Crit charts in D&D?

[Mortellan]

The Dragon Magazine Compendium hardback has a 3.5 converted article featuring a crit/fumble chart. It's fairly fun to use.

 

[phindar]

I like the Crit/Fumble table I came up with (big surprise, a gamer likes a rule he thought up), but I'll admit its a little cumbersome for regular play. I devised it as part of vastly stripped down combat system for a Gladiators! game, basically to take out all the unnecessary complications in D&D combat to add in complications I thought were more interesting.

My system was based on the 3e concept of Confirming the Critical. When you rolled a crit chance or a fumble, you rolled again to confirm and if that confirmation roll would have hit (for a crit) or missed (for a fumble), you got a special effect. For Crit Confirmations, if you rolled under a 10 and still hit you got a free opposed roll based on the combat manuevers (trip, disarm, sunder, etc). For Fumble Confirmations, if you rolled over a 10 and still fumbled, you did something bad (dropped weapon, hit self, damaged weapon, etc).

None of the critical or fumble effects involved decapitations, dismemberment or special damage; they were all based around exisiting manuevers, except for the 20/20. As a hold-over/tribute to my old 2e group, a 20/20 was an Instant Kill, which immedately reduced your opponent to 0 hit points (disabled, not dying).

As I have pointed out, this may or may not jive with your idea of D&D combat. I designed it for a game where the only combat (more or less) takes place within a gladiatorial arena, and so I wanted that arena to be a place where random, chaotic things happened. I wanted that arena to be a little scary, for every sword strike to offer a chance (400:1 in fact) of death (or at least, incapacitation).

I still like this system, but in order for me to be comfortable with the level of complexity it adds, I had to take a lot of complexity out in other areas. YMMV.

 

[Mallus]

I don't play D&D so my character can randomly do something staggeringly stupid, especially at high levels.

Heh... that's exactly why I play D&D.

"OK, I'm going to jump off the cliff onto the dragon's back then stab it in the brain-stem with my sword. Cool!"

Back on topic, elaborate crit/fumble tables, at least the Arms Law variety, are about laughing at absurdly violent acts. Eventually done to your character. If you can laugh at losing (an arm, cornea, spleen...) then they can add a lot of enjoyment to a game.

 

[Kelleris]

Heh... that's exactly why I play D&D.

"OK, I'm going to jump off the cliff onto the dragon's back then stab it in the brain-stem with my sword. Cool!"

Back on topic, elaborate crit/fumble tables, at least the Arms Law variety, are about laughing at absurdly violent acts. Eventually done to your character. If you can laugh at losing (an arm, cornea, spleen...) then they can add a lot of enjoyment to a game.

We appear to be working with different definitions of "staggeringly stupid." I refer to the example you gave as "awesome", actually. I use a hero point system similar to that in Mutants and Masterminds in my own games precisely so I can use them as little bennies with which to bribe players into attempting crazy stuff like that. By "staggeringly stupid" I mean "hurling your sword across the room like a half-trained peasant" or "doing something you've got 10 levels in doing so clumsily that everyone around you laughs."

 

[Aus_Snow]

No one uses Torn Asunder by Bastion Press?

Sure, kinda.

I use a modified version of the rules found in Torn Asunder: Critical Hits, by Bastion Press

 

[Mallus]

We appear to be working with different definitions of "staggeringly stupid." I refer to the example you gave as "awesome", actually.

It's hard to tell them apart sometimes...

I use a hero point system similar to that in Mutants and Masterminds in my own games precisely so I can use them as little bennies with which to bribe players into attempting crazy stuff like that.

Ah... I really like how M&M handles Actions Points and GM Fiat.

By "staggeringly stupid" I mean "hurling your sword across the room like a half-trained peasant" or "doing something you've got 10 levels in doing so clumsily that everyone around you laughs."

It's a matter of taste. Anyone can screw up on occasion.

 

[Kelleris]

It's a matter of taste. Anyone can screw up on occasion.

Oh, definitely. I don't like that kind of critical fumble chart for the same reason you don't often see characters in movies, books, anime series, and the like doing something like hurl their weapon across the room on accident - it tends to diminish the cool factor. I prefer my screw-ups to be of the more interesting sort - "Ah, I didn't realize this fighter was served by a powerful fiend, that's gonna change things up just a tad" or "my plans did not take into account that this mage has resist energy, protection from energy, energy immunity, energy buffer, energy aegis, and contingent energy resistance all against my preferred energy type; that's gonna be a problem." Or even just acting hastily and provoking an AoO when you didn't need to. There's lots of room in the game for interesting screw-ups without having to humiliate the character whose player is trying to play him in as cool a manner as possible based on a completely random roll he can't plan for or mitigate in any way.

 

[Lanefan]

Oh, definitely. I don't like that kind of critical fumble chart for the same reason you don't often see characters in movies, books, anime series, and the like doing something like hurl their weapon across the room on accident - it tends to diminish the cool factor. I prefer my screw-ups to be of the more interesting sort - "Ah, I didn't realize this fighter was served by a powerful fiend, that's gonna change things up just a tad" or "my plans did not take into account that this mage has resist energy, protection from energy, energy immunity, energy buffer, energy aegis, and contingent energy resistance all against my preferred energy type; that's gonna be a problem." Or even just acting hastily and provoking an AoO when you didn't need to. There's lots of room in the game for interesting screw-ups without having to humiliate the character whose player is trying to play him in as cool a manner as possible based on a completely random roll he can't plan for or mitigate in any way.

This of course assumes you're trying to play a character in "as cool a manner as possible"...which not all of us do, by any means! I see fumbles as an essential part of the game, adding randomness and chaos along with the corresponding laughter...

Really, unless the dice forced it, how often would your "cool" character trip on a root, or break her bowstring on a shot, or miss her opponent and club her friend upside the head by mistake? These things happen. A fumble table merely acknowledges that they happen, sometimes at the wrong moment...

Lane-"trained for years so I can fumble with the best of 'em"-fan

 

[Kelleris]

This of course assumes you're trying to play a character in "as cool a manner as possible"...which not all of us do, by any means! I see fumbles as an essential part of the game, adding randomness and chaos along with the corresponding laughter...

Really, unless the dice forced it, how often would your "cool" character trip on a root, or break her bowstring on a shot, or miss her opponent and club her friend upside the head by mistake? These things happen. A fumble table merely acknowledges that they happen, sometimes at the wrong moment...

Well yeah, I've already copped to this being a play-style thing, for myself and my players - we all try for cool characters and memorable moments, and my game as a DM is pretty much engineered from top to bottom to produce things like Mallus's crazed dragon-hopping. That sort of thing in particular happens so often in my games I have a set of developed rules for fighting on monster-back and don't generally give out my "awesome move" hero point for trying it unless there are extenuating circumstances.

I don't like the randomness and chaos and we get enough laughter in our sessions already that we can barely fit a game in edgewise as-is. I use other resources to cover the tripping, bowstrings breaking, and accidentally whacking friends than fumbles, though - stuff that makes the character's own abilities relevant, stuff they can plan for. I call for Balance checks in constricted terrain to keep your feet, for instance, and the ninjas don't care while the fighters hope for a good roll. And everyone knows going in that if you try to fight in a constricted area, you may end up prone unless you've got the skills to avoid it. Likewise, anyone who wants to try it can go for a Bluff to redirect an attack in combat, though admittedly with a high DC if you don't specifically have that trick in your arsenal. Magical bows get their strings cut with a sunder attack, and it doesn't bother me to gloss over the day-to-day maintanence that keeps them from just randomly breaking. Perhaps if someone subjected their bow to some truly horrifying lack of maintanence (carrying stringed through a sewer for hours, or something) I'd ask for a Fortitude save from the bow to still be in proper working order. And even then, an accomplished archer would recognize that his bowstring's in danger of snapping the next time he stresses it, and I'd tell him up front what the chances of that happening are.

The point is that I don't like the sheer randomness of critical fumbles, I don't think it adds any fun to the game, and there are more interesting uses of my game time and my players' undeniable penchant for making a hash of things than rolling on a critical fumble chart - IMO, YMMV, and all that.

 

[dagger]

I use a modified version of the rules found in Torn Asunder: Critical Hits, by Bastion Press (though now published by another company, IIRC).

It's great. I thoroughly recommend that book, if you like the sound of critical charts etc., for D&D 3e.

There are some interesting things to be seen in other places though: Rolemaster/MERP/HARP, WFRP, Advanced Player's Guide (by Sword & Sorcery Studios). . . and others.

For example, there are a number of homebrewed charts and systems floating on this forum, and on at least one other.

What modifications have you made?