Help a noobie understand critical hits

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

I sense that the OP's concern is primarily about not wanting to kill a PC accidentally, the way that an AD&D housecat will murder a 1st level wizard if you run it by its MM stats. Imagine the poor DM muttering to himself, "I was just trying to introduce a potential familiar for you, not a deadly combat encounter!"

There is no such thing as accidental death in these situations. If you go into combat you are choosing to risk your life. If the GM presents you with opportunity or occasion for combat they are presenting you with the chance of endangering yourself. If you want to have zero chance of death, don't fight.

The game mechanics of GURPS is consistent with this. The chance of death may be small. But it always remains possible that you'll make that bad dice roll and your character will die.

For me, at least, this is a feature. On one hand, it gives players an incentive not to settle every situation by drawing a gun or throwing a punch. On the other hand, since players know they are risking their characters' lives, it makes the choice to go into a fight a dramatic one, like Hector going out onto the fields of Troy to face the enraged Achilles. It's the chance that their character won't come back that gives players skin in the game.

And now, to argue against myself, I'm surprised no one has suggested to Klink the standard answer of many GURPS players who disagree with that sort of logic: fudge the dice rolls. If you're the GM, and you have a chance to roll the dice, and one outcome would kill the character—roll behind a GM screen and lie about the outcome. That's a lot simpler than making up different rules.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

And now, to argue against myself, I'm surprised no one has suggested to Klink the standard answer of many GURPS players who disagree with that sort of logic: fudge the dice rolls.

This has been suggested, but OP has expressed (understandable) resistance to it - better to have consistent rules that give the results you're looking for than having to frequently fudge rolls. I'm not certain why the various other solutions offered - giving the characters traits that prevent death (or make it into a temporary state), using cinematic rules like Flesh Wounds, etc - are unacceptable, however.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There is no such thing as accidental death in these situations. If you go into combat you are choosing to risk your life. If the GM presents you with opportunity or occasion for combat they are presenting you with the chance of endangering yourself. If you want to have zero chance of death, don't fight.

...

And now, to argue against myself, I'm surprised no one has suggested to Klink the standard answer of many GURPS players who disagree with that sort of logic: fudge the dice rolls. If you're the GM, and you have a chance to roll the dice, and one outcome would kill the character—roll behind a GM screen and lie about the outcome. That's a lot simpler than making up different rules.

For the record I think lying to your players is a bad idea and has the potential to forever destroy your players' ability to trust you.

If you find that you've accidentally killed a PC (for example by giving cyber equipment to Farmer Joe that turns out to somehow be much stronger than you were expecting), there's no need to lie to your players. Just tell them you made an honest mistake, apologize, and either move forward with a funeral and a new PC and a promise not to repeat the error, or tell them that you're retconning the unexpectedly deadly result to be less lethal, and resurrect the PC.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I don't see a lot of death in my fantasy games - .

Don't have a ST 20 Barbarian with a Flail and a fondness for attacking the Skull, do you? :)

This does serve to illustrate that it is _targeted_ attacks (mostly to the Vitals or the Skull but sometimes the Neck) that result in instant death.

[mlangsdorf]

Mrugnak was literally over a decade ago, but I suppose I underestimated the death rate at peak Mrugnak. 4d+4 (2) cr to the skull generally autokills HP 10 foes, and has a reasonable chance of kill anything with HP 20 or less.

[Purple Snit]

While I understand trying to avoid "instant death" for PCs, it's worth noting that guns are deadly; that's why they are used. And why police (who are very likely to run into guns in the real world) wear armour. Hell, if they hear of a firefight, the SWAT officers look like big cyborg beetles when they respond, they are so armoured-up.

Cyberpunk is about danger, violence, and risk-taking; that includes the risk of getting hurt or killed. Nerfing everyone's boom-sticks isn't solving the issue, it's circumventing it.

So maybe most of your baddies use shock weapons, or pepperballs, or beanbag rounds; if anyone has heavy firepower, telegraph it so the PCs know what's coming and can adjust tactics accordingly. Keep the bullets to a minimum, and then they are a deadly threat when appropriate. You didn't say if you plan to downgrade the PC weapons as well.

Also, Vampires in my games usually have Damage Reduction/2 or more, so incoming damage is less menacing in the short term. I had a PC with DR10 and IR/2 who survived a car wreck at 90 kmh. That would also give them a "that should have killed you!" surprise factor in play.

Just my thoughts.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Purple Snit

While I understand trying to avoid "instant death" for PCs, it's worth noting that guns are deadly; that's why they are used.

But mostly only in real life, not in GURPS. Ditto falls actually. A 50 foot fall is lethal about half the time in real life, but hardly ever to a GURPS character.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Mrugnak was literally over a decade ago, but I suppose I underestimated the death rate at peak Mrugnak. 4d+4 (2) cr to the skull generally autokills HP 10 foes, and has a reasonable chance of kill anything with HP 20 or less.

The highest damage roll I ever achieved on a character sheet I still have is Bryce's 2d+1 quarterstaff, though I can remember an axe-and-shield fighter that I'm almost certain was higher. It probably says something about me that the strongest character I felt was worthy of archiving was ST 13. (Bryce had DX 16, and Orzon was IQ 18, so it isn't merely stat normalization).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The highest damage roll I ever achieved on a character sheet I still have is Bryce's 2d+1 quarterstaff,.

Nyx the Barbarian eventually had magic raise her ST to 22 and 4D swing. Her magic flail added 6 to that and being a Weapon Master added 8 more for 4D+14. She was also a 400 pt+ character. You subtract a few pts for a helmet and the Skull's natural DR and multiply the rest by x4 and you can get over 100 pts of damage.

She also wore DR10 magic armor and of course had more than 20 HP. That 7D rifle might have made her mad.

As I once remarked "Character points are magic". If the OP hands enough of them out to his players those worries about one-shotting a PC might go away.

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by Varyon

This has been suggested, but OP has expressed (understandable) resistance to it - better to have consistent rules that give the results you're looking for than having to frequently fudge rolls. I'm not certain why the various other solutions offered - giving the characters traits that prevent death (or make it into a temporary state), using cinematic rules like Flesh Wounds, etc - are unacceptable, however.

Well, just essentially halving the firearm damage while similarly reducing armor DR is a pretty similar solution to what has been suggested in terms of cinematics. It's also pretty simple. Unliving advantage is also useful but not every player is going to be a vampire. I want the margin for failure to be more than a straight and narrow path thereby allowing for a lot of possibilities and creativity. Not "well if you aren't built this exact way due to the sheer deadliness of the slightest failure... you won't last five minutes!"

I'm setting up some short campaigns with myself (playing 2-3 characters of my own to "simulate") before I commit to any such thing now though. We will see. Also being TL9 first aid apparently is pretty good now...

Originally Posted by Purple Snit

While I understand trying to avoid "instant death" for PCs, it's worth noting that guns are deadly; that's why they are used. And why police (who are very likely to run into guns in the real world) wear armour. Hell, if they hear of a firefight, the SWAT officers look like big cyborg beetles when they respond, they are so armoured-up.

Cyberpunk is about danger, violence, and risk-taking; that includes the risk of getting hurt or killed. Nerfing everyone's boom-sticks isn't solving the issue, it's circumventing it.

So maybe most of your baddies use shock weapons, or pepperballs, or beanbag rounds; if anyone has heavy firepower, telegraph it so the PCs know what's coming and can adjust tactics accordingly. Keep the bullets to a minimum, and then they are a deadly threat when appropriate. You didn't say if you plan to downgrade the PC weapons as well.

Also, Vampires in my games usually have Damage Reduction/2 or more, so incoming damage is less menacing in the short term. I had a PC with DR10 and IR/2 who survived a car wreck at 90 kmh. That would also give them a "that should have killed you!" surprise factor in play.

Just my thoughts.

As mentioned elsewhere there are impossible trans dimensional beings, vampires and magic as well as cybernetics we have yet to achieve in the real world. I'm not particularly interested in "well this gun puts down someone this reliably in real life so it should in game" arguments. This is a fantasy game, get with the fantasy lol.

it seems so freaking odd to me that the game name is Generic *UNIVERSAL* Role Playing System and time and time again people are mentioning reality "well this is like the real world." No no, this is supposed to be a *UNIVERSAL* role playing system and I'm not interested in playing a realistic campaign where my players get shot and die within five minutes for being gonk enough to think they could actually do anything. Nope nope nope. Lets expand our options and variety a bit from "realistic" and adopt the motto of a *UNIVERSAL* role playing system!