Here is a product that is the essence of a good product gone bad. Well, I shouldn’t say bad, exactly, but it didn’t live up to its potential. It had a strong premise, but a very poor execution.

The Critical Hit Deck is a way to spice up combat with a bit of variety here and there. However, there is a grand disparity in power between the effects of bludgeoning and edged weapons, to the point where while using them in a campaigns, no player would use a bludgeoning weapon. Many of the affects were more powerful than the base doubling as well, so most of the time the players eschewed all weapons except those with the greatest threat range. Inside of a few sessions, every player wielded kukri, rapiers, or scimitars. We even had a decapitation with a kukri by a wu jen on a gargantuan white dragon on the first round of a combat once.

There is little flavor and no artwork making the card format wholly unnecessary when a d% table would’ve sufficed for a much cheaper PDF, and carrying a more than $10 price tag this product, much like the Critical Fumble Deck, feels like a thinly veiled gimmick to grab money.

It seems that people I play with have mixed views on the Critical Fumble Deck, but we decided to no longer use it. While the unexpected excitement in combat could be fun, overall the cards greatly rewarded a particular style of character over most others. I would actually be interested in picking up a new Critical Fumble Deck if a 2nd version were ever to be produced, assuming the above issues were sorted out.

Overall, if you are just looking to add some randomness to your critical hits, you can find some better, free tables online, but you likely won’t regret picking up this product.

I am using this deck on a D&D 4E game and though some of the effects have to be reworded, my players are enjoying these. These cards certainly have shortened long combat encounters with great fun for all.

I've had these for a while and finally figured I'd post a review. I mostly run Castles & Crusades using my own homebrew setting and the Troll's default setting - Ahirde, along with their A-Series Modules (Assualt on Black Tooth Ridge, etc). C&C is my Fantasy Game of choice, and being OGL, I figured I'd give the Criticals (along with the fumble deck) Deck a try to see how it worked out. I run my game with a natural 20 being a critical and a natural 1 being a fumble. There is no confirming or threat. You roll it - it happens. In the past what this meant for a critical, was simply double damage (and for a fumble it meant you roll to see how much damage you do to yourself). Not very imaginative, but it got the job done. Well, this deck added a new dimension to the whole RPG experience for me and my players. Rather than simply double damage, now when a player or NPC rolls a Mr. Natural, the deck comes out and it becomes a fun event to see what will be drawn.

What Paizo has done is broken down each card into four differnt types of damage - Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing or Magic, based on what the character used to attack with. The one card I drew just now, interestingly enough, had Double damage for each type of damage but had additional effects such as Knockback, bleed, etc. The magic effect caused normal damage to the target but everyone adjecent to the target got hurt too. Anyway, pretty good stuff and everyone looks forward to drawing from the critical deck (and the fumble deck, especially when I as the CK roll a fumble for an NPC!).

As a C&C Player not all the stuff is applicable - Fortitude Saves, Conditions, etc. But those or easy to convert on the fly and haven't had any issues with theme in my games.

Anyway, well worth it for adding something bit different to your games.

What's the point of this product in a deck of cards format? All the information's in text with no illustrations so it may as well have been a randomly rolled table. I can understand the reasoning behind the item decks because you have beautiful artwork accompanying the artefacts but this just seems to be cards for the sake of cards.

This is exactly what you need to make your critical hits more fun, without killing game balance. Thoroughly enjoyed this product, highly recommend it.

I bought this desk because I wanted something for my PFRPG campaign that was similar to the IMHO epic critical tables from Dark Heresy. I have not been disappointed. Both my players and I enjoy the effects because they provide that extra dimension of game effect that improves immersion into their characters and adventures.
Now, to qualify, I only let the plot NPCs draw from this deck and my players, so the characters rarely suffer effects and when they do, it's memorable.

It's a great set of cards. You need to make it an iPhone app random generator for both crit hits and fumbles. Possibly even tie it to a dice app.

I look forward to receiving my free copy;)

I snagged both card sets and, let me tell you, they bring back the word Critical. For me, they're reminiscent of the old Critical Tables from Fantasy RPGs of days gone and are an excellent addition to any fantasy game table.

I picked up this deck and the Crit Fumbles deck at DunDraCon this year based on recomendations by my gaming group. While most of their emphasis was on the Critical Hits deck, I found that the Fumbles deck added a more satisfying dimension to game play.

While I do plan to use this deck in future sessions, the main problem I have with it is that a number of the criticals in the deck sacrifice damage for effects that were irrelevant to the fights.

I like the flavor it adds, but I'll be giving my players the choice of doing a standard crit or picking a card.

I really want to like these but ultimately they are not a player favorite. The effects on the cards are more often than not status effects which effect the players much more than the creatures they are fighting.

If a creature gets hit for 1d4 dex damage it is a minor penalty for the 1-5 rounds it has left before the players kill it. If a player draws the same card the player is out of luck or has to burn a spell to recover In one case a low level character had to pay for a regenerate spell from an out of party caster to replace a hand which was very costly at the time.

It's hard for me to bring a supplemental item to the table which the players don't like so mine just sits and collects dust now.