Critical Hit Tables - Scaling Crits for Weapons and Spells

Critical Hit!  Those two words can make or break a tough battle, depending on what side of the GM's screen they come from.  Recent editions of D&D have tried to simplify crits, making them deal max damage every time.  If you are like me, that's no fun.  Getting a critical hit is all about rolling on tables to see what crazy thing happens.  Will someone's armor get broken?  Will someone lose an eye?  Dare I mention the fabled instant death critical?

My main impetus for making these tables was my growing frustration with the GameMastery Critical Hit Deck.  Too often would a player draw a result that was less than spectacular, or didn't make sense in the situation, and it was easy to forget to step-up the damage result if the weapon had a x3 or x4 crit value.  Plus, should 'Severed Spine' and 'Lip Cut' really have the same 1-in-52 chance of turning up?  When it comes down to it, it's a lot more satisfying to roll dice on a table than to draw a card.

This set of critical hit tables is built with the assumption that you will be using weapons with x2, x3, and x4 crits, with higher crit values providing better chances of getting better crits.  If you are lucky, you'll get to roll for an additional effect on one of three separate tables (one for each damage type: bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing), with effects ranging from 'Bad Bruise' and 'Disarm' to 'Punctured Lung' and 'Temporary Amnesia'.  Plus, there's a Magic Crit table, with results broken up by spell level (0-2, 3-5, and 6-9), because what kind of GM would I be if I didn't give you a chance of summoning a gelatinous cube every time you cast scorching ray?

Enough preamble; let's take a look at these tables!  Below, you'll also find guidelines for their use, and optional rules to make things even better.

Random Minion Motivation Table

"Aim for the big one!" yelled Daltos, hurling a spear at the largest orc.  "If we take out their leader, they'll crumble!"

The rest of the party followed suit.  Grim plunged two bolts from his magic crossbow into the hulking orc chieftain, and Ylvessa charged in and finished the job, hacking off his green head with a swift blow of her scimitar.  

Some of the orcs did as Daltos expected and fled back into the cave.  Some, but not all.  An unassuming orc spearman let out a terrible cry.  "You killed my brother, you elf witch!"  He ran up to the corpse, grabbed the chieftain's warhammer, and brought it down squarely on Ylvessa's surprised head.  

"Rally to me, you cowardly scum!" barked another.  "Unlike that dead idiot Gorflegg, I'LL lead you to victory!"

Then came the shout that Daltos disliked most of all.  Echoing from deep in the caves, an orcish voice called, "C'mon boys! Let's grab the treasure and run!"

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Any good adventurer knows that discretion is the better part of valor.  But what about the minions that they fight?  Some GMs will drag a battle out until every last mook on the battlefield has dropped below 0 hp, other GMs realize that their goblin horde might rather flee than face the whirlwind of death that is a well-prepared adventuring party.

If you want to go a tiny bit more in-depth, check out this table of random minion motivations:

The idea is simple.  During battle, if a major morale-shattering event happens (such as the death of the enemy leader or an attack that kills more than half of the enemy minions), roll 2d6 for each minion to see what his motivation is here, and judge from that what its action will be.

There is a lot of room for GM interpretation, of course.  This is a GM-ing aid, not a new rule-system.  If the minions in question are soldiers in an evil warlord's army, and you roll that one of them is "Only there to protect a loved one", you might decide that he's there to look out for his kid brother who is fighting alongside him, in which case he might fight hard long after the evil warlord is dead just to keep his brother safe.  On the other hand, a cultist in a death cult who is only there to protect his kid brother might grab his brother and flee at the slightest opportunity.

A fanatical believer might fight to the death for his cause, but a true believer, not blinded by outright fanaticism, might see the value in withdrawing to fight another day.

I chose to make it a 2d6 table because it results in a nice bell-curve, as those of you who have attempted to settle Catan will well know.  I didn't want a flat d6 or d10 table, and I thought a d% table would be too complicated for consulting in the heat of battle.  I think the 2d6 bell-curve makes for a quick and easy table with a lot of potential depth.

Sorry for the short post this week.  Life is busy, and it's so hot in Seattle right now that my rapidly decaying computer is threatening to catch aflame.

-your in-it-for-the-money d20 despot

Advanced Character Sheet 3.0 for Pathfinder

Download it HERE!
Or if you don't need the Spellcaster or Animal pages, click here!

EDIT: Some people are having trouble accessing the downloads through Patreon, so I have created a public dropbox folder with all of my character sheets HERE.

It's that time of year again - the time I roll out a new and improved character sheet for use with the Pathfinder roleplaying game.*  This one marks a distinct break from previous iterations of the character sheet:

Keen eyed readers will note that this character sheet is sideways.  The idea behind the move from 'portrait' to 'landscape' is that the sheet won't project out onto the gaming surface as much, leaving more room for the battle map on cramped tables.  At the same time, I was able to fit even more stuff on each page!  Fans of my older character sheets will notice a lot of streamlining in design.  Let's dig into it page-by-page and check out all the unique and useful features this character sheet offers!