Improving Critical Hits

[The Shadow]

While adding a condition isn't a bad idea, I think it might be more elegant to just say, "You can't take less than a Wound on a critical hit." (Which is much like what iwatt just said, if you're using a condition track system.) Basically, roll the Toughness save, but make it one step worse, and no better than a Wound.

And I still disagree, for all the reasons I've already noted.

"He hits. Roll toughness."

"Woot! Natural 20, for a 31."

"Wow. Well, that beats the Difficulty 21, but it was a Critical Hit, so you're Wounded."

"... <expletive>!"

Ouch. I see your point. However much sense it may make, it does call forth expletives of unfun-ness. Perhaps spending a point of Conviction to get a flat +5 damage is a better alternative.

My idea could still work with a saves-as-defenses system, though.

[ValhallaGH]

Yeah, for a "passive Toughness" system, your suggestion is pretty sweet. Criticals are guaranteed to be helpful, even if the damage role sucks.

I'm just glad you see my point, and agree that it is valid. Now you can start wrapping your head around how to deal with it.

[elf23]

After reading dataweaver's post about the heroic archetypes in the fantasy chapter (in the thread on Rethinking Conviction), i had another look at that section of the rulebook.

And i noticed that the Champion archetype's Heroic smite ability is exactly what the Shadow proposed about spending Conviction to turn a successful attack into a critical hit.

Something else i'd noticed recently is that the Sneak attack feat does something very similar - turns a normal attack into what is basically a critical hit, in certain situations.

So i was thinking about the possibility of creating a set of feats (a slightly rephrased Sneak attack being one) which allow you to turn normal attacks into critical hits in certain situations.

[dataweaver]

Good catch. Expanding on the idea, you might define certain mythic gifts (such as the aforementioned Heroic Smite ability) as being crit-like. If you roll a natural crit on the dice, you get to invoke the crit-like gift without having to spend Conviction on it. (This could be used in conjunction with the earlier suggestion of allowing crits to act as "called shots" that impose other status conditions: just turn that into an appropriate "mythic gift", or perhaps a Conviction-fueled Warrior Feat.)

Meanwhile, this sort of thing would supplement normal critical hit rules, rather than replace them: your lieutenants would still have their usual chance of getting critical hits, etc.

[The Shadow]

I like the way this is going. Will have to think it over before I comment in an extended way, but I think we've got something by the tail here.

[barsoomcore]

I like it -- lots of characters ought to have situations in which they are likely to deal more damage -- whether it's from hiding, or when they're all riled up, or facing the father's killer, or whatever.

Good idea -- can we extract a single mechanic and just vary the criteria to get us critical hits, smites and sneak attacks (at least)?

[elf23]

Yeah, right, Smite fits in nicely as well. I'd suggest it should be another Conviction activated one - to remove the hard "x times per day" limit. I feel like maybe Smite shouldn't be warrior only either - i can imagine it applying to any character who was fighting for a specific cause or dedication.

So, thusfar we have the following examples of this pattern:

• Normal critical hits: Triggered by luck (rolling a natural 20)
• Sneak attack: Triggered by situation (surprise attacks)
• Smite opponent: Triggered by situation (fighting favoured opponent) + Conviction? (or x times per day)
• Heroic smite (Mythic gift): Triggered by Conviction

Are there any others in the RAW that'd fit in?

Smite opponent is a bit different in that you decalre it before making the attack roll - and gain a bonus to attack as well as damage.

lots of characters ought to have situations in which they are likely to deal more damage -- whether it's from hiding, or when they're all riled up, or facing the father's killer, or whatever.

Those last two examples sound like a kind of Aspect type system... Outside of that though, there could be a general use of Conviction to do extra damage? I suppose it depends whether the Conviction is spent to give a bonus to damage before or after the attack roll is made.

[barsoomcore]

I'd suggest it should be another Conviction activated one - to remove the hard "x times per day" limit.

Well, if you're using a Narrative Time-like construct (where time is divided into Scenes), then you can just make it a per-scene use. I would say once per scene without Conviction and then further uses in that scene require a Conviction point.

Maybe?

[The Shadow]

I'd suggest it should be another Conviction activated one - to remove the hard "x times per day" limit.

Well, if you're using a Narrative Time-like construct (where time is divided into Scenes), then you can just make it a per-scene use. I would say once per scene without Conviction and then further uses in that scene require a Conviction point.

Maybe?

I'm intrigued! This has all the goodness of the 4e "encounter power" system, but without the artificiality, since you can use Conviction to go past the cap. It might be more Trueditional to require a save of some kind, but that's admittedly more complex.

One nice thing about encounter powers is that they force people to change up their attacks, rather than simply spamming their best one.

I'm very much liking the idea of letting a "rolled crit" activate a power or other ability without Conviction.

[elf23]

I've created a new thread for discussion on per-scene actions, as it seemed like a whole big can of worms way beyond the scope of critical hits!

See here: Scenes, durations, actions

[~HANZO~]

How is giving feats for set situations to get a critical any different than a hit location system.
For example the player rolls with in critical range. Now you roll on a hit location chart. Say for example a player rolls a critical head shot, that is +3 dmg to the head. I think this could help in the narrative too. A critical to a leg also means he is now disabled too. Some areas on the body would be normal damage so not all rolls in the critical range would be a crit, While other rolls to the same area hit an artery or something. For example

6-7 Right Leg wound, none critical
8-9 Right Leg wound, Critical
10-11 Right foot
12-13 left Leg wound, none critical
14-15 left Leg wound, Critical
16 left Foot
(and this is only a rough example)

Giving each area on the chart a difficulty to hit as well allows the player to force a critical to a vital area by making a tougher to hit roll. For example if a player wanted to make that head shot a called shot he might get a penalty of say +5 to the opponents defense (dodge/parry). (+5 is just an example, I don't know what the real difficulty should be).

Might even have a difficulty to hit an area (like 6-7 might be +5 to difficulty) and a higher penalty to hit a vital area in that location, (like 8-9 might be a +8 to difficulty).

Just a though.

[barsoomcore]

I'd love to see someone come up with a workable hit location system for d20-based rules. I played in a campaign that used Runequest's old hit location system -- so on a successful hit, in addition to damage, you rolled hit location. It wasn't too bad, but there was a lot of record-keeping.

Some difficulties of a hit location system that I think would need an elegant solution:

Varying body types -- you can't use the same spread of locations for a giant centipede as you can for a human. Or at any rate, it seems weird to do so.

Record-keeping -- do you have a damage track for each location? Combine that with the above problem and it can get pretty hairy.

Disablement -- what are the rules impacts of damage to particular areas?

Healing -- how do you know when the disablement is taken off?

"Holistic" health -- how does injury to one area affect overall health? Do you have a single Total Health rating or do you perform some calculation on individual areas' Health to determine when you're Disabled or whatever?

Resolution speed -- how many rolls does it take to resolve an attack? How many table lookups? How much fun is that, really?

Not saying these problems can't be solved, but there's a reason no popular d20 variant uses hit location. It's tough.

[~HANZO~]

I'd love to see someone come up with a workable hit location system for d20-based rules. I played in a campaign that used Runequest's old hit location system -- so on a successful hit, in addition to damage, you rolled hit location. It wasn't too bad, but there was a lot of record-keeping.

Some difficulties of a hit location system that I think would need an elegant solution:

Varying body types -- you can't use the same spread of locations for a giant centipede as you can for a human. Or at any rate, it seems weird to do so.

Record-keeping -- do you have a damage track for each location? Combine that with the above problem and it can get pretty hairy.

Disablement -- what are the rules impacts of damage to particular areas?

Healing -- how do you know when the disablement is taken off?

"Holistic" health -- how does injury to one area affect overall health? Do you have a single Total Health rating or do you perform some calculation on individual areas' Health to determine when you're Disabled or whatever?

Resolution speed -- how many rolls does it take to resolve an attack? How many table lookups? How much fun is that, really?

Not saying these problems can't be solved, but there's a reason no popular d20 variant uses hit location. It's tough.

Modern20 By RPGobjects has what I feel is a good hit location system (my opinion of course).


Varying body types -- (since its modern20 it really just deals with humans). Sure you could come up with your own for none humans. Personally I would use a simple, very simple one for mooks.

Record-keeping -- How I do it now. As the boxes are checked off I tell the player. "the round passes through your right arm." the player notes the level of wound and area.

Disablement -- rules impacts of damage to particular areas is up to me. If i feel its enough to keep you from using an arm or leg. than that is its effect. other wise you get the same effect as a bruise or other would level.

Healing -- Personally. once the player heals enough on the wound track the wound is gone. A bruise to an arm is a bruise to the arm. I think this is just as easy with hit points as you have an exact wound number to apply to each wound in lost hit points. wounded are healed from least to worst. meaning major wounds take longer to heal.

"Holistic" health -- My discretion as a story teller. If you take enough trauma to break a baseball bat to your arm. I call it broken. I guess this is just my style. If i wanted exact rules for every thing I'd play more GURPS.

Resolution speed -- In modern20 you roll a single d20 to see what area. I use a form of it for my true20 games and its doesn't slow things down at all. while the player is rolling his tough save I roll for location at the exact same time. If the save is a fail ( I make my players figure out there own wound levels on a failed toughness roll). I have the result for area all ready to go while they do that.

Although My style is a bit impromptu It gives me good results with out having to have 200 pages devoted to it. And I only use it for gritty or more realist settings.

[barsoomcore]

Can you describe the Modern20 system a bit? I'm having trouble assessing your descriptions without a bit of context.

[ValhallaGH]

Can you describe the Modern20 system a bit? I'm having trouble assessing your descriptions without a bit of context.

It has a location chart. Roll 1d20, consult chart to see location (10 locations); generally, the die rolled for the attack also determines the hit location. The chart also has:

• A damage modifier, a multiplier used for hits to that location. These range from 1/2 for the foot to 2 for the throat or head.
• Attack Modifier for called shots. These range from -12 to -18.
• The last column is for the optional Injuries system, and suggests appropriate injuries for the various injury levels at the various locations. This column is the most optional and the most difficult to read.

Modern20 is a (heavy) modification of the d20 Modern rules. It uses HP, weapon damage dice, normal d20 ability scores, six base classes, BAB and BDB, feats like True 20 (including class specifics), and skills that range from combat to science and all have meaningful impacts on their areas.

It's actually a neat little system, with a lot of built-in dials to set the tone, especially for those folks that want a generic system with hp, weapon dice, and levels.