Critical Hit deck clarification

We tested out the Critical Hit deck last night in our game session, and honestly I do not see how this ever benefits the players. We have a Barbarian who uses a greataxe ( x3 crit ). When he confirmed a crit he would get cards like "Do normal damage and the target takes 4 CHA damage". Does the "normal dmage" mean base damage for a hit, or the normal damage from a critical hit plus the CHA damage. If it is the former, this player would go from doing 90+ dmamage to 30 damage and -4 CHA to an already ugly dire boar. It didnt seem fun or flavorful to him, and it doesnt to me either. How should this "normal damage" be interpreted?

with a *3 crit normal would drop the damage down by 1 so it would be *2 and -4 CHA,

in my game the Characters can choose between the card and normal crit damage

With an x3 weapon, the player would draw 2 cards and choose which one to apply. With an x4 weapon, the player would draw 3 cards and choose which one to apply.

Also, if a creature where to take enough CHA damage to drop it to 0 CHA, it would fall unconscious (0 WIS and 0 STR also leads to unconsciousness, while 0 INT would make it comatose, and 0 DEX would make it immobile). So, there are uses to dealing ability score damage, even to animals :)

I've found players resistant to the idea of giving up damage as well. I was was thinking if I got a chance to use the deck again I might present them as something you could buy with an action / hero point. Maybe have to say only one per combat or something so players don't hoard them for boss fights and lay down massive penalties in rapid succession.

Players resistant to the idea of giving up the damage should be promptly introduced to some Large+ baddie wielding a scythe with Imp. Critical.

That should change their minds :)

I guess if I did the card buy method I would leave it crit based and then if a crit was confirmed you have the option to spend a hero or action point to draw a card. No one can unload them all at once, they are pure icing and papers can take them or leave them.

With an x3 weapon, the player would draw 2 cards and choose which one to apply. With an x4 weapon, the player would draw 3 cards and choose which one to apply.

Also, if a creature where to take enough CHA damage to drop it to 0 CHA, it would fall unconscious (0 WIS and 0 STR also leads to unconsciousness, while 0 INT would make it comatose, and 0 DEX would make it immobile). So, there are uses to dealing ability score damage, even to animals :)

This is exactly how I use the deck.

An x3 crit weapon draws two cards and picks which one to use. x4 crit weapon draws three cards and picks the better one to use.

Normal damage is normal damage for the weapon.
Double damage is still just double damage for the weapon.
Triple damage is still just triple damage for the weapon.

There are some very nice cards in the deck, and there are some lame ones. It is literally the luck of the draw. Having an x3 crit weapon means better draws because they pick between two cards.

For the Critical Fumble deck I let players with Weapon Focus in their weapon draw two cards and pick what their fumble is.

I would say that if you are going to use the Critical Hit cards, it's better if you don't give the option of drawing a card or rolling double damage (or triple damage for x3 weapons). Just rolling is going to be better most of the time, but drawing a card is more flavorful and random. Using the deck or not is really just a choice between brute power (rolling critical damage as normal) and favored and unique but only sometimes powerful (drawing a card to see what kind of crit). If your players want brute power, they're not going to ever draw from the deck.

In my games, when someone's using weapons with a crit multiplier greater than x2 we apply the results of all cards drawn, in order to minimize damage output loss and optimize gory fun :)

Also, my players can always choose to draw from the deck, use a crit feat or multiply damage normally. To date, none of them have selected crit feats for their PCs or applied regular multiplied damage :)

We tested out the Critical Hit deck last night in our game session, and honestly I do not see how this ever benefits the players. We have a Barbarian who uses a greataxe ( x3 crit ). When he confirmed a crit he would get cards like "Do normal damage and the target takes 4 CHA damage". Does the "normal dmage" mean base damage for a hit, or the normal damage from a critical hit plus the CHA damage. If it is the former, this player would go from doing 90+ dmamage to 30 damage and -4 CHA to an already ugly dire boar. It didnt seem fun or flavorful to him, and it doesnt to me either. How should this "normal damage" be interpreted?

Sometimes monsters get a status affect, which helps a lot more than hit point damage. I also use it as a DM if I know the hit point damage would kill them.

Been considering using my deck to just flavor critical hits. No actual mechanics involved.

Had a bad experience once, with a vampire and a "Stake to the Heart" card...

... My/Our group loves the crit deck. We use the crit deck to see if mobs are immune to criticals or not as well. The Critical Fumble deck however leaves a lot to be desired. Just too many cards with things that don't make sense.

... My/Our group loves the crit deck. We use the crit deck to see if mobs are immune to criticals or not as well. The Critical Fumble deck however leaves a lot to be desired. Just too many cards with things that don't make sense.

We use both decks. It's pretty fun. We limit each player to one card per combat though. It was amusing, as the crit fumble deck is the reason we call our ranger "Ol' Deadeye" in the Kingmaker AP. He rolled a 1, then rolled a 1. Drew the card, failed the save... and lost his eye.