Help a noobie understand critical hits

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

No, it cannot.

2D+1 Pi- penetrates as much armor as 2D+1 Pi+, but after penetrating in causes lesser wounds.

In an "armor divisors only" variant, 2d+1 pi- would instead be stated as 1d(2) pi (or 1d+1(2) pi, depending on how you round); meanwhile, 2d+1 pi+ would instead be written as something like 3d+1(0.7) pi (or 3d+2(0.7) pi, depending on how you round). I assume you'd maintain different attack types for purposes of things like Limited DR and the like, but you'd change everything to be a x1 WM at default (you'd still have boosted Injury for things like Vitals/Skull hits, Vulnerabilities, etc, but you wouldn't need to remember that cut is x1.5 and imp is x2, for example). That's going to ultimately end up with different results in a variety of situations, however - now what used to be pi- has markedly poorer performance with Skull and Vitals hits than what used to be pi++ (which isn't unrealistic, although I think the x4 difference between the two would greatly overstate the effect), blowthrough is messed up (unless you have the armor divisor play a role in that), etc. It's also going to be messy for melee weapons - a Thrusting Broadsword would no longer be thr+2 imp, sw+1 cut, but instead something like (thrx2)+4(0.5) imp, (swx1.5)+1(0.7) cut. Personally, I prefer having both armor divisors and wounding modifiers in play, but I don't have difficulty keeping in mind what each damage type has as a WM.