I don't get it, a character winds up with his two handed sword and cleaves the monster nearly in two with a vicious blow with the devestating critical wound effect of "add one [W] to all charm checks..."
Does this strike some of you as anti-climatic? For henchmen it is fine as you can just convert the severity of the wound to extra wounds. However for actual plot enemies, it just doesn't make sense.
How are other people dealing with this?
C
There are some crits that won't have direct impact on a combat encounter like those that let you recover more slowly after an encounter is over, but there are plenty that do have a direct impact as well, causing you to take stress, fatigue, add misfortune dice, reduce the damage of your attacks, etc. While it can seem anti-climatic if the crit results in misfortune dice to Fel tests in a combat encounter, remember that not all combats should be until the opponent is utterly defeated either. A smart NPC runs away to fight another day and will be more memorable when he shows up the next time still suffering from a lingering critical wound a PC dealt to him during a prior encounter.
It is a little anti climactic, I am considering using the severity as the number of wounds it represents on all monsters rather than just henchmen.
They're monsters. They're not going to be alive long enough for the critical wound to matter anyway, so why worry about it? Use the name of the card to roleplay up the horrible wound the PC has done, and move on.
I mean, even if the critical wound was 'add 2 <P> to each attack roll', that's only going to matter on a few more rolls anyway.
You see, the glass is half full!
In that case I would have changed my description from "Awesome! You cleave the beastman in two, spilling blood, guts and vomit everywhere!" Into something like: "Your blow cleanly chops off one of it's horns, removes the side of it's face (leaving a bloody ruin) and taking off it's cheek, exposing a row of rotten teeth and a dangling tongue."
Make the beastman come back as a particularly hideous foe later on. It could even cause FEAR.
EDIT: I had this exact same problem with the Random Critical Effects charts in Dark Heresy and WFRP 2nd ed. As GM, it is within my power to describe a killing blow in any way I please.
Chipacabra said:
They're monsters. They're not going to be alive long enough for the critical wound to matter anyway, so why worry about it? Use the name of the card to roleplay up the horrible wound the PC has done, and move on.
I mean, even if the critical wound was 'add 2 <P> to each attack roll', that's only going to matter on a few more rolls anyway.
And thats kind of the problem, criticals just don't seem to matter on monsters - when you spend boons or comets to activate the critical it just doesn't seem to reward the players - now on the other hand players might only pick up 1 or 2 criticals and they are in some real trouble. I want my player to feel good when he crits a beastman, not "oh wow that was lame".
Kaptain O said:
I am considering using the severity as the number of wounds it represents on all monsters rather than just henchmen.
That's what I do, unless the crit desc inspires something else.
How about, if the result doesn't directly affect combat the crit defaults to severity rating = extra wounds? If the crit does have a combat oriented effect, then you use it. I think crits can get too powerful if you can convert all of the m to extra wounds.
Try it out for a session - see if it becomes a problem, that's what I'm going to do.
I agree with both sides of the coin on this one. Some of the crits seem weak, especially if you die because of 2 flesh wounds, a twisted ankle and a sprained back. All GMs also understand that they can make a fitting description and change it if they want. Warhammer has always had colourful, deadly crit tables; this version does not have any of the cloven arms, or heads flying d6 feet, or "by chance" severing a major artery. All the crits are non-fatal with an implied "GM should make a suitable description."
I'm OK with making my own descriptions, but one thing I sorely miss is Ulric's Fury and the grimness of a lowly Goblin having a chance to take out a character at full health with a lucky dagger strike. Or even the vagary of rolling a nice crunchy hit with your great weapon, but then rolling a 1 on damage and you only nicked your opponent.
I was thinking of the following:
Lose the static damage values for weapons and port in the damage modifiers from 1st edition (like +2 for a great weapon).
Damage = Strength + # of successes rolled (not just uncanceled ones)
A Sigmar's Comet can still trigger a crit from the weapon, but CR on the weapon now indicates the number of boons required to cause double damage.
But that's just me..
Ok, I am planning on allowing players to "burn" a Fortune Point, like 1st and 2nd Ed Fate Points to save them from death. You lose it permanently, but live by some miraculous event and have the chance to fight another day.
Having worked in the Medical Industry, you would be amazed at how a simple "Non-threatening" injury can still cause someone to go into shock and die from it.
If the crit doesn't apply to combat around here, I just add the severity in misfortune dice to the next attack made by the monster. It doesn't kill the monster early then, it just give the heroes a break for a round.
Sinister said:
If the crit doesn't apply to combat around here, I just add the severity in misfortune dice to the next attack made by the monster. It doesn't kill the monster early then, it just give the heroes a break for a round.
This is exactly how I do it too!
HedgeWizard said:
Sinister said:
If the crit doesn't apply to combat around here, I just add the severity in misfortune dice to the next attack made by the monster. It doesn't kill the monster early then, it just give the heroes a break for a round.
This is exactly how I do it too!
Hedge,
From all the stuff we do alike on house rules, I'm begining to think we are related. That or insane minds think alike.
Crits that seem weak, ie, adding a little fatigue here, a little stress here, will add up and help kill the monster.
Crits that have a combat effect can actually turn the tables completely ! Giving the PCs a slight advantage that will pay off in the end. I wouldn't underestimate those seemingly weak crits.
This said, I miss UF too. There must be a way to introduce exploding damage in V3... Any ideas ?
Maybe exploding damage arrives when the "bad dice" turn up with nothing ? All blanks ? (Is that possible ? Likely ?)
Another way to go around it would be to rule that as soon as you suffer one more crit than your thoughness rating, you're a goner, even if you have wounds left. Add to that that when you roll a Comet, you can trigger the weapons crit and then reroll the die, another Comet ? another Crit, reroll, etc... So a lucky streak could kill off anyone.
But then you need Fate points to aleviate the lethalness. Fate points are great. When players use them, they **** in their pants. Become more cautious. They internalize the true danger of combat in a way no other mechanic achieves.
Jericho said:
Maybe exploding damage arrives when the "bad dice" turn up with nothing ? All blanks ? (Is that possible ? Likely ?)
Another way to go around it would be to rule that as soon as you suffer one more crit than your thoughness rating, you're a goner, even if you have wounds left. Add to that that when you roll a Comet, you can trigger the weapons crit and then reroll the die, another Comet ? another Crit, reroll, etc... So a lucky streak could kill off anyone.
But then you need Fate points to aleviate the lethalness. Fate points are great. When players use them, they **** in their pants. Become more cautious. They internalize the true danger of combat in a way no other mechanic achieves.
These are moves in the right direction for that. I was working on some extensive (and invasive) changes to make it so a goblin with a dagger could get in a lucky strike and kill a PC again, but it's very hard to make the custom dice play that way.
The more I look through my 1st edition stuff the more I miss the lethality which was part of the grim and perilous games from which my friends drew such great reminiscent stories. I was thinking about the new rules for healing a realised that it would be possible for someone that suffered 7 wounds and a RAWR! MANGLED LIMB!!!!! crit, could heal in one day. 4 back from Toughness automatically and then an Average (2d) Resilience check could easily give them the successes and boons they need to heal that RAWR! MANGLED LIMB!!!!! I mean.. one night's rest? Hideous scar was the same way. Scars are pretty permanent; especially hideous ones. How does that heal overnight?
I think I'll be breaking out 1st edition for my friends this Tuesday for a run and see if it stirs the old adrenaline. Some of them have never played it.
I love the custom dice and stress and fatigue. Combat is just missing the knife in the dark danger for me. I'll try to work something into the system for my own happiness. A single stab wound to the leg should be able to bleed out or fester and kill the character. It's a grim and perilous world.
It seems, reading through the Tome of Adventure and what not, that the designers of the system think Critical Damage is far worse than it actually is. For example, the Rat Ogre gets a recharge 3 or 4 attack that does nothing but inflict one critical wound, when it's base attack does 13 or 14 points of damage. That's idiotic. Why would a Rat Ogre, or any creature irregardless of its intelligence, give up doing massive amounts of damage to inflict just 1 point of damage that likely has no effect beyond adding a misfortune die to their enemies fellowship checks? It defies reason. If the Critical Damage was actually worse than the 13 points of normal damage I could understand, but it doesn't come close - not even by half, or a third for that matter.
When I first looked at the game, I thought the severity rating was how many additional points of damage a critical wound does, and I think I'm going to stick with that.
Vaeron said:
It seems, reading through the Tome of Adventure and what not, that the designers of the system think Critical Damage is far worse than it actually is. For example, the Rat Ogre gets a recharge 3 or 4 attack that does nothing but inflict one critical wound, when it's base attack does 13 or 14 points of damage. That's idiotic. Why would a Rat Ogre, or any creature irregardless of its intelligence, give up doing massive amounts of damage to inflict just 1 point of damage that likely has no effect beyond adding a misfortune die to their enemies fellowship checks? It defies reason. If the Critical Damage was actually worse than the 13 points of normal damage I could understand, but it doesn't come close - not even by half, or a third for that matter.
When I first looked at the game, I thought the severity rating was how many additional points of damage a critical wound does, and I think I'm going to stick with that.
When the attack says "automatically inflicts 1 critical wound" or "The attack does critical damage" that means the attack does normal damage of which one is automatically turned into a critical wound.
42! said:
When the attack says "automatically inflicts 1 critical wound" or "The attack does critical damage" that means the attack does normal damage of which one is automatically turned into a critical wound.
That's what "inflicts +1 critical wounds" or "inflicts critical damage" means. But you must be right, the + sign might just be missing there. That makes much more sense. It seemed like an incredibly lame ability.
An individual critical isn't immediately deadly to PCs, but we've found that starting characters with a 3 or 4 T are not able to generate enough successes on a 2d Resilience check to remove a severity 2 or 3 crit, so they stay with you. Remember that you are rolling Characteristic dice only for these checks since they occur outside of encounters where Stance dice don't apply. Each <P> die has two sides with challenges and two sides with double challenges. So you may need to roll 5 or six successes to remove one sev 2 crit. A successful First Aid check helps by (potentially) adding a Fortune die or two, but again, it's harder than you may think to generate a ton of successes on a 2d check and that's without taking into account that as circumstances dictate, the GM may be adding Misfortune dice to the roll if the conditions are poor. Accumulating crits to near T puts you in the position where even just being knocked unconscious for normal wounds can kill you since a normal wound always gets converted to a crit when you are knocked out. With no Fate Points to save you, continuing to get into combat encounters without seeking long-term care (which reduces the difficulty of the Resilience check), will be fatal. I think crits for PCs are worse than some people may be giving them credit for just by reading the rules.
Now I agree that it doesn't translate as well to opponents if you run all your combats until all opponents are defeated (or the PCs are!). However, most opponents are smart enough or cowardly enough to break and run before they are all dead. Assuming your PCs aren't bloodthirsty individuals that insist on chasing down and slaying fleeing opponents, you can have them return later sporting their previous earned crits, which may make for a more memorable opponent than a fresh foe every time.
mac40k said:
I think crits for PCs are worse than some people may be giving them credit for just by reading the rules.
My perceptions are all based on actually playing the game.
I would like to read (or hear, via mp3) a running 3rd edition game to see how it goes for others.
Sinister said:
HedgeWizard said:
Sinister said:
If the crit doesn't apply to combat around here, I just add the severity in misfortune dice to the next attack made by the monster. It doesn't kill the monster early then, it just give the heroes a break for a round.
This is exactly how I do it too!
Hedge,
From all the stuff we do alike on house rules, I'm begining to think we are related. That or insane minds think alike.
Brutha's from another mutha I suppose... Or great minds think alike!
Mordenthral said:
mac40k said:
I think crits for PCs are worse than some people may be giving them credit for just by reading the rules.
My perceptions are all based on actually playing the game.
I would like to read (or hear, via mp3) a running 3rd edition game to see how it goes for others.
Hmm, so is mine, although I'll admit to not having a ton of actual play experience yet. However, I did just make 20 rolls with the online dice roller app for T 3 and got only 1 result that could have healed a sev 2 crit (2 successes) and 1 that could have healed a sev 3 (3 successes). With 4 Characteristic dice that went up to 4 sev 2 and 3 sev 3 crits that could have been healed out of 20 rolls. Now that's still not a very large sample size and somebody with better math skills than me can probably work out the probabilities, but I now see you are thinking of house ruling it to be even harder to cure crits. Even though I think the probability is already low, it seems like you just don't like the idea of there being any possibility of healing a crit overnight. I've put my 2 cents in over in that thread about how to address it.
I have also found criticals lame when applied to monsters.
Maybe there should be completely different decks for criticals, from less severe to nasty? Of course GM can sort them by context and effect so you don't get those fellowship negs for monsters?
As GM, I have peeked a few criticals in advance and choose the most appropriate.
mac40k said:
mac40k said:
Hmm, so is mine, although I'll admit to not having a ton of actual play experience yet. However, I did just make 20 rolls with the online dice roller app for T 3 and got only 1 result that could have healed a sev 2 crit (2 successes) and 1 that could have healed a sev 3 (3 successes). With 4 Characteristic dice that went up to 4 sev 2 and 3 sev 3 crits that could have been healed out of 20 rolls. Now that's still not a very large sample size and somebody with better math skills than me can probably work out the probabilities, but I now see you are thinking of house ruling it to be even harder to cure crits. Even though I think the probability is already low, it seems like you just don't like the idea of there being any possibility of healing a crit overnight. I've put my 2 cents in over in that thread about how to address it.
Some probabilities:
3 stat and 2 challenge dice:
4 stat and 2 challenge dice:
Those were simple enough to calculate manually, but I wrote a program based on Sunatet's dice roller that can generate probabilities for any dice combination. Feel free to play around with it: