Critical Hit (12 on a roll)

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Critical Hit (12 on a roll)
« on: January 12, 2013, 02:25:50 PM »
I am thinking about in-acting a house rule called a "Critical Hit". Basically if a player rolls a natural 12 on the dice, they get something on top of the 10+ result on the chart. Here is a breakdown of critical hit bonuses. Note this only applies if you roll a 12, not if you get 12+ from skill bonuses.

Act Under Pressure: You confidently and courageously accomplish what you set out to do. You get a +1 forward on your next roll.

Help Someone Out: You work in sync with those you are helping. You give them a +2 bonus to their roll.

Investigate a Mystery: You gain an additional hold from the list (Hold 3)

Kick Some Ass: You can either chose 2 extra effects from the 10+ chart or pick from the list below. These are a follows:

1. Suffer no harm (Completely avoid a counter-attack)
2. Shut down a monster move or attack ability. You must describe how you are doing this. (Such as cutting off a claw, breaking the monster's teeth, or disorienting the monster by a blow to the head). The keeper should refrain from allowing the monster to use that ability unless they take a turn to recover.
3. Strike a crippling blow. You inflict a condition on the monster relevant to the form of the attack.

Manipulate Someone: You utterly convince the person to do what you want. They will do it for you, no strings attached. For hunters, they get a +2 forward to do what you ask.

Protect Someone: Chose 2 extras from the 10+ chart.

Read a bad situation: You can either hold 4 from the list or get a +2 forward on the first attempt to act on this information (+1 for further attempts).

Use Magic: You channel a massive amount of magical power. You can either take a +1 forward on your next Use Magic roll or use this option. Chose 2 magical effects from the Use Magic list. However if you do so, you get a glitch as though you rolled a 7-9 due to some form of magical overload.


Re: Critical Hit (12 on a roll)
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2013, 04:14:55 PM »
If you're going to add this, I'd be concerned about overlapping with the advanced moves that hunters can take as level-up options (see p 76). I think it would make sense to have a natural-12 result be somewhere in between the existing 10+ and the advanced 12+ success for each move, which not all of these are.

Maybe something simpler would work?

For example:
On a natural 12, you get +1 forward for yourself or another hunter.

Re: Critical Hit (12 on a roll)
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2013, 12:32:35 AM »
Frankly I'm not a fan of the "critical" results when you roll highest/lowest possible die result in any system. It's just too random and swingy for my tastes. But I realize that some people like that, and if you do, then go for it.

As Mike Sands said though, you can't really allow a result of a natural 12 (without bonuses) to grant the same benefit that the Advanced Hunter Moves do. That makes it pointless to spend a "leveling up" option to take the Advanced Moves, as everyone already has them for free essentially. So you'll need to come up with something that's better than the usual 10+ result but not as good as the 12+ result with advanced move. Which can be a pretty tough thing to do.

Or, just give everyone the effect of the Advanced Move when they roll a natural 12. If you're running a one shot game this won't matter all that much as the players won't get to that 5th advance (most likely), but for longer games you're essentially taking those options off the table.

Just a thought.
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