for critical successes on skill rolls.  Maybe even something completely different...  "With that critical success in tracking you are easily able to follow your prey on the cobblestone street, but you also notice the tracks of what appears to be an imp.  The clerics in town said that their wards would not let any demons into the city.  How is this possible?!"  Sidequest!!!!

[Tech]

My group never uses criticals because as one person said, it's more likely to happen to the players. In general: if a player rolls a perfect 3, they get bonus damage but certainly not maximum; if a player rolls an 18, their DCV is half for a full phase.

[Duke Bushido]

Shrike:

 

I really, really like your epiphany concept, and plan to implement it immediately into our house rules.  However, I don't use someone else's stuff-- even in house rules that will never see an eyeball away from my tables or maybe a message board-- without proper citation; after all, it wasn't my idea.

 

Is "Killer Shrike" okay, or do you have a name or website you'd prefer I use?

 

[and now back to your regularly schedule topic]

 

[Killer Shrike]

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Shrike:

 

I really, really like your epiphany concept, and plan to implement it immediately into our house rules.  However, I don't use someone else's stuff-- even in house rules that will never see an eyeball away from my tables or maybe a message board-- without proper citation; after all, it wasn't my idea.

 

Is "Killer Shrike" okay, or do you have a name or website you'd prefer I use?

 

[and now back to your regularly schedule topic]

 

 

name ref: Ed "Killer Shrike" Hastings

 

url: http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/FantasyHERO.aspx