Anyone done them already?

If not, would anyone like to take a stab at doing them, in a mechanically coherent way that seamlessly replaces how 5e handles crits now, and makes use of 5e's rules (things like advantage/disadvantage)?

It's a fine idea, and certainly in keeping with the tradition of house rules for D&D. Most of the 1E and BD&D groups I gamed with in the 70's and 80's had a crit table like this. And don't forget that Rolemaster and its related games started as a set of cardstock printed damage and crit tables that were obviously intended to be an add-on for D&D. I lost track of my tatty old paper crit tables, but it would be easy to adapt DCC's or the ones from Arms Law.

My only Issue with crit tables is they work against the players more than for them. After all they survive to be critted over and over again while 99% of the bad guys die. No big deal if a crit is involved or not.


Having said that I am not totally against them as long as they are interesting. I think Dragon age has the best Crit table I have seen and like how it is flexible and interesting without being deadly.

If your looking for a deadly game then by all means have at a deadly crittable.

Quote from: RPGPundit;796708Anyone done them already?

If not, would anyone like to take a stab at doing them, in a mechanically coherent way that seamlessly replaces how 5e handles crits now, and makes use of 5e's rules (things like advantage/disadvantage)?

Well crit tables in the DCC RPG work due to the fact at higher levels the character has a bigger crit die. The only modifier i can find that effects the crit dice is luck.

You can add a column to the standard level chart indicating which class get which crit die and crit table.

OR

you can just do the above for which crit table but instead of rolling bigger dice do exploding dice.

If you score a critical hit, you roll another dice based on your class. If you roll a maximum result then you roll again adding it to the result of the previous roll. You repeat this as long as you keep rolling maximum results.

Bob the Rogue score a critical hit on a normal to hit roll. He then rolls a d8 and gets a 8, he then rolls a d8 again and gets a 6. He looks up 14 on Table II

Strike to Head. Target must make a Fort Save or fall conscious.

We used to just roll d1000 and consult a giant book of goofy crits that my friend's big brother's D&D group wrote out one weekend. It was the best!

Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;796732My only Issue with crit tables is they work against the players more than for them. After all they survive to be critted over and over again while 99% of the bad guys die. No big deal if a crit is involved or not.


Having said that I am not totally against them as long as they are interesting. I think Dragon age has the best Crit table I have seen and like how it is flexible and interesting without being deadly.

If your looking for a deadly game then by all means have at a deadly crittable.

I've considered instituting either crit tables or the Dragon Age stunt tables.

We are primarily a Savage Worlds group, and D&D combat is a lot more mechanically...bland...than Savage Worlds. My players are troopers, but I think they would like SOMETHING to spice it up.

As a silver lining for the players, I was thinking of applying a little rule on criticals that leave obvious scars: granting Advantage to certain social interaction checks:

• Gruesome facial scar? Advantage on Intimidation check against naive peasants
• Awesome facial scar? Advantage to Persuade soldiers or hirelings
• Obvious limp? Advantage to Deception or Disguise (easier to pretend to be a diseased beggar when your limp is REAL
• Missing limb? Engineers/Dwarves/Gnomes are looking for people like you to try out their prosthetics.

I mean, sometimes a hacked limb or missing eye is just that, but frankly, there can be positive aspects to those traits. If anything else, they can look freaking bad-ass.

If you do a straightforward application of the DCC crit charts, you'd have to adapt to the fact that DCC only has 10 levels.

How do the DCC crit tables compare to the WHRPG 1E's crit tables?

Quote from: TristramEvans;798104How do the DCC crit tables compare to the WHRPG 1E's crit tables?

They're somewhat less location-specific, less medical in their tone, but I think significantly more suited to D&D.

I really love WFRP's tables, but for WFRP.

If you want to make 5E more lethal and MUCH more brutal, replace the dying rules (i.e. saving throws when HP becomes 0 or less) with the ACKS Mortal Wound system...

Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;796732My only Issue with crit tables is they work against the players more than for them. After all they survive to be critted over and over again while 99% of the bad guys die. No big deal if a crit is involved or not.


Having said that I am not totally against them as long as they are interesting. I think Dragon age has the best Crit table I have seen and like how it is flexible and interesting without being deadly.

If your looking for a deadly game then by all means have at a deadly crittable.

You can always use different rules for PCs and NPCs.

Personally I prefer simple (double damage), simple plus (double damage + advantage or disadvantage the next round {regardless of other sources of Adv/Disadv}), and less simple (special tactical effects; disarm, push, trip, etc.). I'm less enthusiastic about dismemberment and gore.

Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;796732My only Issue with crit tables is they work against the players more than for them. After all they survive to be critted over and over again while 99% of the bad guys die. No big deal if a crit is involved or not.

That is something to keep in mind; but that said, in my campaigns that's often a feature, rather than a bug.