#crits

[tyrnn]

So Fragile

Interview over. Time for play.

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[grizguts]

I made a silly spoof prayer candle, featuring our Lord of VtM; Jason Carl (Jason Fucking Carl - JFC) @vampiresnvino. Photoshoped him in the saint painting and added some kindred ankhs, book of nod and of course a glass of red. Got them printed as stickers, put them on some black prayer candles I got (opium scented), with some black and red ribbons for a finishing touch. Sent them out to my coterie today as gifts, so we all have one to pray to for crits on game night.

Our Father, who art in Darkness, hallowed be thy name; thy crits come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in hell. Give us this day our daily blood. And forgive us our frenzy, as we forgive those who frenzy against us. And lead us not into bestials; but deliver us from bonds. For thine is kindred, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen.

[jaqs-art]

Critical hits are one of the features that resulted from our focus on pacing. The critical hit system attempts to slightly influence the highs and lows of the game, by increasing the chance of a critical hit based upon the player's recent performance. In summary, the better you're doing, the more likely you'll continue to do well. This helps create those rare high moments, where a single player goes on a rampage and gets 3 or 4 kills in rapid succession.

[throwbackmovie]

Angela Bassett as Fran in CRITTERS 4 – 1992

[critrolestats]

Mighty Nein 100th Celebration!

Happy returns, and happy 100th episode to Critical Role’s second campaign! We’re starting our celebration early with a list of the Mighty Nein’s 100th feats.

100th Player Nat20 - Fjord (2-21, 3:12:07) Constitution Save

100th Player Nat1 - Beau (2-24, 0:48:23) Dexterity Check

100th DM Nat20 - Zombie (2-67, 3:49:16) Slam against Yasha with advantage

100th Kill - Molly (2-26, 1:26:25) Ankheg 2, Summer’s Dance

100th Combat Encounter - Yasha vs. Kal Dimmins in the Stone Coffin

100th DM Facepalm (2-62, 1:51:37) Nott covers up after getting out of the hot tub as Essek Thelyss enters.

100th Day Together (Cuersaar 27) The Mighty Nein sail with Avantika to Darktow.

Beau’s 100th Ki Point: Step of the Wind (2-45, 3:33:44)

Caduceus’s 100th point healed: Cure Wounds to Caleb (2-32, 3:01:44)

Caleb’s 100th Alarm: Lucidian Ocean (2-41, 0:34:22)

Fjord’s 100th Eldritch Blast: (2-47, 0:31:11) against Chuul 1

Jester’s 100th Sending Spell: Fjord (2-97, 3:47:18)

Molly’s 100th point of damage… to himself: (2-26, 1:14:12) Start of Ankheg encounter

Nott’s 100th bolt fired: (2-26, 1:22:14) against Ankheg 2 

Yasha’s 100th point of damage dealt: Siff Duthar (2-16, 0:34:16)

100th NEIN - Episode 2-06 (3:01:20) Sam: Nine.

Critical Role returns tonight! GET HYPE.

[allthingshyper]

All Cops Are Bastards Including The Fandom Police

[tf2workbench]

No RaNdOm CrItiCaL hItS

It’s an attribute that is frequently mocked for - seemingly - not affecting gameplay except for the lucky. Despite this, I sometimes include it on weapons, not as a throwaway but as an actual balancing attribute. I should probably explain why...

I should note that critical hits are fundamentally different for ranged and melee weapons. Ranged weapons have a much lower base chance (2%), which scales up by 1% for every 80 damage dealt in the last 20 seconds. This is damage from any weapon or sentry gun, not just from the weapon itself. It caps out at 12%, which is per-shot on most weapons and per-second on fast-firing ones like the Minigun.

Valve has previously stated that they included critical hits in this way to enhance the “high” of a winning streak, giving high-scoring players a little extra fun before their inevitable demise. While critical hits are extremely contentious, this isn’t the place for that discussion; we’re talking about the “no random critical hits” modifier.

On ranged weapons, it’s usually included when they have some other method of scoring guaranteed crits - think the Phlogistinator or the Frontier Justice. In all honesty, I can’t find a good, solid reason to eliminate random crits on these weapons, but I can speculate.

The main point is that a guaranteed crit provides a similar kind of “high” as a random one does, only you can control when it strikes. If critical hits represent power surges for the player scoring them, it’s fair to make them come in only one particular way. Since ranged weapons score crits relatively infrequently, the attribute doesn’t balance things out all on its own, but serves as kind of a way of modulating gameplay highs/lows. That’s my best guess, and I’ll freely admit I can’t say for sure.

Now, on to melee crits. They work differently than ranged crits simply by having a higher chance. They start at 15% - already higher than the highest you can get on a ranged weapon - and scale up by roughly 1% for every 18 damage dealt. They cap out at a whopping 60% crit chance - not the best betting odds, but enough to make any opponent think twice about approaching.

This means that disabling random melee crits is a much more significant downside than disabling ranged crits. Melee weapons with random crit potential always threaten to take the opponent by surprise, defying the maxim about bringing a knife to a gunfight. That’s a pretty good reason to deny that random ability to weapons which can already score guaranteed criticals. 

In very basic terms, some weapons tell the enemy when they can crit, but always do so in that case; some weapons don’t tell the enemy, but don’t tell the user either. It’s not a perfect system, as evidenced by strong opinions toward critical hits, but this is my best explanation. Maybe I’m completely off my rocker, but this is the rationale I use when adding “No random critical hits” to a weapon.

What’s your opinion on random crits? Do you, like me, have a key bound to sent an apology for random critical kills? Should I discuss the finer points of critical hits?