D&D 3E/3.5 Crit Tables: Dumb idea in 3e?

[RogerBacon]

My group played Rolemaster from about 1984 until about 2000, off and on. In Rolemaster MOST hits are accompanied by a critical (ranging from A to E). In an effort to work them into d20 I came up with this system:

In addition to the regular critical hit system in d20, every damage roll checks against the target’s critical threshold levels. These five levels are Con/2, Con, Con*3/2, Con*2, and Con*5/2. For each level that the damage exceeded a threshold the critical level goes up by one. This results in either no critical, for damage less than Con/2, or an A through E critical for damage fallinging in between one of the other levels.

The nice thing about this system is that it can work for ALL sources of damage and not just weapons: fireballs, traps, falling 60’, etc.

Extrapolating the Rolemaster critical tables to d20 was easy. Since Rolemaster is d100 just divide by 5. Hit points are about the same for a character in both systems so those convert directly. Everything else just fell into place from there.

Of course, this doesn’t help people who don’t have Rolemaster, but it works for us.

Roger Bacon

 

[IndyPendant]

Speaking as a GM, I despise crit hit and miss tables. They just screw a player's character in needlessly, totally random ways. Not to mention they're usually absurdly munchkin: "You rolled a 1 or a 20? Roll a d100, then a d20, then 2d6, and then another d100. [GM examines fourteen tables.] Ooh, that combination? You lopped off an arm/did 4000 points damage/tripped and cracked your head open on a rock. Such a shame."

That being said, I am in fact using a very simple rule for crit misses: if you roll a 1 on an attack, roll again. If you miss again, you have crit missed. The penalty: you can only take a Partial Action for your next action.

That's it, that's all. It is enough of a penalty for players to want to avoid it--yet simple enough not to slow down game play, reasonably closely balanced in severity with the crit hits, and it still allows players options. Nothing more is needed, in my opinion.

 

[DustTC]

I prepare most of my stuff, but crits are one thing I like to invent on the spot . They apply to both players and monsters and monsters are always going to get more of them, so I don't think it's too unbalancing.

Usually it's something like a 25% chance they hit someone right next to them, or dropping a weapon, etc., whatever seems appropriate at the time. It's by no means necessary, but I enjoy it and the players enjoy it, so why not?

Being the unbeatable hero is fun, but fumbling your sword to the ground for a quick reality check makes for an even more rewarding not-so-unbeatable-but-very-brave hero experience.

Edit: I was talking about crit misses, I don't see what's wrong with the crit succes system as it is.