Space Combat: Idiots guide to critical hits....

By CaptainStabby, in Rogue Trader Rules Questions

Can someone explain this to me in short sentences with small words? Cause... based on the 2 paragraphs on pg221 of the core book I ah, dont get it.

I get how to determine that a crit has occured, that makes sense but how does one progress down the chart?

Hit and run is a d5, cool got that.

Murder Servitors are pick 1-6, cool got that.

What about a simple woohoo I rolled a crit with my lance? a D10?, then how to I get 11? or is it like the regular critical tables where you progress down it each time you score a crit?

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Cheers folks.

You've got it all pretty much correct, save that standard Critical Hits, with the exception of specific weapons that alter the rules, will only ever do 1d5 on the crit chart. When a ship loses all of its Hull Integrity and becomes Crippled, any damage that gets past its armour is dealt on the Critical Table. Ship goes 5 over critical, fires are breaking out on board. Ship goes ten over, and BOOM.

Ok, cool thats kinda what I expected but I couldnt find anything that actually spelled it out.

Cheers sir!

Errant said:

Ship goes ten over, and BOOM.

Actually, Critical Damage for ships it's not accumulative. The way I read the text, if you want to completelly destroy a ship you need a single hit which does 11+ damage over Armour while the target ship is Crippled (this makes Lances good weapons to deal the finishing blow). This way the players also have more chances of recovering a defeated enemy ship instead of destroying it (unless you are using the NPC Ship rules for faster space combat).

Example, a Crippled Ship starts getting the following damage over armour:

Round 1: gets 5 points of Critical Damage. Check the 5 entry on the chart.

Round 2: gets 7 points of Critical Damage more. Check the 7 entry on the chart (you don't add this 7 with the previous 5 pints of damage).

Round 3: gets 14 more points of Critical Damage. KA-BOOM (or maybe, if you are lucky, it's hulker and get to loot something).

Oh, right. Ten is hulked. My bad, that's what I get for not looking at the crit charts while I type

I didn't think of it that way Maese, but it makes sense. I'll introduce that and run with it.

Larkin said:

I didn't think of it that way Maese, but it makes sense. I'll introduce that and run with it.

I'm glad to help! =D

I also think Maese is right. It isn't very well explained in the book. . An example would have helped enormously.

Crippled Ships
When a ship reaches 0 Hull Integrity, it becomes Crippled. Apply a –10 penalty to its Manoeuvrability and Detection, and reduce its Speed to half. In addition, reduce the strength of all weapon Components by half (round up). A ship will remain Crippled (and continue to suffer these effects) until it has regained at least 1 Hull Integrity. When a Crippled ship takes damage past its Armour, it takes a Critical Hit. Compare the value of the damage that exceeded the Armour to the Critical Hit chart. The ship suffers this Critical Hit result.

Seems pretty obvious to me?