what if you don't want your foe to fall on your spear?

[Plane]

I was looking at B557 and result 5 ("you hit a solid object") on the Unarmed Critical Miss Table. It also applies to results 6 and 16 on that table.

Instead of a broad "wall, floor, etc" the "exception" says "you fall on his weapon" if the foe you missed was holding a readied Impaling weapon.

There might be situations where that's not desirable for the spear-holder though, like "I don't want to kill this crazed peasant trying to punch me, he's drunk and I'm trying to protect him" or "I at least don't want him stuck on my spear, it would take time to get him off where I could be attacked by others" or even "he has acid blood which is going to ruin my spear"

So should there be some option to maybe treat this like a non-critical successful attack on a weapon where the spear-holder might perform a dodge or parry to prevent contact with his spear if he doesn't want the free auto-impale against the unarmed attacker who crit-failed a punch on him?

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a similar concern for results 3 and 18... if the GM says "walk facefirst
into an opponent’s fist" shouldn't the owner of that fist have a say in if they WANT their fist to make contact?

I think "you trip and fall on your head" is more analagous to the earlier "you hit a wall" or "you hit a floor" results that don't involve contact with other characters.

I was thinking 3/18 instead of auto-KO could be something like "take a 2-yard fall/collision to your skull" or maybe like 5/16 where you suffer the results of the striking ST you were using for the failed attack? It seems like helmet and skull DR should matter.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Plane

So should there be some option to maybe treat this like a non-critical successful attack on a weapon where the spear-holder might perform a dodge or parry to prevent contact with his spear if he doesn't want the free auto-impale against the unarmed attacker who crit-failed a punch on him?

In the case of an unwanted Critical Hit/opponent Critical Miss, I'd allow the opponent to roll vs. Weapon skill or make a Dodge roll to negate the effect. Essentially, it's a form of "pulling your punches."

If the GM is feeling indulgent, perhaps allow a suitable weapon or unarmed combat skill roll to convert the critical into a less damaging, more desirable effect like a disarm.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Plane

I

So should there be some option to maybe treat this like a non-critical successful attack on a weapon where the spear-holder might perform a dodge or parry to prevent contact with his spear if he doesn't want the free auto-impale against the unarmed attacker who crit-failed a punch on him?

- .

No, there shouldn't. His bad luck isn't about what you want to happen. Critical misses aren't something the opponent did deliberately.

[Varyon]

If it's a Critical Failure on the part of the attacker, I'd allow a Parry to get the weapon out of the way. If it's a Critical Success on the part of the defender (that is, a Critical Success on an Active Defense, which is treated as a Critical Failure on the attack), I'd allow the player to simply waive the benefit of the Critical Success and treat it as a normal Success.

[Rolando]

If you don't want to hurt someone don't point a spear at them.

If you have a spear at hand and trying to control a drunken peasant (for example) you may say to the GM you are not using your spear in a dangerous way, you are using it mostly to parry and push, probably with both hands (across the chest) or something.

If you are using the spear with an intent to kill you probably have it pointed to the target and a critical failure is as surprising to the target as to you.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Rolando

If you don't want to hurt someone don't point a spear at them.

If you have a spear at hand and trying to control a drunken peasant (for example) you may say to the GM you are not using your spear in a dangerous way, you are using it mostly to parry and push, probably with both hands (across the chest) or something.

If you are using the spear with an intent to kill you probably have it pointed to the target and a critical failure is as surprising to the target as to you.

There could be a situation where you're pointing the spear's business end at the person as a means of intimidation, to convince them to keep their distance, without any desire to actually harm them. That's the situation where I'd allow a Parry to move the weapon out of line; if you're holding it for a cross-check, I wouldn't even count it as a "Readied Impaling weapon," at least for purposes of a CritFail causing the target to be impaled.

[whswhs]

Getting out of the way seems like a dodge.

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Varyon

There could be a situation where you're pointing the spear's business end at the person as a means of intimidation, to convince them to keep their distance, without any desire to actually harm them. That's the situation where I'd allow a Parry to move the weapon out of line; if you're holding it for a cross-check, I wouldn't even count it as a "Readied Impaling weapon," at least for purposes of a CritFail causing the target to be impaled.

No, people make this mistake about guns all the time. Weapons are tools of killing not of intimidation.

Weapons are only a viable means of intimidation in a "comply or else" scenario.
However, the "or else" really only works if you follow through because there will be people who call your bluff.

As to the OP's question, the only way to change the result of a crit fail is by using luck.
If another's crit fail would be a major problem for a PC, I as GM would let a PC use their own luck.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

His bad luck isn't about what you want to happen.
Critical misses aren't something the opponent did deliberately.

Yes but it seems strange that only random chance can make stabbing the wrong person completely unavoidable like it was a critical hit against you but in reverse.

Originally Posted by Rolando

If you don't want to hurt someone don't point a spear at them.

Nothing here indicates you're actually pointing the spear at the person who is attacking you, just that you have it readied.

Like weirdly the spear is legally occupying your front hexes and someone could attack you from behind, crit-fail, and still impale themself on the spear even though it's tip is 3 yards away and it should be impossible.

Something like "this only applies if you're occupying the same hex as the spear's tip" sounds like a pretty good idea for a house rule on applying this crit fail result though.

Originally Posted by Rolando

If you have a spear at hand and trying to control a drunken peasant (for example) you may say to the GM you are not using your spear in a dangerous way, you are using it mostly to parry and push, probably with both hands (across the chest) or something.

If you are using the spear with an intent to kill you probably have it pointed to the target and a critical failure is as surprising to the target as to you.

It only says that a spear is readied. You might be intending to aim it at a monster who is chasing the peasant but the peasant does something crazy like attacks you with a Shove to get past you.

Even though he's already ran a couple yards past the tip of your lance, it sounds like he somehow backtracks two yards and impales himself as a result of the crit-fail shove.

Originally Posted by Varyon

EDIT: Of course, the GM could be justified in saying that only getting the weapon out of the way (that is, using Parry) means the attacker stumbles into you rather than your weapon, which may risk you falling down or similar.

fair point

Originally Posted by Tinman

As to the OP's question, the only way to change the result of a crit fail is by using luck.
If another's crit fail would be a major problem for a PC, I as GM would let a PC use their own luck.

This seems like the type of thing which skill could prevent though, someone skilled with a weapon should have some chance of reducing the chance of accidentally stabbing someone they never attacked in the first place.

This seems like a similar situation to resolving "Knockback" situations.

B378 mentions this:

If you knock your foe into something solid, the result – including
damage to him and whatever he hit – is as if he had collided with it
at a speed equal to the yards of knockback.

A person is arguably "solid" meaning you could 'collide' with a person who was standing behind them.

It doesn't mention anything about either party being able to "dodge" to prevent this collision.

If you don't let the person standing behind the shoved person attempt a dodge though, it gives a loophole where you create unavoidable attacks via people letting themselves being shoved into targets.

IE if you treat a "shove A into B" as "automatically successfil hit against B" then B still gets a dodge so long as you don't treat this as a critical success.

Though since you need to roll to hit with slams, I think some kind of skill roll to have A hit B (as opposed to enter their hex but miss them, like what can happen with a slam) also seems fair. I guess if you did make that roll you could have unavoidable critical hit successes.

Since the Unarmed Critical Miss result is not an intentional action, unlike with shoving a skill roll to hit seems inappropriate, meaning there would be no chance to roll a critical success to make it an undodgeable slam.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

They're not safe tools of intimidation, obviously. Telling people to that they're not tools of intimidation at all might make sense in environments where you have a sufficiently low tolerance for wounding or killing the intended subjects of intimidation, or where armed intimidation is inappropriate behavior. At least if you think you can get them to internalize such a transparent untruth.

Threatening people with weapons doesn't even actually require being willing to follow through, though obviously you need to (a) not be obvious about your unwillingness to your target, (b) be willing to risk the potentially-deadly accidents that brandishing weapons invite and (c) deal with the risk of the bluff being called.

I don't think anyone is arguing that spears are absolutely safe here.

The proposal isn't "the spear user can automatically avoid stabbing the unarmed peasant" just "give him chance to prevent it if he makes an active defense roll"

Some low-DX incompetent soldier with a horrible spear skill would have a very low parry and very low chances of saving that peasant from accidental impalement, ZERO chance if he had just made an AOA and lacked defenses.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

Like weirdly the spear is legally occupying your front hexes and someone could attack you from behind, crit-fail, and still impale themself on the spear even though it's tip is 3 yards away and it should be impossible.

Something like "this only applies if you're occupying the same hex as the spear's tip" sounds like a pretty good idea for a house rule on applying this crit fail result though.

It only says that a spear is readied. You might be intending to aim it at a monster who is chasing the peasant but the peasant does something crazy like attacks you with a Shove to get past you.

Even though he's already ran a couple yards past the tip of your lance, it sounds like he somehow backtracks two yards and impales himself as a result of the crit-fail shove.

Strange things can happen during the chaos of combat. If you find this problematic for your sense of disbelief, consider the following. Rather than simply "foe has a Ready impaling weapon," have it be "foe has a Ready impaling weapon, and you pass through a Front hex within the weapon's Reach," and also have the attack retroactively stop movement (although there may be a roll for you to avoid running yourself all the way through, if applicable). So, if you've got a long spear Ready at Reach 4, then if the peasant starts 5 yards out and tries to Slam you, but rolls a critfail, he actually runs into your spear point at Reach 4 and probably stops there. If the peasant instead started at Reach 3, he's too close for this to apply, so instead trips and faceplants.

I don't think you should be required to define where your weapon is located at all times; treating it as being in all your Front hexes within Reach simultaneously is honestly more realistic, because a spearman (for example) isn't going to stand stock-still, he/she is going to be shifting where the spear is pointed to dissuade anyone from getting too close. If someone just ups and tries to run into the spear, of course, the spearman should probably get a chance to get the spear out of line, if he/she would rather not prepare a dish of Peasant Kebab. Parry fits quite nicely, here. As noted, I wouldn't require a roll if this was the result of the spearman having a Critical Success on his/her Parry - a Critical Success should never be a bad thing for the one who rolled it! (Note this also means, if someone were mistakenly attacking an ally, I'd actually have them discover it was an ally and miss on a Critical Success - or at least give the player the option for this; on the flip side, I might make a Critical Failure into a hit if I were feeling evil, but probably wouldn't)