What critical system do you use?

[RMS]

One method, used in Harn, but easily adaptable to BRP is the "fives and zeroes" method. In Harn, any roll than ends in a 5 or a 0 (10, 15, 20, 80, 95, etc). is a critical. Either a cortical success or a critical failure depending of if the roll is under the skill % or not.

Now with BRP we could do somthing like this for crticals and specials. We could even change to make crticals any rolls than end with a 1, and specials any roll that ends with a 2. We could even adapt it so that only ever other digit (01, 21, 41) counts as a crtical and the others (11, 31, 51) count as specials.

I like that method much better than the doubles method myself. It's nicely symmetric for one thing, though it requires the concept of critical failures to be more in line with a "failed special", or similar, than with the catastrophe they currently are in BRP. (Not, that I think that's a bad deal at all.) If you want to keep the probability the same as currently BRP, you can make specials any roll that's a multiple of 5 and make criticals any even multiple of 10 (0,20,40,60,80). You'd need to treat 00 as 0 rather than 100 in this case.

Then you could flip it and make a special failure any multiple of 5 above the skill level and a true fumble only on 99. That'd get you another resolution level for your effort.

For opposed tests, I'd be more inclined to use a D20 and go with the Pendragon method. That or the old ICE method off adding the skill to the die roll and rolling high. D100 and rolling low is probably the worse set up for opposed resolution.

I prefer to use success level for opposed tests first (critical > special > success > failure < fumble) with some interpretation as to the exact results from the actual rolls: a fumble vs. a success could be interpreted differently than failure vs. special in many cases. If there's a tie, in most cases a tie actually works. If it doesn't, I usually build the suspense a bit with it and then have another contest, frequently with a shift form one side or the other in tactics or skill.

[frogspawner]

I use:

Specials: Skill / 5 rounded down.

Criticals: Skill / 20 rounded down.

It's quick to calculate.

:beetle:

I use it too, but the other way around:

If Roll x 5 is under Skill: Special

If Roll x 20 is under Skill: Critical

No worries about rounding, and multiplying is a smidgin faster than dividing.

[AikiGhost]

One of the main reasons I have never liked doubles as crits is

if you have a 98% skill, your only two failures are 99 and 00,

both of which are now fumbles. I don't like that a "master"

in a skill can only make catastrophic failures, and has a 2%

chance of doing so.

-V

We always played that a roll of 96 or above was always a fail regardless of your skill level.

[Turloigh]

Here's my 2 Eurocents.

1. Doubles method. Our Cthulhu GM uses this at the moment. Success levels are compared via "blackjack", ie. higher is better, as long as it's a success.

I can see the benefit of this method, but I still don't like it too much. Special results happen too rarely, and the chance of a fumble is generally too high.

2. One-tenth method (as per MRQ). I like the simplicity, but special results still happen too rarely, as above.

3. RAW, with different special and critical results. Used this for ages in RQ3 and got used to it, bt I think the calculations are a pain in the butt.

4. My houserule: I only use special successes (one-fifth skill), and no criticals (for the sake of simplicity). For weapon skills - which are rolled most often - there's a "special" space on the character sheet, so there's no math. Maths. Whatever.

There is no comparison of success margins except for "special beats normal success", because I don't need it.

Fumbles only happen on a roll of 99-00, until your skill reaches 98+, at which point you only fail on a 99 and fumble on a 00. (I think I stole that one from Elric/SB.)

Granularity may be nice, but I like simplicity better. YMMV.

[Trifletraxor]

I use it too, but the other way around:

If Roll x 5 is under Skill: Special

If Roll x 20 is under Skill: Critical

No worries about rounding, and multiplying is a smidgin faster than dividing.

Yes, this is the way I think about it in my head too! Quick and easy! :thumb:

:beetle:

[Kyle Aaron]

doubles are crits is even easier, but it is useless if you allow skills above 100%. In general, avoid it for high-powered campaigns.

Do you as GM never grant modifiers to skill rolls? Because certain bonuses can put a sub-100% skill over, and maluses can make a 100+% skill under.

It would be a bit strange, if you have (say) Climb 75%, to have Climb 75% for a tree with lots of branches sticking out, and Climb 75% for a glass skyscraper. Or 110% Lockpick for a 19th century door lock and 110% Lockpick for a modern electronic safe. And so on.