Re: Critical Hits

Critical hit charts are often fun, but can sometimes disrupt a game.  I
remember one campaign where my 1st or 2nd level thief killed a major NPC
with a hand x-bow as he was making his escape.  Although great for me, it
really caused problems in the plot line for the DM.

DM's can often recover, but it can be a pain.  One solution that we came up
with was to exempt any named NPC from critical hits.  What this means is
that in a normal fight against an orc or bandit, critical hits are
available.  But, when PC's take on a monster or NPC that the DM has spent
some time fleshing out (ie given a name to), a critical hit might only
result in double damage or something less fatal.

This solution worked well for us.

Just a thought.


At 12:18 PM 7/3/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi everybody,
>
>after the long discussion about weapon damage and hitpoints I have
>thought up a little chart for critical hits.
>Well, next time I play Spelljammer I am going to introduce this 5
>minute work to my players, but perhaps there are obvious flaws in it,
>so I decided to post it here:
>
>- These 'rules' only apply to hand to hand combat, not magic.
>
>- Whenever an unmodified "1" is rolled, the attacker loses his / her
>/ its weapon and needs to pick it up again, losing the next attack.
>Animals and other beings with "natural" weapons might tumble or
>something. In either case they cannot attack the next round after
>they have scored an unmodified "1".
>
>- Whenever an unmodified "20" is scored, the attacker must roll an
>additional attack. If the attack hits he can choose to roll damage as
>normal or to roll on the critical hit chart.
>
>- The roll on the chart is made with D20. For every full 5 Hitdice /
>Experience Levels the roll is modified by 1.
>
>Below 10: No effect
>10+: Victim takes 1D3 damage.
>12+: Victim is stunned for 1D4 rounds (+3 Thac0, -2 Damage,
>Spellfailure 25%, Speedfactor +4)
>14+: Victim takes additional weapondamage
>16+: Victim is stunned for an additional 2 rounds
>18+: Victim is knocked out for D20+10 rounds
>19+: Victim takes additional weapondamage
>20+: Victim dies a horrible death
>
>Note that all effects are cumulative, thus an "18" would indicate
>that the Victim loses 1D3 + weapondamage in hitpoints, is stunned for
>1D4+2 rounds and is knocked out for D20+10 rounds.
>A succesful saving throw against death magic reduces the criticalhit
>by one row. For example a "19" would be only a "18+" hit afterwards.
>For every full 10 Hitdice or experiencelevels (the highest for dual-
>or multiclass characters counts) the row is automatically reduced by
>one.
>
>With this rule a Dragon could not be killed outrihgt, since it
>would automatically reduce the row.
>Nevertheless every monster would pose a threat to the PCs now, since
>it can consideringly harm them (even though it is still very
>unlikely).
>
>With regards,
>
>Kai
>
>
>
>"Logic is the foundation of discipline.
>Discipline is the essence of control.
>I am in control."
>Tuvok, Voyager
>___________________________________________________
>optimus@????.???.????-??????.de
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