flabbergast
2017-10-05, 02:38 PM
I'm about to DM a new campaign soon and both myself and my players have expressed interest in spicing up critical hits to be more dangerous and impactful. I've wanted to do this by making critical hits deal more damage as well as by applying the possibility of some lingering effects to them. I've taken a look at a few other critical hit tables online but a lot of them felt either over-complicated by a billion possible effects or they just had weird arbitrary effects that didn't really make sense. Anyway, here's an outline of the current system I've worked out.
CRITICAL HIT TYPES
Normal Critical Hit: Roll the damage di(c)e of your attack twice.
Dangerous Crit: Add the maximum value of the crit damage di(c)e to your initial roll.
Examples:
A critical hit with a weapon attack that deals 1d8 damage would now deal 1d8 + 8 instead of 2d8 as normal.
A critical hit with a spell that deals 2d6 damage would now deal 2d6 + 12 instead of 4d6 as normal.
This increases average critical hit damage by up to 40%.
Deadly Crit: Deal double the maximum damage of the attack instead of rolling for damage.
Examples:
A critical hit with a weapon attack that deals 1d8 damage would now deal 16 damage instead of 2d8 as normal.
A critical hit with a spell that deals 2d6 damage would now deal 24 damage instead of 4d6 as normal.
This increases average critical hit damage by nearly 100%.
With these different types, I was either going to ask my players which type they want to have and limit which type the enemies could have based on that, OR I was going to consider having them roll a second time after critting to see how hard they crit. Also, I totally realize "Deadly Crits" are kind of insano-mode so I will likely not use them unless my players actually seem really interested in hoping RNGsus is on their side. In that case, I totally warned them.
CRITICAL EFFECTS
I don't have an actual roll table for these effects yet because I'm not sure what kind of odds each effect should have yet. I more so want to know what you guys think about the effects themselves first. My goal was to create a varied-but-concise list of effects that would all be roughly equal in terms of how powerful they are.
None: The damage you deal is grave, but only surface level. The target suffers no lingering injury.
Crippled: The target's leg buckles beneath your strike. Until the target receives healing, their movement speed is halved and they roll disadvantage on DEX checks.
Disarmed: The target drops whatever weapon or item they were holding out of sheer pain. Using a bonus action, you may snatch or kick away the dropped item with a DC10 DEX check.
Winded: Your hefty blow knocks the wind out of the target, causing them to suffer 1 level of exhaustion. As well, the target's movement speed is halved unless it uses an action to pass a DC10 CON check to catch their breath.
Concussed: You strike hard against the target's head, causing them to be stunned until the end of their next turn. Until the target receives healing, they also have disadvantage on INT, WIS and CHA checks.
Bleeding: Your attack rips deep into the target's flesh, causing a terrible bleeding wound. The target suffers 1d4 bleeding damage per round until they receive healing.
Floored: Your powerful strike throws the target off-balance then knocks them prone. While the target is off-balance, you may also choose to shove them up to 10 ft in any direction.
ENEMY CRITICAL HITS
In a (perhaps feeble) effort to balance this system, I decided that every single rando goblin probably shouldn't be able to benefit from it since there's only so many players up against every enemy in the world. So here's a loosely tiered list of enemies that could be tagged with different types of crits.
Minor Foes: These weaker enemies cannot make critical hits.
Normal Foes: These common enemies roll the effects of normal critical hits.
Dangerous Foes: These hardened enemies roll the effects of dangerous critical hits as well as critical effects.
Deadly Foes: These truly powerful enemies roll the effects of deadly critical hits as well as critical effects.
...
Well that's it. Honestly though, I want any suggestions you guys have that might make this system better but I'm not concerned about it being perfectly balanced. If I were concerned about my campaign being perfectly balanced, I wouldn't even bother rolling for damage. I'd just have every hit do average damage. Actually, I'd probably go play Warhammer or something.
P.S. After I figure this one out, I want to make a *magic* critical effect table for spell crits as well. Looking forward to destroying my game balance with that too lol.
CRITICAL HIT TYPES
Normal Critical Hit: Roll the damage di(c)e of your attack twice.
Dangerous Crit: Add the maximum value of the crit damage di(c)e to your initial roll.
Examples:
A critical hit with a weapon attack that deals 1d8 damage would now deal 1d8 + 8 instead of 2d8 as normal.
A critical hit with a spell that deals 2d6 damage would now deal 2d6 + 12 instead of 4d6 as normal.
This increases average critical hit damage by up to 40%.
Deadly Crit: Deal double the maximum damage of the attack instead of rolling for damage.
Examples:
A critical hit with a weapon attack that deals 1d8 damage would now deal 16 damage instead of 2d8 as normal.
A critical hit with a spell that deals 2d6 damage would now deal 24 damage instead of 4d6 as normal.
This increases average critical hit damage by nearly 100%.
With these different types, I was either going to ask my players which type they want to have and limit which type the enemies could have based on that, OR I was going to consider having them roll a second time after critting to see how hard they crit. Also, I totally realize "Deadly Crits" are kind of insano-mode so I will likely not use them unless my players actually seem really interested in hoping RNGsus is on their side. In that case, I totally warned them.
CRITICAL EFFECTS
I don't have an actual roll table for these effects yet because I'm not sure what kind of odds each effect should have yet. I more so want to know what you guys think about the effects themselves first. My goal was to create a varied-but-concise list of effects that would all be roughly equal in terms of how powerful they are.
None: The damage you deal is grave, but only surface level. The target suffers no lingering injury.
Crippled: The target's leg buckles beneath your strike. Until the target receives healing, their movement speed is halved and they roll disadvantage on DEX checks.
Disarmed: The target drops whatever weapon or item they were holding out of sheer pain. Using a bonus action, you may snatch or kick away the dropped item with a DC10 DEX check.
Winded: Your hefty blow knocks the wind out of the target, causing them to suffer 1 level of exhaustion. As well, the target's movement speed is halved unless it uses an action to pass a DC10 CON check to catch their breath.
Concussed: You strike hard against the target's head, causing them to be stunned until the end of their next turn. Until the target receives healing, they also have disadvantage on INT, WIS and CHA checks.
Bleeding: Your attack rips deep into the target's flesh, causing a terrible bleeding wound. The target suffers 1d4 bleeding damage per round until they receive healing.
Floored: Your powerful strike throws the target off-balance then knocks them prone. While the target is off-balance, you may also choose to shove them up to 10 ft in any direction.
ENEMY CRITICAL HITS
In a (perhaps feeble) effort to balance this system, I decided that every single rando goblin probably shouldn't be able to benefit from it since there's only so many players up against every enemy in the world. So here's a loosely tiered list of enemies that could be tagged with different types of crits.
Minor Foes: These weaker enemies cannot make critical hits.
Normal Foes: These common enemies roll the effects of normal critical hits.
Dangerous Foes: These hardened enemies roll the effects of dangerous critical hits as well as critical effects.
Deadly Foes: These truly powerful enemies roll the effects of deadly critical hits as well as critical effects.
...
Well that's it. Honestly though, I want any suggestions you guys have that might make this system better but I'm not concerned about it being perfectly balanced. If I were concerned about my campaign being perfectly balanced, I wouldn't even bother rolling for damage. I'd just have every hit do average damage. Actually, I'd probably go play Warhammer or something.
P.S. After I figure this one out, I want to make a *magic* critical effect table for spell crits as well. Looking forward to destroying my game balance with that too lol.