Me and my group have played 8 sessions now and one thing that has really been bumming me out is the minimal impact that criticals have on fights against "no-name" enemies.

In my opinion criticals work fine against henchmen and big baddies (the "boss monsters" that are supposed to be tough as nails) but they have little impact on nameless enemies that aren't henchmen. I'd like critical results to have more impact on the nameless enemies (Gor beastmen, Orcs etc.) that aren't henchmen and not big baddies. I'll give you an example on how it can be in-game when this problem comes up:

Trent the Gambler is fighting for his life against a Gor beastman. His low strength (Str 2) means he is having a tough time hitting the enemy and when he does he is only causing minimal damage. When he finally manages to roll a Sigmar's Comet result on the Expertise die (which he bought as a non-career advancement) on his Weapon Skill roll he shouts out: "Hahah! The fight has turned on you spawn of Chaos!". The GM then draws the 2 wounds he has managed to inflict and flips one over to reveal the critical wound "Minor Nuisance - Add a misfortune die to Fellowship checks", a wound that does nothing in this combat encounter. On the next round of combat Thyrus the Mercenary comes swinging his Halberd against the beastman and slays him without any criticals, just his high strength and great weapon damage. Now poor Trent is feeling useless since his expensively bought expertise die hardly does anything since it takes alot of criticals to kill an average opponent.

This is where my house rule suggestion comes in to make criticals against "no-name" enemies more effective:

Whenever an attack against a non-henchman "no-name" enemy causes a critical, roll one misfortune die. If that die shows a bane result that enemy instantly dies. If the enemy doesn't die instantly he gains the critical result as normal. Multiple critical results means you roll multiple misfortune dice.

I haven't playtested this yet but I think this gives atleast a small chance (1/6 per critical result) to kill an enemy even for low strength PC:s. This makes critical results worthwhile and not just a speed-bump against enemies that most often die from normal wounds long before they acquire enough criticals to actually die from them.

Please tell me what you think about this.

As far as the rule goes, I don't see any problem with it. It's not going to break the game by any means, use it if you want.

But looking at the overall goal which is to make criticals more dangerous to end the fight faster. Then I see some missed opportunities here. In this case. Have the beastmen grab the tatters of his face (perhaps make a willpower roll for him) and run away crying. Then later on have him secretly plotting revenge on the PC for ruining his face - his beautiful face - and come back as a named villain later on a mission of revenge.

Having the beastmen run away satisfies the desired result of ending the fight faster and giving meaning to that critical. It also validates the players purchase by having something cool happen as a direct result. The situation as a whole adds some good entertainment for the evening and it gives the GM a plot point he can use later on, preferably once the PC's have forgotten all about it. You could have the Beastman go around stocking people and disfiguring them in the same way he was. Then escalate his antics to outlaying farmlands all with a goal of sending a message to the PC and forcing a confrontation. Perhaps he forms his own tribe and part of the initiation into the tribe is a similar facial disfigurement.

All of that (to me at least) seems like a much more entertaining way to deal with a crit then to just provide a 1 in 6 chance of having it kill some nameless guy.

Kryyst said:

I agree completely. But to me the problem isn't with narrating critical hits (I've had very entertaining criticals happening to enemies, some have even survived with plenty of disfigurement and revenge lust), which i think is awesome. But I miss the joy of a good critical hit that saves the day.

From a player's standpoint pretty much any critical wound that doesn't result in additional wounds or hinderment of the enemy during combat is a dud and a disappointment. The player's want to feel awesome and I think giving them a one in six chance of their expertise (Sigmar's comets) and luck (Lots of boons) paying off does that pretty well. The house rule could ofcourse be modified to not instanly kill the enemy but instead just take the enemy out of the battle somehow, and then it's up to the GM to narrate the situation that arises.

Sometimes the GM might like the idea of a Bandit with the critical wound "Aches and Pains" returning later to have his revenge on the PCs, other times he might just rule that the "Sickening Blow" that the Orc got simply killed him outright instead of counting as an extra point of stress for the poor creature that doesn't even acquire stress tokens.

And most of all I think I like the idea of rolling a die to see if a small skull comes up so I can tell the player that he did the right choice by choosing a critical result instead of another result such as regaining fatigue.

If the critical doesn't impact on the combat significantly, then use it in the same way it would be used aganist henchmen. i.e. use the severity level as extra wounds, narrating as needed.

Isn't there a chance with your rule that your regular baddies are going to quicker than henchmen? Unless you don't see that as an issue?

pumpkin said:

For me that isn't really an issue since henchmen already do what they are supposed to do (i.e. they die easily, sometimes entire groups in a single attack). Regular enemies are really tough compared to them, so I like the idea of letting a single die (per critical wound that is) be master of their fate. Sometimes this might lead to a regular enemy dropping after a single attack, but that won't happen with such regularity (1/6:th of every critical inflicted) to be a huge problem, at least for me.