Storing criticals?

[Varyon]

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.

*ahem*

Originally Posted by Varyon

A possible way to combat this would be to make it clear the GM has control over whether or not a given crit is eligible for being stored.

This isn't a case where you mechanically limit things, because players may work their way around that unless you're particularly meticulous in your wording. It's a case where you count on the GM to have some idea of what he/she is doing. When a PC crits while beating on a dead horse (or whatever superfluous action he/she was taking), then says to bank that crit, you just step in and say "Ha ha, no." If they keep doing it, take them aside and say "Look, I'm not going to let you bank superfluous crits, that's not what the rule is for. Knock it off and we can get back to actually playing; otherwise, I'm going to start docking you character points for bad roleplaying" (although if they specifically made a character who does rando crap all the time, he can certainly keep doing that, just stop disrupting play asking to bank those crits).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

When a PC crits while beating on a dead horse (or whatever superfluous action he/she was taking), then says to bank that crit, you just step in and say "Ha ha, no." If they keep doing it, take them aside and say "Look, I'm not going to let you bank superfluous crits, that's not what the rule is for.

It's probably good to set guidelines ahead of time to avoid having arguments about "is this mook tough enough to warrant storing the crit I got against him?"

Some ideas:

1) a stored crit has to be performed with the same attack and penalties, so you can't for example get a critical hit by rolling a 6 (skill 16) while punching (-0) something easy like the torso (-0) and then translate that into a critical success for a kick (-2) to the skull (-7). Basically: to store a crit, you should have to have weathered the same risks as a critical failure (and lower critical success range based on effective skill) as you would if you released it.

2) when you unleashed a stored crit, it can't be performed at a higher ST (thrust/damage) than when were using when you decided to stock that crit. Since there are critical fail results where you hurt yourself (roll damage) this avoids stuff like using ST0 attacks, storing crits from them, and then using those crits to land ST20 attacks with no risk of hitting yourself

Could probably do some more involving MoS ratios but that's a start.

You can in theory hurt yourself beating a dead horse by crit-failing the attacks. Only in the case where GM declares it's a non-combat situation (which doesn't necessarily involve just an unmoving corpse foe, if there's combat going on around you it would still be combat in many cases) can you possible do stuff like "No Nuisance Roll for my Weapon Skill" and forgoe a roll.

The thing about NNR though is AFAIK it's never mandatory in RAW (a player can always opt to roll). It seems to be a perk intended more a timesaver (less rolling) and trading crit success benefits away for avoiding crit fail problems.

[JulianLW]

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.

Originally Posted by Varyon

*ahem*

*ahem ahem*

Originally Posted by JulianLW

So how about this?

Clutch Player: For 5 CP/level, once per level per session, a player may save/bank one die roll result for later use and reroll the banked result. The player may have a maximum of 3 levels of this trait for a total of 15 CP. And this trait may be taken as an Alternative Ability to Luck - as a +20% enhancement for ease of use - with each use costing one use of the Luck advantage. Banked roll results may be used at any time (i.e. three separate results banked over three hours may be used one after another at the end of a session), but they do not carry over from one session to the next. This is a cinematic trait.

I've bolded the relevant parts. Note also that making this a +20% enhancement to Luck turns Luck [15] into Luck (Stored Criticals Option +20%) [18] - a three point enhancement, equal to 3 perks for exactly 3 uses per session.

You could also take Clutch Player 1 (AA to Luck) [1] for one use per session, equal to one perk. You use the stored critical roll, that's your use of Luck for this hour. If you didn't want to sacrifice your use of Luck, buy Clutch Player at full price of 5/level. It'll be worth it after two sessions. (And note that Luck isn't worth the points for a single-session if Impulse Buys is an option.)

[talonthehand]

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.

Taking this as hyperbole, there are two solutions, one done with mechanics and one done socially.

Mechanics: In order to store a crit, the TDM has to be no better than -1*however many crits they have stored. If they don't have any, a regular 0 TDM will work, if they have 10 stored, then they need a crit off of a TDM of -10.

Socially: If your players are going to be trying to game the system in such a way that sucks the fun out of it, speak with them like adults.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Varyon

whatever superfluous action he/she was taking

Originally Posted by Plane

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.

This is my point. Don't have them roll in superfluous situations. Basic p343 basically explains this; If there isn't meaningful failure or gainful success, don't roll. Further, I already don't allow PCs to make a roll a crit against big bads, so this stored crit would be no different. In fact, superfluous combat is likely resolved in a few or even just 1 roll (MA has some neat rolls for dealing with mooks and combat that is just "and then I knocked out the three mooks" sounds like a single roll to get to the important fights)

And if the situation isn't superfluous, especially in combat, crits are very important. If you can't casually decrease the enemy's defense into nothing, then a crit lets you bypass that. And if the enemy is threatening enough to require full on resolution of combat, then you're trying to hit them for a reason. Outside of combat is even more GM call on if a roll is ever necessary.

I'll repeat what I said earlier; Since the making of this thread, I haven't had someone want this ONCE. Every critical mattered. Every skill roll had a meaningful upgrade from getting a critical versus regular success*. I'm not worried one bit about storing "too many" because no character in the history of roleplaying with me has ever wanted to do this more than once and that's including the much more gamist player I have that's had a campaign running for over a decade.

*One time I was uncertain what a critical would do, but one of the other players pointed out the current situation would very much help them steal a cannon and went with it because it made sense.

Originally Posted by talonthehand

Socially: If your players are going to be trying to game the system in such a way that sucks the fun out of it, speak with them like adults.

Also, really heavily this. I've had exactly one problematic long running player and I just don't play with them anymore.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

Mechanics: In order to store a crit, the TDM has to be no better than -1*however many crits they have stored. If they don't have any, a regular 0 TDM will work, if they have 10 stored, then they need a crit off of a TDM of -10.

How are TDM like this usually applied in combat?

If it includes stuff like lighting you can "beat a dead horse in -9 light" to store up high-difficulty critical successes.

I think the issue here is still ST: you can do ST 0 hits (low risk of self harm) to store crits, then max ST to unleash it.

Knowing you can get a crit when you need one is very useful. That's exactly the time might do something like All-Out Attack: Strong instead of All-Out Attack: Determined.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by Plane

How are TDM like this usually applied in combat?

If it includes stuff like lighting you can "beat a dead horse in -9 light" to store up high-difficulty critical successes.

I think the issue here is still ST: you can do ST 0 hits (low risk of self harm) to store crits, then max ST to unleash it.

Knowing you can get a crit when you need one is very useful. That's exactly the time might do something like All-Out Attack: Strong instead of All-Out Attack: Determined.

Final TDM is what would matter. If they are rolling at -9 is not the same as saying "there's a -9 that is cancelled by a bunch of other things".

More importantly, and I reiterate. If this is a problem for you and your players, you should speak to them as adults, and not try to game away the problem of metagaming.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

Final TDM is what would matter.
If they are rolling at -9 is not the same as saying "there's a -9 that is cancelled by a bunch of other things".

TDM isn't part of the ST of the attack though, which is my point.

Originally Posted by talonthehand

More importantly, and I reiterate. If this is a problem for you and your players, you should speak to them as adults, and not try to game away the problem of metagaming.

Realistically a character w/ this ability who is aware of it will try to exploit it so it would be bad-RP not to also try to exploit it.

Crunch-based pre-limiting it will avoid needing the fuzzy gray area of negotiating it's applications, it comes off as a lot fairer than needing to come up with on-the-fly restrictions.

So for example instead of "you saved the crit for your Defensive Attack to use on your Strong Attack" raising an eye-brow, establishing beforehand "it needs to be the same maneuver, at the same or higher ST, at same or worse penalties" would set fair boundaries ahead of time.

I also think "on the same target" or "within X seconds" prevents the whole "charging up crits pummeling mooks to unleash on the final boss" problem.

I realize that's actually what you tend to do in RPG games like final fantasy (limit breaks etc) but being able to do that is a huge advantage which should cost more than crits against bosses only chargable on bosses.

The "dead horse" example is basically a stand-in for the mook/goon to denote how much easier they are than final bosses.

IE "going to forgo critical successes against the goblin lackeys to unleash crit successes against their dragon overlord".

You're giving up crit successes when you don't need them (the goblins) so use them when you DO need them (the dragon) which is much more flexibility than "forgoing a crit against the dragon now to use it against the dragon later".

In that latter cases, to earn the "use a crit against a dragon" you incurred a "risk of fighting a dragon" cost (including a "risk of crit-failing during a dragon fight") for that later benefit.

[SimonAce]

Its a bit Fallout 4 Critical Banker for my taste but the closest GURPS Advantage is Super Luck which lets you decide what a die roll is once per game hour, probably 5 x a session.

Its a meta luck advantage so such things exists in GURPS already.


This would seem like a limitation on that so maybe -30% must roll critical success to use, -20% only for the skill rolled and I its at will but pretty limited since crits aren't that common call that a +0% so 50 points

Call it Momentum ala the 2d20 system and you are good.

[kirbwarrior]

I'd like to apologize for being aggressive this thread. To change my tune; My point is that "worrying about how players might stockpile crits" is worrying about a symptom than the underlying problem. GURPS is (thankfully!) not a video game or program and heavily relies on the GM. I would approach this idea very differently if I was developing a video game or playing the "paper MMO" that is D&D 4.0 because the rules come first and the GM second if there even is one. If a player is somehow stockpiling lots of crits, it means one of the following;
A) They are making rolls they don't need to
B) They are abusing the GM's good will
C) They are actually worse off than having not used it at all

A is my fault as the GM. B is a player I don't want to play with. C is fine but something I'll warn newer players about (my long time players understand the consequences of things like Impulse Buys already).