Critical Hit
A critical hit generally has the chance to cause special effects such as Knockout, Disorient, Crippled limbs and so on. They might also cause more damage. The type of effects cause by a hit depends on the type of critter, the strength of the critical strike, and the location of the hit.
Bursts, explosives and flamers are unable to cause critical hits. They might still cause special effects, however, but these are treated separately from the criticals.
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Critical Chance
The likelihood that a normal shot is upgraded to a critical strike depends on several factors: The Base Critical Chance (BCC) of the attacker, the Aimed Critical Chance (ACC) if the shot was aimed, and the Critical Resistance (CR) of the target.
Base Critical Chance
The Base Critical Chance is determined by the attacker's Luck, Intelligence and some Weapon Perks. It's given by the following formula:
The Perk Living Anatomy gives an additional +1 to your BCC. Each rank of the Weapon Perk More Criticals gives +2 to BCC.
Aimed Critical Chance
The Aimed Critical Chance applies only if you are using aimed shots (eyes, head, arms, groin or legs). The bonus again depends on the attackers Luck. However, the ACC bonus is the same regardless of which body part you're aiming for.
ACC = (60 + 4*L)*60/100
Critical Resistance
The Critical Resistance depends on the target's Luck. The perk Man of Steel gives +2 bonus to Luck for this calculation. For Luck of 9 and below, the following formula applies:
CR = (21-L)*L/2 - 10
And for every point of luck above 9, +2 is added to CR.
Example: 9 Luck + Man of Steel perk gives 44+2*2 = 48 CR.
Probability of scoring a Critical Hit
The final probability of upgrading a hit to a critical hit is now given by the following:
CC = (BCC+ACC)*(100-CR)/100
(CC is measured in percent, so CC=50 means there's a 50% chance that a hit is upgraded to critical)
Critical Strength
Once a hit is upgraded to critical, it's critical strength is determined. The strength is a number between 1 and 6, where 1 is weakest and 6 is strongest. The probability for a given strength level is determined by the Luck of the attacker, according to this table:
Probability for crit strength categories (per cent)
| Luck\Crit strength | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 29 | 25 | 21 | 13 | 8 | 4 |
| 2 | 26 | 23 | 20 | 14 | 10 | 7 |
| 3 | 23 | 21 | 19 | 15 | 12 | 10 |
| 4 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 16 | 14 | 13 |
| 5 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 16 | 16 |
| 6 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 18 | 18 | 19 |
| 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 19 | 20 | 22 |
| 8 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 20 | 22 | 25 |
| 9 | 5 | 9 | 13 | 21 | 24 | 28 |
| 10 | 2 | 7 | 12 | 22 | 26 | 31 |
So for example with 7 luck, there's a 22% chance that a crit will be of strength 6, and 11% chance that it will be of strength 1.
Each rank of the weapon perk Better Criticals will add +1 to the Strength of the crit (but not above 6).
The Special Effects
Depending on the target (if it's a humanoid, a brahmin, a gecko etc.), different special effects are possible after scoring a crit. The effects depend also on the strength of the crit, as determined above.
The Crit Table
For humanoids (including players), the table looks something like this:
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/ysb190yig0zn1u3/2013-01-11%2019_54_32.png
Each potential special effect, as determined from the above table, needs to pass a roll versus one of the SPECIAL stats of the target before it is applied. Each effect is rolled for and applied individually of the others, so any combination of effects might apply.
Defending statistics
The statistic that is rolled against to apply the effect depends on the effect:
- Strength - Knockout, Weapon drop, AP drain
- Perception - Blind, Disorient
- Endurance - Cripple legs and arms
- Charisma - None
- Intelligence - None
- Agility - Partial Armor Bypass, Knockdown
- Luck - None
As you can see in the Critical Table above, there's two types of effects: Primary Effects and Secondary Effects. The only difference between these are the likelihood that they will be applied. The target gets +3 in the defending stat when rolling to avoid secondary critical effects.
The Special Effects Roll
A special effect has a chance to apply depending on the defender's statistic (determined above), which is modified by defensive perks such as Critical Strength, Critical Agility and so on (these perks gives +2 in their corresponding stat, for the purposes of this roll). The chance to apply an effect also depends on the strength of the crit: the defending statistic is modified by 3-CritPower, where CritPower is 1-6. Various other perks and traits may also alter the defending statistic for the purposes of this roll: the Armor Traits Stonewall and Paperwall gives +2/-2 to Strength vs Knockout, for example, and Plated Gloves gives +2 to Strength vs Weapon Drop. For more details, see the particular effect that you are interested.
The actual probability to apply an effect finally becomes:
P = 80-5*ModifiedStat
(P is the probability (in percent) and ModifiedStat is the target's defending stat, modified by perks, traits, crit strength and whether the effect rolled against is primary or secondary).
Concrete Example
Fred Williamson shoots a white man in the arm with his custom made revolver that has both the Better Criticals and the Crippling Strike perks. The crit power rolls to 4, which is then upgraded to 5 by the Better Criticals perk. As we can see from the table above, the primary effects are weapon drop and arm cripple, and the secondary effect is armor bypass.
Now the white man first rolls vs his strength, which in this case is a puny 2, to apply the weapon drop effect. The crit strength of 5 gives a -2 to this roll, so the modified stat is 0. The poor fool has a 80% chance of having his weapon dropped.
Next the white man rolls vs his strength (again) to apply arm cripple. Since it's a primary effect, and the strength of the crit was 5, the stat is modified by -2. But F. Williamson's trusty revolver had the crippling strike perk, which further reduces the roll by 2. The modified stat is then 2-2-2 = -2. The white man doesn't stand a chance: he has a 90% chance of getting his white arm crippled.
Finally there's the secondary effect, which is (partial) armor bypass. This roll is vs the white man's agility, which is 6 in this true story. This is modified by +1, since it's a secondary effect of power 5. But wait! The sneaky devil has the Critical Agility perk, which grants him +2 in all rolls vs his agility. So the modified stat becomes 6+1+2 = 9! Thus, there's a 35% chance that he will have his armor bypassed.
The End.