I just purchased this, and am looking forward to giving it a try. We currently use Paizo's critical Hit and Critical Fumble card decks, and I find that at times, the effects are TOO extreme. I figured $0.99 is worth a chance of moderating this down a bit. Some observations from first read:
- Overall effect seems to be leveled out a bit. The use of a d00 table allows the severity to be proportional to the rarity of the result, which is great.
- The selection of tables is a bit odd. A table for each weapon damage type on critical hit makes sense. The animal table, I suppose, makes sense, as there aren't really 'weapon' or 'shield' arms on animals. A single critical fumble table is a bit limited. In comparison to the cards, the fumble has options based on melee, ranged, natural, and magic attacks. This allows for some more 'tailored' results.
- The lack of magic/spell critical hits/fumble tables is disappointing. It would be great to have some sort of augmentation of spells that make critical hits, such as an electrical spell causing a stunning effect, etc. I'm currently playing a Magus, so the chances of spells criting is high when using spellstrike with a high threat range weapon, so I will miss that aspect if using these tables.
Conclusion: I'll definitely give these a try, but may end up using them only as inspiration for making our own house-rule tables to fill in my perceived gaps. Just building the tables would be a fun group activity.
