crit-based Hit Location System - in-process design thread

I used to be vehemently opposed to crit charts. But as I worked on my own ruleset and watching shows like Rome, I've been more and more interested in at least exploring some possibilities.

When designing new rules or deciding whether to incoporate variant rules into my game, I always think about what I want the new rules to accomplish. I start with the fluff first. Just adding rules to your game for the sake of new rules is the wrong approach. One I have a clear idea what I want to accomplish, I start to think about the in-game consequences for the characters and how it will affect the players. Those are two different but related issues. Bottom line: does it make the game more enjoyable or will the new rules just frustrate the players.

First off, I would never use them in a "standard" D&D game. The core D&D ruleset doesn't attempt to emulate any "real-world" situations and I don't feel a hit chart system belongs.

My interest for a hit chart system is to further emulate brutal and realistic combat and the effects that occur when highly trained individuals swing sharp metal blades at lightly armored opponents. I want combat to be deadly and possibly result in the loss of limbs. I like to use the phrase "any punk with a gun" - regardless of their level, the PC's still need to be concerned about entering combat with any opponent.

That said, any new system that increases the chances of some kind of negative effect will end up affecting the players moreso than the NPC's. With a hit chart system, especially one that could result in the loss of limbs, I have a few criteria:

1. Since the effects could be significant and long-lasting, I don't want the chance of occurence to be completely random.

2. The player should know if their character is about to be put in harm's way and they should have some chance of avoiding it (even if it is costly or not a guarantee). For this reason, I think a hit location system works best if action points are used as well.

3. The skill/level/ability of the character should be a factor in whether they can avoid serious injury. A 1st level character may be able to land a serious blow against a 20th level character but it should be very difficult.

4. If serious injury or the loss of a limb does occur, there should be an in-game mechanism for some kind of recovery, even if it isn't 100%.

5. The system should minimize die-rolling as much as possible. I'm going to start by using the crit confirmation roll to determine the effects.

Bear in mind that I am designing this hit location system to be used in a ruleset that uses action points and the VP/WP system. It will probably not be reliant on the VP/WP system but will most likely require that the ruleset uses action points.

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I am designing this hit location system such that if the circumstances arise in-game where it occurs, it's most likely going to be bad. It is not a system that cares about knowing where every single attack lands. It is meant to expand on the critical damage system and include long-lasting, serious injuries.

Since I want to tie hit location to the crit mechanic, I also don't want every crit to result in lost limbs. There should be a mechanism for a crit to just be a crit. Perhaps a player can choose to make their confirmation roll a hit location roll (spend an action point?).

Taking the following into account:
- The crit confirmation roll is what will be used for the hit location.
- The "ability" (level) of the attacker should be a factor in determining the severity of the blow. The ability of the defender should also be a factor in being able to avoid serious injury as well but I'll address that later.

Therefore, I think a lower roll on the crit confirmation should result in more serious injuries. Any punk can get lucky and roll a 20 on their attack roll but if they are attacking an opponent with a high AC/Defense, they may have to roll very high to confirm the crit. A highly skill attacker should have a higher chance to land a serious blow since their chances to confirm a crit are much higher.

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I'd like to address the normal crit vs. hit location crit issue first. Specifically, how can the system account for both. Any ideas/thoughts/comments welcome.

GlassJaw said:

Therefore, I think a lower roll on the crit confirmation should result in more serious injuries. Any punk can get lucky and roll a 20 on their attack roll but if they are attacking an opponent with a high AC/Defense, they may have to roll very high to confirm the crit. A highly skill attacker should have a higher chance to land a serious blow since their chances to confirm a crit are much higher.

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This is going back to 2ed's non-weapon proficiency system, where the lower roll but still a success was a better roll than just getting a lucky high roll. The only problem is this goes against one of 3rd Ed's core design rules that a high roll is good. While it reduces the maths involved in calculating a success level it is counter intuitive and perhaps should be avoided.

Bagpuss said:

This is going back to 2ed's non-weapon proficiency system, where the lower roll but still a success was a better roll than just getting a lucky high roll. The only problem is this goes against one of 3rd Ed's core design rules that a high roll is good. While it reduces the maths involved in calculating a success level it is counter intuitive and perhaps should be avoided.

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That's not entirely accurate though.

The high roll is still required to confirm the crit. The higher the roll, the better chance you have to confirm the crit. In this system, the unmodified d20 roll is used.

Where in the 1-20 range that you confirm the crit just determines the actual hit location effect. And it doesn't have to (and probably shouldn't) be lower = better. It could even be randomly distributed.

Another idea is to use the modified total of the crit confirmation roll determine the hit location. That way, you always want to roll high. This would require a bit more balancing and playtesting because the chart would have to account for totals higher than 20 and you would have to do some probability analysis to determine where to put certain effects on the scale.

First, you would have to choose a percentage of how often you wanted certain effects to occur at a certain character level. For example, you want a 20th level character to have a 5% chance to decapitate someone with a crit. This requires estimating what the attack mod a 20th level character would have and what would have to be rolled to have a 5% chance.

Maybe this would be a more accurate system in the long-run, I don't know.

i use a modified wp/vp system myself, where wp are actually Con. i simply ask my players what exactly they're trying to accomplish with an attack roll. something more sprcific than "i swing my sword at the orc." like, "i attempt to cleave the orc's leg out from beneath him." if the PC crits, the leg is gone, the orc has to make a Fort save to keep from being stunned (as per the rules for taking wound damage), and the orc has to make a balance check. if he says, "i swing my sword at the orc's exposed neck," and crits, the orc will take bleeding damage each round. if the crit damage equalled or exceeded the orc's constitution score, i just say, "the head rolls from the orcs shoulders and lands at your feet." simple, cinematic, and no extra die-rolling.

How do you plan on modelling the difference in crit-severity?

Scimitars crit often, but the Scythe crits *hard*.

I'm not entirely sold on action points. However I would handle it like this... maiming can only happen on a Natural 20 regardless of critical range. If the confirmation of critical hit roll is also a Natural 20 then decapitation ( i.e. Vorpal ). You could assign different body parts to the rest of the d20 to flesh out the rules. I would be sure to add that critical damage is still dealt in addition to the maiming. However, if the confirmation roll fails to break AC then no extra damage or maiming takes place.

**NOTE: If you use this system then the actual Vorpal ability should probably be reevaluated.

Thank you for your time,
William Holder

I like the way this seems to be headed.
However, I can tell you that both myself and my players all swear to roll high crits (years of Rolemaster will do that to you).

And, as have been said, in d20 you always want to roll high.

What about tying hit location and/or severity to the amount the attack roll succeeded by? Maybe add a modifier for lvls as well, so that it's easier for a high leveler to crit, and he is in turn harder to crit?

opposed to crit charts!?!?!
i loved those things
my friends dwarf lost his left leg 3 times in one campaign, we still laugh about it
(umber hulk, pterodactyl, giant crab)

for your idea, i think lowest unmodified roll (that suceeds) is better than lowest modified roll
then when you level up, your crits get potentially stronger, not weaker

Pyrex said:

How do you plan on modelling the difference in crit-severity?

Scimitars crit often, but the Scythe crits *hard*.

Click to expand...

Not sure. Not sure you really have to either. You certainly can but doing so increases the design difficult by an order of magnitude because you are now adding a completely new variable.

As it stands now, the only things a weapon type determines is damage, crit range and multiplier, damage type, and whether it is finessable or not.

Again, let's start from fluff a perspective. You could argue that someone wielding a short sword would have an easier time lopping off hands and legs than a scythe because it's a quicker weapon and easier to control. There are no inherent d20 mechanics to account for this. A scythe may have a better chance to instantly kill someone however. You could tie the hit location severity to damage dealt but again, how do you account for weapons that do less damage but could deliver different types of wounds.

That's one reason why I didn't want to tie the hit location system to damage. The perfect system may allow the player to do both though. Some weapons have a wider range of hit location possibilties (larger crit range) but the effects aren't as severe (smaller crit multiplier). Some weapons don't crit very often but when they do, the effects are grievous.

Another way is to give each weapon its own hit location chart but that's far beyond anything I (and most likely anyone else) would want to deal with.

I'll have to think some more on this. I think there is merit in the concept, I'm just not convinced that creating a mechanic for it is worth the effort.