Worst Crititcal Hit Card or Yes, You Can Kill with Charisma

[BV210]

Yesterday's session contained an encounter that left us all in throes of laughter.

So we're going through an updated version of B10 - Night's Dark Terror. As we are trekking toward the hidden valley, our rogue who is in the lead encounters a giant lizard of some sort.

Winning initiative, he confirms a critical hit on his first strike. I can't remember the exact name of the effect from the Critical Hit Deck, but I believe it was something like "Ugly Wound". It did normal damage plus Charisma damage and Charisma drain. As we all moaned and groaned about what a weak card it was, he rolled for the Charisma damage. Between that and the drain, it was a total of a Charisma loss of 3.

You should have seen the look on our DMs face when he had to explain that the giant lizard, now with a Charisma of 0, went into a catatonic state. The rogue quickly performed the coup de grace to finish it. Maybe it wasn't the greatest card in the deck, but it sure was entertaining. Love the Critical Hit Deck.

[Zhayne]

Ugh. Ridiculous.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

I'd have to say it's a funny way to kill it. To be honest, I'd have to say that the Lizard, after seeing the of the nature of attack made against it, and suffering a fairly-substantial physical injury, was frozen in fear and started spasming/seizuring/whatever. Survival-of-the-Fittest stuff right there.

We use the Critical Hit and Fumble decks too, and some of them are really good, others not so much. A lot of the Fumble cards are weaksauce though; one of them says that you still hit the target, but you take half of the damage too (or something like that).

Really? How the heck is that a fumble? That's like punching somebody in the face and getting a bloody knuckle from it.

**EDIT** What I think they should do is make 'expansion' Critical Hit and Critical Fumble decks, since you can only go through the Critical/Fumble cards so many times before you figure out what's what.

[Cranky Dog]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Really? How the heck is that a fumble? That's like punching somebody in the face and getting a bloody knuckle from it.

If you were in a middle of a two-handed weapon Vital Strike + Power Attack + Smite Evil or whatever, it can be *very* painful.

Our group bought the Critical Hit/Fumble decks, but we soon stopped using them as it slowed down the game. It's worse for high level characters with Improved Critical/keen weapons and multiple attacks.

[Zhayne]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Really? How the heck is that a fumble?

You took damage when you shouldn't have. That's pretty fumbly.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Zhayne wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Really? How the heck is that a fumble?

You took damage when you shouldn't have. That's pretty fumbly.

I'd actually rather have that than simply whiff my attack (and thusly my damage).

If you take a creature that needs to roll a 20 to hit you, he rolls a 1 and gets this card, it's pretty backwards intuitive thinking to be honest. Especially when it's mooks.

[Zhayne]

Eh. Critical fumbles are a f**ked up idea anyway.

[Loren Pechtel]

Zhayne wrote:

Eh. Critical fumbles are a f**ked up idea anyway.

I used to use them in the 1E era and had a lot of fun with them in one fight.

Fumble #1: Pretty routine, the player dropped his weapon. Unfortunately for him it landed behind their opponent and their opponent was in a doorway. Actually, this was to his advantage as the weapon in question was intelligent with a special purpose of killing level-draining creatures--but while otherwise it was a very good weapon it sucked against them. (It forced him to use the weapon but it wasn't strong enough to quickly teleport back to his hand in this case.) Their opponent was a succubus they finally cornered.

Now the fun part--she realizes the weapon is powerful (it was well above what the party should have had--I did not expect them to keep it once they found out the problem but the owner decided they fought few enough level drainers it was worth it anyway.) but obviously has no idea of it's flaw.

She scoops it up--since she's a level drainer I applied it's minus when figuring fumble rolls. Swing #1--fumble, hit self. Not only that but it scored about max damage. At that point she's barely alive and has had enough and makes a run for it--the party is treated to the sight of her barreling out of the room with the sword stuck in her. She flies off but doesn't make it far.

"Fumble" #3--the owner is worried that her body went into some lava nearby. I hadn't even thought about it but since it came up I rolled--yup. (It never occurred to him that the sword would have survived anyway. Moving the lava would have been a problem but he could have gotten it out.)

[Zhayne]

This is a definition of 'fun' that I am utterly unacquainted with.