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View Full Version : Is this a good critical-hit system for my homebrew rpg?



xBlackWolfx
2012-12-14, 04:48 AM
This is for a fantasy rpg, set in my own custom setting.

Checks in the game involve rolling 2d6+attribute+skill (the only exceptions being damage, which is an additive dice pool). If you roll doubles on the 2d6 roll, you have scored a critical of sorts, but its not that simple.

If you score a 'critical', you then roll another d6 to determine the result, which can be either good or bad. The results vary based on the check, and wheather or not your check actually succeeded (for example, if you get a bad result on the critical die when you failed to disarm a trap, the trap goes off in your face right there, but if you succeeded in the check the bad result would only mean it damaged you a little or it took a bit longer than normal to disarm). This was inspired by the dice mechanic in Shadowrun, though their mechanic works quite differently I think I managed to imitate it quite well with my set-die mechanic (Shadowrun uses a dicepool for all checks) Right now, the results of the critical d6 are as follows:

1: major mishap
2: moderate mishap
3: minor mishap
4: minor benefit
5: moderate benefit
6: major benefit

Notice the gradience in severity. The severity determines how bad or good your unexpected surprise is. For example, if you hit someone and roll a minor benefit, you may deal more damage, but a major benefit would increase your damage even more or even allow you to inflict a status effect on the victim of your blow. I'm planning for each check to have its own little chart, giving suggestions as to what should happen for each possible result on the crit dice.

What I'm afraid is it might be a bit too complex to have a little chart for each and every possible skill check in the game. Is it too much? Should I simplify the crit system to simply a 50/50 chance for something either good or bad to happen?

And note, it is possible for characters to have a penalty or bonus to the crit die, which would add to the crit die's roll, so if you had a +1 to crit, a 1 would be 2, 2 would be 3, 3 would be 4, and 5 would be equivalent to rolling a 6 (the result of a 6 doesn't become better if you have a bonus to crit, though it can be eliminated if you have a penalty to crit). I also chose this system since it allows me to modify crit chances up or down like in D&D 3.X. I would prefer to have as much variables for the weapons as possible since unlike D&D my system only uses d6s, so all weapons available to normal-sized characters only deal either d6, 2d6, or 3d6 damage depending on weapon size (small weapons deal d6, medium weapons 2d6, etc... the only way to get a weapon of higher damage is an enchantment or a weapon so big that only a creature much larger than a human could wield it).

Roderick_BR
2012-12-14, 12:58 PM
Is this for any double, as in, two 2s, two 3s, and so on? I'd suggest keeping the "good" criticals only for double 6s, and the "bad" criticals (fumbles) for double 2s. This way, players won't dread that an apparently awesome attack is a bad thing. Imagine a player rolling two six, only to roll a fumble and find out he screwed up an attack.
Gurps has a critical/fumble list, that ranges from "no effect" (if you can't hit even with that 12/can't fail even with a 2), things doesn't change, through "lucky" (you at least hit the unhittable target/you still fumbles the test), towards your typical critical (you hit and deals double damage/you miss and ruins your job, harm yourself, etc).
I've played games with crit charts (gurps) and dice pools (vampire and shadowrun), and assure you that these can be time consuming and end up boring to your players, and again, the chance of fumbling a good roll, or criting a bad roll doesn't really makes much sense from a player's point of view, and I don't think uses the same logic as fumble rolls for dice pools (rolling 1s means you just remove a previous successful dice result, not that it directly changes the outcome).
Then again, you could use 3.x's critical system. If you crit threaten (rolling 12), you repeat the roll again. If you are successful, you gain a benefit (say, double weapon damage), if you double crit (rolls 12 again) you gain something extra, like max damage without rolling the dice, or something.
As a house rule, my group did the same for fumbles. Rolling 1 (or 2 for you), means you fumbled. Roll again. If you are successful, you "just" failed the task. If you fail, you critically fumbled (our default system was to just lose the weapon for a turn), and if you roll 1 (or 2) again... well, our DMs were creative.

scarmiglionne4
2012-12-14, 10:27 PM
I don't think once a player has reached the point of possibly scoring a critical they should be worried about mishaps. Possible criticals should be varying levels of criticals or the critical just doesn't happen. In other words, at this point the worst that should happen in the critical is just a normal hit, or maybe even if you feel like you must have a mishap have a chance for a glancing blow/less damage.

xBlackWolfx
2012-12-14, 10:50 PM
I wanted my system to work this way because I thought it was more realistic, and made things more dynamic. But I do understand your point. I could make double 6s a guaranteed critical success and doubles 1s a guaranteed critical failure. It would involve alot less dice rolling. However, I would still like there to be a chance of a 'mishap' even if they do succeed, I could just restrict that to lower values (like double 4s) to sort of simulate the character 'just barely' succeeding. Or, maybe I could make it optional. If the player rolls doubles of 2, 3, 4, or 5, they can attempt a 'critical role' to simulate their character pushing themselves to try and get the best result, with the risk that it may hurt instead of help.

Or, here's another idea: characters in the game have a luck attribute, which determines a few things but most notably is supposed to determine the chances of a critical hit. Perhaps if they roll doubles besides 1 or 6, they could attempt to 'push themselves', which would simply involve them rolling d6+luck to try and beat their own roll (so its a better idea to do it with double 2s than double 5s), if they succeed, they get somesort of benefit for their effort, but if they fail, something bad happens. Though it would probably a good idea to make it so you're more likely to get 'lucky' with double 5s than double 2s. That would certainly be interesting, and in all honesty a lot simpler then the former method of rolling a d6 with 6 possible results.

scarmiglionne4
2012-12-15, 11:10 PM
I like the mishaps happening with double ones

erikun
2012-12-15, 11:39 PM
Eclipse Phase does something similar to this, using a d% die and with a "critical" happening on doubles. It ends up being a critical hit when the die roll would be a success, and a critical failure when the die roll would fail. This makes it more likely for a skilled character to do exceptionally well, while still having the chance of a critical miss.

Your idea right now has some odd situations, such as someone succeeding but with a mishap, or failing completely while achieving a critical success. This sort of randomness can be a bit fun, especially if the system will allow for flexible situations. ("You tumble to the ground, but find a gun lying within your reach.") Just realize what you are actually implementing, and make sure it is what you want.


Also, your "critical" is happening on 1/6th (~17%) of all rolls, with a fairly significant one (moderate or above) happening 1/9th (~11%) of the time. You might want to make sure you want them this frequent with your system.

xBlackWolfx
2012-12-16, 03:32 AM
The kind of situations you describe are exactly what I want. As for the probability, well, I just don't know how to put it any lower. And to be honest, I don't think 1/6 is that bad, since all it really means is that 1/6 times a check will be a bit more interesting than just the standard 'you succeed' or 'you fail'.