Let's get this out of the way first:
If you're looking for specifics, you won't get any from me. They aren't for me to divulge. (Buy Jason a beer or 12 and maybe he'll let some of the details slip out)
So I got to attend my first GenCon this year, and what it an event it was! One of my many highlights (besides getting to sit next to Monte Cook at the Ennies, and meet all the Paizo guys face to face) was to get a sneak peek at the Critical Fumble Deck that's been making its way around the Paizo office!!
Let me just say they have another instant hit on their hands. Even at this early stage (with only about a 1/3 deck), it looks AMAZING!!
I will say this, they have great ideas for not penalizing characters who get multiple attacks, and some of the effects are ingenious!
If you even marginally like the Critical Hit Deck, you'll love this new Paizo creation!
Director of Games
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Why thank you Kyle,
I did indeed have a few sample cards that I was showing off throughout the show... for those of you who missed the con (or missed seeing them at the show)... here is your very own preview.
Enjoy!
Card #7
Melee
Awkward Attack: You take -2 penalty to AC for 1d4 rounds.
Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
Natural
Tiring Attack: You are fatigued.
Magic
Acidic Backlash: You take 2d6 points of acid damage.
Jason Bulmahn
Critical Fumble Designer
GameMastery Brand Manager
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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They look cool, but I've got an issue with this one:
Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
How does that work? Unless a character is phenomenally stupid and careless, it would be nearly impossible to shoot themselves with a ranged weapon, especially a longbow or shortbow (crossbow makes slightly more sense). It seems to me that striking the nearest ally in range would make more sense from a 'cinematic combat' standpoint. Just my 2 cents.
They look cool, but I've got an issue with this one:
How does that work? Unless a character is phenomenally stupid and careless, it would be nearly impossible to shoot themselves with a ranged weapon, especially a longbow or shortbow (crossbow makes slightly more sense). It seems to me that striking the nearest ally in range would make more sense from a 'cinematic combat' standpoint. Just my 2 cents.Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
It doesn't necessarily say that you shoot yourself.. It says your attack hits you, and it's critically bad. I once had a 2e Fighter/Thief that lost an ear due to a fumble with a longbow. If you're bouncing around the battlefield and really screw up, there are any number of ways to hurt yourself with a bow!
Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
While I like the others this one irritates me. I really don't like fumble mechanics that make you much more likely to do massive amounts of damage to yourself and allies if you are good at fighting.
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Director of Sales
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They look cool, but I've got an issue with this one:
How does that work? Unless a character is phenomenally stupid and careless, it would be nearly impossible to shoot themselves with a ranged weapon,Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
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While I like the others this one irritates me. I really don't like fumble mechanics that make you much more likely to do massive amounts of damage to yourself and allies if you are good at fighting.Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
Take it from a professional Soldier of ten years: s*%~ happens. ;D
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Phenominally stupid and careless, huh?They look cool, but I've got an issue with this one:
How does that work? Unless a character is phenomenally stupid and careless, it would be nearly impossible to shoot themselves with a ranged weapon,Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
Have you ever seen someone distracted an let go of the wrong side of a bow before? I have... and guess what the top pully in the compound bow hit the guy in the eye - knocked him out for 10 minutes - and that was his first shot. So full strength to knocked out in one hit - sounds like a crit to me
How does that work? Unless a character is phenomenally stupid and careless, it would be nearly impossible to shoot themselves with a ranged weapon, especially a longbow or shortbow (crossbow makes slightly more sense). It seems to me that striking the nearest ally in range would make more sense from a 'cinematic combat' standpoint. Just my 2 cents.
Heh. The rest of them sound okay, but I have a hard time imagining an arrow taking out your own eye, unless it happened to be in conjunction with your bowstring snapping and snapping back into your eye...ouch! Or the arrow shattering on the shot, and fletching or shards of wood splintering back into your face.
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How does that work? Unless a character is phenomenally stupid and careless, it would be nearly impossible to shoot themselves with a ranged weapon, especially a longbow or shortbow (crossbow makes slightly more sense). It seems to me that striking the nearest ally in range would make more sense from a 'cinematic combat' standpoint. Just my 2 cents.Heh. The rest of them sound okay, but I have a hard time imagining an arrow taking out your own eye, unless it happened to be in conjunction with your bowstring snapping and shipping back into your eye...ouch! Or the arrow shattering on the shot, and fletching or shards of wood splintering back into your face.
Not necessarily arrows, per se (though our Groups use some interesting pieces of equipment at times), but you'd be surprised how possible the impossible gets in the heat of battle, cf. my comment above...s!#% happens ;D
Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
Yep! Knew this guy by the name of Fred. Not the brightest rock in the lightbulb factory.
Not only did he manage to shoot himself in the hand with a compound bow (the arrow was too short and fell off the guide, he tried to recover but the string recoiled and the arrow went between his thumb and first finger in the fleshy part of the hand) but he also managed to run of over a water faucet.
Wonder if he managed to live until 25...
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I think the card's title is a clever reference to the movie "A Christmas Story", where the young hero is told he can't have a BB gun because "you'll shoot your eye out."
I don't think it actually means you hit yourself in the eye.
On the other hand, I've seen some missile weapons bounce badly, sometimes very badly, including arrows. My friends and I used to have the rule that if you caught a dart that had bounced off of the board, you could throw it again. We didn't make that rule up out of thin air... we made it because enough darts bounced far enough back to make it a viable, if potentially painful, rule.
Take it from a professional Soldier of ten years: s*!& happens. ;DWhile I like the others this one irritates me. I really don't like fumble mechanics that make you much more likely to do massive amounts of damage to yourself and allies if you are good at fighting.Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
Oh, I understand that. I just would rather the fumble be more likely to be worse while the character is drunk rather than it when he is not.
Oh, I understand that. I just would rather the fumble be more likely to be worse while the character is drunk rather than it when he is not.Take it from a professional Soldier of ten years: s*!& happens. ;DWhile I like the others this one irritates me. I really don't like fumble mechanics that make you much more likely to do massive amounts of damage to yourself and allies if you are good at fighting.Ranged
You'll Shoot Your Eye Out: The attack hits you and is a critical threat. You must roll to confirm the critical hit.
You're still only talking about a 1 in 40 to 80(ish) chance.
And yes, "You'll shoot your eye out" is from one of my favorite movies. It's essentially saying, "I told you that you'd only end up hurting yourself." Of course, it may be hard to blame this one on an icicle!
<quotations cut out>
You're still only talking about a 1 in 40 to 80(ish) chance.
I think it is even less than that. There is a 1 in 20 chance of rolling an one then the 1 in 52 chance (assuming it is the same size as the crit deck) of getting this card then there is, in a bad case, 8 numbers out of 20 that the more accurate character would crit and the less accurate would miss.
With all that I have an 1 out of 2600 that it will make a difference. This also assumes there would be no comfirmation of the fumble which would make it even less likely.
I still don't like it. :P
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Director of Games
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Zynete is correct here...
This is not a common result in the deck, so you chances for drawing it are indeed one in 52. That combined with the fact that you must confirm a fumble (I will leak a bit of the rules for that in an upcoming blog) and also then confirm the crit makes this a rare occurence indeed.
And yes.. a certain holiday movie may have influenced the naming of this particular card.
Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager
If no one else will give Cosmo a little love, I will.
Man, I laughed fit to burst at that cartoon. Sigh, I love the old stuff.
I didn't ... couldn't respond to Cosmo's post because every time I looked at it I started giggling. As I scrolled up to quote him I found I wasn't able to type anything with his link on the page. Even now I think "You would have to be phenomenally stupid or careless to shoot yourself with a ranged weapon" and the image of Wile E. Coyote in the bow appears in mind and I have to resist the temptation to place various anagrams throughout my post.
It was hilarious, maybe too hilarious.
Hey Jason, how about another preview??
Magic
Acidic Backlash: You take 2d6 points of acid damage.
So does this presume that all spells or magic items have a certain "acidic component" to them, or is the card only relevant if you are using an acid-based spell/item? I presume the latter, but...??? Just wondering. If that's the case, then I prefer more generic descriptions myself...
But thanks for sharing previews, Jason, and I really look forward to the release of this product.
Magic
Acidic Backlash: You take 2d6 points of acid damage.So does this presume that all spells or magic items have a certain "acidic component" to them, or is the card only relevant if you are using an acid-based spell/item? I presume the latter, but...??? Just wondering. If that's the case, then I prefer more generic descriptions myself...
But thanks for sharing previews, Jason, and I really look forward to the release of this product.
Actually, I'd think that, since it's a fumble, it'd be a situation where you targeted one spell while trying to cast another. Say the only difference between Orb of Acid and Orb of Fire is the element key word. While the Orb of Fire might be cohesive enough to stick together while you hold it over your head before throwing, the dripping of an Orb of Acid makes it best to throw it sideways rather than overhand. Saying the acid keyword while your hand's over your head for a fire spell, and suddenly you're doing your impression of Arnold Toht...
If you don't like the arrow in the eye, change it to "you shoot an arrow through a teammates eye".
By the way, do you have such fumbles? I mean the sort where you accidentally let go of your weapon and it hits a friend or innocent.
Those look awesome!!! But, the actual cards for the Crit Deck the type of weapon are written in red on a black background. For my eyesight it makes it hard to read....don't know if this has been addressed already...but it would be a nice change to a great product.....
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By the way, do you have such fumbles? I mean the sort where you accidentally let go of your weapon and it hits a friend or innocent.
all the time, but it depends on location/weapon. If someone is shooting into a fight and fumbles... I have them roll a D4 to see which direction the arrow goes in. on a 4 it hits the ground by their feet, as the shooter trips (prone). a 3 goes over their head with a chance to hit people behind them and the bow needs to be restrung. 1 or 2 goes to the right and left respectively, shooter takes 1 pt subdual damage, from the string hitting their arm, if there are people on given side of target, separate attack roll made fore closest, with damage -1.Close combat weapons I've been rolling a d100 chart, if they get drop/loose weapon I do very similar, with an added reflex save to make it fall at your feet instead, but do damage as an improvised weapon.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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That combined with the fact that you must confirm a fumble (I will leak a bit of the rules for that in an upcoming blog)...
Our group uses fumble confirmation as well. I'm curious to see the system you guys come up with.
In our games, any roll of natural '1' is a fumble threat. You then make another attack roll (using the same modifiers as the fumble threat roll) against an AC 20. If you fail to hit the AC 20, it's a critical fumble. If you succeed, it's simply a miss. If the fumble confirmation roll comes up a natural '1' then it is an automatic fumble. If it comes up a natural '20' then you have effectively "undone" the fumble and may retry the attack roll to hit normally.