Topic: Mitigating the whiff-effect

[intothatdarkness]

I've had far too many players saved by a low E crit roll to be in favor of anything that ensures an E crit will always be high damage. Since RM has NO fate mechanism, I always viewed this as the game's nod in that direction.[...]

Seems like another vote for some kind of fate point?

I use them in my own system. And have for several years now.

[brole]

Seems like another vote for some kind of fate point?

It does look like the built in mechanic for this type of thing (its from Companion VII) and has flexible use.

A possible use for the optional Luck stat from RM2 III would be its modifier is added to the (fate) re-roll.

I've put a fate point allocation into my character sheet where higher stat potentials = lower fate points and lower stat potentials = higher fate points.
This is a kind of balancing factor so that characters weak in stats have a strength through more available fate re-rolls.

[Thot]

Actually I have come to the conclusion that a group-wide common Fate Point pool might work best. Fate Points are awarded to the group and can only be spent by a given character if all the present players agree.

[Peter R]

I would say that those +3 hit E criticals add more to the combat than they detract.

I would not change them.

The only modification I have used to the critical roll is breaking 150. I don't add any additional hits for very high attack rolls but I do add 1/10th of the net attack roll to be added to the critical roll.

[Hurin]

Oh, if we're talking breaking 150 as part of mitigating the whiff effect, then I do what one of the Companions I think suggested: whatever you roll over 150 (175 in RMU) is considered to be another attack, and we look it up on the chart. So if you rolled a 250, that would be max out on first attack and 100 on second attack.

[Ginger McMurray]

Oh, if we're talking breaking 150 as part of mitigating the whiff effect, then I do what one of the Companions I think suggested: whatever you roll over 150 (175 in RMU) is considered to be another attack, and we look it up on the chart. So if you rolled a 250, that would be max out on first attack and 100 on second attack.

We did that, too. It doesn't come up often but when it does, it's bad ass.

[Spectre771]

Oh, if we're talking breaking 150 as part of mitigating the whiff effect, then I do what one of the Companions I think suggested: whatever you roll over 150 (175 in RMU) is considered to be another attack, and we look it up on the chart. So if you rolled a 250, that would be max out on first attack and 100 on second attack.

We've always done that too.  The Wrap Around effect.  Sometimes there was enough leftover to do additional damage, maybe another crit.

[Peter R]

Oh, if we're talking breaking 150 as part of mitigating the whiff effect, then I do what one of the Companions I think suggested: whatever you roll over 150 (175 in RMU) is considered to be another attack, and we look it up on the chart. So if you rolled a 250, that would be max out on first attack and 100 on second attack.

We've always done that too.  The Wrap Around effect.  Sometimes there was enough leftover to do additional damage, maybe another crit.

I am just too lazy to look up a second attack and second criticals. The critical mod is fractionally faster and you had made a final attack roll of 300+, then rolling an 03 for your critical is a bit of an anti-climax, which is the whiff effect.

[DeathFromAbove]

The problem apply to all criticals.

We are now thinking of only the max you can obtain on a table, but what about the value just before that? I.e. 174 or 173?

Fundamentally, the way criticals are designed is not taking into consideration the attack roll. They are disjointed.

Simple solution:
add the concussion hit to the critical roll. This also make sense as high concussion, can represent a more dangerous hit overall.

This would also make a better solution rather than adding composite criticals (F, G, ...) that have never been something elegant, cumbersome, slow and not immune to roll low on them anyway.

Lethality goes up, but this could be an opportunity to review the criticals and make them something more progressive.
There is a lot of duplicates across the A-E tables, lethality wise, that could be improved.

[jdale]

The critical severity is already influenced by the number of concussion hits delivered (with some modifications for types of attacks that tend to do low hits, e.g. Grapple). So when you deal a lot of damage, you're already getting a better crit severity; adding a bonus to the crit roll on top of that is stacking up the bonuses in a redundant way that will magnify those differenes.

[Ecthelion]

But it also happens in RoleMaster when you score a critical hit, only to then find that you roll a very bad result for the critical, reducing this experience of success into this "hmpf". For example, when you score an E critical, but then only roll a 03 on your crit roll. Rather anticlimactic, isn't it.

Now, you might argue that this also is intended and needs to be in the game. That's a perfectly valid way to look at it. But suppose you wanted to lessen the impact a bit... I'd like to collect and discuss ideas on what to do to achieve this.

• Simply always roll 2D100 when attacking, one for the attack, the other for a possible crit (or fumble); thus, you can immediately see if your critical is worth looking forward to or not.
• Use the same die roll for the attack roll AND the critical. So if you roll high, you will always have a meaningful critical hit, while if you roll low, no matter how skilled you are, you immediately know it's not going to end the fight.

Any other ideas? Comments why these ideas wouldn't work for you or your group?

Personally I think that it's not a flaw in the system that you can have a very low critical roll, resulting in only a few concussion hits, after a very good attack result, but it's rather a feature that I'd like to keep in the game. Nevertheless, since you asked for ideas, I could imagine the critical tables to undergo some changes for the very low results (1-20 or so) in a way that a critical will always results in some damage (so that an A-crit of 01-05 results at least in 1 hit). Higher criticals should then be offering some more noticable impact. So an E-critical of 01-05 might typically result in a stun result, a C-critical in a must parry result or so. Something like this would keep the important part for me, which is that the low critical results don't cripple the opponent that much that he is (almost) doomed to die in the next rounds - which I like very much for PCs  . At the same time - at least for me - it seems a bit more that these "you have achieved close to nothing with your critical roll" result.

Just my 2 cents

[Ginger McMurray]

Something like this would keep the important part for me, which is that the low critical results don't cripple the opponent that much that he is (almost) doomed to die in the next rounds - which I like very much for PCs  .

This is the big part. Anything you do to make critical hits more dangerous will disproportionately harm the PCs. They are subjected to vastly more critical hits than any one enemy ever will be.

[KPadish]

I like the ups and downs of Rolemaster combat.  The change of expressions when a character does an ineffective E Crit or an awesome B Tiny Animal.  It helps make the game great.  I will use Fate (group) points to mitigate player death but that happens rarely as there's always a healer around who can help in most situations.  I have never had any complaints from the players and they often joke afterwards or tease each other about some very memorable hits and misses.