By default, 1 in 10 rolls in the game will be a critical (success or failure). To me, this just seems a bit too high, especially in combat where a critical can change dramatically increase the damage dealt or render a character helpless due to a gun jam.
For those who wish to reduce the frequency of criticals:
Anything in the rules that would normally produce a critical instead produces a 'critical threat', which must be 'confirmed' by the roll of an additional d10 to become a real 'critical hit'. The player should call the outcome before rolling. If it matches, the critical is confirmed.
Depending on the reduction factor desired, the outcomes may just be evens/odds (halving the number of criticals), up to calling the specific number (reducing criticals to 1 in 100).
Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.
Fewer criticals
Tue, 2009-09-22 21:46
#1
Typhon
Fewer criticals
Wed, 2009-09-23 08:36
#2
DaveS
Re: Fewer criticals
I think the way I'd go about reducing the frequency of crits would be to make crits skill-dependent, only occurring if you roll doubles [i]and[/i] get MoS/MoF 30+. This approach would give a 4% chance of crits when you have an average range of success chances (30-70% to succeed), with skill outside that range gradually increasing the odds of a critical result.
Although I have to say that I do like the frequent crits, so I'd be even more inclined to reduce the effects of crits instead of making them less common. Besides, I've never been able to figure out how dodging super-effectively is supposed to be able to cause someone's gun to jam.
Wed, 2009-09-23 18:40
#3
Typhon
Re: Fewer criticals
Yeah, that did strike me as odd that the attacker's chance of a 'fumble' was dependent on the target getting a critical success rather than the attacker getting a critical failure.
Maybe the following combat criticals make more sense:
Attacker crit success: halve armor (so its not quite so powerful)
Attacker crit failure: drop weapon/weapon jam/etc.
Target crit success: environmental bonus (you dodge out of the way of the attack....and you're now positioned behind a crate, pistol in hand)
Target crit failure: trip/drop weapon/etc.
Mon, 2009-10-19 14:02
#4
puke
Re: Fewer criticals
well its essentially all a cleverly disguised d20 system, right?
Mon, 2010-03-01 20:21
#5
killj0y
Re: Fewer criticals
You could also do something similar to Fading suns where a critical is simply when you roll at exactly your skill rating.
Personally I think the 1/10 of criticals is slightly higher than the 1/20+confirm from d20/3.x
That's not necessarily a bad thing it's just a bit more dependant on your need for dramatic action.
If one were so inclined you could make each player pick odds or evens and only crit on those doubles instead of all doubles. That would take the total from 1/10 to 1/20 which would put it a lot closer to more familiar systems. It would also give players a personal choice in their critical actions.