Critical Hit: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''Show me something that beats a natural twenty and I'll show you '''hateful lies!'''''|[[Munchkin|Red Mage]], ''[[8-Bit Theater]]''}}
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== [[Tabletop RPG]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''
** The best known is, of course, rolling a "natural 20"<ref>That is, a 20 on the die, before applying modifiers.</ref> in combat did bonus
** In "AD&D 2.5" beating an opponent's AC by 4 or more meant at least double damage, and the detailed damage option introduced to avoid "[[Only a Flesh Wound]]" effect added injuries if the target fails an extra saving throw. Like major
** The 3rd Edition allowed critical successes under other circumstances as well, and had weapons with different odds of critical hits. A "natural 20" no longer resulted in an automatic critical hit, either, but did mean an automatic hit and a chance to "confirm" a critical hit with a second roll.
** Unlike most examples, in D&D, creatures with odd anatomies can be immune to critical hits, including [[Golem
** The D&D 3.5-based Star Wars RPG took it one step further, making critical hits instant-kill faceless Mooks and deal (on average) about 1.5 times as much as maximum damage with whatever weapon you were using.
** 4th edition [[Dungeons and Dragons]] has all creatures affected by critical hits. All weapons deal max damage on a crit. Magical weapons and some heavy weapons deal extra damage on top of that. However, all weapons deal critical damage on 20s alone again (except when augmented by certain powers or feats).
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** Other Whitewolf games such as ''[[Exalted]]'' and ''[[Scion]]'' have the rule that a 10 is two successes and the more successes you get (often a certain number, such as your opponent's total successes) the better the result.
** The ''[[Savage Worlds]]'' system has a similar mechanic, where rolling the highest number on a die lets you reroll it and add, and every multiple of four over the difficulty you are makes the result better.
* ''[[BattleTech]]'' has a system of critical hits that applies during a variety of situations. The most common being that after the external armor in a location has been eliminated, every successful attack made to its internal structure has a chance to critically hit and disable components and/or weapons placed there (anything from knocking out the small laser you weren't using anyway to penetrating the cockpit and killing the pilot on a lucky headshot) or even touch off an ammo bin resulting in predictably spectacular fireworks. (Modern units can have
** Also, a 'Mech's head is generally its weakest spot. A big enough gun (like a Gauss rifle, which also doubles as one of the longest-range weapons in the game) can amputate it in one shot regardless of the target's weight class because heads are "one size fits all", and even lesser, non-penetrating hits will hurt and potentially knock out (or sometimes even kill) the pilot. This doesn't quite fall under the [[Boom! Headshot!]] trope because the game goes out of its way to make actually ''aiming'' at the head hard at the best of times and flat-out impossible at
* ''[[In Nomine]]'', which is based on the War between Heaven and Hell, has a special take on critical successes, not just on rolls involving fighting but on any roll (and critical failures) the game uses a system of rolling 3 six sided dice, a natural roll of 3 ones (representing the Holy Trinity) is a "Divine Intervention" which is good for angels and those allied with them, and bad for demons and their allies, a natural roll of 3 sixes (representing...well, [[Number of the Beast|you know)]] is an "Infernal Intervention" which is good for those on Hell's side and bad for those fighting for Heaven. Depending on the nature and circumstances of the roll, these Interventions can be anything from a(n) (un)lucky coincidence to [[Deus Ex Machina|a blatant spectacular manifestation of divine or infernal power.]]
* Much like ''[[In Nomine]]'', ''[[GURPS]]'' sets natural 3s a critical success. The effects are somewhat loosely defined except in certain cases.
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* In the ''[[Growlanser]]'' series, characters can learn skills that increase critical rate and some techniques that are guaranteed to do extra damage.
* ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' has criticals ("A terrific blow!"), just to show how long this has been in console [[RPG
** In addition, ever since the inclusion of "jobs" to the Dragon Quest series, there's always been a skill that allows a character to either land a critical hit or miss entirely every round.
*** This move is very useful for when fighting a [[Metal Slime]]. You see, in Dragon Quest a Critical Hit works by ignoring the enemy defense. The usefulness of such an attack against a Metal Slime, with its insane defense but low hit points, is obvious.
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** While not a damaging version, Generation V also added [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate#Critical_capture critical captures] in which after one shake of the Poké Ball, the Pokémon is caught. As there's only one shake check instead of three, your new chance of capturing is the cubic root of the normal chance (which is higher because these are percentages). The chance of a critical capture occurring is the normal chance of a capture multiplied by a factor that increases as you get more entries in your Pokédex (and as this factor is 0 when you have less than 30, it never happens before then).
* The above move-based examples apply to ''most'' Pokémon games, but Generation I (that is, Red/Blue/Yellow) works quite differently:
** Each Pokémon has a different crit-hit chance proportional to its base Speed; thus a faster Pokémon is also more likely to go critical with any move. The highest chance (27.3%, better than 1 in 4!) belongs to Electrode, the fastest 'mon in the original games. The lowest, 2.9%, belongs
** The often-critical moves, most notably Slash, multiply those odds by 8. Yep, that means a fast Pokémon is ''guaranteed'' critical hits with those moves... unless the famous [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Accuracy 99.6% bug] crops up, that is.
** Most bizarre, Focus Energy and Dire Hit are ''supposed'' to multiply the crit-ratio by four... but somebody in coding screwed up, so they ''[[Useless Useful Spell|divide]]'' it by four instead. Once you know this, it's fun to watch your opponent's Pokémon screw themselves over. (Stadium and all later games fixed the bug.)
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*** Just one step further, there are some servers that make ALL attacks Crits. Even weapons that don't deal random Crits, will always deal them. This essentially makes almost all the characters save the Heavy/Soldier, a [[Glass Cannon]]
* The mecha-anime inspired FPS ''Shogo'' featured critical hits, and landing one restored a bit of your character's health. This was important since the game was particularly unforgiving about getting hit by any attack.
* The [[Real Time Strategy]] game ''[[Warcraft]] 3'' had a critical hit mechanic. This was an ability restricted to certain
* The ''[[Warlords Battlecry]]'' [[Real Time Strategy]] series use a critical hit table that's based on the difference in Combat skill between the attacker and attacked. The special effect this had depended on the attack type.
* ''Castlevania: Symphony of the Night'' stole many RPG statistical features. Critical Hits were a part of this and rates of making them were tied to each weapon.
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** Likewise, ''[[Persona 3]]'' and ''[[Persona 4]]'''s "One More" system give the character who landed the Critical Hit another free action. There are even spells (Rebellion and Revolution) that increased the probability of Critical Hits for everyone in the battlefield, which is useful against purely-magical foes who won't take advantage of them.
*** In ''[[Persona 3]]'', each characacter has a condition with four possible states: Great, Good, Tired, and Sick, determined by how much a character spent time in Tartarus in the past few nights, as well as random factors for non-protagonist characters. Characters in Great condition have a higher chance of nailing critical hits (it's not uncommon to nail two or even ''three'' criticals in a row), while characters in Tired or Sick condition will be more likely to get whacked with critical hits. The Distress status effect can also increase one's suspectability to a critical.
* ''[[Borderlands]]'' has attacks that hit [[Attack Its Weak Point|an enemy's weakpoint]] cause
** A different mechanic is more of the random bonus variety, however; All elemental weapons have a chance of exploding in their element rather than just plain shooting. When this triggers it either starts the enemy taking continuous damage or does boosted damage for that one hit. Better guns do it more often.
* ''[[Ys]]: The Ark of Napishtim'' and other 3D games in the series have [[Luck Stat|luck-based]] critical attacks(which the enemies can also do on [[Harder Than Hard|Nightmare difficulty]]), obtaining a certain item increases the frequency of these.
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** As a nice touch, a critical hit on a frozen solid non-boss enemy will shatter said enemy. No matter what his/her/its health level, that is an instant kill and an excellent way to improve your odds when a large group attacks.
* In ''[[Master of Orion]] II'' there's a chance (enhanced with a special targetting system) of hitting a ship's weapons and other systems after [[Deflector Shields]] and armor don't stand on the way. A ship with broken computer can't hit a planet one square away, with broken drive it loses mobility: at half of drive's [[Hit Points]] the ship is a sitting duck and can be boarded, at 0 it explodes ''no matter how much armor and hull [[Hit Points]] remains''. This means [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better|artillery]] in [[Armor-Piercing Attack]] variant is devastating, as few shots can cripple or destroy a ship the moment its shield is down... unless it has bulky Heavy Armor upgrade.
* In ''[[Shining Force]]'', there are three damage modifiers: the enemy evades the attack, the chance for a second attack, and the
* Referenced in ''[[Bully (video game)|Bully]]'' when you perform a [[Groin Attack]] on Algernon (one of the [[Nerd
{{quote|'''Algernon:''' Ooooh, critical hit...!}}
* The only way of reliably killing an opponent by conventional means in ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'', which uses the [[Chunky Salsa Rule]] and [[Subsystem Damage|organ damage]] instead of traditional [[Hit Points]].
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** In their rematch, Max Schmeling claimed that he turned the wrong way and instead of taking a body blow where he was trained to, he took a kidney blow. He said after the fight that his entire side went numb.
* In an MMA fight chronicled by Seanbaby in a Cracked article, similar to the above, one fighter took a body blow in exactly the wrong place - in this case, his liver. Before the crippling pain and unconsciousness took him, he threw one final, wild punch... [[Double Knockout|and knocked the other guy out cold,]] [[Taking You with Me|winning the match.]]
* Dental work is much less painful nowadays than it used to be, but there are still... quirks. Usually, when your dentist injects your gum with freezing solution, it only hurts a little. But there's a very small chance that the needle will pinch a
* The Code Duello specifies that any injury that prevents a combatant from holding a weapon steady ends the duel automatically.
* Happened not once but twice in the [[World War II|hunt for the Bismarck]]: once when the ''Bismarck'' scored a one-in-a-thousand hit on the ''HMS Hood'' [[For Massive Damage|right in the magazine]] and blew her in half, and once again when a last-ditch flight of Swordfish torpedo bombers managed an equally improbable shot [[Attack Its Weak Point|into the Bismarck's rudder]]. That crippled the ''Bismarck'' and left her at the mercy of the entire British fleet. Had either of the events not transpired the way they did, the chase could have turned out wildly different.
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