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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 3247573" data-attributes="member: 1165">D20 Modern crits I've witnessed...In D20 Modern, the massive damage system works differently. The threshold equals your Con score, and if you fail, you drop to -1, rather than being splatted. It comes up more often, but isn't immediately fatal... combat is deadlier in some ways, as a result.Twice a Martial Artist PC did an over 50 damage crit, although there was a 6 point damage bump due to a house rule. I'll explain the math: a d20 Modern martial artist can do 1d10 damage with their unarmed attacks at high level. The PC in question was only doing 1d8 damage because they hadn't taken all ten levels of the class ... plus 2 from Strength, plus 2 from Melee Smash, plus 7 or 8 from Flying Kick (bonus damage on a charge) plus 1d6 from Fists of Iron, and plus 2 from charge (that is the house rule). There's another feat that lets martial artists do triple damage on a crit (everything but Fists of Iron then triples) ... and he rolled above average damage on the 3d8 as well both time. The PC in question used flying kick fairly often and every time he did, he also used Fists of Iron. Twice he confirmed a crit while using Flying Kick. He would have exceeded 45 damage each time without the house rule, and cheered because he managed to exceed the DnD massive damage threshold. One time the NPC that took the hit was still conscious afterwards, which irritated the martial artist player. Another time he hit a character who had a hand-crafted flamethrower on. I changed the rules for flame throwers to make them not suicidal to wear, but does screw you if an opponent gets you with a crit. ROAST! That's the one who died instantly.In the same campaign, a PC gunslinger tried to hide between two washing machines in order to take cover from gansters. Unfortunately, half the gansters carried axes... one managed to approach her and smacked her in the head with his axe. Crit. Flop! (She lived. Barely.)In my Three Kingdoms campaign, a Yellow Turban general was killed in one hit from a crit on round one. (Well, he dropped to -1, but same thing.) That ended the battle right there. Another time, another Yellow Turban general got revenge, knocking out a very high Defense PC with a crit from a battleaxe. Due to absurd luck on my part, I knocked out three of the four PCs in the first round ... the last had high speed and managed to run away.My character in a one-shot campaign was a Tough 8/Soldier 8 with a specialization in the automatic rifle. In the final boss battle, he made a mistake and ended up within charging range of a greatsword-wielding terrorist without cover between him and then. Said terrorist had cranked their damage to do 2d6+14 from taking Soldier levels, Melee Smash, high Strength, etc. He used Power Attack for 10, and got +2 from charge (same house rule). Crit. Confirmation! So I just took 60 damage from one hit! Good thing I was a Tough Hero with Second Wind... I wouldn't have survived otherwise. My character had 157 hit points, but was down to about a hundred before getting hit. Ow!In another one shot, I was a 1st-level Strong Hero, visiting the museum. One doesn't bring weapons to a museum, but he was proficient with archaic weapons, on the grounds that a particularly violent farmer might get practice with that sort of thing. The museum was overrun with terrorists. I managed to get upstairs to the medieval weaponry room and smashed a case that had various Rennaissance weapons in it, including a huge French rapier. (It was statted as a longsword, IIRC.) Because it was a rapier, I decided not to wield it with two hands.A terrorist walked into the room; he had three innocent hostages walking in a line in front of him. I ambushed him, swung ... and missed. I was barely able to hold onto the sword, and now there's a terrorist pointing a submachine gun right at me, and I had no cover and virtually no chance of dodging. Oh, and now he beat me on initiative. The terrorist was so surprised he forgot to take a 5 foot step. I got a crit a split second before he could fire. He didn't fall unconscious, he literally died! Two of the three hostages decided to follow me, becoming temporary heroes - one took the terrorist's gun, another took a pair of French duelling pistols from the case (it was the French history section) and the other decided he didn't want to fight. At least one of these followers got killed in combat, with the other vanishing later on.</blockquote>

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