Modified Critical Hit System

[princelian]

I've been following the "How Deadly Is T20?" thread and the various combat house rules threads, and it got me to thinking - which is, in and of itself, sometimes a dangerous thing.

I like the game mechanic of die reduction followed by damage reduction for armor. It means that someone in modern armor being shot with modern weapons has a fair-to-good chance of not dying on a single shot; this mirrors real life, and everything's okay.

Until you get a critical hit, that is. For many weapons, even on single fire, a critical means "generate a new character." Autofire (for increased damage) will nearly guarantee a visit to the Prior History section of the rulebook. And while the Prior History system is another favorite part of T20 for me, I don't want to spend all my time there.

My proposal is that critical hits should be something exceptional (especially when accomplished by the PCs) and still something to dread (when accomplished by the NPCs) but shouldn't be QUITE so awful as they are in the rules as written (RaW).

How to do this? Critical hits do their normal multiple for Stamina damage. That doesn't change, and represents the high degree of shock one might feel upon being lasered in the head. This could kill you outright anyhow (6d20 x 2 is going to be a lot of Stamina even for a mid-to-high-level Barbarian), but is more likely to knock you out.

For Lifeblood, however, a critical hit leaves one more die per multiplier during armor reduction. What's that mean, exactly? Here's three examples:

Weapon A is a 20/x2 critical weapon, meaning it threatens on a natural 20 and does double damage. It does 2d8 damage. On a normal hit against AR 4 armor, it will reduce the dice to 1d8 (the highest) and the remaining AR will reduce the damage by 3. On a critical hit, however, the die reduction is reduced by 1 (because the extra damage is 1x) and it will do 2d8 and reduce the damage by 4.

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• Under the normal system, Weapon A does 4d8 on a critical hit ignoring armor, which is pretty much dead (mean 18 Lifeblood).</font>

Weapon B is a 19-20/x2 weapon that does 2d10 and is firing burst fire for +1d10 more. On a normal hit against AR 6, the weapon does 1d10 (the highest) minus 4 for the remaining AR. On a critical hit, once again, one additional die is left during the die-reduction step, leaving a total of two dice for 2d10 (the highest two dice) minus 5 for the remaining AR. This is probably going to still kill the average [10 Con] character, but probably leaves a heroic PC alive-and-coughing-up-blood.

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• Under the normal system, Weapon B would do 6d10 with no armor, mean 33 points of Lifeblood.</font>

Weapon C is 20/x3 and does 3d12. On a normal hit against AR 10 (laser vs reflec, say), the weapon will do 1d12 (the highest) minus 8, so 1 or 2 points probably past armor. On a critical hit, because the weapon has a higher critical multiplier, the AR reduces no dice, and the weapon does a total of 3d12-10 damage. This could be bad, but hey, it's a nasty weapon on a critical hit, and it could do 0 if the firing character rolls poorly.

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• Under the normal system, this hit is 9d12 no armor, and vaporizes even those big rhino things (mean 58.5 Lifeblood).</font>

It doesn't increase complexity an awful lot, but it does limit the carnage (and therefore random PC annihilation) somewhat.

Some weapons, under this system, remain pretty horrific, such as an FGMP-14, for example. You don't want to be hit by one of those, but you certainly don't want to be critically hit by one of those - 2d20 is a bad number to be facing....

 

[mike wightman]

I've been toying with critical hits roll for the extra damage, but armour still reduces the effect of the hit.

I've also used a reflex save to halve the lifeblood damage from a hit.

Stamina damage doesn't carry over to lifeblood either in my house rules, it gives fatigue levels instead.

 

[chrisr]

why not use a 2d10 system instead of d20? you'll get less critical threats, therefore less criticals.

 

[mike wightman]

That depends upon how you translate the critical threat to the 2d10 system.

If you want to keep the 5% critical threat of a natural 20, then your critical numbers on 2d10 become 18, 19 or 20 on 2d10 (slightly higher chance of a critical, 6%).
A weapon that threatens a critical hit on a 19 under d20 (10% chance) becomes a natural roll of 17+ on 2d10.

If you keep 20 as the critical threat then you reduce it to a 1% chance under 2d10.

 

[chrisr]

I prefer to reduce the chances of a critical. Using a 2d10 system rather than d20 reduces the odds of more extreme results.

The critical hit system of d20 is probably my biggest problem with the whole system. Very quickly the right feats and weapon combinations can make for game breaking characters.

Using a 2d10 method you can 'calm' combat down a little, without complicated changes to the rule system.

Another option, change the critical effect from multiplying damage caused, to a hit location and specific effect. This can be as gory and bloody as you want. Anything from "you can no longer use your right arm, you're at -2 on all tasks that require its use." to "you realise in horror that your arm is no longer attached to your body, make a will save to avoid passing out."

 

[mike wightman]

I'm not convinced that a critical hit system is needed in T20 at all

Lifeblood damage is effectively "critical".

I wonder how it would play out if critical hits were dropped completely?

 

[jasper]

To make critcs less deadly. How about the triple critc option?

 

[princelian]

Eliminating critical hits would tend to have the effect of rendering characters in the right sort of armor invulnerable to common weapons.

It also has the effect of greatly lengthening the life expectancy of PCs, because of the following axiom:

A deadlier combat system is worse for the players because their characters will be attacked far more often than any given antagonist. Or looked at another way: critical hits against the NPCs are fun for the players, but have no real effect on the GM's rogues' gallery. The GM, if three of his important ruffians get vaporized by three lucky shots, can have three more ruffians appear. The players don't generally have this option (unless you're playing multiple characters, such as in the Arrival Vengeance campaign).

 

[Plankowner]

Originally posted by princelian:
Eliminating critical hits would tend to have the effect of rendering characters in the right sort of armor invulnerable to common weapons.
(snip)

Isn't that realistic though? Do you really think that someone with a pocket knife is EVER going to hurt someone is full Battle Dress? Damage the armor maybe, but not the person inside. Under the T20 rules, 5% of the time, that knife will get through something designed to take laser hits and operate in a complete vacuum with High Radiation Levels. That isn't very realistic either. So which version of Unrealistic do you prefer?

 

[archhealer]

I changed the critical hit (and critical success) option as follows:

A critical success only occurs when the roll succeeds by more than 20.

Now, that doesn't happen all that often, however, I allow my players when rolling a natural 20 (19 for some weapons, etc.) to roll another D20 and add whatever they roll to the first roll. If the next roll is also a 'critical', they reroll and add again.

20 points over, crit. I like it. Crits don't happen quite as often, and it allows for the occasional really unlikely event to occur.

 

[Rover]

I'm just restarting a campaign and I think I will allow crits to occur as per the game rules, but rather than ignoring the AR completely, it will drop by half rounded in the players favour.

 

[princelian]

Another possible modification would be to have AR apply to critical damage. The critical will do a lot of Stamina damage, and will do significantly more damage against lightly-armored opponents. Against armored opponents, the critical will do a few more points of Lifeblood.

Two examples:
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• ACR firing single-shot (2d8) against an AR 2 opponent gets a critical hit. The foe takes 4d8 Stamina and 2d8 Lifeblood.</font>
• Same guy shoots an AR 6 opponent and critically hits him, too. This foe takes 4d8 Stamina and 1d8-3 Lifeblood.</font>

This makes armor very important for Lifeblood, especially a critical hit.

BTW, does anyone know how autofire and critical hits works? Are only the "base" weapon dice increased, or does a 5d8 ACR burst jump to 10d8?

 

[veltyen]

BTW, does anyone know how autofire and critical hits works? Are only the "base" weapon dice increased, or does a 5d8 ACR burst jump to 10d8?

I don't know if it is clarified anywhere but I've been playing it as no. The main effect from a crit is the ignore armor aspect, rather then the extra dice or two.

Gauss = 2d12 => +3 burst = 5d12 => crit = 7d12

 

[Rover]

We have always played it the other way round. Double all the dice. Garunteeded Kill.

I think your way is better.

 

[archhealer]

Originally posted by Rover:
We have always played it the other way round. Double all the dice. Garunteeded Kill.

I think your way is better.

I agree. Not only because in most D20 systems, only the base damage is multiplied on crits, and I consider the extra dice of damage to be a damage bonus, but because multiplying the extra damage would imply that every single bullet managed to strike in a particularly vulnerable spot... not very likely.

 

[princelian]

So for the gauss rifle example, 7d12 against cloth armor (AR 6), if you counted AR against the critical burst, you'd take 1d12 against your Lifeblood. (The 7d12 against your Sta is likely to hurt, too, of course.)

That's probably a bit on the low side, even for pretty good armor. A critical hit from a gauss rifle should give pause even to someone in battle dress. I guess I'll keep looking for a better way to handle critical hits.

(If I haven't been clear, I don't like the [totally] ignore armor aspect...)

 

[mike wightman]

Don't forget that the dice are removed from lowest to highest.

So that 1d12 remaining damage is going to be the highest number rolled on seven dice. Chances are you are going to get a 10 or 11.

7d12 averages 43 points - so there may be some stamina damage spillover to lifeblood as well.

 

[veltyen]

Battledress (as has been discussed many times) is too tough for normal weapons to even scratch, unless you ignore armor on a critical.

Under the base rules:
5d12 gauss rifle burst against standard battledress (AR10) does a paltry d12-11, every 12 hits you do a single point of damage to its 18 SI. A large rifle company opening concentrated fire onto a single battledress trooper may be able to take it down before the return fire cuts it to platoon sized.

With criticals that 7d12 does 2d12 against the battledress, enough to kill it (ignoring armor) with a single burst. If a critical does not ignore armor the burst is back to d12-9 (average 1/2 a point).

Against TL15 AR15 battledress the gauss rifle may as well be a bb gun, except on criticals (that ignore armor).

When tinkering with variant weapon rules, the critical effect was the important difference between rapidfire/multibarrel weapons and heavy weapons. A very heavy gauss rifle (4d12 base damage) and a quad barrel gauss rifle (4d12 base damage) are very similar weapons with two minor differences. The multibarrel weapon uses the same logistics chain as the normal gauss rifle, but only adds +2d on a critical. The very heavy gauss rifle uses a completely different round (a much bigger one obviously) but criticals are 8d12 before burst modifiers.

The battledress problem commonly gets fixed by dropping scaling for BD to 2 rather then 5, and allowing some stamina damage through to the operator.

 

[princelian]

I wasn't planning on attacking my PCs with battle dress-armored opponents more than once during the campaign - that single boarding pirate who is wearing a suit and makes HUGE trouble for the defenders, say.

However, if my players want a more militarily-aspected campaign than I'm currently envisioning (I'm more the merchants-drawn-into-Imperial-secret-service fan), I'll need a good handle on the battle dress rules.

I do see BD as being like the powered armor in the ***BOOK*** Starship Troopers, which means that you're as tough as a main battle tank and far more mobile and far easier to hide.

However, that rifle company you mentioned, veltyen, and setting aside critical hits, should be able to be a threat to the BD-armored trooper if they can all bring their weapons to bear at once. That being because they will have rifle grenades, rocket launchers, etc., not just gauss rifles.

Furthermore, they'll probably be firing HEAP or APDS (armor piercing, discarding sabot) rounds at the BD trooper, making the armor differential a little bit more favorable.

Finally, since the BD trooper is in a "vehicle," does that mean that he doesn't take Stamina damage from all those men shooting at him? If not, the rifle company will bring him down pretty quickly - just alive...

I think I might consider making BD non-vehicular and treat it more like it was in the CT days - doubling your physical stats and acting like (good) armor, though. How do all of you guys treat BD, if you ever use it at all?

 

[Rover]

(If I haven't been clear, I don't like the [totally] ignore armor aspect...) [/QB]

I had mentioned earlir that I have a house rule a crit can ignore half the AR, rather than all of it. T feel that is a good comprimise.

Another point we have not mentioned is Armour Piercing Rounds.

According to book standards.

a regular hit froma Gauss rifle with 10 rnd burst is 5D12. If +2 AP rounds are used the pc in cloth (AR 6) will have an effective ar of 4 and face an average of 32.5 stamina damage and the highest D of 5D12 lifeblood. That hurts. On a Crit, even it full AR value is used, it kills.

Jim