#4 - DAC’s Critical Hits and Fails
(DISCLAIMER - These are unofficial House Rules for our table.)
I believe there is lots of drama available in any well-run D&D battle. But to simulate that classic movie moment when everything goes just right (or perfectly wrong), I have set up a couple of House Rules around rolling Natural 1s or Natural 20s on your attack rolls.
Critical Hits:
The damage on a critical hit is rolling your regular damage dice, and then adding the maximum of what you could roll with that dice/die. So, if you are using a longsword one-handed, a Critical Hit would do a 1d8 + 8 + STR. This is just an increase in intensity from the rules as written, which would simply be rolling 2d8 - and nothing squelches the excitement of a critical hit like rolling double dice and getting a 1 and a 2. Of course, this applies to NPCs as well.
In addition, the Critical Hitter also rolls a d8 for the following effects:
1. You may roll one additional damage die.
2. You may take an additional Action this round.
3. Your opponent is jarred - they are at a -2 to hit for 1d4 rounds.
4. Your opponent is knocked prone.
5. Your opponent is stunned until end of next turn.
6. Your opponent’s armor comes loose. Their AC is at a -2 for 10 rounds whilst they adjust.
7. Your opponent panics and turns to flee until the end of next round. This does not trigger opportunity attacks.
8. Your opponent’s weapon cracks. They are at a –5 to hit.
Critical Fails:
When somebody (be it player or NPC) rolls a Natural 1 on an attack roll, I secretly roll a d10. If I roll a 1 on that d10, that character’s weapon cracks and they are at a –5 to hit. If left unrepaired, the weapon breaks the next time this happens.
The player (or NPC) also rolls a d8 for one of the following effects:
1. Roll a d20 - if the character rolls a 1, the ‘cracked weapon’ effect mentioned above takes place.
2. The character hits themselves.
3. The character critically hits themselves.
4. The character hits one of their friends (or hit themselves if no friends are in range).
5. The character critically hits one of their friends (or hit themselves if no friends are in range).
6. The character drops their weapon and can perform no more attacks this round.
7. The character’s opponent gets a free attack.
8. The character falls prone until the end of their turn.
I created the breaking weapons to reflect the rough-and-tumble nature of the Wasteland the players are adventuring in. It also assumes the players will be using non-standard weapons, as the Wastelands routinely cause weapons to rust and wear out.
As an aside, I LOVE the idea of weapons (and magic items) being made from scavenged or harvested monsters parts. To that end, I make extensive use of three excellent books:
1. Creature Components - Tome of Beasts
2. Hamund’s Harvesting Handbook
3. Monster Loot
I highly recommend any of these books if you want to get away from the standard blacksmith or general store selection of weapons and ideas. It’s also extra work for the adventurers if their hand made club should break! The Components book increases the potency of certain spells if it’s components are harvested from a creature and used in that way. They can also be harvested and sold, or they can be bought pre-harvested.
