Critical Misses

A little while ago, I adopted a house rule that made critical hits more impactful and speeded them up just a bit, that is, critical hits roll normal damage and add the maximum dice roll as a bonus. As an example, a sword that would do 1d8+2 damage, will do 1d8+10.  This causes critical hits to always do more damage than normal hits and eliminates the need to roll an extra die or double the roll (depending on how crits are being handled).

This change feels good to me, it makes crits impactful, that is what everyone expects them to be and it doesn't slow things up, actually steam lines things a bit.

The unintended consequence is that it penalizes damage done via saving throws which can't crit at all, and now they miss out on the possibility of a damage jackpot. It also creates what feels like an asymmetry between impactful critical hits and a simple auto-miss on a roll of 1, a roll sometimes referred to as a critical miss.



An obvious fix is to make critical misses, a natural 1, actually do something extra.  That something shouldn't be huge and I'd like it if it was automatic like the big extra damage, but I can't think of something similar that would work.  The typical solution is a fumble table, and that can work, in fact, I think it may be a fine solution as long as the fumbles are not overly impactful.

Critical Misses via a Table Lookup

I've cast about for tables on the interwebs and found one that looks fairly good to me described in an article by Duncan on Hipsters and Dragons. He has four tables:

1. Melee,
2. Ranged,
3. Thrown,
4. Natural Weapons.

Each table uses a d20 or d10 roll to find a minor mishap appropriate to each attack type.  Some of the misfortunes require an additional roll to avoid part of the misfortune.  

That's not terrible, up to 2 die rolls and a table lookup after each natural 1 isn't a huge time tax, though it is clearly more than nothing.  The results can add some interest to fights, so I think the tradeoff is worth it.  

As I went through Duncan's product, I got the impression the natural weapons table wasn't fully baked, I felt the desire to clean up some differences, and make all the tables use a d20.  I have done that and posted them in a Google Sheets document at: Critical Miss Tables.

Expected Impact of this Change

As I try to project the impact of this idea, I see a bit of time spent after each natural 1.  Sometimes the result will be applied immediately, occasionally it will last more than a round, and sometimes it will last beyond the immediate battle.

The other effect is a nerf to "to hit" combat, that makes some sense since my crit changed buffed those "to hit" rolls. Something I just realized is that I have missed spell casts that are of the to-hit variety.  The easiest fix for that is to consider spell to hit attacks to be thrown weapons and make  non-sensical results (Weapon Damaged), no effects.

If the negative impact on speed within a battle will be worth it, is yet to be seen.  I think I'll have to try it.