New Idea for determining Critical Hits

[tschuma]

New Critical Hit Process

All Damage Die Rolls of a 6 have a chance of a Critical Hit, which are the normal rules. The change is that you must re-roll any Critical Hit Die to see if the hit is really a Critical hit. You must roll a 6 on all for your Critical hit re-roll die. This is modified per below:

Double Damage +1
Triple Damage +2
Quad Damage +3
Precise +1
Accurate +1
Weak -1

All modifiers are cumulative but the maximum modifier is a +5. If you do not roll a modified 6, then treat as a normal hit. If you roll a unmodified 1, then treat as a normal hit.

Example: A G’Quan fires it’s main beam, which is Double Damage at a Primus. After all the rolls the G’Quan ends up with a total of 7 hits. The Narn player now rolls to see what type of hits they are. They roll a 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, & 6 for a total chance of 2 critical hits. They now roll the 2 Critical Hit dice with a +1 modifier. The final roll is a 3 and a 5 or a modified roll of 4 and 6 for 1 normal hit and 1 critical hit. The Narn player now rolls the 1 critical hit die on the Critical Hit table.

This will allow any weapon to have a chance for a Critical hit, well maybe not Weak. This will hopefully reduce the number of Critical Hits that seems to ruin more games that I care to think about. If the re-roll is too high, then it can be lowered to a 5. We have also talked about modifiers for AP and SAP, but this is already factored in the To Hit Die Rolls. We have also talked about a D8 instead, but it’s just talk.

This is just an idea. Give it a try before cutting it too poeces We plan on testing it out sometime in the next week or so.

 

[wpngjstr]

I'd simply make the confirmation roll a 4+, and drop the weapon damage modifiers- after all the fact it does more damage is already a factor; if you a +3 modifier for quad damage, then multiplied the crit damage, it would be 16 times more effective than a regular crit (4* likely to crit, 4* damage)

 

[SylvrDragon]

I'd simply make the confirmation roll a 4+, and drop the weapon damage modifiers- after all the fact it does more damage is already a factor; if you a +3 modifier for quad damage, then multiplied the crit damage, it would be 16 times more effective than a regular crit (4* likely to crit, 4* damage)

Agreed. Besides, I think giving each weapon trait different modifiers is just unnecessary complication.

 

[silashand]

I agree, simply make it a 4+ to see if it's really a crit or not (Victory at Sea already uses this mechanism). Specific ships could have different results or there could be a trait(s) that alters it if desired. I prefer the trait idea as it could be applied to multiple ships as appropriate. For example:

Trait: Hardened/Redundant Systems

Ships with Hardened/Redundant Systems modify the roll needed to verify a critical hit from a 4+ to a 5+.

Or something like that anyway.

Cheers, Gary

 

[SylvrDragon]

Not a bad touch. Problem is that such a change would require a lot of work and re-balancing. : /

 

[silashand]

Not a bad touch. Problem is that such a change would require a lot of work and re-balancing. : /

The trait, yes. The 4+ standard to verify a crit I don't think so. As I said, Victory at Sea (which is the same basic ruleset as ACtA) already uses it. If nothing else is changed I think that would be enough. The new trait would just be a benefit for certain ships and could be playtested as needed for them.

Cheers, Gary

 

[Burger]

Dilgar (MoD) and fleets relying on Precise would need testing and reblaancing. They rely on getting crits. If you make crits harder to achieve, you are nerfing those fleets in relation to others.

 

[silashand]

Dilgar (MoD) and fleets relying on Precise would need testing and rebalancing. They rely on getting crits. If you make crits harder to achieve, you are nerfing those fleets in relation to others.

At this point IMO it's what's required to fix the overall system. It needs to be done plain and simple because for me and others I've met crits in ACtA can easily ruin a game, moreso than in any other system I've played. For Dilgar and others as you say it would be easy to come up with the counter to the Hardened/Redundant Systems trait for them:

Masters of Destruction (you could even turn this into a general trait to apply to specific other vessels if you wished. Certain Ancient level ships come to mind as potentially carrying weapons of a horrific nature).

The Dilgar are infamous for the destructive potential of their weaponry and their wanton disregard for the havoc they wreak. As such they do not have to roll to verify a critical hit. Instead, they automatically cause a critical hit whenever they roll a 6 on the damage table. Dilgar ships with the Precise traits will automatically cause a critical hit on a 5+.

Trait: Precise

Ships with the Precise trait will potentially cause a critical hit on a 5+ rather than a 6+ when rolling on the damage table. They also modify the die roll needed to verify a critical hit from a 4+ to a 3+.

Cheers, Gary

 

[greenboy]

Ships with precise will still have twice the chance of scoring a crit

 

[AdrianH]

First objection: as already pointed out, ships which rely on the bonus damage from criticals to balance them will lose out. So what if precise weapons are more likely than others to get the confirmation roll? They're still losing out.

Second objection: this does nothing to help large ships in preference to small ones, so the main problem of criticals - a horde of small ships nibbling a big ship to death by knocking out its systems - still remains. Possibly it is even made worse, the single big ship is less likely to get the bonus damage to kill one of the small ships, but the horde of small ships has more chances to knock bits off the big ship.

Perhaps require the confirmation roll only for the special effects of the criticals. Bonus hull and crew damage go through as now, but if you don't make the confirmation roll, you don't knock systems off line. The small ships still have more chance to knock systems off the big ship than vice versa, but the big ship retains its ability to destroy the small ships outright.

 

[Burger]

Perhaps require the confirmation roll only for the special effects of the criticals. Bonus hull and crew damage go through as now, but if you don't make the confirmation roll, you don't knock systems off line. The small ships still have more chance to knock systems off the big ship than vice versa, but the big ship retains its ability to destroy the small ships outright.

Sounds good to me - in fact that is one of the incarnations of redundancy
Even better, make it PL dependent... getting a crit effect on a Patrol requires a confirmation roll of 2+, skirmish 3+, raid/battle 4+, war/armageddon 5+?

 

[Foxmeister]

First objection: as already pointed out, ships which rely on the bonus damage from criticals to balance them will lose out. So what if precise weapons are more likely than others to get the confirmation roll? They're still losing out.

I think there are very few ships that fall into this category. Most Minbari, Vorlan, Shadow, and ISA ships have precise beams, and they they don't seem to be particularly low on AD which is what you'd expect if they were "reliant" on the additional damage from crits.

Ships that are affected? - Any thing that has low numbers of AD, single damage and precise. Well, the Sho'Kov is the best example I can think of and that's bordering on broken in numbers anyway.

If you have crit saves, everyone loses out pretty much equally IMHO because as has been previously stated precise weapons should have twice the number of crit opportunities anyway. MOD could potentially be an issue, but I'd be inclined to let them keep their additional damage multiplier when a crit is scored, whether it is saved or not.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Foxmeister]

Ships that are affected? - Any thing that has low numbers of AD, single damage and precise. Well, the Sho'Kov is the best example I can think of and that's bordering on broken in numbers anyway.

Thinking on it further, the Centauri would be affected more than most, since many of their ships have single damage precise beams. They may require some work!

Regards,

Dave

 

[Burger]

Dare I say it... Sagittarius? :lol: And the other EA missile ships, Apollo, Hermes etc.
Abbai beams too.
Drakh raiders would be badly nerfed as well.

 

[Foxmeister]

Dare I say it... Sagittarius? :lol: And the other EA missile ships, Apollo, Hermes etc.
Abbai beams too.
Drakh raiders would be badly nerfed as well.

True, but there are plenty of ships out there where I don't believe Precise is a balancing factor. In the case of the EA missile ships though, they do have a ridiculous number of variants anyway which can mitigate against this to a certain extent.

Still, the issue is if you want to reduce the effects of crits in the game you have only two real options.

1. Reduce the frequency
2. Reduce the effects

I'd be happy if any "Redundancy" or save just stopped the crit effects and not the additional damage.

Regards,

Dave

 

[silashand]

Still, the issue is if you want to reduce the effects of crits in the game you have only two real options.

1. Reduce the frequency
2. Reduce the effects

Agreed. Arguing that individual ships / fleets make this undesirable is IMO just wrong. As I've stated, crits themselves can (and often do) make ACtA unenjoyable to play. I know it is one factor in my own finding other games to play at the moment. I like B5 & ACtA and want to continue playing it, but this is one issue I really have a problem with and if the only solution is to stop playing, then that may eventually be my choice. I'm not asking anyone to do the same, but I really do despise how critical hits can literally ruin ACtA games.

Cheers, Gary

 

[Lord David the Denied]

What happens where the crit effect is additional damage/crew and nothing else? 6,6 criticals spring to mind.

Also, what of crits that do no extra damage, they'd be negated completely which is unfair if some crits aren't touched, some are reduced and some are wiped out by one rule.

 

[silashand]

What happens where the crit effect is additional damage/crew and nothing else? 6,6 criticals spring to mind.

Also, what of crits that do no extra damage, they'd be negated completely which is unfair if some crits aren't touched, some are reduced and some are wiped out by one rule.

Which is why I proposed my rewording of the Master of Destruction and Precise traits. Making a 4+ to ignore all the effects of a critical hit as is already done in Victory at Sea would not unfairly penalize anyone IMO since all races still have the same relative chance of getting them. This just reduces the chance they will occur at all and gives a slight boost to those races who rely on precise weaponry. Personally, I see no problem with implementing those rules as is (regardless if I did draft them). It would mitigate the number of criticals that occur which *is* the problem in the current system IMO. The fact that some races/fleets rely on them to a larger degree than others should be addressed in those races' special rules, not be used as an excuse not to fix the problem with crits.

As to the idea of lots of swarms being just as effective as now, that's a separate issue, one that can be addressed by a level of protection based on ship size/capability (PL) as has been mentioned in other threads. It should not stop fixing the frequency of critical hits because as I said, the two are separate issues. Both need to be addressed, but neither are truly dependent on each other.

Cheers, Gary

 

[Burger]

Have you tried the percentage-based replacement crit chart? Don't have the link right now but it is around somewhere. Massive improvement on the current one.

 

[silashand]

While I think that would perhaps be better, I don't think Mongoose is keen on moving to a d10 system. For some reason game companies like the d6 idea. Not sure why really.

Cheers, Gary