12/06/2021

I purchased the Critical Hit decks (for players and DMs) and the Critical Fail deck from Nord Games and I love them. They add so much flavor to the combat system. Each deck has four different levels of achievement (or failure) with unique effects for different damage or attack types.

When I use these cards, I usually start with only the setback cards in the deck. I add the other cards into the deck as we progress into higher levels of play. If playing a published module, I take the adventure’s expected highest level and divide it out into 4 tiers. For example, Curse of Strahd is listed for player levels 1 – 10. So I would add the dangerous cards into the deck at level 3 (probably right after Death House), the life-threatening around level 5/6, and deadly at level 8. For homebrew, I add them in more slowly ( 5th level, 10th level, 15th level)

In the Critical Hits for Players, the four levels are setback (16 cards), dangerous (16 cards), life-threatening (16 cards), and deadly 4 cards). I will post a random card for each level so you can see the different damage types listed (Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, and Spell).

The Critical Hits for DMs cards are very similar to the Critical Hits for Players cards. The four levels are setback (24 cards), dangerous (16 cards), life-threatening (8 cards), and deadly (4 cards) with the same damage types (Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, and Spell). You can see that the deck is stacked in favor of the players with more cards in the lower levels of effect.

The Critical Fail deck is shared between the players and DM (at least we share them at my table). The levels for the failures are awkward (24 cards), embarrassing (16 cards), shameful (8 cards), and disgraceful (4 cards). Like the Critical Hits, I add the different levels into the deck as I add in the Critical Hits. Instead of the damage type determining the effect, the attack type is used. There are effects for melee attacks, ranged attacks, creature attacks (I include unarmed in here), and spell attacks.

These cards help add some flavor to the game, especially good for DMs that might have a hard time coming up with different and unique effects for criticals beyond double weapon damage or “you throw your weapon”.

Keep on gaming!