Vorpal and Sharpness and Fumble rules...

[Treebore]

So how many of you have allowed Vorpal and Sharpness weapons to be obtained in your games AND had fumble rules that allowed for PC's to cut off their own body parts?

All I can remember is DM's who had it where if you fumbled, you cut off your head (Vorpal) or random body part (Sharpness). Including me.

So how about you?

Did you have any other interesting house rules related to Vorpal and Sharpness weapons?

 

[Sekhmet]

I do use fumble rules, but I try to make them non-lethal. You can't help rolling a 1 sometimes!
It usually results in broken bow strings, thrown weapons, slipping and falling, or other such detrimental (but not lethal) repercussions.

 

[Grogg of the North]

If the PC rolled bad enough, like 3 or 4 1's in a row I'd say you cut something off.

Usually my fumble rules are if you roll a 1, roll d20. Roll poorly and something bad happens. Roll well and something awesome may happen unexpectedly.

 

[kitcik]

Remember 1E when a fighter could "sweep" (one attack per level against creatures with less than one hit die)?

If the first attack with a Vorpal weapon resulted in a decapitaion, we ruled you got the "height right" and all additional hits that round were also decapitations.

This had no practical impact as if you were high enough level to have a Vorpal sword and you were fighting monsters with less than one hit die, there was no challenge anyway, but it was a fun rule. Pop. Pop. Pop...

 

[James the Newbie]

In our game we use the simple idea that you over swung or did something to throw you off balance, skipping your next turn and leaving you flat footed (also using any touch spell you may have attempted up)

I wouldn't have vorpal or sharpness do that, as I dont want to punish people for buying magic weapons, chances are that wont bother the cleric or wizard, and its not very balanced.

 

[Celebrim]

So how many of you have allowed Vorpal and Sharpness weapons to be obtained in your games AND had fumble rules that allowed for PC's to cut off their own body parts?

Not in my games, but I knew a guy who got a vorpal sword and then obtained some oil of sharpness... only it turned out to be oil of slipperiness and the DM ruled that when he grabbed the blade, he fumbled and cut off his own head.

Did you have any other interesting house rules related to Vorpal and Sharpness weapons?

Since the 1e era, I have used completely different rules for vorpal and sharpness weapons. I used the old Dragon magazine tables for fumbles, and used the rules therein as written - besting the target to hit number granted you a percentage to obtain a critical hit based on the amount you beat the target by. The way Vorpal and Sharpness weapons worked is, in addition to this ordinary chance of a critical, you also always obtained a critical with them by what was at other tables the common house rule that you scored a critical by rolling a 20. This made such weapons far more balanced than their default incarnations. The default weapons in my experience only turned up in the more Monte Haul sort of campaign, as they were completely imbalancing.

Even so, I never dared to put a sword with such properties into the hands of players during the lifetime of any campaign I ran. The closest I came was there was a magic sword with a +5% chance of producing criticals on a hit, which could be seen as a forerunner of the modern 'keen' property. The forerunner of the 'masterwork weapon' concept was high quality non-magical swords often had +1% chance of producing criticals.

I've basically retained these houserules into the 3e era, modified for the times, in that weapons with the Sharpness property automatically threaten to critical on every hit. The most powerful sort of weapon in my game world would presumably be something along the lines of a +5 Brutal Great Axe of Sharpness, which would basically hit for 4d12+20 damage. However, I have not directly retained the 1e era critical hit table that lopped off limbs or dealt lethal organ damage. Instead, I have a similar sort of table that comes into effect when a critical hit drops a target to 0 or fewer hit points, or when a coup de grace attack is made (which in my game can be made against limbs as well as say, a neck). However, I generally feel that systems which directly circumvent the hit point system are a 'bad idea' in that they are worse for PC's than for NPC's.

 

[Dandu]

Litmus test for fumble rules:

Have ten fighters swing their swords against practice dummies for an hour. If the practice dummies win, the DM must butter and eat his own fumble rules.

 

[Celebrim]

Have ten fighters swing their swords against practice dummies for an hour. If the practice dummies win, the DM must butter and eat his own fumble rules.

Good test. And I'd take that bet. I believe my practice dummies would win only in circumstances you'd expect them to win - severely outshape fighters, fighters with grossly below average dexterity, incompotent fighters, dummies made out of material so impervious to blows that any sufficiently long series will always favor the dummies. Assuming average fighters making 600 blows an hour on say a soft wooden target, the fighters absolutely will win.

But there will probably be several rounds where the fighter will be glad the dummy isn't a better defender.

 

[James the Newbie]

I think what dandu is getting at, is with those vorpal rules, after 20 rounds the fighter should statistically have killed himself

 

[the Jester]

So how many of you have allowed Vorpal and Sharpness weapons to be obtained in your games AND had fumble rules that allowed for PC's to cut off their own body parts?

All I can remember is DM's who had it where if you fumbled, you cut off your head (Vorpal) or random body part (Sharpness). Including me.

So how about you?

Did you have any other interesting house rules related to Vorpal and Sharpness weapons?

Heh!

My fumble system allows for the fumbler to attack himself or an ally, in which case normal rules apply (roll high & sever); or for automatically hitting self/ally, in which case I'd simply apply damage; or for rolling to hit self/ally and scoring an automatic crit on a hit, in which case severing definitely applies; or for an automatic crit on self/ally, in which case- again- severing applies.

My fumble (and crit) system is based on a severity roll, with fumbles typically being 3d6 in severity. Some magic weapons reduce this (as do certain other items); others (e.g. cursed swords) might increase it.