It’s Your Very Own Crit Table, Charlie Brown

I don’t know any player (myself included) who, despite many years of playing, doesn’t still get excited when they roll a 20 on that Attack and get to say those magical words: Critical!! (or, as I often hear alternatively in my play group, Crit! or Crit, baby!) And sure, you get to roll those extra damage dice, which is nice and all. But let’s face it, Crits can still become a bit stale or routine.

There are a few nice Critical Hit tables available for free out there. These tables typically involve rolling a second d20 to determine damage and/or secondary effects. One of my favorites is Critical Hits Revisited distributed for free out of goodness by Sterling Vermin Adventuring Co. Greg, the DM for my weekly player game, lets us chose between RAW and CHR when we roll a Critical Hit.

I also used to offer the same choice in the game I DM. But at some point I decided I wanted to make my own Critical Hit Table. Although I generally like Critical Hits Revisited, I have also found it a bit cumbersome at times, i.e., having to use different tables by damage type, as well as the Major vs Minor Effect table (a third d20) to determine outcomes that offer a little flavor but mechanically don’t really differ than much. I also feel capable of adding flavor on the fly.

So I set out to create my own table. My goals included variety, player options, ease-of-use, speed, and a wide range of outcomes vs. RAW. I also hoped to fit it all on a single page. Like Critical Hits Revisited, my Critical Hit Table also uses a second d20. The outcomes fall into three sets depending on the roll. There is also a chance of instant death, a 1-in-400 probability for any attack, i.e., the 20 for the Critical Hit and the 20 for the table.

The main feature of my table is that in 70% of cases, the players can choose between more damage or damage plus an effect like Stunned or Loss of Limb. After a few months of play testing, I am very satisfied with my creation. I think it runs faster and easier than Critical Hits Revisited yet also provides many big victories for the players.

That all being said, I sometimes miss the combat system from a TTRPG I once developed called FAST (Flexible and Simple Template). Determining hits and damage involved a single combined dice pool roll with exploding d10s. Any 10 resulted in an additional d10 bonus. So there were very exciting rare instance when bonus d10s would triggered additional bonus d10s in a cascade off damage. The system actually used dice pools for everything, and adding things up could sometimes slow down game play. Of course, now VTTs can handle dice pools and exploding dice with ease.

Hmm…is it time for FAST 2.0?