Puttin on the Crits

[scurry]

I am still having trouble with critical hits in my upcoming campaign. Any thought or answers on these?

1) Do critical hits still do double damage or do they just roll over to Lifeblood in T20? I think rolling to Lifeblood is plenty for slapping the PC's around.

2) I am thinking of borrowing a page from D20 Modern and allowing characters (and NPCs) a Fortitude save with a DC equal to damage taken to avoid damage or take only Stamina damage from a hit.

3) Do natural 20s always mean success, even in non-combat settings?

4) Do 1s always mean failure (as, for example, during Prior History rolls)?

Thanks guys!

 

[The One Warlock]

In T20, critical hits do double damage. Furthermore, you apply the damage value(normal or critical) to BOTH Stamina and Lifeblood, but AR (due to armor) reduces the damage that is applied to Lifeblood by removing the lowest rolled dice first, then on a point per point basis if you are down to 1 die.

Furthermore, everytime someone in armor suffers a critical hit, the AR of the armor is reduced by 1 (until repaired) for any attacks after the critical.

If you are going to use the D20 Modern fort save system, you should either only use it, or only use the T20 system - combining the two will bog down combat with more dice rolls, and most Traveller classes don't have particularly good fortitude saves.

Unless otherwise stated in the description of the roll/check, Natural 20's are an automatic success for to hit rolls and saving throws only, and natural 1's are automatic failures for to hit rolls and saving throws only. All other checks and rolls merely require you to meet the DC (if the DC of a check is 15, and you have +14 in bonuses and roll a 1, you succeed, unless it is a Combat to hit roll or a Saving throw).

Finally, keep in mind, for critical hits in combat, a natural 20 is an automatic hit NOT an automatic critical. You still have to roll the 20-sider again, and if the character would normally hit the target with the second roll, the critical hit is confirmed. This prevents incredibly weak creatures that can only hit a heavily protected character with a natural 20 from automatically doing crits with every hit.

Hope that helps.

 

[Ellros]

Actually, critical hits in T20 IGNORE armor. That's why they are so lethal. You lose a point of AR, and take the full damage, which just happens to be doubled. At least, that's what it appears from my reading of the rules anyway.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Good answer Ellros! Stars fer you (been meanin' to cath up with you somewheres..eh, mebbe Sunday again!).

 

[Euson1]

Criticals ignore armor. Reduce armors AR value by 1. Criticals do normal damage. Only weapons that have a (x2) next to their damage do double damage on a critical.

 

[Ellros]

All criticals do a minimum of x2 damage (Core rulebook, in this case the D&D PHB p123). Some weapons just left it off the stat line on p200, usually those weapons that have a better threat range than a natural 20. <grins> you can't tell me a broadsword only does normal damage while a sword does x2.

 

[Commonman]

Look at the bottom of the chart, under 19 and 18 it says does double damage.....

 

[cmdrx]

What are the crit ranges for vehicle weaponry? There are none listed. Should I just assume all vehicle weapons have a threat range of nat 20 and do double damage ingnoring AR?

Just wondering since the range for a personal high energy weapon is 18, should it be the same for vehicle guns?

 

[Ellros]

Originally posted by cmdrx:
What are the crit ranges for vehicle weaponry? There are none listed. Should I just assume all vehicle weapons have a threat range of nat 20 and do double damage ingnoring AR?

Just wondering since the range for a personal high energy weapon is 18, should it be the same for vehicle guns?

It is automatically assumed that if no other number is listed, the default critical threat number is a 20 and x2 damage.

 

[themink]

I would improve the Crit range if shooting at things which are "Down" a scale and I would reduce the threat range to 20 when shoot "up" a scale. Scaling factors are not ignored by crits (only armour)

Vehicle against personal - improve Crit 15-20

So if you shoot a body pistol (d8 damage) at an AR 3 vehicle it will do no damage on a hit (d8-8) however a crit will do 1d8-4 (2 dice for the crit, reduce by 5 for the scaling).

Which means that, every blue moon, your big pistol might clip a fuel line or something. On a good result, it might even do some serious damage (4 points is a lot)

at least IMTU