Any ideas how to manage this?.
This is not new, but with new critical tables, that always use the same one, I think now we need really a method to manage it as there are many more cases like 'with armor'.
As 1st method, quick and easy, I think in something like:
not open-ended roll + weapon mod. + attack mod. - armor mod. > 100; armor breaks and the normal critical is applied.
Where the mods. are based on AR (armor rating), bonus, and attack strenght. For attack (weapon) we can use an approximate AR, so for metal weapons use 10 (plate), for wooden (arrows with no metal heads, club, staff, etc.) use rigid leather, for whips use soft leather, etc.
I think is not hard to create a link weapon <-> AR.
so we could have something like this:
-weapon and armor mod: (AR * value) + bonus. If bonus is magical apply some extra, maybe double it. value needs to be determined, something like value = 5.
- attack mod: is the attack result, using the critical as value (A=5, B=10...) and substract a quantity, maybe 25. So a result of 23C gives us a mod = (23 + 15 - 25) = 13.
So, an example: we make an attack with a non-magical +10 broadsword, result is 15B and the critical hit the head, the foe wears normal leather helmet (AR5), the critical has a 'with armor result', then we roll:
roll + (50 + 10) + (25 - 25) - (25); so if we roll 66+ the helmet breaks and we apply the normal critical, if we roll 65- we apply the 'with armor' critical.
I think is a simple method and quick to use.