Topic: 'Creators of the Critical Hit'?

[Hurin]

So, I just got into a discussion with someone on the DnD boards, and he claims (without any evidence, mind you) that ICE was not the inventor of the critical hit, and that the critical hit was in DnD 'since before Rolemaster existed'.

Can anyone give some hard evidence on this either way? Just wondering.

[Thom @ ICE]

Critical Hit was introduced by Iron Crown Enterprises in the first Arms Law (1980).
At that time D&D had just released AD&D 1st edition which had no reference to Critical Hits.

D&D introduced critical hits in Player's Option: Combat & Tactics (1995).

[jdale]

Wikipedia says the first game with critical hits was Empire of the Petal Throne in 1975. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_hit Assuming that's true, it would predate Rolemaster. I don't know what the mechanic was.

It certainly wasn't a rule in 1st edition AD&D or earlier versions of D&D. However, I stumbled upon this link http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2012/07/critical-hits.html which shows there was an article with a critical hit table in Dragon magazine #39 (July, 1980). Not sure if that was the first, but it doesn't mention anything earlier. It's also noted that Gygax opposed critical hits, so even though it was printed by TSR, I don't think it's accurate to say D&D had them. Arms Law came out in 1980 as well, I don't know if it was before or after July.

The Player's Option books were AD&D 2nd edition.

[Thom @ ICE]

Thanks for the digging. I don't personally consider the double damage result from a roll of 20 to be a critical hit.... but in that case Empire of the Petal Throne did beat out Arms Law - though it wasn't D&D.

[Thom @ ICE]

The Dragon magazine article is actually not half bad. But while one article may have been written at about the same time, the D&D rules set did not pick up that concept in the official rule books as jdale noted.

[rdanhenry]

There were certainly "house rule" criticals around before RM, but those tended to be "max. damage", "double damage", or other simple rules... and typically on a natural 20, with no connection to skill. An integrated and detailed set of criticals, such as RM uses, is a different beast altogether.

Technically, AD&D 1e did have critical hits... but they were limited to a handful of magical weapons that did their special critical damage on specified high die rolls. I expect one could find something that could reasonably be called a "critical hit" rule in some war game that predates D&D if you looked for it.

[Cory Magel]

Yeah, double damage for rolling a 20 doesn't really count as a true "Critical Hit" mechanic.  Same name to the concept, but the result is very different between them and RM.

We actually went with rolling a 20 was x2 damage and rolling another 20 after that was insta-kill.  Then we found the first Arms (Claw) and Spell Law books (and integrated parts/concepts from RM into D&D at that point).

I think the D&D we played (2nd Ed) was a good system, it just became too simplistic for us... which many people LIKE, so I'm not knocking it, it just wasn't out cup of tea.  As I always said to people: Wouldn't you like that Fireball your 15th level Wizard just cast to, instead of merely cause 10d6 damage, do 42 points of damage, set your foes shield on fire, and cause them to be stunned for a round?

[billybones]

Is it true that the first RM was a supplement for DnD as fighting mechanics?

[GrumpyOldFart]

I think it'd be more accurate to say it was a supplement for whatever system you decided to put it with, and D&D so dominated the market that "for D&D" was pretty much assumed.

Of course, that also depends on how you define "the first RM." IIRC, the first ICE product was Arms Law, which I think was meant to be a supplement. By the time Spell Law and Character Law were out and the bundle being offered as "Rolemaster," I think the idea was that you could use parts as supplements for other games, use the bundle as a stand-alone game, or combine elements as you saw fit.

I've gotten the impression throughout the history of ICE that the idea behind RM has always remained the same: To give the GM control of his game, so that he can play the game he and his players want, not just the game that the designers were willing and able to put together.

[arakish]

Is it true that the first RM was a supplement for DnD as fighting mechanics?

Read GOF's post above.

In fact, I found the very first Arms Law publication at a local hobby store during leave from the Navy in June 1980.  I immediately used it as a supplement for DnD for critical hits and fumbles.  I thought it was great someone was willing to show that pummeling each other until someone hits 0 hits is not true combat.  It was those critical injuries that killed in combat such as a complete impaling with a sword, twist the sword, then wrench it out sideways.  The decapitation.  The severance of a leg without means to stop the bleeding.  The complete crushing of the chest cavity due to a maul hit.

As far as I can remember, DnD 3e still did not have true critical hits (I finally sold the DnD 3e set I had).  They still had the "double max damage" of whatever weapon you were using.  For example, a long sword did d8 damage on a hit.  On a critical hit (20 on a d20), the damage was automatically 16 hits.  If the foe still has 30 hits left, then he is still alive and can possibly return the favor.  NOT a critical hit.

In RM, with a long sword vs AT4, you might end up with something like: 17DS; "Sever foe's weapon arm and bury your sword into foe's side. Foe falls prone.  Foe is in shock for 12 rounds, then dies."  Now, THAT is a critical hit.

rmfr

[billybones]

DnD 3ed had a crit range and damage multipliers. So a 19-20 crit range and x3 damage on hit I think was long sword. Which while you didn't have the beauty of a RM crit, you did get a large potential damage. 1/2 orc raging barbarian at 1st level could throw out 24-45 hits on a crit quite easily.

[intothatdarkness]

I think we're safe in saying that as far as separate tables with specific, re-rolled results for all damage and weapon types, RM was the first. Like others, I don't consider a mechanic for additional damage based on a high initial damage roll (WHFRP had this as well) to be a "real" critical hit system. Vorpal blades certainly delivered critical hits, but that was a magical effect and limited to that specific type of weapon.

[jdale]

I cited the Dragon article because it's unclear whether one of these was the first presentation of critical tables (and if so which one it was). Fumble charts too. But since the article is not a game, I think it's clear RM was the first game to have them.

Given the time it takes to get things into print (which was longer in 1980 than it is now), there's a good chance the article and Arms Law were written in complete ignorance of each other. Still curious what month Arms Law was released in, though....

[yammahoper]

RuneQuest, now BRP.

20% chance special hit; impale, slash or crush.  There were even rules for pulling out an impaled weapon, failure resulting spend another trying to pull it free or let it go/break weapon trying.

5% chance to crit, which ignored armor.

RuneQuest remains a great game too.

[markc]

 I used the Dragon #39 crit system a lot in my old D&D days and we even created our own charts based on the idea.
MDC

[intothatdarkness]

I cited the Dragon article because it's unclear whether one of these was the first presentation of critical tables (and if so which one it was). Fumble charts too. But since the article is not a game, I think it's clear RM was the first game to have them.

Given the time it takes to get things into print (which was longer in 1980 than it is now), there's a good chance the article and Arms Law were written in complete ignorance of each other. Still curious what month Arms Law was released in, though....

I had a couple of things come out in Dragon in the mid-1980s, and their turn time from acceptance to publication then was on the order of months. That makes it reasonably likely that the two were produced in relative ignorance of each other.

[VladD]

I checked out the system of the Petal Throne and it doesn't even remotely have criticals in the sense that we think about them: they had special hits that ignored armor.

What they DID have is a very short hand fumble table: even per weapon type!

Also added Rolemaster and its crit system to the wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_hit#Types (it is my first amendment btw)

[Arioch]

Arduin Grimoire (1977) had critical hit/fumble tables.

I think they were already a common HR, hard to tell who first came out with the idea.

[VladD]

There's quite a bit more I recognize from RM in Arduin... albeit that they had but one critical table and one fumble table for normal cases and an additional table fro shapeless critters and for brawling. Also armor types; with respect to covering: quite the same as RM.

Here the link to the free download for Arduin Grimoire
http://empcho.bizhosting.com/ca_download.html

[Hurin]

Vlad, in the Wiki entry you might want to not that Rolemaster criticals can result in instant death. I know you noted that they can result in lost limbs and internal organs destroyed, which we might assume would cause death, but you might want to make it more clear that even instant death is a possibility. That's what to me really separates the RM critical hit from the others.