Devblog: October 22

Critical Hits Just Got Dangerous!!!! Now an attack that beats a Defense Roll by 10 or more is now a also considered Critical Hit. Don't forget, Critical Hits also cause Injuries.

Einsol is supposed to be lethal. A firefight in the lower Norv-na should make your hands sweat, because one hit from the wrong enemy can change your campaign. In playtesting, combat was dangerous in a slow, grinding way. Hit points went down, characters rarely retreated, and everyone recovered..thanks short rests. Critical Hits only came on a natural 20, which meant one attack in twenty, no matter how outmatched the target was. A veteran gaurd with a heavy machine gun and a street kid with a pistol had the same chance to land a devastating hit. We changed that!

Beat the defense by 10 and it’s a crit!

An Attack Roll is now a Critical Hit in two cases: A natural 20 on the d20. This works the same as before. An Attack Roll total that beats the target’s Defense Roll by 10 or more, after all Modifiers on both sides. A margin crit is a full Critical Hit. The damage dice are doubled before Modifiers and Overflow, and Overflow is still added on top. Anything that triggers “on a Critical Hit” fires. Every crit can leave a mark Critical Hits have always triggered the Injury Threshold, and margin crits do too. If the weapon can cause an Injury, the target makes a Durability Skill Check against the Attack Roll to avoid it. If they fail, they carry that Broken Bone, Severed Tendon, or Ruptured Organ into the next fight, and the one after that.

What this means in play

When the attacker and defender are evenly matched, roughly one attack in seven is now a Critical Hit, up from one in twenty. When the attacker has a real advantage, that number climbs quickly. Fights end faster and Injuries pile up. It works both ways. The boss with a huge Reflex Modifier will crit you far more often than the gang lookout will. Learning which enemies to fear, and which ones to take out first, is now part of surviving. Cover, Edge, and anything that raises your Defense Rolls matter more than ever, because they’re what keeps an enemy from beating you by 10.

What didn’t change

• Skill Checks still crit only on a natural 20 and critically fail only on a natural 1. Beating a DC by 10 is a strong success, not a crit.
• A natural 1 on an attack is still the only critical miss. Missing by 10 is just a miss.
• Features that expand your Critical Range, like 19-20 or 17+, still apply only to the natural roll. The margin is 10 for everyone.
• Spells that call for a Defense Roll still don’t crit, by natural 20 or by margin.
• Cursed got worse: A Cursed character already had their natural 20s turned into natural 1s. Now they also can’t score a Critical Hit by beating a Defense Roll by 10. If you’re Cursed, fix it before the next fight.

This is a playtest

This change is part of the same playtest as Skill Check update. We want to know how lethal combat feels now. The Core Rule Book is updated. The virtual character sheet and VTT are being updated to detect margin crits. Thank you