What’s Crit Cards?
Crit Cards are stand-in rules to the official D&D rules for when the players receives a critical hit. Whenever your player gets critically hit you draw a Crit Card, the card depicts a critical combat wound such as a hand being cut off, or getting some teeth knocked out. The aim is NOT to deplete the players hit points faster, but rather to create a more immersive and realistic combat setting, where the players actually goes into combat risking more long term wounds. As it would be in real life.
As the rules are now, whenever a player receives a critical hit they take almost double damage, this can lead to unwanted player kills. Further, he only risk there is to combat now, is that the players die, most other risks of combat can be slept off during a long rest. These rules are, in my opinion, outdated. D&D aren’t played the same way is was 20 years ago, the game isn’t just about rushing into combat and looting items anymore. Now players want an epic storyline, and sometimes even solve conflicts with their wits and charisma rather than diving into combat. Of course, combat is awesome and has to happen every now and then, but too much will make it tiresome.
When there is an even greater risk of loosing a limb or getting brain damage from combat (as it should be), the players might think twice, before rushing into combat all the time.
How do they work?
The Crit Cards set comes with a deck of cards, three Severity Dice (easy, medium, and hard mode), and a pamphlet that describes how to use the cards. For each card there will be three severity levels described in the pamphlet – each adding on more trouble for the player.
As mentioned above, you draw a Crit Card when you receive a critical hit. The card depicts what happens, and the player then rolls a Severity Dice to determine whether the hit was severity 1, 2, or 3. After rolling the dice, you consult the pamphlet to see the result.
Our upcoming Kickstarter
We are soon launching a Kickstarter where we hope to bring Crit Cards and the Doctor’s handbook to life. If you would like to know more please sign up for our newsletter, by clicking the image link below. The Kickstarter will also include the Doctor’s Handbook, which will provide rules on how to treat your dismembered players, as well as the new playable class, the Doctor! Comes with eight subclasses.
