Critical Sucess / Failure

What's the best range for that? I have seen everything from a fixed number (5%) to 10% or 20% of the simple success chance for Critical Success. Fumbles are usually rarer... 5% or less.

What's your take, Veeky Forums?

Critical failure should not be something with a fixed chance of happening. It should be something that gets less likely as a characters capability in that area improves. Some examples where that happens:
- Dice pool systems where x+ on a die is a success, a 1 is -1 success. Crit fail is whenever you get negative successes. The better the character, the more dice they roll, the less likely a crit fail is.
- WH40K RPG. A lot of tasks have you fail for one degree of failure, fail worse if you get several degrees of failure (the exact numbers depend on the test in question). The better your skill/modifiers on the roll, the less chance of the dice rolling badly enough for the worse failure option.
- WH40K RPGs again, this time talking about gun failures*. Sure, there is a fixed chance of it happening that the characters skill can't change. But you can change it by buying better quality weaponry, or by taking better care of the guns you do own (buying oils to put on the guns regularly). Which fits because it's not the character that's failing here, it's the the weapon that's failing.

*Jams, overheats, the grenade exploding in your hand, etc.

A similar thing should apply to crit success. The better the character, the more chance of it happening.

Yeah, but how often? Which frequency is too rare and which is too often?

Crit failures are a garbage rule and I just tend to play without them. Failing is usually hard enough on a player, and having them catastrophically fail (especially with skills they've invested heavily in and their characters SHOULD be competent with) almost never feels fun and is just frustrating all around.

I lost that reaction image that says "Veeky Forums complains department. Have you tried not playing DnD?" so I'm posting this instead.

Successes at their worst they're a way for the player(s) to wrestle control of the game from the GM. They're a way of saying, "I succeed no matter what" and the fact that this mechanic is present in the game leads the player to feel that nothing should be COMPLETELY impossible, and that there is always an X% chance of success to do even ridiculous things. Any time I need the players to fail at something the immediate reaction is that they should at least get a chance to attempt, because "well it's always possible." I don't blame them, it's not their fault. I feel the same way when I'm a player. Any time I tell the player(s) they just fail at something without having a roll, as a GM I feel like I'm cheating.

Failures I like. Failures are an excuse for me as a GM to handwave an enemy failing at something, either because I'm trying not to kill somebody or I'm just trying to move things along. "Nevermind he rolled a 1" is a great excuse. On the players' side, it creates memorable moments. In an indecent from like five years ago, one of my players rolled three 1's in a roll and nearly killed himself tripping over a table. We still talk about it on a regular basis. Having a player throw a weapon or hurt themselves or an ally once every couple fights makes keeps things fun.

Crit-based "builds" make no sense. It's too video gamey. When the chance of a critical hit is in the 10-20% range, or when critical damage is 3 or 4 times what regular damage is, I start to wonder what exactly a critical hit even means in the world. Why is your weapon or character able to crit more than someone else? Are you just more accurate? I thought that was reflected in the attack bonus. Are you hitting harder? I thought that was reflected in the damage bonus. It breaks the immersion.

Here's the updated version of that pic, since 5e is actually bretty gud bro.

Them's fightin' words.

>I lost that reaction image that says "Veeky Forums complains department. Have you tried not playing DnD?" so I'm posting this instead.

There you go. However, do you realize that critical success/failure rules are the norm in major RPG systems? Because the rest of your post seems kinda... D&D-centric.

YEAH, CRITS AND CITFAILS ARE A D&D ONLY PROBLEM ALL RIGHT. NO OTHER GAME HAS THEM AT ALL, ESPECIALLY NOT ROLEMASTER, GURPS, LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS, OR ANY OG DOZENS OF OTHER GAMES THAT CLEARLY DON'T HAVE THEM!!!!!

Fucking moron.

Variable. The exact percentage doesn't matter so much as long as it's got decent variation.

For example, In 40k RPGs, it's possible to be facing rolls where the modifiers are so good that failure is impossible*, let alone crit failure.
At other times, the modifiers can be so bad that succeeding is impossible. If we go with failing by 40 being a crit fail (common for a lot of things), that gives at least a 60% chance of a crit failure.

So tests are simply pass/fail, with nothing extra happening for a crit fail or crit success.

The one time I had a GM enforce a rule of natural 100 = crit fail in Dark Heresy (d100 roll under system) on everyone, the PCs just used a fate point on every crit fail to reroll it to something else. NPCs couldn't do that, so they suffered.
That GM was fond of house rules that he thought would make the game harder, never noticing that they actually made things easier for us.

*Which means the GM should skip the rolling part, unless how well you succeed matters.

I was thinking exclusively about 3.PF in my post, because I'm a hypocrite and frankly that's what half the people reading this thread will be thinking of anyway. Crits in D20 are a fairly fleshed out and varied mechanic. Many weapons are balanced based on their crit profile; there's a feat and/or a magic weapon ability to improve your crit chance; magic abilities that trigger only on a crit; a special additional roll dedicated to confirming crits with bonuses available that only apply to that roll; enemies immune to crits; magic armor to make you resistant to crits; special damage bonuses that exclude crits; the ability to crit on magic spells... And if you go back to older editions or look at homebrew content there's a goddamn menagerie of "here's some special things you can have happen on a crit success/fail!" tables to roll on. Crits are a pretty damn big part of the game. Compare to other systems where a "crit" is just "you succeed some more" or "you reroll that die and add it" or something. Off the top of my head I don't know a system (outside of video games) that has so much stuff involving crits. I'm the first to admit that I'm not all that knowledgeable though. My group has been playing 3.5/Pathfinder since before I joined it and probably won't be stopping any time soon. We tried 4e and 5th as well as a slew of D10 and percentage based systems and we keep coming back.

Thanks for the pic btw.

I house rule crits and botches anyway.

I have no idea why you're so mad all of a sudden but your shitty spoiler came from Facebook and I choose to take that as evidence that you are in fact my 80+ year old grandmother shitposting from her laptop in her nursing home, and if that's the case you need to motherfucking stop it, grandma. I'll come to visit you this Christmas.

Critical successes and critical failures are awesome. They are awesome because they swing a situation greatly in one direction or the other. And, they are awesome because they are not common.

My favourite system:
Highest 5% is a threat. Spend an awesome point / fate point / action die / other limited currency to make it a critical success. Some character options can increase that percent.
Lowest 5% is an error. The opponent of the character who suffered the error may spend an awesome point / fate point / action die / other limited currency to make it a critical failure. Some character options can increase that percent on opponents.

I hate crits in general but if I had to use them, they should be so rare that you can theoretically go through game without ever encountering them.

Using a d%, where lower numbers are better, as an example, a crit success should happen when you roll a [1] and a crit fail should happen when you roll a [100].

Anything beyond that just swings the probability too hard and makes it happen too often for it to be unique or interesting.

losing Fate more often makes the game easier?

1% each? That's kinda extreme but... fair enough.

Well think about it man.

A crit is something where your character experiences the best/worst possible outcome for the situation.

Kicking a dude and having him crack his skull open on the playground vs. trying to kick a dude, slipping on a wet patch of grass, and falling prone.

If crits represent the best/worst possible outcome, then it should be rare enough to where when it happens, it's an actual game-changer.

Keep in mind, I hate crits by necessity but if I had to use them then they should be as rare as physically possible.

>crits represent the best/worst possible outcome
That is one possible interpretation but I think it's not a good one. For me, a Crit is just an unusually good/unusually terrible outcome. The best examples are probably the Indiana Jones movies, which are quite swingy.

How is that necessarily different though?

It's still best thing vs. worst thing in the grand scheme of things.

Also, think about how often those crits happen if we look at it chronologically. I mean, it's assumed that Indiana Jones has gone on many more adventures than what we see in the movies.

I like the way they are handled in Mythras. A crit is 10% of the skill value (d100 scale), 1-5 is a automatic success, 95-100 is an automatic failure, and 99-100 is a fumble.

Fumbles have been codified more to show the degree of "worse success" where a fumble while trying to march across a jungle would be losing 1-2 HP on a hit location because of a sprained ankle or something and not fall down a cliff or something you here from shitty AD&D DMs. You also can reroll your fumble with luck points, so they become even more rare.

depending on the quotient between requirement and check.

works best with our multiplication system tho.
roll dex x 2d10 to hit against dex x 2d10 to dodge / parry.
surpass the check and hit the fucker , surpass it by the double amount and drive his nose into his brain for critical bonus.
for critical fails , if the player rolls a 2 with the dice (or the lowest possible result with modificators), he gets to roll to confirm the crit fail (minimum roll required to avoid it depends on skillpoints). if he fucks up , they get the crit fail table and a d6
-lose weapon 1-3
-damage weapon 4
-trip 5
-hit yourself 6

isn't BRP normally 20% of skill?

The greater the advantage that a Critical Success bestows, the rarer they should be.

A crit, by definition, already provides a greater (dis)advantage than simply failing/succeeding normally.

Fumbling is actually pretty common in real life although it tends to happen as a result of movement or trying to switch weapon mod-combat. ( Which when fighting in real life happens a lot if you want to go from spear to your sword for example.)

The most common fumbles however are just falling over or dropping your weapon.

Critical hits on the other hand don't make any realistic sense and are very video gamey.

To that effect in my D&D games I remove critical hits entirely but do run fumbles on any roll from 1-5 ( even if this would hit). The results of this fumble however are normally just that the character falls prone or drops their weapon which isn't a big deal. Although there is a 1 in 20 chance their attack backfires and they deal the damage to themselves as if it was a crit which isn't realistic but it's funny and fun which I think is important when I have so many realistic elements in my game.

This only applies to the players as well as it would be a lot to track for mr as a GM, although I do let my villains crit as I feel this is narratively important.

Critical success in GURPS occur from 0.5% to 4.6% of the time depending on the skill of the character (skilled professionals crit more often).

Critical failure in GURPS usually occurs ~2% of the time but drops to 0.5% for particularly skilled characters (skill 16 or higher) and can increase all the way to ~60% and beyond if you're retarded or receiving massive penalties and are trying to roll versus skill 0.

You are the worst type of person.

Seriously, step away from the table.

A picture with a thousand words on it is worth two thousand words.

>critical hits are video gamey

>no one has ever been stabbed into the eye through his visor because his opponent got a lucky oppening

i seriously hope for you and your players that this is bait.

creating this kind of mechanical disasvantage is just stupid and fucks over combat and narrative balance to a stupidly unrealistic degree

I value realism over balance in my games because realism encourages roleplaying while balance encourages metagaming/ video game style murderhoboing.

Not that there's anything wrong with the latter I just prefer the former.

Time to shill Harnmaster! In HM you roll 1d100 for skills, including combat skills. Rolling under your skill is a success, above a failure. All rolls ending in 5 or 0 are critical fails or successes. It's not a new idea (since HM is from the 80's) but now that I stumbled on it it really works out very well.

A character with a low skill is way more likely to critically fail than a character with a decent skill. Now the critical failures usually aren't the "lol u hit urself" kind. Well, unless you are a mage casting spells. Then you will learn to dread casting spells with low skill.

but how are crits unrealistic?

they do represent the very realistic chance to hit a vital area in a fight such as puncturing the skull instead of just hitting the chest, or stabbing right into armor gaps.

>much realism

>things do not exist in reality because they are shown in an abstracted manner in video games

spoilered for brutal realism

>25% chance of fumble
>I value realism

yeah, it's a more elegant way of handling BRPs 20% Crit Success rule.

GURPS handles crits reasonably well;
rolls are pretty much all 3d6 roll under target number, the target number being your effective skill level (skill + attribute + modifiers)
this means that rolls are on a bell curve and therefore most likely to land on 10 or 11, and least likely to land on 3 or 18.
therefore, a roll of 3 or 4 is a critical success, and a roll of 17 or 18 is usually a critical failure.

these numbers change a little depending on your effective skill - at 15 and 16+, successes become 5 and 6 respectively, and fails become 18. however, if your effective skill is lower than 7, any roll that's 10 greater than your effective skill is a critical fail - so at skill 6, a roll of 16 is a critical failure.
reaching 6 or lower skill level is really hard unless you're defaulting on a skill, though.

in combat, a critical success means that your opponent doesn't get a defense roll, and you roll on a table for an additional effect (usually just double or triple damage, but it can also reduce your enemy's DR for the strike)
a critical failure with a combat skill is a miss as normal, and a roll on a table that has effects ranging from just missing your turn and taking a penalty to defenses to throwing or damaging your weapon, or hitting one of your own limbs.

crits on skill rolls are usually up to the DM, but don't often have special effects unless they're described in the skill description. it really depends on how hard the task you're doing is.

they're rare enough that they're valuable, and still happen enough to actually, y'know, happen.

>fails become 18
18 is always a critical failure.
It's 17 that becomes a regular fail instead of crit, but it's always at least a fail too.

FFG Star Wars does this the best, with different results for Success/Failure Advantage/Threat and Triumph/Despair.

D&D is obviously cancer, but remember: 20s and 1s on anything but saves and attack rolls DO NOT HAVE SPECIAL EFFECTS. The only thing that matters in skill/ability checks is the target number, and a player may always succeed at certain tasks or find others outright impossible regardless of what they roll.

I have a separate 1d20 table for crits (and fumbles).
Fighters add their level to their roll, so they have better crits and less bad fumbles.

I honestly don't care about realism when it comes to crits and fumbles. They're an injection of chaos into combat, and I'm all about the chaos.
With both crits and fumbles on a d20 that's a 10% chance of chaos injection per attack roll. And that's great by me!

For info, I'm running an old school game where the level rarely gets above 5.

Do GURPS players feel that Crits become too frequent at 16+ effective skill?

16+ effective skill in combat is rare and not really useful.
If ranged, range penalties will fuck you up and bring it down (though accuracy and aiming do compensate), in melee, you can just decide that for every -2 to your skill, your opponent has -1 to his defence roll, it's much better to roll yourself vs 12 to put your enemy at -2 to defend than roll vs 16 and let the enemy defend fully.

And as you can see the tables here: , one third of your crits will "only" completely bypass the enemy's active defense and you'll only do normal damage.

16+ base melee skill is all well and good until some douchebag with a smallsword ripostes you into the dirt and then stabs you in the kidney for your effort.

Crits don't happen often enough for it to be reliable until you're in the 20-25 skill range and can afford to Rapid Strike and Deceptive Attack. Even then it's usually better to rely on the DA like user said. There are ways to increase crit chance to about 10-15%, but that costs a lot of points though it does become a heck of a lot more viable (Aspected Rediculous Luck for ~25 points: reroll one of your attacks twice every turn and take the best)