Critical Hit / Miss Decks

[TwilightKnight]

Is anyone using the 2E Critical Hit/Miss decks in their Adventure Paths? How are they working? Are they OP? Do they disrupt the flow of combat having to draw cards during gameplay and resolving their effects?

[Ruzza]

I used the Critical Hit deck when running through AoA, making sure to use them only when a natural 20 was rolled (despite one vocal player asking for it to apply to any crit). They felt just fine, especially when that crit effect had a noticeable effect, such as slowing an opponent and letting players plan around that. I wouldn't say that combat was ever disrupted, but I had a small workspace at the time and I did fumble for the cards occasionally, reaching across the table to let a player draw.

That said, if I run an AP with them again, I may keep them player-side only or ditch them altogether. While they made for some interesting moments, getting hit by an opponent's critical card lead to some bad feelings or begging to "please redraw that one."

[TwilightKnight]

I thought the general rule for the 2E version was that the critical hit cards were only for the players? Sure you could use them for the BBEGs as well, but that was a variant.

[Harles]

I will flat out walk away from any table using Critical Hit decks, based on my experience running a game with them in 1E. Regardless of the system (D&D 5e, PF1, PF2, etc.), they always favor the GM and punish the players because your monsters have a life expectancy measured in rounds while the PCs should have adventuring careers. Further penalizing characters with worse fumbles or getting hit by more dangerous critical strikes is worse than any benefit gained by killing a skeleton one round earlier.

[Currently DMing]

I have used the Critical Hit decks in the past for both the PCs and NPCs. But I did go through and removed all the one hit kill cards. I like the flavor of them when it doesn't flat out ruin the scene.

[glass]

Harles wrote:

I will flat out walk away from any table using Critical Hit decks, based on my experience running a game with them in 1E. Regardless of the system (D&D 5e, PF1, PF2, etc.), they always favor the GM and punish the players because your monsters have a life expectancy measured in rounds while the PCs should have adventuring careers. Further penalizing characters with worse fumbles or getting hit by more dangerous critical strikes is worse than any benefit gained by killing a skeleton one round earlier.

This is my attitude to the critical fumble decks; it turns what should be big damn heroes into clownshoes incompetants, and it does so in a way that disporoprtionately effects martials (who in PF1 hardly need that kind of treatment). It is one of my few red lines - you can have a critical fumble deck in the game or you can have me in the game, but not both.

That said, I do not mind the the critical hit deck in PF1, provided that only PCs and important (named) NPCs get to use it, and just taking the normal multiplied damage always remains an option. We use it that way in our Rise of the Runelords and Shattered Star games (I am GM of the former and a player in the latter) and it works OK.

While it is true that it favours the opposition over the PCs slightly, they can take it! And not allowing every mook to draw cards mitgates against that somewhat, although the main purpose of that rule is to prevent the game slowing down too much.

I have not read the PF2 versions, but I very much doubt my attitude would be any different. All the above would still seem to apply, except possibly the bit about disproportionately affecting martials. Probably all the moreso, given the much greater prevalance of crits in PF2.

_
glass.

[TwilightKnight]

The main reason I was thinking about the critical decks was to bring some true interesting randomness to combat. For most PCs by the time they are level five they have pretty much determined their best action economy and just do that time after time in combat. By introducing random effects rather than simply numbers, it should impose additional tactical aspects that otherwise never occur. I agree that they should only apply to the PCs and maybe enemies that are higher level than the PCs so it doesn’t create too much of a burden.

I wouldn’t use one deck and not the other though because of balance, though I hate the thought of having to remove some fail cards because they are too bad or hit cards because they are too good.