Home-Grown Critical Effect Rules

[Elvinis75]

Re: For anyone who is still interested . . .

Here's what I came up with. (Note: this has little relation to bruiser's system. Although I like what he's doing, I find it too complicated for my taste.)


Critical Hits
Whenever a critical hit “threat” occurs, no second roll is necessary for the attacker. However, the defender is entitled to a critical parry. With d100, the defender must roll under his BAB +20. A second level fighter would have a 22% chance of parrying and avoiding the critical hit effect. A 20th level wizard would have a 30% chance.
The effects detailed on the chart below apply in addition to the normal damage augmentation by the critical multiplier of the weapon.

D12 RESULTS OF CRITICAL HIT
1 Blow to the face. Dazed for one round.
2 Severe concussion. d4 Wis damage.
3 Major blood loss. d4 Con damage.
4 Brain damage (aphasia). d4 Wis damage and d4 Int damage.
5 Leg wound. d4 Dex damage and half movement rate. Ref save.
6 Broken arm. d4 Str damage, unable to attack with primary arm until healed.*
7 Damage to nerves or cerebellum. d6 Dex damage.
8 Shoulder/back wound. d6 Str damage.
9 Broken ribs. d4 Str damage and d4 Dex damage.
10 Severe blood loss. d6 Con damage.
11 Internal bleeding. d6 Con damage, -1 HP/round until first aid is administered.
12 Damage to vital organ. d8 Con damage.
* until healed = until all ability points are restored fully.

Personally I liked the other idea better and I think that I'm going to use your location severity with the save versus hit bonus - level of opponent. I think that it might well need something but it gives the sense to players of being involved in the process.
I also like the healing requirements listed in the first one

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Re: Re: For anyone who is still interested . . .

Personally I liked the other idea better and I think that I'm going to use your location severity with the save versus hit bonus - level of opponent. I think that it might well need something but it gives the sense to players of being involved in the process.
I also like the healing requirements listed in the first one

Just to be clear, the location severity and healing requirement ideas were bruiser's, not mine. I wouldn't want to take credit for bruiser's creativity.

 

[Elvinis75]

Re: Re: Re: For anyone who is still interested . . .

Just to be clear, the location severity and healing requirement ideas were bruiser's, not mine. I wouldn't want to take credit for bruiser's creativity.

yeah of course sorry about that.

 

[the_bruiser]

Bastion Press has a new book out called Torn Asunder:Critical Hits. It has a system similar to the ones mentioned here.

Essentially, you roll to hit, if you critical, you do normal critical damage. If you exceed the AC by 5+,10+, or 15+ you do mild, moderate or serious critical damage.

(snip)

I think this is a pretty good idea, except for one thing. What my system does well for my campaign - bigger multiplier weapons (say, a 20/x3 battleaxe) are more likely to have greater critical effects when they occur (fewer criticals, but tougher fort saves), while bigger threat range weapons (say, an 18/x2 rapier) are more likely to have many small effects (many criticals with easier fort saves). None of the other proposed systems that I've seen captures this tradeoff - in fact, most of them benefit the high threat range weapons over the high multiplier weapons. In my opinion, while I realize that this is arguable, for most campaigns with everything else equal, high threat weapons are strictly superior to high multiplier weapons already (we can talk about this is you disagree).

Don't get me wrong, I think that the rule would have to be adjusted for different campaigns, but it would need to do reflect this balance for me to really think it was a well-designed system.

Note - thanks for the props Elvinis75/candidus_cogitens - I can't take credit for the location idea (I've seen that in lots of places) but the healing requirement rule was my own (although I'm sure that others have come up with similar ideas before).

One other thing - I love the ability damage ideas you guys brought out. I'm going to go back and incorporate some ability damage into some of the things above.