Picture it! Sicily. 1922.
Waitaminute, I believe I spent too much time sitting with my wife watching Golden Girls...
Day 9 of #RPGaDay2019 was one of those were I knew exactly where I was going with it the moment I laid eyes on the single word: "Critical"
The late 80's/early 90's were a time where every gamer I knew seemed to want MORE in their system. Books of guns, books of charts, books expanding on guns and charts. And let's not forget Steve Jackson Games, where players trying to add as many GURPS books into one campaign was a badge of honor. Usually a bad idea, but a badge of honor nevertheless.
Of course, with this path, it is inevitable to saunter into Rolemaster. With its percentile system and numerous bonuses and penalties making everything look so vast, it seemed so complicated on the outside.
And then, of course, was the critical hit tables.
The bigger the roll, the bigger the bonuses, the more graphic and destructive the critical. Extra damage quickly escalated to "Blow Shatters Thigh" and all the fun repercussions thereof.
And let's not forget the invisible turtles in the critical fumble section.
I was never a big fan of using the critical hit charts in AD&D. At best I think we tinkered with double damage on a 20, at worst, it was still an automatic hit, roll damage reguarly.
But as I moved over to Hackmaster in the early aughts, I openly embraced their critical hit charts.
Let's not forget that the Hackmaster 4th Edition GameMaster's Screen is a work of art, chock full of just about every chart one would need to run a game.
The four-panel screen has four double-sided two page foldouts attached to the GM side of the screen, but the craziest thing was the critical hit chart, part of a flip up panel on two of the panels.
In 4th Edition, critical hits were actually pretty easy to calculate:
First off was everyone's favorite die roll, the d10,000. That's four d10s for those of you calculating at home to determine hit location. This is rolled first, because it your character is holding their sword barehanded and get hit their, then you're looking at a much worse Armor Class for the Base Severity Level.
The Base Severity Level = Defender's AC (old school lower is better) + attackers total bonus - attackers chance to hit AC15. That last part seems kind of strange, until you realize that sometime between level 5 and 10, each class' chance to hit AC15 became a negative number, therefore turning that into a positive bonus modifier.
The charts look like absolute chaos, must the mystical codes make quick sense: Movement loss, future to-hit penalties, loss of dexterity, broken bones, concussions, and falling to the ground were just some options.
Let's not forget the honor losses for crits to the groin.
And with a name like Hackmaster, satirizing the bloody fights we all seemed to want as teenagers, they did so accuracy and practicality. In the years we played this, most crits were simply extra damage with a little flair, but near the end most of the them were life crippling injuries inflicted on people (usually monsters) that meant if the blow hadn't killed them, the next basic successful hit usually would.
Critical fumbles were just one page on the expanding fold-outs and only used a d1,000. Unfortunately, no invisible turtles. I think they had their own section of the Hacklopedia of Beasts.
And don't worry Steve Jackson Games fans, you can recreate the GURPS experiment nowawdays with Munchkin.
Waitaminute, I believe I spent too much time sitting with my wife watching Golden Girls...
Day 9 of #RPGaDay2019 was one of those were I knew exactly where I was going with it the moment I laid eyes on the single word: "Critical"
The late 80's/early 90's were a time where every gamer I knew seemed to want MORE in their system. Books of guns, books of charts, books expanding on guns and charts. And let's not forget Steve Jackson Games, where players trying to add as many GURPS books into one campaign was a badge of honor. Usually a bad idea, but a badge of honor nevertheless.
Of course, with this path, it is inevitable to saunter into Rolemaster. With its percentile system and numerous bonuses and penalties making everything look so vast, it seemed so complicated on the outside.
And then, of course, was the critical hit tables.
The bigger the roll, the bigger the bonuses, the more graphic and destructive the critical. Extra damage quickly escalated to "Blow Shatters Thigh" and all the fun repercussions thereof.
And let's not forget the invisible turtles in the critical fumble section.
I was never a big fan of using the critical hit charts in AD&D. At best I think we tinkered with double damage on a 20, at worst, it was still an automatic hit, roll damage reguarly.
But as I moved over to Hackmaster in the early aughts, I openly embraced their critical hit charts.
Let's not forget that the Hackmaster 4th Edition GameMaster's Screen is a work of art, chock full of just about every chart one would need to run a game.
 |
| To save space, they combined the charts for each weapon type: Hacking (blue), Crushing (green), and Puncturing (red). Black text was meant for all weapon types. |
First off was everyone's favorite die roll, the d10,000. That's four d10s for those of you calculating at home to determine hit location. This is rolled first, because it your character is holding their sword barehanded and get hit their, then you're looking at a much worse Armor Class for the Base Severity Level.
The Base Severity Level = Defender's AC (old school lower is better) + attackers total bonus - attackers chance to hit AC15. That last part seems kind of strange, until you realize that sometime between level 5 and 10, each class' chance to hit AC15 became a negative number, therefore turning that into a positive bonus modifier.
The charts look like absolute chaos, must the mystical codes make quick sense: Movement loss, future to-hit penalties, loss of dexterity, broken bones, concussions, and falling to the ground were just some options.
Let's not forget the honor losses for crits to the groin.
And with a name like Hackmaster, satirizing the bloody fights we all seemed to want as teenagers, they did so accuracy and practicality. In the years we played this, most crits were simply extra damage with a little flair, but near the end most of the them were life crippling injuries inflicted on people (usually monsters) that meant if the blow hadn't killed them, the next basic successful hit usually would.
Critical fumbles were just one page on the expanding fold-outs and only used a d1,000. Unfortunately, no invisible turtles. I think they had their own section of the Hacklopedia of Beasts.
And don't worry Steve Jackson Games fans, you can recreate the GURPS experiment nowawdays with Munchkin.
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