House Rules-- Critical Miss (Critical Hit?)

[Uncle_Elvis]

Anyone ever add critical hits/misses to their games? For example: the hero is attacking and roles all shields. Not only does his attack fail but he slips and stabs his foot resulting in one damage. For a critical hit, the hero/monster roles all skulls so it does +1 damage.

Thoughts?

[mitchiemasha]

I did see this idea in some long forgotten text and was toying with the idea of fumbles. It's not on my print out in my signature but has sections in the full document the print out is drawn from.

What is included is weapons BROKEN, originally "all " but was changed to " equal to the weapons strength", now you're more likely to break a weapon if buffed with a potion and/or spell. Also, the Great Sword and WarHammer have Mighty Blow, "FT: Roll equal to it's strength and all hits unblocked follow through and hit the next in reach". I do like this idea of smashing a skeleton to pieces landing a blow on the next. Which is a Critical Hit, however a late game bonus due to linkage to a weapon upgrade. I like to keep the starting game as simple as possible, options and interesting twists added/increasing as the Heroes progress.

With the better shield, rolling all in defence allows you to push the enemy back or to the side.

[wallydubbs]

I've given a Zombie a pass before... when the Dwarf rolled 4 with his battle Axe, the Zombie miraculously rolled 3 , despite 1 body point kill, I felt that roll was entitled to a full block. So I kinda made up a rule for an orc, if he rolls 2 in defense, and there's still more hits against him, I'll let him roll a 3rd dice. If that too is a black skull he evades damage.

Hey Mitchie, I can totally understand the breaking of a weapon on 3 or more dice, but a short 1 or 2 dice weapon doesn't really seem right...

[mitchiemasha]

Hey Mitchie, I can totally understand the breaking of a weapon on 3 or more dice, but a short 1 or 2 dice weapon doesn't really seem right...

Yes, I agree but those issues have already been thought about and fixed naturally in how all the combined rules work.

Starting weapons don't break (or should I say they already are, quite like a dull blade), they're worthless, unsellable (which fixes a few other issues). When a hero breaks a bought weapon, they revert back to the starting weapons strength. This can be thought of as always having the start weapon or continuing to use the broken weapon at it's worthless strength, your starting weapons strength.

There's the dagger at 1d6 which by default is lost when thrown. With this rule set, you can find the dagger again if searching the room it is "lost" in. If a is rolled in attack its broken or unfindable, back to it's original usage. Now the 1d6 weapon is better, more likely to be bought. It's worth noting "lost weapons can be found if searching the room it was thrown in" doesn't break the wording of the original rules, it simply adds to it. I'm always careful about these things.

There's the short sword at 2d6, if you've bought one you'd be dual wielding for 2 attacks, the roll of would only lose the special ability (and the gold value). You'd still have your first. The Short Sword doesn't have diagonal attack in the first edition, which gives the spear more use. To use dual wield you'd be giving up the extra defence d6 from the shield but it's still OP, especially room clearing weaker monster instead of 1 more powerful attack (The Broadsword) or extra defence... It's important that this can easily break. It adds a nice variant for 1 of the groups heroes, perfect against hordes, not so much Gargoyles, best leave that for the Barbarian. A Barbarians starting 3Ad6 is seen as a Start Sword with +1Ad6, he always gets his +1, that's 4Ad6 once he get the Broadsword. Without this mod, it doesn't take much for the other heroes to match his strength, he's the first to lose his in game advantage. And, yes... he can dual wield 2 Short Swords, that would be 2 3Ad6 attacks (thanks to +1) but due to how broken works, he's going to be shattering that extra blade way more often. He's going to need something a bit more robust to cope with his brute strength. All of this is for the Heroes to figure out, it's the players choice to weigh up the pros and cons, that's the beauty of it. (edit: but the rules are there, not the reasoning)

A Hero can't roll less than 1d6 so that's never an issue and as with the bought Short Sword, if damaging a 1d6/2d6 weapon, they're only losing it's special ability and the gold of trading it in. This works to slow power creep and amassing wealth. A Wizard forever snapping his staff can be quite comical but he's not meant to be fighting anyway, probably easily broken until infused with some magic, they're cheap enough too.

Artefacts do not break, giving them more worth later game.

[mitchiemasha]

I will add... A shield would break in defence on . +1 defence is considered 3. If you have a shield and a helmet that roll would break 1. would still only break 1. very unlucky, would break both. Even if the attack achieved no 's.