Critical Hit Decks/Charts - I don't like 'em

Retreater said:

This is a little bit of a rant about why I don't like Critical Hit/Fumble Decks, charts, etc. It's mostly based off my experiences in d20 games, but I think the sentiment would carry over to any tabletop game.

I think the "special critical hit rule" is one of the worst house rule or optional rule. It's inclusion is a near deal-breaker if I'm joining a game.

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Yeah, not a fan.

If I'm running the game I won't be using those rules - if they're optional in the system then I'll drop them; if the game doesn't mark them as optional then I'll run something else.

However, rules of that sort won't stop me playing a game run by someone else. My general view is that if one of my friends is enthusiastic enough to want to run something, I'm willing to play.

It depends. Rolemaster has the problem of having charts for practically everything, which is why one of the derogatory names for it is "ChartMaster". Its "diet" version, HARP simplifies things by drastically lowering the number of tables, which can lead to sameyness if a GM doesn't change the wording of a critical despite the effects being the same.

I had a GM who did a damage dice thing in HARP because a majority of players thought the charts slowed down the game, I thought the opposite: the damage dice slowed down the game.

As I've experienced many games throughout my years, I've come to dislike "you don't even have a ghost of a chance of touching this guy because reason X", and I've learned to accept anti-climactic combat scenarios. You killed the boss in one blow? Well, this is a one-shot anyway, so good job! I don't like "Mook NPC" rules either, but that's another discussion entirely.

That said, I have had to remind HARP players that they can affect the outcome of their actions themselves with Fate Points. What I like is that in HARP, unless a crit says something about Hits, Bleeding, Nasty external or internal damage, or Stun; Endurance is simply that: how much fight you have left in you. While "Hit Points" in most systems have always been somewhat abstract, I've grown to dislike "you're fine until they take your last hit".

Now, in a Pathfinder game, the GM did have critical hit/fumble decks. While it added some variety, I thought it slowed down combat.

So, depends on the game for me, I guess?

I generally found the crit decks to be boring. Oh a little extra damage here, oh a point of bleed there, yeah sure whatever.

And yes, I generally find crit fumble rules to be nothing more than excuse to savagely punish the players for the fact that they use dice.

Saelorn said:

Not much that I can add, but I agree. Extreme critical hit/fumble charts turn the game into a farce when used in a d20 system, and dramatically swing the game against the players whenever they appear.

I was also in a Pathfinder game that was nearly de-railed when the GM introduced the charts - the official deck isn't as bad, because the effects are much less significant - but we adapted by making characters who didn't use attack rolls. We still ended up losing three characters to random decapitations, though.

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Those charts must be the worst thing ever. I introduced the decks at a session, and pulled them out within an hour. It didn't help (or it helped make it abundantly clear how terrible the idea was) when the wizard rolled 3 ones within that tiny stretch.

Satyrn said:

Those charts must be the worst thing ever. I introduced the decks at a session, and pulled them out within an hour. It didn't help (or it helped make it abundantly clear how terrible the idea was) when the wizard rolled 3 ones within that tiny stretch.

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Hah you remind me. In an online game, my character rolled five ones in a row to start the first group brawl vs bad guys... and by that hm rule thst mesn I hurt/hit every other PC for damage without hurting any of the bad guys.

I asked out loud "why aren't you guys attacking me? I have hurt you worse than the " bad guys" and we just met?"

Tragic, but hilarious.

I'm not a fan either, even though I have never used a critical hit deck or chart (and I don't intend to). It feels to me like overindulgence in making random tables, and this is coming from someone who uses a ton of random encounter tables in his campaigns.

I personally feel that critical hits and fumbles, should have some relevance to what is happening during the session. I don't want a weapon to break or drop from a player's hands, just because a card says so. I fear that these systems tend to lean a lot towards these sorts of odd and disastrous outcomes. I don't want to be overly punishing when my players roll fumbles, or overly rewarding when they crit. This isn't Zelda - Breath of the Wild (weapons don't break every few seconds and are competently made) and the pc's are competent heroes who don't just drop their weapons mid-battle, unless there is a very believable reason. Most importantly, I don't want there to be a disconnect between what is happening in combat, and what I narrate as an outcome of a crit or fumble.

An excellent example of the sort of fumble-narration that I aim for, occurred at the start of my pirate campaign. A player was trying to sneak up on a cannibal in a watch tower, but upon attacking the cannibal, he fumbled. I ruled that just as he was about to swing at the cannibal, the cannibal heard a small creak of the wood, and in a reflex was able to grab his wrist to stop him from swinging his sword. I then had the cannibal make a free grapple check, and the two became locked in a desperate struggle on top of the watch tower. The cannibal tried to push him over the edge of the tower, while trying to knock the blade out of his hands. Because he was now locked in a grapple with his foe, he was unable to swing his sword. The player decided to drop the weapon himself, so he could draw a small dagger instead. This felt like a much more believable outcome, although it still ended with the player's weapon dropping to the jungle-floor below.

It became a very cinematic fight, because I didn't let a random table decide what the result of his fumble would be. Instead of punishing the player by snapping his sword in two, or having him (a competent warrior) drop the sword for no good reason, I rewarded him with an exciting scene instead. I don't think a crit/fumble deck can do that, and in fact I think it steers the DM away from narrating the dice results in the way that I prefer.

A. Play less D20 games.
B. Your concerns regarding getting shafted and administrative effort is takes are warranted - but both can get mitigated.
C. What you don't mention is the feeling that you get as a player when your character is blood-soaked with wounds (not necessarily amputated limbs) but still prevails over his enemies. When you roll up specific wounds with specific modifiers and you overcome - that's powerful.