Critical Hits, Critical Fumbles

[NukeHavoc]

What does everyone think of using the critical fumble and critical hit apps/decks? Given the nature of the Second Darkness campaign -- particularly the drow -- I like the idea of including them to add a little diversity to the hits. With the iPhone app I can easily fire of crits and fumbles, which eliminates the time consuming aspects of looking stuff up in the Torn Asunder book. George has been using them in his game, and I think they work pretty well.

[erilar]

I'm all for the special crit/fumble tables. I like how they enhance the story beyond "I do LOTS of damage this turn", or "Oops, I drop my dagger".

[NukeHavoc]

I'm all for the special crit/fumble tables. I like how they enhance the story beyond "I do LOTS of damage this turn", or "Oops, I drop my dagger".

I agree. It was much cooler for Tholyr to pin his unconscious opponent's arm to the floor with a crossbow bolt and have him bleed out, rather than just crit him.

[EvilGenius]

I don't use a crossbow (yet). I stabbed him with my shortsword.

I agree with you about using the crits/fumbles, now that you can access them quickly as an app.

[NukeHavoc]

I don't use a crossbow (yet). I stabbed him with my shortsword.

Nice.

[T1Mirage]

I do not like playing with critical fumbles. Generally people feel bad enough about missing.

Also a couple of bad experiences where:
1 - other PCs 'roleplaying' that it was intentional
2 - having and seeing PC's die from critical misses

With all that said - I have not seen Paizo's but still hesitant.

[NukeHavoc]

I can understand that. That said, I think generally speaking we've had fun (if occasionally lethal) experiences with them. In particular I can remember Damon's dwarf in the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign axing Zilanderan in the back -- not once, but twice! It certainly gave those two characters a connection they would otherwise not have had (though IIRC correctly that dwarvf ended up with a rainbow beard, buried in an unmarked grave, but I don't think that was all Zil's doing...)

I'll need to look through the app and see what some of the crit fumbles are. Conceptually I like them because I like the idea that failure is interesting. Not necessarily catastrophic ... but interesting.

[NukeHavoc]

Just to finish up this thread -- we'll use the Critical Fumbles and Critical Hits decks, in the form of the iCrit and iFumble apps from Paizo.