CRYPTS: Bloodstones & Critical Hits

Good Thursday everyone!

Today I want to talk to you about Bloodstones and Critical Hits. Now these may not sound related, and frankly, they're not, but oh well.

I have already mentioned Bloodstones in my lore, and in summary I can say this, Bloodstones are to Magic what the Fluxx Capacitor is to time travel, it's the enabler I'm short.

Of course it takes many different forms, in it's raw state as is used by the followers of Blood it grants defences and strength, for the followers of Bones however it allows mastery over the Undead, and those in the Circle can command the elements.

But are Bloodstones truly gifts from the Devine or are they instead a portent for something truly evil? [hint: read Saronite].

But what do Bloodstones do in game? I've umm'd and arr'd over this for some time now, and decided that the best root to go is the 'addition' route.

So you will have a list of things you can use Bloodstones in, namely hitting with a melee, a ranged or a magic attack, they can also be used to heal HP and to revive fallen team mates.

So how do they work in combat? It's simple really, when you roll to hit with your attack (ranged, melee or magical) you roll the number of d6 associated with that attack, and then select the highest die to be your Hit Die, should you choose to you can use a Bloodstone to roll an additional d6 and add the score to your initial roll. So if you require a 5+ to hit, but you only roll a 4, and you really want the hit to count, using a Bloodstone is a good way of doing so.

Healing is nice and simple, for every stone used you roll a D6, 1-3 heals 1 HP, 4-5 heals 2 HP and a 6 heals 4 HP.

*********

So that's the Bloodstone mechanic, hope you like it.

Next we have Critical Hits. So I'm pretty sure it's already been mentioned, but if not ill mention it now: a roll of a 1 always missed, and a roll of a 6 always hits. Yes you might have enough positive modifiers to make your pistol auto hit, but I'm sorry, if you roll a 1 you still miss.

Likewise, you may be surrounded by mud up to your neck, your target a horrific demon covered in armour and your gun with a broken sight, but as long as you roll a 6 you still hit.

- as a side note, I am thinking of making a hierarchy system, say you are firing a Gatling gun which means you roll 3d6 to hit, if 1 of these are 1 then they override any other roll, unless of course you roll a 6, you can then take the 6 instead. So your priority is 6>1>anything else. Not sure on this just yet.

Well what if rolling a 6 was even better? As we know, when hitting with any attack, even if you've hit on 3 dice, you only roll 1d6 on the attack's damage chart.

It is my current thought that for every 6 rolled you roll that many times on the chart and pick the highest roll.

So in our Gatling Gun example, let's say you rolled 3 6s, that would mean you roll 3d6 on the damage chart and pick the highest roll.

I am also thinking that Bloodstone rolls should count towards critical hits.

So if for example you rolled a 2 on your d6 hit, then rolled a stone of 6, your Hit roll would total 8, and would yield 2d6 rolls on the Damage Chart (1 for the Regular Hit and 1 for the Critical).

So there we go.

Now this is all theorycraft at the moment, but assuming it works, we're starting to look at a rule set that appears to be at least partially working - I hope!

Until next time, stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley