Looking for some critical hit/miss charts to spice up my campaign.

[jhardin87]

I played a campaign years ago and my DM had some really cool critical hit/miss charts that really spiced up the campaign but I haven't been able to find anything like that other than the depressingly disappointing card decks from paizo. Does anyone have any home brewed ones or know whee I can find something online?

[JusticeZero]

Critical misses are really annoying on numerous levels. Not recommended. The only one I've seen that is halfway passable is this : On the first attack only, a 1 followed by a confirmation miss incurs an attack of opportunity which can only be used with a combat maneuver.

[ArcturusV]

Well, if you can find them, 2nd edition had a lot of wicked Critical Misses built into the game. Everything from dropping weapons to auto hits on other targets, etc. So that might be something worth looking at.

Though as the previous poster said, I'd recommend against it. It's hard enough being a beat stick in a moderately optimized DnD game without a 5% chance to shank yourself on any of your attacks. And if you do go with some Critical Failure, for parity's sake I'd hope you also include a version for Spells/SLAs/Psionics/Other Similar Things.

[Larkas]

Ack, critical misses... Isn't it bad enough already to auto-fail an attack 5% of the time?

[JusticeZero]

Right. Critical misses, the system that generally ensures that Lancelot will stab himself in the eye and look like a buffoon in a given melee combat far more often than a blindfolded and drunken Cinderella will, assuming both are hacking away nonstop with identical weapons. In spite of the fact that melee is behind the curve already.

[ArcturusV]

Course, thinking about it, you could probably get closer to the rule we envision, rather than the rule as it is, is you alter how Critical Misses and Hits are necessarily figured out. I'm thinking of a variable scale thing myself. Something like a critical miss is if you miss a target by 15 or more between the AC and your attack roll, and critical hit if you beat it by 15 or more. Number subject to tweaking as needed, of course. It also means Lancelot there isn't going to shank himself in the eye anywhere near as badly as Grandma with the 4 Str and Dex trying to stab someone.

Effect this might have in practical? It makes Power Attack smashing a bit more risky at certain levels I suppose. If you tank your attack enough that you're within range of getting a critical miss when without tanking it you wouldn't have risked one at all. This kinda makes sense on the peasant logic level of a guy who's two handing smashing with all his power probably isn't channeling the most finesse and might screw up. Also it would be a different way to Crit Fish that might help close a gap between things like Two Weapon Dervishing, Sword and Board, and two handed. Two handed will always have the highest base damage, sure. Especially power attack stuff. But the one handers probably won't be power attacking, more likely to get crits than the Power Attacker... but would probably need something else to really close the deal if you were looking at it from weapon scheme balance.

... eh. It's just an idle theory that popped into my head. I haven't run it. But I think somewhere in there might be a good idea. The one it would punish (compared to the usual roll a 1 and auto miss and shank yourself) would probably be Gish types who sacrificed BAB and To-Hit for magical powers.

Might run a rule like that in my next game, see how it goes.

[Waker]

Yeah, critical miss/hit tables are generally annoying. But because you asked for tables, how about the fun of potion mixing (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20060401b).