Quote from: JeremyR;735134Were they officially added?

Quote from: Spinachcat;735137Philotomy Jurament has some great ideas that really inspired me to do more with Critical Hits.

http://www.grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf

In essence, you don't just double damage, but critical hits are moment of great DM flourish to tailor what the critical does based on the situation.

The original critical hits were monster- or item-specific and didn't do double damage, but instead had a specific effect. I think the purple worm is the only example from the LBBs (on a roll 4 above the target number or a natural 20, victim is swallowed.) But the vorpal blade shows up in Greyhawk, I believe.

Which, in my mind, sets up some guidelines to expanding the rule:

(1) Not everyone should be able to do it (maybe Fighters only for combat, or specific spells for M-Us.)
(2) The effect ought to be weapon-specific.
(3) The effect for a mundane weapon has to be less powerful than the magical vorpal blade, or the purple worm.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;735198Just because players can score criticals doesn't mean that monsters can. Also, the fragility of first level characters varies by edition.

Always give a monster an even break.  Learn it. Live it. Love it.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;735204Don't know when it officially started, but I posted an article yesterday about an article in 1980 from Dragon magazine that talked about expanding it from just double damage to a table of possible results.

Jon Peterson goes into the history of critical hits here:
http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-first-critical-hits.html
The first crit table was from '75.

Quote from: jibbajibba;735151Generally I want my monsters and PCs to obey the same "physics" and I think that whist double damage can be scary to a PC these effects would piss them off more.

I have never had a problem with a player pissed off by my custom crits and fumbles, as they apply to both PCs and monsters.

In my game on Saturday, six gnolls attacked and one gnoll fumbled and because it was a messy melee in a tight space, I ruled that the fumble was the gnoll accidentally targeting a fellow gnoll. So I rolled the gnoll's attack and of course, he hits his fellow gnoll, does max damage and cleaves his buddy's head off.

I also do the same thing for fumbles and crits in saving throws so some spells go off spectacularly and some saves result in amazing escapes.

Quote from: Akrasia;735189I don't like the 'natural 20 is a crit' system, as it means that all characters, whether magic-users or fighters, have the same chance to score a critical hit.

I agree this is an issue. Since fighters make more attacks, they get more crits in battle. In the past, I have had house rules that Fighters can crit on any attack rolls that are 10 higher than needed. AKA, if they have AC 13, and your attack roll total is 23, then blammo!

Quote from: Gabriel2;735194Adding additional fumble effects just exacerbates the inherent problems for no productive play purpose.

The key to fumbles and crits is to make them important and key moments in the battle, the moment when either Lady Luck or Mr. Murphy makes their appearance on the stage.

Never used any special crits/fumbles as a DM, though I don't mind them as a player. For me, when damage rolled is max, that IS a critical strike.

OH, count me as one of those who used to use fumbles, but now it's just an automatic miss.  I never liked fumbles being something horrible because they happen 5% of the time, and you don't break your weapon or stab your buddy once every 20 attacks in "real" combat.

I like both crit hits/misses. I've played the double damage but more now we use either charts ( DCC) or a card draw from a crit deck (Pathfinder/D&D).

That is something we will pull into Next if we play. I can see how the crit miss could seem abusive to some. Even before we had the above mentioned methods, it was generally accepted that if you rolled a 1 the GM was going to come up some crappy thing that just happened to your PC. But mostly we used the occasion to inject some humor or narrative into combat.

This has been interesting thread, it goes to show gaming groups can be insular. I never really considered that many folks would be adverse to crits.

But I would argue that 5% chance of crap going really bad for you in one minute of combat (1 round) may not be that far off from reality. Crap breaks, guns jam, misfires, slip n falls, the list goes on and on. This is why the military spends so much time drilling discipline into soldiers, to deal with all the things that can go wrong above and beyond the fact that someone wants to kill you. I doubt it was any better when they were fighting with the supposed weapons of a fantasy setting. IMHO

P.S. Is anyone watching "Vikings" on History channel? I think there are some awesome scenes that can spark the mind when imagining RPG combat (especially crits)

A minor clarification.

We played a critical only if the attack has a chance to hit in the first place. Same for a fumble.

But... Here on page 61 of my DMG Gary is talking about combat and specifically mentions hit locations, criticals and double damage as things AD&D does not need.

Re-reading that now makes me reconsider use of criticals in AD&D.

I started using them after a few years, and used them more and more as time went on, though in the last few years, when I design anything for d20, it is more pared down and descriptive again.  Fumbles as well as crits.  

Too many versions of the game I used had monsters and characters with 50+ HP, and there needed to be a little more threat to combat with mass creatures.

As far as I can recall I've always played in groups that use them.  I'm not myself firmly attached to them, but I don't mind them either.

Quote from: Grymbok;735142Generally I've used critical hits in D&D, but there is definitely merit in the argument that using them universally is a bad thing for the players as the DM tends to roll more attack rolls than the party.

That's the argument against them I find most persuasive.  Players generally like them, but any given goblin only gets crits rolled against it once, while the pcs get rolled against hundreds of times.

Quote from: Akrasia;735189The alternative that I'm using now is that a natural 20 gives the character the opportunity to score a critical hit.  The player has to roll again, and if he scores a hit (of any kind), his PC has scored a critical.  This means the PC does maximum damage and rolls one more damage die on top of that (so a longsword would do 8 + 1d8 + modifiers damage).  (I believe I took this from 3e, of all places, but I don't recall now.)

Rolling to confirm a crit is indeed from 3E.  In the book I think it doubles (or triples, depending on weapon) the dice rolled, but that one die maxed and the rest rolled is a house rule I've already played under.  It spares the let-down of rolling snake-eyes on a confirmed crit.

Quote from: Akrasia;735189I don't like the 'natural 20 is a crit' system, as it means that all characters, whether magic-users or fighters, have the same chance to score a critical hit.  That's implausible.  Also, sometimes a foe can only be hit with a 'natural 20' if they have a great AC.

I'd draw inspiration from ACKS, which makes criticals a "skill" (really a feat) you have to buy into.  (And fighters get more of these skills, so they're most likely to pick it up.)  And in LotFP, I think only fighters get to increase their to-hit as they level.  Combining the two ideas, I can see making crits a class feature for fighters.  It also solves Grymbok's problem above, though rare skilled monsters might still have it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;735137Philotomy Jurament has some great ideas that really inspired me to do more with Critical Hits.

http://www.grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf

In essence, you don't just double damage, but critical hits are moment of great DM flourish to tailor what the critical does based on the situation.

Example: Gehan the Cleric crits an orc with his mace. He rolls a 2 as his base damage. Instead of doubling damage to 4 points or adding another D6 damage, I could rule that the orc is dazed by the smash, maybe even needs to save vs. stun, or the mace comes down on the orc's shield, shattering it or the mace crushes the orc's arm, forcing him to drop its spear, etc.

Its a different approach, but this reminded me of Zak's Kung Fu Numbers.  You can unpack disarms or trips (or anything else you can think of) from the natural 20 and assign them to other individual numbers.  So a monk, for instance, might deal no damage but still disarm if he takes that on a low number, or do both if he takes a high one.  And you can tailor the number of numbers you get by campaign, so maybe fighters get the most in a western game, or monks and ninjas in an Asian game.

Quote from: Saladman;735393That's the argument against them I find most persuasive.  Players generally like them, but any given goblin only gets crits rolled against it once, while the pcs get rolled against hundreds of times.

Same here.  For the kinds of games I run and want to play, there is no automatic monster equality.

Quote from: Gabriel2;735398Same here.  For the kinds of games I run and want to play, there is no automatic monster equality.

Why you trying to keep the green man down?

Quote from: Grymbok;735142Generally I've used critical hits in D&D, but there is definitely merit in the argument that using them universally is a bad thing for the players as the DM tends to roll more attack rolls than the party.

I don't really see that as a bad thing. It is just a way to increase the challenge. Most of the 'extra' critical hits are probably coming from mooks that are otherwise fodder.

Quote from: Omega;735348A minor clarification.

We played a critical only if the attack has a chance to hit in the first place. Same for a fumble.

But... Here on page 61 of my DMG Gary is talking about combat and specifically mentions hit locations, criticals and double damage as things AD&D does not need.

Re-reading that now makes me reconsider use of criticals in AD&D.

"need" perhaps not.

But some groups will enjoy criticals, others not so much.

I can't recall ever hearing a player complain that critical s exist. Even in Rolemaster.

Quote from: Bill;735654"need" perhaps not.

But some groups will enjoy criticals, others not so much.

I can't recall ever hearing a player complain that critical s exist. Even in Rolemaster.

Outside of D&D who cares? Often those other systems have criticals built in if they have them. Rather than shoehorned in. My own games do not have critical hits.

Did though have critical damage. IE: if a hit did max damage then the target suffered some additional setback. Usually just rends in armour and shields, one round stuns, limb injuries that slow down mobility without totally disabling.
Unless the damage was taking out a limbs body points at the same time, in which case the target might lose the limb. Which tended to be the least of their worries at that point.