|
Hey all,
I just wanted to see what everyone thinks about the following for critical hits.
The Crit Deck just doesn't do justice and ends up with strange effects that don't make sense.
I wanted to first look at how a creature should receive a chance to negate any additional effect a crit may have.
Basically, if a character rolls a crit and confirms it, by normal rules they just do the crit damage. The deck allows them to do damage (sometimes adding the effect in lieu of the extra damage).
The victim usually has a chance to negate the crit effect with some sort of roll, usually a saving throw with a low DC.
I want to keep the same basic concept but modify the effects so they make sense. In doing so, the effect-negating chances for the victim will need to be modified.
Here's what I've put together so far:
Factors impacting the chances for a critical hit:
1. Weapon type*
2. Character-generated feats, traits, spells, etc.
3. Threat range of weapon
4.
Factors impacting the results of a critical hit:
1. Weapon type*
2. Character-generated feats, traits, spells, etc.
3. Weapon size vs. victim size
4. Attacker size vs. victim size (non-natural weapon attacks)+
Factors not in contention, but maybe should be:
1. Character level
*variable
+ natural attack sizes are the same as the creature (i.e. large dragon, large claws).
Players will roll to confirm a crit, as usual. Once confirmed, they have a choice:
1. Do the damage per the weapon's modifier.
2. Do the normal damage plus an additional effect, which the victim gets a saving throw for.
The "additional effect" can be figured based on Factors impacting the effect of the critical hit. For instance, a huge sword would do huge damage to a small goblin. It could be argued, however, that a small weapon like a nice, sleek rapier could slide easily deep into tissue. But I think the factor of this (labeled as Threat Range of Weapon) is already counted in the chances for a critical hit to occur in the first place, whereas the size of larger weapons is not. Small weapons get a better chance at crits, but bigger weapons get a better chance at actual damage effects.
Does this make sense? To recap, using weapons as examples:
Rapier (1d8) x2 18-20
Great Axe (1d12) 20 x3
Chances of crit occuring: better with rapier
Chances of crit making more of an effect: Great Axe
The above is important to take into account because when building the effect chart to roll on rather than a confirmed crit for extra damage the effect should take into consideration everythin about the weapon and who it is being used on, as well as who is using it.
Let's take an example for the chart:
Chart will consider the size of the weapon vs. the size of the victim.
Longsword is Medium. Goblin is Small. That's a difference of 1 in favor of the Longsword.
Size Diff.
Type
slashing -1 0 +1 +2 +3
You can see here 5 numbers. In the case, the column with the +1 would be used for the longsword vs. goblin.
The effects would range from minimal to high, with the high being the +3 category.
Making the chart this way would take into account the size difference between the weapon and the victim and keep things simple. Further variables can then be hammered out in whatever saving throw is gotten by the victim.
So let's put together a list of all the factors that have to do with crits and explain where they've been taken into account.
1. Weapon type: This can be taken into account by creating different outcomes for each type. for instance, a rapier would imaple and would not cave in a face, while a hammer would not cut off an arm.
2. Character feats, traits, etc. All of these factors have been added into the crit chances already, like increased threat range, crit confirmation bonuses, etc.
3. Weapon threat range: already factored into crit chance
4. Weapon size v. victim size: factored in by the chart in increasing effect
5. Attacker size v. victim size: NONE, although it could be argued this has been factored into the attack by altering the attack modifiers and armor class modifiers for size.
6. Level of attacker and level of victim: could also be argued as above.
Perhaps the saving throw (based on Fort, Ref, or Will) should include the combatants' size and levels?
If this is the case, then:
DC for victim to resist further crit effect would be similar to this?
DC=
Attacker's level + size difference of creatures vs.
Defender's level + saving throw
This would, however, in the case of the goblin and human (both level 1's) be a 2 for the human and a 1 + saving throw for goblin.
As you can see, using saving throws in this case would nearly always result in success to negate the effect. So should I add +10 to attacker? That would seem to make negating the crit effect harder, though, so maybe +5 instead?
My ultimate goal is thus:
1. Make battles more fun by having bodily things happen.
2. Make battles a bit more realistic rather than drudging through hit points.
3. Shorten length of these hit-point drudgeries.
4. I want to be very careful not to cause crit effects to be seriously-damaging instances frequently.
a. Can this be done? It seems in my opinion it would heavily favor monsters since the monsters to PC ratio is a lot higher, i.e. the monsters will always have more shot at critting than the PCs due to numbers.
b. Be wary of goblins cutting off colossal dragon heads (this is easier to factor in)