Nobody I play with had any qualms based on the 3X issue. Some of the results offset the loss anyway. The bleeding, ability damage and/or loss of a limb make up for it, I think. They could also me knocked prone, which means they lose an attack until they get up, and provoke AoOs while doing so. Double damage and decapitation (Fort save to negate) is better than 3x against a high hp opponent.

Even though the decapitation card is only 1 of the 52 slashing crit results in the deck, slashing weapons have suddenly gained an inordinate amount of popularity amongst my group...

Any chance of seeing a sci-fi or modern version of these? Really just need to replace the magic section with energy or some such.

Shade325

Any chance of seeing a sci-fi or modern version of these? Really just need to replace the magic section with energy or some such.

Shade325

I doubt the demand for sci-fi/modern accessories is high enough to warrant a new item but I would imagine you can probably apply the 'Piercing' effects to most ranged weapons with some degree of accuracy, whether it be energy- or projectile-based. For crazy-big energy weapons (BFG9000?) you could probably use the 'Bludgeoning' entries.

We started usingt his about 6 months back. We tried it a couple nights, giving people the option of drawing a card or rolling extra damage. Most people drew cards and really enjoyed the outcome. The issue we have is the bad guys confirm crits more than we do.

Is there going to be a conersion to 4e posted? I'm interested in buying but with 4e on the way I'm a little nervous if they aren't easily transferable, (not saying it would be hard to make my own houserules, but I'm lazy sometimes...)

I just got my deck in the post, going to introduce them tomorrow when my group meets.

Very impressed with them so far.

Quick question for any one already using these:

With a weapon that deals two types of damage, for example the dagger can deal piercing or slashing, are you letting the characters choose which type of critical they inflict after the card is drawn?

It doesn't affect many weapons, but the weapons it does effect tend to be ones not heavily used in my campaign, so that is how I am planning on running those weapons.

I just got my deck in the post, going to introduce them tomorrow when my group meets.

Very impressed with them so far.

Quick question for any one already using these:

With a weapon that deals two types of damage, for example the dagger can deal piercing or slashing, are you letting the characters choose which type of critical they inflict after the card is drawn?

It doesn't affect many weapons, but the weapons it does effect tend to be ones not heavily used in my campaign, so that is how I am planning on running those weapons.

We've been choosing damage type before you draw. Choosing after you draw is definitely an advantage, and would make a weapon with more than one damage type a little more powerful.

Our group does that. It can make some things a little wierd, but mostly it works.

We do use the deck on the PCs. PCs get to draw if they confirm a critical hit. Major NPCs (like Nualia) do the same. Minor NPCs (like the goblins near Thistletop) draw a card if they triple confirm (threat, confirm, confirm).

It works out, and the PCs think it is pretty fair. Even though one has lost an eye and one had their back broken.

Thanks for the answers, so I think based on what you have said, I will make characters choose what sort of damage they inflict before they draw. Otherwise Sythes become pretty awesome.

I also like the triple confirmation for none major villains, in my game, if a bad guy has a name listed, then he is classed as a major bad guy. It is a great way of scaring my party.

We use a metal A4 sized plate, we blue-tack a piece of paper with a grid numbered -10 to 30 on it for initiative. Each square is big enough to take a lower case letter from fridge magnets.

Each character has his own letter, bad guys also get a letter if they have a name, otherwise they get a round "Nobo bored" magnet. Works pretty well, I am sure their is a market for it somewhere, as it is quicker than the commercial ones available.

With these cards, when a letter appears, they are going to be even more jumpy.

These are great to pull out for called shots as well (yeah, I know called shots aren't in RAW, but I have my own rules).

Works pretty well, I am sure their is a market for it somewhere, as it is quicker than the commercial ones available.

*ahem*

Just sayin'

:)

I am considering using the Critical Hit Deck, primarily as a tool to bring some verisimilitude, for example to explain why there are NPCs with missing eyes and limbs. For those of you with experience using the deck, will I get these type of results, and what about scars?
Also after reading this thread the only rules based concern I have is for the x3 and x4 crit weapons(I know my players will have issues if their favorite weapons seem to be unduly affected). Does using the standards rule for adding multipliers to change the damage listed on the cards wotk well or does it create unbalanced results?

Any insight to either of these points would be appreciated, mostly I just want to know how the deck works at the table.

Thanks in advance.

We've now been using this for a couple of months. We've made it optional, so players can either roll their double damage as normal, or pick a card. I have one player who steadfastly refuses to use the deck, saying, "The monster is going to be dead in two more rounds anyway, what the heck does it matter if he's missing a point of CHA? I'll take my double damage, thank you."

He's a fighter.

I got the "cut straps" card while fighting a warg. The DM ruled that I had cut the straps on the saddle, so the goblin got a ride check (missed) and fell off. Another Warg got his ear cut off, then got away. He became a recurring villain because of that ear.

By making the deck optional, archers or others with 3X damage can take their damage instead of the card. That makes them happy.

It adds some color, and now that the Critical Fumble deck is out, my entire group lives in fear that I will show up with it one day.

Can any one tell me if using the Critical Hit Deck will give me frequent scaring injuries??

For instance if 20 1st level human fighter armed with scimitars fought 20 1st level orc warriors armed with falchions and they fought for 5 rounds and then went home. Would there be a number of survivors from both sides who were maimed and scared missing eyes, ears, hands, etc.

Will this game mechanic make one armed tavern keepers, eyepatch wearing pirates, peg leg pirates for that matter, make sense.

Currently when PCs see a tough veteran missing an arm the "how could that happen" discussion starts up. I want something in the game that makes hob-legged woodsmen not odd, if you get my meaning.

bumped

Hello,
I've just ordered critical hit and fumble decks and my account says these products are pending.
Could you tell me the delay for availability
Thanks

Hello,

I've just ordered critical hit and fumble decks and my account says these products are pending.
Could you tell me the delay for availability
Thanks

It was in the queue as you asked! It went out yesterday.

I have played D&D 3.5 with both the Critical hit and the Fumble decks now and must agree the products are a great addition to the game. the quality physically is worth noting and the unique effects are wonderful.

I have noticed at leat one other posting in this thread about using them in a future setting, notably Star Wars. I am not sure how well this would translate due to the nature of the weaponry in the game example: the lightsaber.

perhaps a better solution to adapting the curent products into a future setting is to simply make a new product to target the future/ Star Wars setting. for that matter even a d20 modern setting.

I run a Star Wars game and believe it would add to it the same way the other products have added to D&D.

what about dismemberment effects? are those at all common, I want people loosing limbs, hands feet and arms, not just heads, about how often is a body part mangled beyond repair?

I've been using it for Savage Tide and my group has some mixed feelings about it.

I have a psychic warrior with a keen falchion (crit 15-10) and he seems to draw at least 1 card per session. He enjoys the unpredictability of the deck but sometimes the effect chosen doesn't really benefit the group that much.

I have another player who insists on drawing a card every time the warrior does just for fun, as he insists consistently draws better (more useful) effects.

I am planning to use these cards for my next Savage Worlds game as well, although this will be more for flavour than actual mechanics, since d20 and SW use very different rules.

I wonder how these decks (hit and fumble) will work with 4e? Most of the effects like double damage convert directly to maximum damage in 4e. But some effects like bleed pose an interesting opportunity to use your healing surge for the encounter.

Other effects that deal ability damage are the ones that concern me, as 4e is rumored to be removing ability damage (thankfully).

Can any one tell me if using the Critical Hit Deck will give me frequent scaring injuries??

For instance if 20 1st level human fighter armed with scimitars fought 20 1st level orc warriors armed with falchions and they fought for 5 rounds and then went home. Would there be a number of survivors from both sides who were maimed and scared missing eyes, ears, hands, etc.

Will this game mechanic make one armed tavern keepers, eyepatch wearing pirates, peg leg pirates for that matter, make sense.

Currently when PCs see a tough veteran missing an arm the "how could that happen" discussion starts up. I want something in the game that makes hob-legged woodsmen not odd, if you get my meaning.

As mentioned in an earlier post, my players cut off the hoof of a boar. Following the movies the hoof turned into a hand (wereboar). Also had one that added a gasping wound to the neck, making it harder to cast spells with verbal components-now my PCs often encounter a mage with a distinctive gasping voice. Sure a healing spell can correct any of these things, but for flavor they work great. You could argue that healing spells might rejuvinate a character, but the worst wounds of battle (critical hits) stay with a person forever.

I will point out that at the lower levels these cards are not nearly as fun. If you successfully hit a low CR critter it often dies and you do not get the lingering effects. But they have been fun in mid-high CR games.

Thanks Curaigh, I'm still debating if it is worth the extra complication to use the deck but it sounds as if you are getting the type of results I want to see.

As for the effect of healing spells I'm thinking that a regeneration spell would be required to completely remove the loss/scaring caused by the crits. Hopefully meaning most NPCs won't go to the trouble/expense.

We've have four or five criticals since I got the deck. Two of them were "no effect" as the creature died with the 2x damage the card called for, so the extra effect was not used.

The other two were worse. Once was a 3x weapon, and both cards pulled had only 1x damage with an effect that wasn't very serious. I think I may just have 3x dmg weapons do 1x more dmg than the card says. So a card saying "does 2x dmg and 1 pt bleed" would be 3x dmg, or a card with "1x dmg plus 2 con" would do 2x dmg.

They've added a great flavor that I'm looking forward to seeing more of.

As for fumbles. I have the fumbler roll a DC10 Dex check. That way it's more common than having to roll two 1's in a row, not as common as just rolling a 1 (which is an automatic miss). It also scales well as characters go up in level. They always have a chance of fumbling, but characters with high dex get a bonus, but a relatively small one.

My group has been using both of these decks for some time now. I want to like them, but in practice it's had the opposite effect. I'm a greataxe wielding barbarian, and I have to say that the crit deck has pretty much nerfed me EVERY time, having a X3 weapon. My DM let's me draw 2 cards and pick to "balance out" losing the X, but it has been a bust. The flavor is nice, don't get me wrong, but getting nerfed EVERY time is not. To add insult to injury, rolling a 1 is always a fumble. No save for us. A session has not gone by without my fumbling, getting multiple attacks per round. And many of these are almost a death sentence. I got "unconscious for 1d6 rounds" last session. Also, consider this... fighting undead, you cannot crit, but you can fumble. No fair!

I have this on bac order. Do you know when you'll have stock again? Unfair to just use the crit fumbles deck (or less fun for players).

I have this on bac order. Do you know when you'll have stock again? Unfair to just use the crit fumbles deck (or less fun for players).

We're not sure yet, but I suspect at least a couple of months.

baradifi wrote:

I have this on bac order. Do you know when you'll have stock again? Unfair to just use the crit fumbles deck (or less fun for players).

We're not sure yet, but I suspect at least a couple of months.

...although I'm told we may have a few tucked away in the warehouse. We're checking...

These are great to pull out for called shots as well (yeah, I know called shots aren't in RAW, but I have my own rules).

If only you had some forum for letting us see how that worked. [sigh]Wishful thinking[/sigh]

Lilith wrote:

These are great to pull out for called shots as well (yeah, I know called shots aren't in RAW, but I have my own rules).

If only you had some forum for letting us see how that worked. [sigh]Wishful thinking[/sigh]

Limbs: -4 to hit

Usually I rifle through the deck until I get an affected area and apply. Nothing terribly fancy about it. :)

Vic Wertz wrote:

baradifi wrote:

I have this on bac order. Do you know when you'll have stock again? Unfair to just use the crit fumbles deck (or less fun for players).

We're not sure yet, but I suspect at least a couple of months.

...although I'm told we may have a few tucked away in the warehouse. We're checking...

We did indeed turn up a few more.

Vic Wertz wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

baradifi wrote:

I have this on bac order. Do you know when you'll have stock again? Unfair to just use the crit fumbles deck (or less fun for players).

We're not sure yet, but I suspect at least a couple of months.

...although I'm told we may have a few tucked away in the warehouse. We're checking...

We did indeed turn up a few more.

Just found your posts but noticed the decks had both been sent out. Thanks so much for searching! now I don't have to wait months giggling privately over the crit fumbles deck, waiting for the hit deck to arrive so both can go into play.

I use this as an open effect (PCs, bad guys, even no-name bad guys). Everyone is pretty happy so far, although the party bard and knight have teamed up to turn the Fumble spell into the greatest nightmare for a DM. The knight is a defensive specialist, with a great (best possible without breaking the rules) AC. Fumble makes any attack that misses a potential fumble. Bard casts fumble, knight challenges enemy, enemy grinds itslef to paste on Knight's armor. Its been crazy effective.

Maybe its just my dice, but I pull from these decks upwards of a dozen times a session, and my PCs frequently pull from them too.

Some note to help make the decks "fair": Let undead be crit on. Most of the effects aren't going to work anyhow, but some will. I disregard extra damage (as normal), but the secondary effect, if capable of affecting an undead, works just fine. There's a one-eyed ghoul with vengeance in mind because of that.

Regarding "impossible effects": choose whether to pass or stick. That is, if the crit would indicate "knocked prone" on a snake, which is generally considered to be immune to the prone condition via its physiology, do you "skip" that card and draw another until you get an effect that can apply? Or do you "stick" to that card, and write off the crit as a good luck/bad luck paradigm. Keep in mind how this interacts with critting on undead/constructs/etc since you might be passing up a lot of cards looking for one that actually works. I try to run common sense, nobody's going to try tripping a snake, but slashing a vampire's stomach seems like a reasonable attempt at damage, even if he's going to ignore the con damage. (Keep in mind I give undead fortification rather than immunity, on a case by case basis relative to their particular level of "physical existance mockery". Vamps and ghouls have light fort, zombies medium, and ghosts and such get full.)

I let the players choose to take a card or do double damage. Most choose to take a card. With x3 and x4 weapons, I choose to let them take up to the limit of cards, or the double damage. So a scythe user can take his x4 damage and 0 cards, regular damage and his +3 cards, or he could take x3 damage and 1 card, or x2 damage and 2 cards. It works well, and makes the PC feel like he's not getting screwed out of his extra damage. I've seen a fairly even distribution of the choice so far.

I'm sure I might have more ideas, since I love these decks, but im hungry, and I failed my save against it.

Any issues convertying this to "icky" 4th Edition ?

Any issues convertying this to "icky" 4th Edition ?

Answering my own question, someone's doing a 4e conversion here:

http://www.dragonavenue.com/forums/viewthread/935/

Hi, I just placed an order for this sweet babies. Is there an ETA when they will be back in stock?

Hi, I just placed an order for this sweet babies. Is there an ETA when they will be back in stock?

We haven't sent the revision to the printer yet, so it's a couple of months out.

We haven't sent the revision to the printer yet, so it's a couple of months out.

Revision? Any interesting revisions made?

Vic Wertz wrote:

We haven't sent the revision to the printer yet, so it's a couple of months out.

Revision? Any interesting revisions made?

I think that there has been talk about revising both of the decks to be compatible with the final version of PF RPG... I'm not positive though.

If that is the case, could you have some PDF file with the alterations for people who have the original version?

Franz Lunzer wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

We haven't sent the revision to the printer yet, so it's a couple of months out.

Revision? Any interesting revisions made?

I think that there has been talk about revising both of the decks to be compatible with the final version of PF RPG... I'm not positive though.

If that is the case, could you have some PDF file with the alterations for people who have the original version?

That would make sense. Thanks

Franz Lunzer wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

We haven't sent the revision to the printer yet, so it's a couple of months out.

Revision? Any interesting revisions made?

I think that there has been talk about revising both of the decks to be compatible with the final version of PF RPG... I'm not positive though.

If that is the case, could you have some PDF file with the alterations for people who have the original version?

That's the plan. (I'm told that the changes are expected to be minor.)

Noo!~ not couple of months!

Oh well. I guess my players will hate me for only using a fumble deck on them.

On the bright side, at least with fumble deck you can only botch once per encounter which, at the rate my party rolls them aces, will come as a blessing :P

Any idea if/when these will be available again?

With a weapon that deals two types of damage, for example the dagger can deal piercing or slashing, are you letting the characters choose which type of critical they inflict after the card is drawn?

We've been choosing damage type before you draw. Choosing after you draw is definitely an advantage, and would make a weapon with more than one damage type a little more powerful.

Especially if the target has DR/(bludgeon, piercing or slashing).

In those cases, you should have to pick the appropriate damage type, or suffer the DR penalty...

Any idea if/when these will be available again?

Yes, but we haven't scheduled the reprint yet.

Snorter wrote:

Any idea if/when these will be available again?

Yes, but we haven't scheduled the reprint yet.

Are you going to increase the font? The only problems I had with these is the print was a bit small to read in a semi dark room.

Sorry but there's no room on the cards to increase the font and we're shipping the files to the printer today for the reprint. We're looking at a late March release.

Hmm, I dont know if I should feel guilty or not, but I ordered a set of these, the fumble deck, adventure gear 1, and the runelords deck from amazon since they had a 4 for 3 offer, all for for 29 bucks plus free shipping, hard to turn down. I couldnt wait that long for these decks! I hope you still see the profit and all.

I, and my party are very stoked about using these!

Hmm, I dont know if I should feel guilty or not, but I ordered a set of these, the fumble deck, adventure gear 1, and the runelords deck from amazon since they had a 4 for 3 offer, all for for 29 bucks plus free shipping, hard to turn down. I couldnt wait that long for these decks! I hope you still see the profit and all.

I, and my party are very stoked about using these!

Sales through other retailers are helpful in their own way—no need to feel bad. I'm just surprised that they still have them!

Thank u for assuaging my guilt kind sir. And I still have a reason to buy the newly 'updated' decks when they are released.

Also, it seems to me to be REALLY random, you must have two decks, for example: say a character pulls the dreaded 'Beheaded' card, everyone knows it ain't comin' around again that night, unless you were to reshuffle after every pull, but if you have two complete decks, total randomness is assured.