Criticals worse than Specials?

[Redge]

Have I got this right?

You score a Special Success with a short sword against a foe wearing 1 point of armor giving you an impale special damage. This is potentially 11 points of damage. 2 x 1D6 - 1.

Had you rolled even better and got a Critical you would only have scored 6 points of damage.

As well as not liking this seemly unfair result I don't like the fact that the 'interesting' Special Success damages (bleeding, crushing, knockback etc) are not used when you score a Critical. I think they add flavour to the combat. Would allowing them to be used for criticals unbalance the game?

[frogspawner]

Sounds right to me. I expect it's common to allow a choice on a critical hit, but whether that's RAW I don't know.

Personally I use Criticals equal Specials, but ignore armour too (so the effects stack nicely).

[Merak Gren]

In RQ, when you criticalled with an impaling weapon you'd do Double damage (special) and Full damage (Critical). So for for a spear (1D8) you'd do 16 pts of damage. Ouch!

Now that in BRP all weapons have special effects, I'd say that Crit and Special results stack, after all the result is both a Crit and a Special.

[NickMiddleton]

In RQ, when you criticalled with an impaling weapon you'd do Double damage (special) and Full damage (Critical). So for for a spear (1D8) you'd do 16 pts of damage. Ouch!

Whilst this was a very common house rule, it was not what the rules said - it was actually rather enlightening re-reading them carefully when we had the big debate in the BRP play test about special and critical results stacking. It's also IIRC pretty much unclear in RQI/II whether Impales (specials) and critical effects stack...

Now that in BRP all weapons have special effects, I'd say that Crit and Special results stack, after all the result is both a Crit and a Special.

RQIII RAW they DID stack, but AFAICR BRP RAW they do NOT stack: but one is obviously free to house rule.

When I get home I'll see if I can find my notes from the play test discussion.

Cheers,

Nick

[RosenMcStern]

I do not have the book here, but I am fairly certain that the RAW say that you can replace the special effect for the effects of a critical. I usually rule that a crit ignores armour and does either max damage or special effect (bleed, impale, stun, knockback).

[threedeesix]

In RQ, when you criticalled with an impaling weapon you'd do Double damage (special) and Full damage (Critical). So for for a spear (1D8) you'd do 16 pts of damage. Ouch!

Now that in BRP all weapons have special effects, I'd say that Crit and Special results stack, after all the result is both a Crit and a Special.

If I am running a campaign that uses the Total Hit Point method this is exactly how I handle it. Heck, I have even been known to use it with normal hit points back in my RQ3 days.

[Redge]

Thanks for your comments guys. IIRC the RAW says that you can replace the max damage of a crit with a special effect for unarmored targets which is why I used a target with 1 point armor in my example. I'm going to house rule that you can change it whether the target has armor or not and like Rosen will allow crits to ignore armor. I feel that doubling the max damage every time is a little too dangerous :-)

I think this is a small 'bug' in the RAW IMHO.

[frogspawner]

It depends on the setting. Plentiful, magical healing - possibly even Resurrections & Divine Interventions - and gross damage is fine.