SUPER CRITICALS BY DAMAGE TYPE

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Here is a new house rule I'm playing with, replacing my previous random critical hit bonus effects table discussed on another thread. Looking for advice and opinions.


SUPER-CRITICALS
You perform a critical hit as normal in Conan, but you
also have a chance to do a SUPER-CRITICAL.
___________________________________________

BLUDGEONING
Your mighty blow stands a chance to beat your
opponent back in melee; your opponent is allowed a
Reflex save (DC 10 + damage dealt) to negate this
additional effect. If he fails, he is knocked backwards
5 feet. If he rolls a critical failure (1) on his Reflex
save, he is knocked back five feet and knocked prone.
KNOCKED OVER THE EDGE: If his
backward movement pushes him over into a falling
situation, he is allowed another Reflex save (DC 15)
to catch himself.
NO ROOM TO KNOCK BACK: If there
is no room to knock him back, he instead takes your
Strength mod as bonus bludgeoning damage
(minimum bonus of +1), as you catch him “between a
rock and a hard place”.

FATE POINT: For 1 FP, you may choose to inflict
one bonus effect from the following list of options:

ARMOR BUSTER: You have three options: 1)
Automatically cave in, destroy and knock off your
opponent’s helmet; or 2) reduce his armor’s DR by a
number of points equal to your Strength modifier
(applies to breastplates and plate armor only); or 3)
brutally batter and bend his shield out of shape so that
he immediately loses 50% of its Parry bonus.

KNOCK-OUT: Automatically knock-out a minor
NPC (level 1-3). The NPC remains unconscious and
prone for a number of round equal to 3 + your
Strength modifier (minimum knockout of of 1 round if
you have a Strength modifier penalty).

STUN: Automatically stun an experienced NPC (level
4+) who fails his Reflex save vs. your Super-Crit. The
opponent remains stunned for 1 round, unable to
attack but able to defend himself.
_________________________________________

PIERCING
You run your opponent through (not necessarily in a
vital spot). Your opponent is allowed a Fortitude save
(DC 10 + damage dealt) to negate this effect. If he
fails, he is impaled by your weapon (-1 attack,
damage, skill checks, saving throws, dodge and parry).
The weapon cannot be removed by anyone except by a
Strength check (DC 10 + damage dealt). Each round
the weapon remains in the wound where the target
does not remain absolutely still causes 1 hp in
additional damage; removing the weapon inflicts the
weapon’s normal damage (with no Strength modifier),
or half its normal damage for arrows and bolts.

FATE POINT: For 1 FP, you may choose to inflict
one bonus effect from the following list of options:

SPIN: You use your melee weapon as leverage and
spin your impaled foe either left or right, into an
adjacent foe. Roll to hit normally; you inflict normal
weapon piercing damage (no Strength modifier) to the
impaled foe and 1d4 bludgeoning damage to the
adjacent foe struck by the impaled one. All of you are
forced to move five feet (counter clockwise if you
spun left, clockwise if you spun right).
SPUN OVER THE EDGE: If the foe’s
movement spins him into a falling situation, he is
allowed another Reflex save (DC 15) to catch himself.
NO ROOM TO SPIN: If there is no room
to spin him, treat this attack as a twist (see below).

TWIST: You savagely twist your weapon in the
wound of your impaled foe (melee weapons only).
This automatically inflicts an additional amount of
damage equal to that normally caused by the weapon
(not including your Strength modifier).
__________________________________________

SLASHING
Your savage cut may have struck an artery. Your
opponent is allowed a Reflex save (DC 10 + damage
dealt) to negate this additional effect. If he fails, he
begins bleeding to death at the rate of 1 hp per round
until either he is magically healed or the Heal skill is
successfully used on him (DC 20). If he rolls a critical
failure (1) on his save, his blood loss equals 2 hp per
round.
NO BLOOD: Bleeding damage has no
effect on constructs, oozes and undead (except
vampires), or any other creature without blood.

FATE POINT: For 1 FP, you may choose to inflict
one bonus effect from the following list of options:

ARMOR HACKER
You detect and exploit a weakness in your opponent’s
protection.
Armor Failure: Your blow caused straps or
buckles to become broken in your oponent’s armor,
lowering his DR by -2 until it is repaired (10 sp).
Shield Failure: You cleave through and
destroy his shield. He immediately loses its Parry
bonus. He must drop his shield.
Helmet Failure: You give him a ringing
blow to the head and blood drips into his eyes,
temporarily blinding him for the remainder of the
round!
No Protection: If he is not wearing any
protective gear, then you cause his clothes to rip and
tear, causing him a -1 penalty to his Dodge DV this
round while he is thus distracted. If he is not wearing
clothes (or has only a loincloth or similar scanty
attire), he suffers no ill effect (aside from your critical
hit damage).
 
For me, the main consideration would be whether these slow down your game play or not. In terms of colour and feel they add a lot to your games (something we tried hard to achieve with Conan), but if it adds too much complexity or rule flicking then i'd be wary of it.

If you're already using a critical system and finding conan combat to flow fairly quickly though then this could be a fun addition.
 
That is my concern, too. I found I would ALWAYS use the critical fumbles table I made up (everyone remembered something terrible happens on a 1, as we've always played it that way, though not with my new Conan specific table of course!). But I only remembered to use the extra critical table about half the time (always remembering the damage multiplier as normal). The extra criticals didn't seem to add that much for the minute or so it took me to look it up and apply it. I love to tinker, however, so I thought I'd just "streamline" it and make it not random, just by damage type. The problem again was I got super detailed (more than I meant to, and again indulged my curious nature to include FP options), which ended up with the table posted above. I'll try this new one out in this week's game and report back the results. :wink:
 
As far as crits go, i never really liked the rolling to confirm a crit. IMC I only make them roll to confirm on extended ranges (i.e. if they roll a 19 for a slashing weapon). The way I see it, if a 1 is always a botch, then a 20 should always be a crit.
 
KiltieMacBagpipes said:
As far as crits go, i never really liked the rolling to confirm a crit. IMC I only make them roll to confirm on extended ranges (i.e. if they roll a 19 for a slashing weapon). The way I see it, if a 1 is always a botch, then a 20 should always be a crit.

We roll to confirm botches/fumbles as well. :)

TTFN,

Yokiboy
 
Are these advantages in addition to every critical, do they apply only if you confirm a second critical, or are they options to replace extra damage from criticals?

I could see using some of these to (optionally) replace the extra damage from a critical. That wouldn't slow the game down with a flurry of extra rolls after every critical. (That may also give swords an extra edge over axes, which isn't terrible in my eyes.)

Also, I don't care to dilute Fate Points by using them for everything. What if you gave each character 2 Action Points at the beginning of each session, and they could spend these to:
1) Reroll a single die (attack, save, etc)
2) Do maximum damage on a sucessful attack
3) Perform a super critical instead of a normal critical?

Then Fate Points could reserved to control your character's fate, like "What if a pirate ship came by now", "How about I wasn't so dead" or "Maybe we could meet an antagonist with an Akbitan-made weapon".
 
More comments and questions. Sorry, but I like these a lot.

Iron_Chef said:
BLUDGEONING
Your mighty blow stands a chance to beat your
opponent back in melee; your opponent is allowed a
Reflex save (DC 10 + damage dealt) to negate this
additional effect. If he fails, he is knocked backwards
5 feet. If he rolls a critical failure (1) on his Reflex
save, he is knocked back five feet and knocked prone.

Is "damage dealt" before or after DR?

And does getting knocked back provoke AoOs from other combatants? It should, IMHO, making this a particularly nasty S-C.

ARMOR BUSTER: You have three options: 1)
Automatically cave in, destroy and knock off your
opponent’s helmet; or 2) reduce his armor’s DR by a
number of points equal to your Strength modifier
(applies to breastplates and plate armor only); or 3)
brutally batter and bend his shield out of shape so that
he immediately loses 50% of its Parry bonus.

Bare hands and guantlets count as bludgeoning, right? I'd allow 3) to reduce the shield's Parry bonus by your Str bonus, and limit both 2) and 3) to your weapon's innate AP.

Each round
the weapon remains in the wound where the target
does not remain absolutely still causes 1 hp in
additional damage

I'd up this to 1d4 for melee weapons and 1d8 for large weapons.

SPIN: You use your melee weapon as leverage and
spin your impaled foe either left or right, into an
adjacent foe. Roll to hit normally; you inflict normal
weapon piercing damage (no Strength modifier) to the
impaled foe and 1d4 bludgeoning damage to the
adjacent foe struck by the impaled one. All of you are
forced to move five feet (counter clockwise if you
spun left, clockwise if you spun right).

TWIST: You savagely twist your weapon in the
wound of your impaled foe (melee weapons only).
This automatically inflicts an additional amount of
damage equal to that normally caused by the weapon
(not including your Strength modifier).

These would make nice combat maneuvers on rounds following an Impale, assuming you don't let go of your melee or large weapon.

SLASHING
Your savage cut may have struck an artery. Your
opponent is allowed a Reflex save (DC 10 + damage
dealt) to negate this additional effect. If he fails, he
begins bleeding to death at the rate of 1 hp per round
until either he is magically healed or the Heal skill is
successfully used on him (DC 20). If he rolls a critical
failure (1) on his save, his blood loss equals 2 hp per
round.

Don't thieves get a similar ability at a certain level? My book's not in front of me.

ARMOR HACKER
Shield Failure: You cleave through and
destroy his shield. He immediately loses its Parry
bonus. He must drop his shield.

Shouldn't the size or AP your weapon affect this?
 
Your super-crits are pretty good, Iron_Chef. Even in Conan's world I would think that being impaled or having a slashed artery would cause a little more damage than 1 hp per round, though. The Spin and Twist options are definetely good.

I would consider using these rules in a one-on-one combat situation, such as a duel, one that had greater signifigance in the plot of my game. I'm a little leary of adding crunch to the combat in Conan (due in part to a Hero System game I attempted to run, combat with some optional rules became a real headace).

Thanks for the options though.
 
I'm flattered this thread has come back to life; it didn't garner much attention when first posted. I abandoned super criticals by damage type long ago in favor of an alternate critical hit/failure % system which I use exclusively in place of regular crit rules. It is posted on the second page of my GM's Guide thread, linked below in my sig, but I'll repost it here for your convenience:

MAKING COMBATS DEADLIER

Here's how you can KILL or MUTILATE a character of ANY LEVEL at ANY TIME by ANYBODY: Critical Effects (by weapon damage type), in addition to the regular crit multipliers. I've playtested them using Conan, they add a lot of fun and fear to every battle. Too bad I can't take credit for coming up with this system... :twisted:

The tables include Critical Fumbles, too!

Note that these tables should work for any d20 or OGL game, as they were originally created for D&D 3e.

http://dndadventure.com/ftp/critical_hit_table_2e.zip
 
Yup. It works wonders for scaring the crap out of players and for making combats more unpredictable. :twisted: We've used it for months with nary a problem. We play that a Fate point will block the nasty critical effects, by the way, though you still take a normal "by the book" critical hit (or miss on a fumble).
 
KiltieMacBagpipes said:
As far as crits go, i never really liked the rolling to confirm a crit. IMC I only make them roll to confirm on extended ranges (i.e. if they roll a 19 for a slashing weapon). The way I see it, if a 1 is always a botch, then a 20 should always be a crit.

The only problem with this is the case where a low-level monster/NPC/PC can only score a hit against a higher level, better defending creature with a 20. Does that mean that the low-level is incapable of scoring a normal hit, and can only hit with a critical? Confirming criticals prevents this goofy odds game..
 
Iron_Chef, I'd like to thank you for posting this stuff here. I've used it in my Conan campaign and it works beautifully. I've also modified them a bit to make them usable in my DnD campaigns. Which is working great as well. Thank you very much for work well done.
 
Thanks for posting these house rules. At some point, I may even playtest them for my game.

As for critical fumbles, Dragon Lords of Melnibone (d20) from Chaosium includes a percentile chart.
 
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