Critical Hits and impaling

[pwellner]

Hi I've seen some discussion on critical hits in Runequest 1st and 2nd edition but never this thought.  It sates% in these version if you roll 20% or less of you to hit number you impale, (special hit), and if you roll 5% or less you critically hit. Since 5% is less than 20% does that not make a critical hit an impale as well, ie. an impale (special hit) that ignores armor?

 

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2017 by pwellner
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[styopa]

Yes, all crits are impales as well (RQ3, at least).  Otherwise critical hits are actually WORSE than impales against a target with very low/no armor, and that doesn't make much sense.

[Mechashef]

The answer is "perhaps".  There are arguments for and against and I have seen debates on this literally extend over multiple years. 

The rules for this vary from RQ2 to RQ3 to RQG and are very poorly written  (a simple clarification clause would have ended decades of debate - hint hint). 

Play it how you want.

The most common interpretations I have seen are:

• Yes a critical is also a special
• No, they are different, and a critical uses either the special or critical result, whichever is more advantageous
• A house rule extension which has special, critical, and a hypercritical (which is both a critical and a special)

 

 

  

 

[Mankcam]

God knows what the final ruling is at this stage, as the BGB does things a bit differently. Impale just was the Special Success effect for Impaling Weapons.

Many of us have mashed some kind of house rules, given the various BRP games we have tinkered with for half our lives.

In recent years I have played that a Special Success does one effect, chosen by the player-character: Either a Damage Effect, OR an Automatic Spot Rule Effect.

The Damage Effect is based on weapon type (ie: Slashing, Bashing, Impaling, Entangling), whereas the Spot Rule Effect is a effect that is just an automatic version of the various spot rules (ie: Disarm, Aimed Blow, Ignore Armour, Knockdown, etc).

Rolling a Critical Success simply means doing two Effects instead of one, or the player can choose some awesome Narrative Effect to explain the situation.

(This is just a hoary old house rule based from years of mixing RQ2/RQ3/BGB/RQ6 Mythras. It will be interesting to see what RQG does once the dust settles, although I personally will be unlikely to change my house rule on it)

Edited December 17, 2017 by Mankcam

[soltakss]

In RQ2 we had a Critical Impale chance of 01 per 100. In our games, a special did special damage but armour protected, a critical did normal damage but ignored armour and a special critical did special damage ignoring armour.

Edited December 17, 2017 by soltakss

[Mechashef]

Reading back through my various rule books, it appears that only RQ3 clearly answers the question and states:

Quote

If the impale is also a critical success, then the maximum possible impaling damage (14 points in the case of a shortsword) is done to the victim.

That is from P35 of the hardcover core edition (I can check later against the softcover boxed set).  Presumably (and the related Cormac's Saga seems to suggest it) any armour is ignored and the Damage Bonus would be rolled normally. 

 

But as the OP is interested in RQ1 & 2, then the situation is rather murky.

I would suggest ask yourself if you want a critical impale to result in the weapon being stuck in the target (like a standard impale).  If you do want that to happen then it seems reasonable for the critical impale to have the combined affects of an impale and a critical.

[styopa]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

In RQ2 we had a Critical Impale chance of 01 per 100. In our games, a special did special damage but armour protected, a critical did normal damage but ignored armour and a special critical did special damage ignoring armour.

I can only picture the emotional rollercoaster of the player who rolled a 10s dice of 0....and then was disappointed that they rolled a 1 because a special would have been a better hit against that 1-point armor target.

EDIT: I was going to put a followup tangential question here about hit locations but started a new thread instead.

Edited December 17, 2017 by styopa

[soltakss]

54 minutes ago, styopa said:

I can only picture the emotional rollercoaster of the player who rolled a 10s dice of 0....and then was disappointed that they rolled a 1 because a special would have been a better hit against that 1-point armor target.

We also played that a player could downgrade a result for exactly that situation. Rolling a critical with a long spear against 1 point armour could be assumed to be a special and do 1D10+12 instead.

[Psullie]

Impaling (and slashing) weapons get stuck on the special - which can be fun when fighting multiple opponents and your spear wanders off in some dying trollkin's belly. 

For critical hits I just gave the players the option - go with the impale and stuck weapon or no impale, but always bypass armour on a critical. 

[pwellner]

Thanks one and all, I have always played it that it was both nasty yes but it does go both ways. 

[DavetheLost]

iirc we played that the effects were indeed stacking. So a critical with an impaling weapon would do both the effects of a critical and the effects of an impale.

[MJ Sadique]

In RQ3, the way it is explain is :
-Critical success give weapon max damage and ignore the armor
-Special success effect depend on the type of damage, Empaling weapon : twice weapon damage (2 rolls)
Even if it's not written, Critical success also give special effects but as some weapons state : if a weapon can be use in cutting or impaling, you must declare the mode before use or you don't benefit from special effect but only the critical ones.

Example : Gladius can empale, if you don't declare the attack mode and made a special success ... you don't benefit of the empaling effect. Otherwise, Critical include special effects if they exist ... The opposite case should be strange, imagine a special spear attack is 2D10+2 but critical is 1D10+1 maxed which equal 11pts; Special impaling doing more damage than critical would be stupid.

About house-ruling, My first master (and so myself) choose to slightly change special / critical to spare us checking the table :
-If Rolled Dice score x5 is still a success then it's a special success
-If Rolled Dice score x20 is still a success then it's a critical success
One of the best and simplest house-rules as you don't have to have a table or ask yourself to round-up or down the percentiles. Less calculation is always better.