I am not sure if this should be in tool requests, general discussion or where, but here is my idea.
For any of you out there that ever played any version of Rolemaster, undoubtedly you will remember the critical strike or critical fumble tables as one of the most fun aspects of the game (+20HP damage, your melt your targets head. Go fetch a mop). Has anyone come up with a conversion/integreation to build this into DnD 4e? I know the numbers would have to be adjusted, but being able to cut off a leg, arm or disembowl your target with a lucky shot is a bit more fun that just doing max weapon damage.
Here are my thoughts:
1. No max weapon damage on a crit. Instead you roll a D100 on the appropriate Rolemater crit table and get any extra damage from there.
2. Cut the extra HP damage in half to be more in line with the lower hitpoints in 4E.
3.When choosing an A throu E crit table, let it be tied to the amount of damage dealt by the blow. I.E. Dealing 1-4 HP with the normal weapon hit gets no crit roll, dealing 5-8 HP is a roll on an A crit table, 9-12 HP is a B crit, 13-16 is a C, 16-20 is a D and 21+ is an E crit.
So here are a few examples:
1. The wizard casts magic missle and rolls a 20. Instead of max damage, he does a normal 2d4+int roll and does 7 points of damage. 7 HP damage is a roll on the "A" critical table, so he rolls a D100 and gets the result of 85. Read the 85 crit and apply half rolemaster damage along with any other effects as determined by the 85 result.
2. The rogue sneak attacks his target and rolls a 20. His normal damage roll is 1d6+Dex (for his weapon) along with an additional 2d6 for his sneak attack and he rolls a total of 17 damage, which would be a roll on the "D" critical table. He rolls a D100 and gets the result of 100(WOOT!) you apply half of the damage as well as any other effects as described by the 100 roll (which would probably 1 shot kill the target in this case).
The upside is that the GM, while having to look up on a few more books for these results,would not have to imagine all of the attack descriptions as they are spelled out in gruesome detail in the Rolemaster critical tables. The downside to this is the fact that you CAN 1 shot kill a normal target if you roll well enough, and this also includes the PCs. As a GM, there was nothing like your big bad fighter getting taken out by a lucky shot from a level 1 orc hiding behind a rock and watching the player cry like a 2 year old.
What do you think?
