Combat Skill Results
By windmark8040
April 27, 2010 in Basic Roleplaying
windmark8040
I did a quick forum search and didn't really see what I was looking for, but please feel free to point me in the right direction, if necessary.
This question came up during a melee combat scenario, but it can applyto all skills:
Looking at the BRP Skill Results Table (p. 172), there is a 'Critical' column, a 'Special' column, and a 'Fumble' column.
Is it correct to surmise that a character, with a 20 skill, can get a 'Critical' AND a 'Special' result at the same time? (01- 02 Critical result vs. 01-05 Special result overlap)
I see no Fumble Overlap (thank goodness!).
Hrrmmm...
I did some rereading and I guess I answered my own question:
Special Success
An exceptional roll. A D100 result equal to 1/5 of your character's skill rating. Often, a special attack means that the weapon does normal damage in addition to a special result based on the
weapon's type (for example, a bludgeoning weapon, like a club, has a knockback/down effect). A special parry can do damage to an attacking weapon.
For example, if your character has a skill of Firearm 60%, he or she will achieve a special success on a roll of 04–12. This does normal damage (1D8, for example), but in the case of a
firearm, will do impaling damage.
So apparently, the Skill Results table just needs to be interpreted a certain way. At least it makes sense now!
Edited April 28, 2010 by windmark8040
No, you were more or less correct the first time; that line is only there to indicate what range is a special but NOT a critical. Criticals always include a special with them unless whatever roll is being made has no defined special result for some reason.
Thanks, Nightshade!
Narl
Spear-Dane
Unless I am misinterpeting what you are saying, I don't believe that is correct. If you roll a critical in combat, you just get the benefit of a critical. You don't also get a special result on top of that.
But be aware of this from page 192:
"GM NOTE: Gamemasters should allow characters to inflict a special success upon a foe in place of a critical success if the foe is unarmored."
If so, this is a change from any prior version of BRP that I'm aware of; its certainly a change from the RQ roots where both were always combined (and in particular will mean you'll frequently want to use an impale or bash when fighting lightly armored opponents, since they'll produce superior results to ignoring a point or two of armor almost every time (the bleeding special won't, but then I've argued that one is underpowered compared to the other two specials before).
If I remember right, in the original RQ the effect of a critical was to ignore armor, and nothing else, so it was easy to combine with an impale. In BRP, the critical does maximum rolled damage, and ignores armor. If you combine them (which I don't believe is the way the rules are written), do you have a critical impale do maximum double damage and ignore armor?
If they are supposed to be combined, I'd think the rules would be clear about that. Plus that GM note I mentioned above seems to make it clear it is one or the other.
If I remember right, in the original RQ the effect of a critical was to ignore armor, and nothing else, so it was easy to combine with an impale.
Depends - which version of RQ?
In RQII iff the target wore armour AND did NOT parry, a crit ignored armour. When the target had no armour OR they DID parry, weapon damage was doubled. The RAW were unclear on what happened with a impale that was also a critical - but one may infer that it merely ignored the armour on top of increasing damage (RQII impales did max weapon damage + rolled weapon damage + db), which was plenty bad enough...
In RQIII, criticals and impales explicitly DID stack - and since an impale did twice weapon damage + db already, a critical impale did twice maximum weapon damage + db and was devastating...
In BRP, the critical does maximum rolled damage, and ignores armor. If you combine them (which I don't believe is the way the rules are written), do you have a critical impale do maximum double damage and ignore armor?
If you stacked them a la RQIII you would - and a critical short sword (1D6+1) blow from an average man would sever the limb of a character with 29 total hit points...
My recollection from the play test is that, despite some misgivings about the elegance of it, Jason's decision was in the end to NOT stack them and that's certainly how I've been interpreting the gold book rules. We did debate it back and forth a fair bit - the problem is that there are some anomalous outcomes that seem more common in play than some play testers were happy with.
I'm not going to say the rules were as clear about this as they could be, but certainly nothing in the rules suggested you didn't apply impale effects in addition to bypassing armor, and that was certainly the way it was treated in the very first RQ game I ever played in, run by Steve Perrin.
Edit: Oh, and as to your question regarding the crit--the double damage was a relatively late-in-the-day issue, and honestly, I don't recall almost ever fighting targets with absolutely no armor. I realize it can certainly come up with modern games, and if it did, yes, that's what I'd do. Its probably moot with impaling weapons though; the result of a serious impaling weapon getting a crit is so severe anything else is guilding the lilly to a large extent, though this might be less true with the current BRP which is, on the whole, kinder than most incarnations of RQ were (where a critical impale was pretty much given to be an automatic trip to either the morgue or, if you got it in a limb, disable-land).
Rules being unclear? Perish the thought! So what's it like in your parallel universe?
Edited May 1, 2010 by Nightshade
Well, my grognardism and expectations notwithstanding, that's really my issue here; this seems to produce some very odd artifacts as the armor levels are low. Ignoring a point or two of armor doesn't seem close to as beneficial as impaling does for anything but the most trivial of weapons, and its questionable whether the bash isn't a better choice too. (The bleeding critical is a joke pretty much, so its a non-factor).
I mean the bottom line is, the moment your base weapon damage averages more than the armor of the target, the critical is actually less beneficial than the special with impales. That seems--perverse.
Edit: I just had pointed out to me that there's apparently a line that a critical also does maximum damage, which helps this considerably; while not quite as good as an impale, it closes the gap enough that the difference for a point or two of armor is probably trivial in all be a few rare cases.
Looking at RQ1, about as 'original' as you can get: "A Critical Hit ignores the effects of armor or any other protection..."
Later, in an example fight, it says, "...His parry just misses the oncoming cudgel as Rurik rolls a 01!! As neither combatant wear any armor, the referee rules that the Critical Hit does double damage, rather than ignoring the effect of the non-existent armor..."
So, the double-damage with no armor rule is sort of an official ad-hoc GM ruling.