Topic: Request for opinions: House rule for critical hits

[Thot]

I don't like the entire randomness of critical hits. The concept is cool and funny, but the execution all too often makes the game a bit too chaotic for my taste.

In order to mitigate that, I have come up with a simple house rule that should lessen the problem, maybe even outright eliminate it, and I would ask you, dear reader, to offer your opinions on it.

The house rule is as follows:

Before an attack is rolled, both the attacker and the defender may assign parts of their OB or DB as a modifier not to the attack roll, but to the critical hit roll. OB adds, DB substracts. If a critical hit is scored, the result of the critical hit roll is modified accordingly.

Example: An attack on a heavily armored foe (Plate armor under RMU) with a longsword. The attacker has an OB of 75, the defender has a DB of 60 (including parry and shield bonuses). The attacker decides to give your critical hit roll a bonus of +15, while the defender, certain that only a lucky critical hit can actually do him harm, puts his whole DB on the critical hit side. The critical hit roll is thus modified by -45, while the attack roll is at a net +60.  You roll a 53, for a total of 113, which inflicts 7 hits, but no crit. 
The following turn, the defender decides that he should have put his full DB (which is again 60) to the attack roll. The attacker stays with the same  +60 to attack roll, +15 to crit. The attacker rolls 97, re-rolls a 32, for a total of 139. OB and DB cancel each other out, so the result 9 hits and a B slashing critical. The critical roll is an unlucky 19, but +15 due to the reserved crit bonus, for a total of 34.   
The following turn, the defender decides to ward himself against crits again.  His DB is again 60, which he puts aside for the crit roll. The attacker uses the same pattern as before, +60 OB and +15 crit. This time, he rolls 87, +60 is 147, which scores 10 hits and a D puncture critical. The attacker rolls 100 for the critical hit! Rolling the critical, however, is now at -45, so that results turns into a mere 55. As a D critical, that is still severe, but at least he made sure his head is unharmed.

[Peter R]

I had a RM2 character that right from day one focused on trying to improve his DB. When the party was sharing out treasure he always went for the best shields, armour and protective magic. By about 10th level he had a 165DB. The other fighters in the party dealt out more damage and made more kills but I was always the last man standing.

I suspect that under your optional rule I could have put -97 against any critical every round and become completely invulnerable to criticals.

Just to be devils advocate if I were fighting two foes and I put -15 against the critical does that apply to the critical regardless of who delivered it or to I specify just as if I was parrying against one and putting my shield against the other?

What kind of DB can I use in this way? Can I divide up a +10DB from a suit of magic armour? If I have a 20/20 shield can I put 10 of that DB against someone who I am not using the shield against?

With your group of players do you have anyone who is likely 'fudge' the numbers and be tempted to use their DB twice hoping you as GM have not made a record of what the DB split is?

[Thot]

[...]
Just to be devils advocate if I were fighting two foes and I put -15 against the critical does that apply to the critical regardless of who delivered it or to I specify just as if I was parrying against one and putting my shield against the other?

What kind of DB can I use in this way? Can I divide up a +10DB from a suit of magic armour? If I have a 20/20 shield can I put 10 of that DB against someone who I am not using the shield against?

This DB and OB application only applies to one specific attack, of course, and the DB must be eligible for using it against that attack.
Critical Hit results below 01 and above 100 are treated as 01 or 100, respectively.

With your group of players do you have anyone who is likely 'fudge' the numbers and be tempted to use their DB twice hoping you as GM have not made a record of what the DB split is?

Would you want to play with such people as you describe? I wouldn't. For me, RPG is a cooperative activity.

[talsharien]

I am afraid that I agree with Peter. I would simply assign my entire DB to resist criticals every round and ensure that my character maxed out Body Development for very high hit points. The game would then simply become an RPG that involves hit and damage.....

Think I have seen one of them somewhere........

[Thot]

I am afraid that I agree with Peter. I would simply assign my entire DB to resist criticals every round and ensure that my character maxed out Body Development for very high hit points. The game would then simply become an RPG that involves hit and damage.....
[...]

Unless your opponent puts an equivalent or higher amount of his OB towards his critical hit roll.

[Peter R]

Yes but total OB + total DB is likely to be more than your atackers OB alone so most people could use DB+parry to get to -97 and attack with whatever is left over.

I think you would need to play test this a lot to find out what the long term effect is. If over the long term criticals become irrelevent then is that what you expected? If it becomes a case of a lower level character can never beat a higher level foe then is that what you want? If it all just cancels our with people doing more B and C criticals than D and E criticals due to reduced OBs is that what you wanted?

My gut feeling is that higher OBs will become even more important and your players will always buy maximum ranks in combat skills, possibly to the expense of other roleplaying skills. That all depends on the way you hand out DPs.

[intothatdarkness]

Seems like over-complication to me...and over-complication which could easily be exploited by a certain type of player.

And considering that RM in its various forms has always insisted that melee is a chaotic exchange of blows instead of a discrete attack, I was never especially troubled by the randomness of crits. When it came time to deal with discrete attacks, I just added hit location and crit tables based on those locations (firearms).

[Thot]

Yes but total OB + total DB is likely to be more than your atackers OB alone so most people could use DB+parry to get to -97 and attack with whatever is left over.
[...]

Why is that different from RAW? A DB of "all your DB" plus "all your OB" is bound to result in zero damage, except under very lucky (and that is: totally random) circumstances.

[Peter R]

The difference is that by killing the critical roll and then using the remaining OB as parry you can not only make you opponents need an open ended rolls to hit you but also make the critical impotent.

In a more balanced fight where both attacker and defender are using similar amounts to adjust the criticals then you are back to the full range of random numbers.

In extremely mismatched fights you are swinging the odds even more in favour of the superior fighter. That is less random but one of the things that many people like about RM is that even the weakest foe is potentially dangerous.

Obviously I haven't tested your rule but I suspect that it will make the toughest creatures almost invulnerable, which I don't think was your intention.

[jdale]

It only takes a fairly small modifier to render all death results impossible. -1 is enough for an A critical, -15 is enough for all criticals. Bonuses carry almost as much weight. Splitting OB four ways (between attack, critical bonus, defense, and critical reduction) seems unnecessarily complex, but if it was possible I would suggest a 5:1 basis rather than 1:1.

Criticals feel very random but by making the result of an attack depend on two rolls instead of one, they actually reduce the chance of a lucky kill -- you need to get lucky on both the attack roll and the critical.

[Thot]

The difference is that by killing the critical roll and then using the remaining OB as parry you can not only make you opponents need an open ended rolls to hit you but also make the critical impotent.

That is not a viable tactic - you will then take concussion hits that you could have avoided alltogether, and will be slowly beaten into submission. Sure, you can prefer that under certain circumstances ("I'll hold them off, you guys advance toward the wizard's chamber!"), but by not attacking, you will loose in the end.

In a more balanced fight where both attacker and defender are using similar amounts to adjust the criticals then you are back to the full range of random numbers.

That is the intention - I can make NPC mooks who reliably die from a single competent blow now, and major climactic bosses who can only be defeated slowly or by good coordination among the players - and if the players wish, I can have a random fight of old style, too.

[Thot]

It only takes a fairly small modifier to render all death results impossible. -1 is enough for an A critical, -15 is enough for all criticals. Bonuses carry almost as much weight. Splitting OB four ways (between attack, critical bonus, defense, and critical reduction) seems unnecessarily complex, but if it was possible I would suggest a 5:1 basis rather than 1:1.

Criticals feel very random but by making the result of an attack depend on two rolls instead of one, they actually reduce the chance of a lucky kill -- you need to get lucky on both the attack roll and the critical.

I wonder if it was my presentation of the house rule that makes people forget how such slight modifiers to render all death results impossible can be easily negated by slight modifiers to make all death results a lot more likely.

Thanks for your opinions, guys. I'll test this (with the caveats you formulated in mind) and report back.

[Pazuzu]

If you want to get rid of the critical system, why play RoleMaster?

The Palladium system for example has a percentile based skill system along with dice based damage rolls and no critical charts.

[Peter R]

If you want to get rid of the critical system, why play RoleMaster?

The Palladium system for example has a percentile based skill system along with dice based damage rolls and no critical charts.

He doesn't want to get rid of it just make it less random.

I can appreciate what he means. I don't agree with his method but that is pure opinion. My rule for Breaking 150 is that I add 1 to the critical roll for every 10 over 150 of the final attack roll. So in a way I am doing exactly what Thot is aiming for. In my game massive attacks are more likely to do better criticals. I never really liked rolling 300+ on the attack and then getting an 02 on the critical. With my rule that would be a 17 which is still not great but better than an 02. Of course with +15, in this case, on the critical roll you are much more likely to do serious damage.

I chose that option as it required the minimum of work for me as GM and it was very transparent for the players. I don't want to make extra critical rolls, I don't want to calculate added hits of damage.

[Witchking20k]

I use a separate critical table for the PCs; which I have removed almost all of the instant kill results from.  I use the MERP style single column with mods table so, it wasn't difficult to cut/paste and alter the core crit tables.

[Peter R]

The criticals in the combat companion are the same, 1 to 120 with mods. I made my own copies and changed the descriptive extra to add variety as the same critical results come up too often.

[Witchking20k]

I added more results for foes.  I think the crits are 15% apart- and I squeezed them to 10% and added more low-impact crits that just do extra hits or temporary penalties.