Review: Geek Corps Productions – Critical Hit and Fumble Cards (Dungeons & Dragons)


Critical Hit and Fumble Cards
A 60-card set of critical hit and fumble poker sized cards compatible with Dungeons and Dragons 4E and other d20-based RPGs and published by Geek Corps Productions.
By The Warden

Believe it or not, things can be pretty dull when all you do on a crit is max damage, especially against paragon- and epic-tier solos. Unless you drop a solo to bloodied or dead, it’s just a really big damage roll. Even when used in combination with tried-and-true powers, it helps to mix things up a bit when you’ve been playing the same character for 4 years.

Critical Hit and Fumble Cards from Geek Corp Productions tries to spice your swords and spells up a notch by inserting these random critical hit and fumble cards. When you roll a crit, pick a Critical Hit card to inflict more than just maximum damage. But now you must also draw from the Critical Fumble deck when you roll a natural 1 to balance it all out. How well does it all work in your D&D game?

CARD PRESENTATION
Each card – Critical and Fumble – provides three sources for your successful or pitiful roll: Melee, Ranged, and Spell. These pieces provide a description (or inspiration) for the devastation of the attack and allow DMs the opportunity to add a little dramatic flair to what can become an otherwise dull game of back-and-forth. These sources are all based on an overall theme based on the name of the particular card. For example, “The Arm Bone Was Connected!” Critical Hit card lists three ways the opponent’s arm can become difficult terrain. This was perhaps my favorite part of the product. When a DM is bogged down by dozens of minions, heavy-handed brutes, and elite leaders, having a handy reference to describe just how nasty the attack was can be salvation.

From there, each card provides three afflictions to the opponent or your character: Damage (bonus damage varying according to each card from +4 to +2d10), Effect (details on target’s reaction and penalties), and Condition (as per the standard 4e conditions, plus when they end). These afflictions are the same, regardless of their source, and may require some modification to suit your character’s choice of spell, but combined with the descriptions above, it’s all fairly self explanatory. If you’re a leader, the extra damage can be a nice change of pace, but selling that extra damage to a DM when you’re a striker is like asking for icing on your cheesecake. Mechanically, however, they can be a bit dicey.

For example, the “Look What I Can Do!” Critical Hit card lists the following under Effect. “Interrupts all of the target’s actions until the end of the turn.” Does this refer to immediate interrupts (which I doubt, since “interrupt” is a mechanical term in 4e) or cause the target’s turn to end? In a game like D&D 4e, this kind of exactness to terminology is crucial and leads to far too much interpretation. If you plan to use these cards, be sure to resolve it in advance before drawing your first card.

There are other discrepancies in mechanics scattered here and there (such as “Target provokes an attack of opportunity to all adjacent allies” reads as if it provokes from the target’s allies, when in fact it’s likely your allies), so use with caution. And while the product description does list applicability to all editions of D&D, it is clearly designed for 4e and best used for the current edition of the classic game.

IN ACTION
My group put them to the test this past weekend and only drew 3 cards: 2 criticals and 1 fumble. (In typical fashion, I drew the fumble.) Our 18th-level party enjoyed the descriptions with the added boost of the extra damage, though our DM found the concept of additional damage on a crit to be overpowering and ruled them out. This is possibly the biggest hurdle these cards will have to overcome as they can mess with a game built on delicate mechanics – as always, your DM has final say on whether or not these cards are allowed.

The Fumble cards do balance off the Criticals in that wicked things can happen to you as well, though higher level parties are more likely to gain crits at 19-20 (or higher) than roll a natural 1. When it came down to it, these cards were used mostly for their descriptions and the DM allowed us to swap conditions between our powers and the card drawn.

OVERALL

If you’re a stickler for the rules as written, it’s likely you won’t find these useful. But if you like 3rd party products as inspiration to break from the mould of the standard session, these cards do offer a chance to bring something unique to your game. There are some hiccups in the mechanics and not all cards will be useful to all rolls, but if you’re involved in a paragon or epic level campaign, they can offer an exciting break from the typical fight.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 5 out of 10
Nothing particularly impressive, though I did like the Fumble back card design over the Critical ones. The cards are surrounded by blue lines and this was a bit of a bother for me as a former printer, but not something I would expect everyone to get in a fuss about.

Mechanics: 7 out of 10
Some of the detail on Effects were dodgy and require better definition, particularly when it mentions “interrupting a target’s action.” Also clearly designed for 4e over any other edition or hack.

Desire to Use: 8 out of 10
For my style of play, I like to mix things up and try something new. These cards are useful for the descriptions alone and worth the effort to print out. It’s one thing to reduce an enemy by 50 hit points, it’s another to chop his frickin’ arm off!!

Overall: 7 out of 10
While not conceivable for everyone, they are worth the shot, particularly in a high level campaign when you need a break from all that number crunching. Very helpful for DMs, though not always mechanically valid.

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