Help a noobie understand critical hits

[mlangsdorf]

The 3-18 range isn't linear. It's a gaussian distribution, and the chance of rolling a 6 or less is around 1 in 11. See Basic p 171.

The 16 or less is final effective skill, after dealing with size, speed, and range, footing, injuries, lighting, or whatever. So it can be difficult to achieve in practice.

In practice, the big advantage of a critical hit is that the target doesn't get to defend. Around 50% of the rolled results of a critical hit have no other meaningful effect. I've seen plenty of critical hits get absorbed by armor.

If you're using a 1d weapon against a target with DR 7, only a fraction of your critical hits are going to penetrate. Find some other way of dealing with your foe: grapple them, attack their armor chinks, use an All-Out (Strong) attack to get extra damage, shove them off a cliff, or run away/surrender. Not all combat challenges are beatable and not all of them can be defeated by the simple tactic of hitting things with light weapons.

The one adventure I remember when the PCs were street toughs doing around 1d+2 damage per hit and we ran into a gang enforcer in full plate, we turned tail and ran. The enforcer had a sword and could cut through our armor on any hit while we have to co-ordinate and get lucky to grab him and get some injury through his armor. But that's what the GM wanted and why he placed a gang enforcer in full plate there.