Saturday, September 23, 2017

DF-to-DFRPG - which critical hits?

Yesterday I put up a list of the rules I need to add to the DFRPG for DF Felltower.

The Critical Hit rules I mentioned are the ones from Basic Set: Characters, p. 326.

They are under Attacking, the last two paragraphs of Attack Roll. The short version is that a 3 is maximum damage, a 4-whatever your critical hit number is (4, 5, 6, even 7+ for certain Swashbucklers) just hits without allowing a defense roll.

And that's is.

We use the Critical Miss Tables. But in the interest of speed, we skip the Critical Hit Tables. It's been fine, and has in fact sped things up without anyone really feeling like they've lost out.

11 comments:

  1. I like the critical hit table.

    It slows down play by about 1/2 sec for me.

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    Replies
    1. With my luck, it would be a devastating critical hit (a 3 followed by a 3)...against my character!

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    2. 1/2 a sec is clearly an exaggeration, even if you memorize the table and pre-calculated all of the results. Plus, much of the time, the effect works out to just be normal damage and no defenses. Most of the time the PCs are hitting fodder or worthy monsters, not interesting bosses, and getting right to "roll damage and kill it" speeds things up - no one waits to see what happens. We skip right to that.

      Plus what Vic said. He's right. His characters would be a mess if there were worse results than max damage in the offing. He's why we're keeping the Fright Check table, for the "results worse" aspect that keeps hitting him.

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    3. I have a print out with the tables in front of me.

      It takes more time to explain to the players what a critical hit is (and them to roll) than for me to look down and read

      We had about five critical hits and misses yesterday. About 1/2 sec each for me to look down and read it. Reading it out loud did take a bit longer I'll give you, but Ive memorised the middle of the table.

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    4. Still more time than "max damage on 3, hits on 4 (5 on 15+, 6 on 16+). And that's really my point in doing what I do.

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  2. Critical hits punish players because they are in the most combats of any figures. No crits.

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    Replies
    1. Critical hits and misses are integral to the GURPS rules, though. Without them, it's possible - even fairly easy - to have impenetrable defenses. I'm simply choosing the simplest, fastest of the resolution options within the rules.

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  3. I use always max damage. The table slows stuff down and the 'nothing special ' comes up way to often

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    Replies
    1. Same rules as I use, or just max damage on all criticals?

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    2. Max damage on all criticals. Criticals should be cool!

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    3. That is way bloodier than I could take . . . but it is suitably awesome!

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