I am planning to run a game or 2 over the holiday.  I've been scheaming a whole vunch of hacks for 5th ed.  Exploding dice, different hardnesses of weapons and armor, restriced spells etc.  

I don't think I am going to do any of that and instead just add 2 crit tables.  1 moderate one severe.  

To roll on the moderate table you need to meet 2 of three criteria.  Natural crit.  Have advantage.  Defender has disadvantage.  

To roll on the severe table you need to meet all 3.  

I think this will make combat more decisive, more tatical.  And faster.  

1 good hit can really change the battle, but the hit isn't pure luck ypu can maneuver for it.  I'll populate the tables with stuff that makes sense to me, steel from role master.  But crits will also do moral damage.  


Thoughts? Suggestions?

Well, the division into two tables is interesting. But there you don't really account for the "lucky but unfortunate crit".

My goal isn't to add more randomness.  Hence no roll on the table if you just get a natural crit.  Double damage is enough.  

My goal is to encourage planning a bit of tatics and add a bit of fear.  And with fear might come prudence and some lateral thinking.  

If every encounter can be solved by subtraction people will just subtract (roll to hit, roll damage).  

If a simple kobalt has a %10 chance of putting you on your ass (pack tatics gives you advantage right?) you won't wade in feeling invunrible.  You might talk, you might sneak, you might ambush, but you won't just wade in swinging.  

It could do wierd things like make kobalds more dangerous than ogres, I can work on that, add a special mook crit table maybe.  If you go down you're fucked.  You have disadvantage, opponent has advantage to hit, by these proposed rules every hit would be a minor crit, 10% chance of a major crit.  I don't think thats necessarily a bad thing, but I wouldn't want to turn every fight into a tripping match.  

I would need to make rules for bleeding, cause bleeding will be on the table.

So to roll on these tables, you need to crit on someone who has Disadvantage, or you crit with Advantage? That seems pretty rare, especially to have all three at once. Also, I can't really imagine a scenario where you have Advantage AND they have Disadvantage, usually it is not a contested check. I guess if it was grappling? But for a normal attack you'd always roll against AC, so they have no chance to have Disadvantage against you.

For bleeding, I do something like, you make a CON save, then take 1d6 damage each turn unless you use an Action to stop the bleeding.

Quote from: Headless;1011123Thoughts? Suggestions?

Make the Crit Open ended. If you roll a natural 20 roll again. If you miss, you get just the doubled dice. If you hit again, add 1 more dice of damage, if you roll another natural 20, add double the dice of damage  again (4x) and roll again. Keep doing this as long as you roll natural 20s.

Estar - that seems to be a golden bb aproach.  1 chance in 400 to do even more damage on ever attack.


My plan will have 0 chance to do a super crit on most attacks.  5% if they are off balance, 10% if you are set up right (two dice with advantage means twice the chance for a crit)  and if the are off balance and you are set up every hits a crit, and a 10% chance for really bad crits.  

Barbs can reckless attack they gain advantage, give it to those who attack them.  

Wolf barb can give advantage.  Getting advantage is pretty easy I thought.  

Bear totem can give disadvantage if you don't attack him.   I think the battle mast can do the same, putting the enemy at a disadvantage is harder I think.  But thats good.

Quote from: Headless;1012200Estar - that seems to be a golden bb aproach.  1 chance in 400 to do even more damage on ever attack.

Been using it for years for OD&D. It works out. The most I ever seen was four in a row. Most of the time it happens one or twice  per session where two natural 20s are rolled in succession.

The frequency went up three years ago when I incorporated advantage/disadvantage and ditched most of the modifiers.

It works and works well without any table lookup.

Here is the full writeup I used for my Majestic Wilderlands.

QuoteIf an attacker rolls a natural 20 he automatically hits. The attacker then rerolls his attack. If he misses then he does his max damage plus whatever he normally rolls for damage. If he hits normally then he does double max damage. If he rolls another 20 then the attacker gets to roll again. Each natural 20 add in the max damage again. The attacker keeps doing this until he stops rolling natural 20s.

This is a link to the basic rules I hand out.

Quote from: Headless;1012200My plan will have 0 chance to do a super crit on most attacks.  5% if they are off balance, 10% if you are set up right (two dice with advantage means twice the chance for a crit)  and if the are off balance and you are set up every hits a crit, and a 10% chance for really bad crits.

Then two out of the three will double the damage dice, and meeting all three results in 4x the damage dice rolled. That more 5eish than rolling on a crit table.

Headless sounds like you want tactics to actually mean something, and smaller overwhelming numbers of creatures to be a threat.  Might I suggest a non-WotC iteration of the game?

Yes I want tatics to mean something.  But its not a war game and I'm cool with that.  But I still want to get to different points on the decision tree.  

If all combat is going to be sutraction then what is the point of scouting?  You still have to subtract all the dudes and all the hit points.  Same place on the decision tree.  

But if you could taunt a bruser into a foolish charge, soround him and drop him in a couple shots then you might try taunting.  

Take just the barbarians reckless attack for instance.  To me that seems like a bad move most of the time.  Sure you get a pretty sure hit, but they are pretty sure to hit you too if they live.  And you are going to fight again today and they don't (since you kill them)  but if you have a chance roll on a table where you might stun.  You knock them down, or make them start bleeded, or blind them temporarily, or knock their shield away.  You might take the risk.  


Estar, I'm not thinking there would be any extra damage on the crit tables just effects.  Have you played role master?

Kruger- which edition do you sugest.

Quote from: Headless;1012229Estar, I'm not thinking there would be any extra damage on the crit tables just effects.  Have you played role master?

No but I am aware of it and played Harnmaster which has crit effect all the time. Any percentage roll ending in a 0 or 5 is a critical. Basically there injury and a save that results from injury. The saves is where the bad stuff happens. Injury reduces skill and wears you down including making the foremention saves more difficult.

Quote from: Headless;1012229Kruger- which edition do you sugest.

I don't know about CR but I suggest my basic rules that posted earlier, use in conjunction with Swords & Wizardry.

Quote from: Headless;1012229Kruger- which edition do you sugest.

• AD&D1e/Osric/Hackmaster 4th/Astonishing Swordsman and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (AS&SH)
• Basic D&D/Labyrinth Lord/Adventurer, Conqueror, King (ACKS)
• OD&D/Swords and Wizardry

Of all of them OD&D would probably emphasize tactics the most since PCs are going to have the least amount of distracting bells and whistles.

Quote from: Headless;1012142If a simple kobalt

Is that a metallic kobold?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1013183Is that a metallic kobold?

Yes.  They are more rare, they reverie the metalic dragons.