Storing criticals?

[Pursuivant]

As a GM, I usually allow a player to "hold" meaningless or trivial critical success until later and then "spend" it on a similar roll which has more tangible benefits.

No game mechanics needed, just a recognition that critical successes don't come that often for characters without high skill levels and that they are most satisfying for everyone when they have dramatic consequences.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Clutch Player:

Good mechanics, but it seems overpriced for characters without high skill levels &/or Luck. I'd treat it as a leveled Perk for ordinary characters or an advantage worth 2 points/level for characters with skill levels high enough to get a CS on 5+.

As an add-on to Luck, etc. I'd treat it as a +10% enhancement.

That is:

1 point/level for ordinary characters.
1.5 points/level for characters with Luck.
3 points/level with Extraordinary Luck.
6 points/level with Ridiculous Luck.

Versions of your proposed advantage, which only affect non-combat dice rolls or a single combat skill roll, could be standard leveled Perks.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Agreed. We still make jokes about the time someone got a regular success on Survival followed by a crit on Cooking. BEST DANG BADGER STEW EVER.

This brings up another way of making trivial critical successes meaningful: as "meta" events which act as limited Unusual Backgrounds and allow the character to boost their skill or buy some relevant perk or advantage.

For example, the cook of the "best dang badger stew" could purchase a Talent which includes Cooking skill.

[Balor Patch]

Karma Bank DF11:34 might be worth a look.

[Blind Mapmaker]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

Karma Bank DF11:34 might be worth a look.

That's one low-powered way to do it. I might go a bit higher-powered than that, but not by much. In combat against half-way realistic human foes a stored critical is almost an "I win"-button. It won't usually be enough to take out a really skilled warrior, but it will give you the edge you need to win. Multiply that by the number of party members taking the ability and you got your auto-kill of even the most elite NPCs.

Compare that to Luck that at most gives you a 13% chance of a crit and it's clear that this packs a huge punch while it certainly lacks in versatility. Sacrificing a non-trivial critical for that does not make up for this.

What I would allow would be an ability Karma Bank that does not increase your effective skill, but your critical range for a single roll. It could go like this:

For each critical success you roll, you can elect to charge your Critical Bank. You can exchange stored crits to increase the critical range for one roll +1 for one crit, +2 for three crits, +3 for 5 crits. That would seem equivalent to Luck for 15 points, but it still gets dicey if you can also use Luck on that roll.

Another option with less book-keeping would be to store one critical, but with a time limit. 30 minutes for 15 pts, 60 minutes for 30 pts and 3 hours for 45 pts. Everything less seems abusable to me.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

In combat against half-way realistic human foes a stored critical is almost an "I win"-button.

I absolutely want to point this out; I do not let PCs create criticals against plot important NPCs. That's an "I win" button and I very much do let important NPCs also have Impulse Points (normally via wildcard skills). A stored crit can't be used on any roll I wouldn't let someone spend points to convert to a crit.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I absolutely want to point this out; I do not let PCs create criticals against plot important NPCs. That's an "I win" button and I very much do let important NPCs also have Impulse Points (normally via wildcard skills). A stored crit can't be used on any roll I wouldn't let someone spend points to convert to a crit.

There's a reason buying criticals is set at several [extremely valuable] currency units by charging multiple character points. One problem with any mechanic for trading them one for one is that in a really important situation a critical is just worth a lot more - that's why the PC is willing to trade! If wouldn't let somebody trade their amazing badger stew critical for 2 or 3 character points they could spend on [anything], trading it for another guaranteed critical they can now set up a situation where it is extra valuable is excessive. That's one of the reasons I like the luck tokens, you're swapping a definite good result now for a [chance] at a later one, you can't really build a plan around it.

The other essential I think you need for a rule like this is minimal recordkeeping. That's why I liked the tokens, especially if you were already doing it for something else. You don't need to write anything down, or keep track of which token came from what or when.

[Plane]

Usually on-the-fly purchases cost double what they would if you banked character points in advance solely for that purpose.

So maybe if someone opts not to use one critical they could later use two?

The main problem with this is you could just have someone literally beating a dead horse to store up criticals for a later time, and I can't think of any way to avoid it.

Maybe some requirement that to use the crit against some future foe, the one you banked the crit with needs to be better than them in some way?

Or maybe even literally "must be used against the same target"

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by malloyd

If wouldn't let somebody trade their amazing badger stew critical for 2 or 3 character points they could spend on [anything],

I also would only allow the stored crit to upgrade a success.

Originally Posted by Plane

The main problem with this is you could just have someone literally beating a dead horse to store up criticals for a later time, and I can't think of any way to avoid it.

Don't have them roll. Beating a dead horse isn't something that would warrant a roll because it's both absurdly easy (you don't roll to have characters walk) and has no effect on success or failure. And I've found this already solves like 95% of any problems that come up with roll abusing. I probably wouldn't even have there be a Cooking roll for that badger stew because the important parts are covered by Survival. Cooking in that situation is done to impress.

And that's part of why I wanted this in the first place. There are (rarely) situations where you really want to succeed but you don't actually care if you critical. Given they aren't combat (very rarely are criticals superfluous) or contests (criticals don't exist), this mostly comes up somewhat rarely with exploration (because sometimes there just isn't anything extremely hard to perceive), social situations that aren't contests (EA comes to mind, but then I'm certain no one would be against critting there), and "gritty" situations (where success or failure is usually very small but noteworthy).

To really put things into perspective, I posted this thread over a year ago and no one has gotten a "feel bad" critical since then. I'm definitely leaning more on letting this just be free because I can't think of even a comparable perk.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Don't have them roll. Beating a dead horse isn't something that would warrant a roll because it's both absurdly easy (you don't roll to have characters walk) and has no effect on success or failure.

The dead horse is basically to make a point, you'd have guys "charging up" crits to store on easy foes in low-danger situations so they could unleash them against big bads in high-danger situations.

You can pay bonus CP to buy crits in play but I'm not sure if opting not to enjoy their benefits to essentially gain free bonus CP (even if designated only for buying crits) is going to be balanced.

If there is some way of doing this, there should be some kind of duration limit on said ability so that if you were charging up crits fighting mooks you'd at least have to do it within seconds of unleashing them on the big bad so that you're probably at risk of getting hit by big bad during said mook battle.

Some kind of "if you opt not to enjoy the benefits of a critical attack or defense, you can use it in the next second" for example, would still be an amazing benefit.

Also more broadly than crits, I'm thinking something along the lines of "intentionally worsen your roll by X points, and stock X points to intentionally better some other roll".

That might result in more crits though so you could have a rule like "but you can't reduce it into crit range unless the points you stored were from a crit"

No reverse though, like banking crit fails for later, because there'd be no way to force it to happen.