Critical strikes in general with high damage hits and one-hit kills. There are a few floating around so I will generalize a few into their skills. Point out any that do not fit or do not make sense as a critical strike. Also, add some. My list is a bit lacking.

Critical Strike - If included again it would cover them all

Dagger ---> Vital location hits, Slit throat etc.
Hand-2-Hand ---> Submission moves (broken limbs), Choking
Blunt ---> Strike through plate (aka rage)
Axe ---> Decapimemberments (seriously, kind of)
Short sword ---> Parry, Vital hits
Great Sword ---> Strike through soft armor
Spear ---> Impale
Staff ---> Parry strike
Small Arms ---> KO, slit throat
Marksman ---> Vital hits

Attributes in question would be Speed, Agility, Strength, and Perception. + Intelligence

Luck was an unmentioned given. "It effects every thing you do in a small way"

Criticalstrike chance should be higher the less armor you wear. Thats how it would be in real life and it would give you a reason to not always use armor if you want to play a assassin type of character, or mage etc. It should be built passively(on hit) into the weaponskills, and be affected by how high skill you have, how much ur carrying, how much armor you are wearing(light,heavy or non) and ur agility.
There could be a unique animation for criticalstrikes, but nothing too fancy, just a diffrent swing animation and extra blood.

Off the top of my head a slightly faster animation, will plausible recoil to the opponent. Except for the axe I think blood spray would actually be a bit less. More precision.

I think a critical strike should be your weapon skill + your medical skill against their dodge skill + armor they are wearing. If they have good armor and average dodging ability, it would be pretty hard to land a good critical strike. The medical skill lets you know where to hit to do the most damage, especially against creatures.

I don't see how being quick on your feet means better chance of critical strikes for you. Agility should affects someone's chance of being landed by a critical hit. Low agility means they'll have a higher chance of being nailed with a critical hit, while a high agility lowers it (or dodge skill).

Tying it in weapon skill, perks, and knowledge of your enemy is pretty much how one figures out where and how to strike the best.

Don't like the idea of encumbrance, or armor affecting YOUR chance, as leather really isn't that flexible, while that big heavy Gothic armor is actually a lot more flexible than people are lead to believe. However, armor should factor in if one will or won't get nailed with a critical strike. If someone isn't wearing much, it should be incredibly easy to score a blow to a sensitive spot, while scoring on on someone wearing tough armor covering most of their body should be hard.

There's also the manner of assassinations, but that's for another discussion.

Would you mind categorizing those other two into a general Critical Strike argument, or does it merit another poll option?

I read that twice and I didn't quite know what you mean. Other two against what was in the poll?

sorry, critical success in terms of the medical and dodge skills?
would that need its own category?

Nah, it's fine being under the Weapon Skill choice.

Their hasn't been a medical skill or dodge skill since daggerfall.

No need to get all nostalgic and depressed. We just need to complain until Beth realizes we were right all along.

*sniff*

I'm not for a single critical strike skill, so I guess that the chance should be tied to the respective weapons skill. Also it should be effected by your attributes, but I would choose different ones. Agility is good. The "vital spots" are usually hard to hit, so you need to be agile to do so. Perception is nice as well as you have to actually "see" the spot. I would also add intelligence. In TES, the meaning of the various attributes is a bit blurred at best, but I guess, that to be able to hit a vital location, you need to know where that location actually is, and I think that high intelligence might represent this. Also luck would be a good choice. Sometimes getting lucky is all it takes to hit the right spot.
Perks could help you here as well. Like you learn how to strike with your dagger to do maximum damage. You can learn this perk by reading a book or form a teacher (needless to say that both should be hard to find and perhaps require some quest). I would also love to see some monster identification skill (the anme is borrowed from M&M since I lack creativity at the moment), which would help you to know more about your enemies. It is kind of strange that in TES world it does not metter if you kill 1 scamp or hundred. You still no the same about them. I would like to have a skill that would allow me to gether information. Like resistances, weaknesses, weak spots and so on. Logically this skill would help you to land critical strikes against oponents you know.

Lucky for us that good ideas don't have a shelf life. :cheat:

I personally think it should be controlled by your weapon skill. With one's Attributes (such as agility) and encumbrance having an affect on your chance of actually hitting your targeted area.

This could be controlled an equation that would determine the range of a dice roll that would actually decide where your attack would hit (within a certain area of your targeted area), with higher attributes/skill and a lower encumberance decreaseing the range of the dice roll, increasing the chance that the roll will be in your favor.

The ability to Critically Strike would be controlled by the player by whether or not you were aiming for an armored part of the body, and whether or not your attack hits a vital organ/artery/etc.

The more sub-skills that that can be condensed effectively the better. Criticals should be integrated into weapon skill and amount of any particular creature killed.

I am against a Critical Strike skill.

Undecided about perks; it would have to depend on how the system works which is another topic in itself.

I do think that they should be in the game in some capacity. Things that should affect critical strikes:
- Whether you are in sneak mode
- Whether your enemy detects you
- Whether you are in one-on-one combat or a group fight
- Whether you and/or your enemy are on horseback (assuming mounted combat is in the game)
- Your skill level with the weapon you are using
- Some critical strikes could also have ties to strength or agility
- I like pallypower's idea of a dice roll determining where the attack hits. Combine this with a dice roll determining whether the strike will be critical (also tied to the opponent's remaining health and state of awareness), and the fact that each weapon type will hopefully have at least one unique critical strike, that presents a wide variety of possibilities.
- I hope if crit strikes are in the game, they are not overwhelming. This applies to brutality, gore, and frequency of occurrence. basically they should be pretty rare, or you should have to be really strategic to ensure that you land them.
- I lie the idea that learning more about a specific enemy makes it more likely to get a crit strike on them. This could come either from killing enough of that enemy, or from reading or hearing about that enemy.


Stealth kills should be a subcategory of critical strikes. Some ideas for stealth kills:
- Must be in sneak mode and undetected
- Depend on your sneak skill and the skill level of your weapon of choice
- Daggers: throat slit from behind while covering mouth
- H2H: neck crack from behind
- H2H: suffocation, either until passed out or until dead
- H2H: head bash into wall (if a wall is nearby)
- Shortsword: downward strike through soft tissue between neck and shoulder
- Shortsword: decapitation
- Marksman: Through eye, neck, or heart (if your Marksman is good enough)
- Marksman: pin enemy against a wall by his cape (won't kill him but still a cool way to incapacitate an enemy with sneak + marksman)
- Special stealth kills for sleeping enemies (suffocation, decapitation, dagger through the heart . . . maybe even a leaf from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, by covering the enemy's face with a pillow and stabbing them in the face. Brutal but sick)
- Stealth kills should be more reliable than critical strikes; i.e. if you are concealed and plan your move properly it should pretty much be a guaranteed kill, assuming your character has high enough sneak + weapon skill.

what about momentum affecting strikes as well?

The way I see it, strike power can be "weak", "adequate", or "overwhelming", and targetting can be generally classed as "lucky to even hit", "decent" and "hyperaccurate".

Momentum would make a weak strike still hurt. Think of an acrobat diving off a rooftop to hit you. no matter your strength, that's going to hurt *if* they hit. Of course, the targetting will suffer, but...

Just a thought.

Going over this a bit I have a system that I would like to see.

Critical Strikes & Critical Moves + Critical Success

- Critical Success could be filed under each skill, additionally governing the two fields. Going to a trainer, successfully preforming a Critical, reading up. These are all ways to increase general Critical Success, as there are many ways to learn the same thing for anyone. Trainers and books can even help to boost Critical Success past what would be normally attainable via standard training.
* This is also a feature (not skill) that could fall in with Luck as a "clutch action" or otherwise instinctive behavior.

- Critical Strikes being an event by NPC's dodge, PC's medical skill, PC's weapon skill, and the comparison of the PC's and NPC's luck and Perception. Also the familiarity with the enemy type (NPC classes could help here, time spent fighting / studying the creature type). This is more precise damage and likely to gimp a limb, torso, or head (focus). It is instinctive and not an input controlled by the PC. It can be achieved in almost any kind of combat, and the overall animation / strike should represent that it is quick, efficient, possibly powerful, and extremely balanced. Flowing into the rest of combat without a large compensating lag time.
* This is additional to the standard hit check / damage check that happens with any particular strike.

- Critical Moves are governed by the weapon skill, said skill's governing attribute, Intelligence, Perception (provided there is no weapon skill under perception), familiarity with the enemy, and requirement sensitive triggers in junction with PC controls. There is no enemy defense comparison to a Critical Move via the requirements. To run through the current list.

[--] H2H - Submission --> Requires sneak, enemy staggering (for low end submission only), or extremely low fatigue. Submissions turn into suffocation as the attack input is held, then once the input is released something pops (heavy location damage). Any resulting suffocation can be used to KO or kill an enemy. Best left for single combat though.
[--] Small Arms Blunt - KO --> Used in sneak mode and requires a few seconds of input (weapon draw) to accurately line up its target. Head shot scores a KO while a lower target (less time) brings limb / location damage.
[--] Small Arms Bladed - Heavy damage --> Used in sneak mode or on a KO'ed opponent and requires a few seconds of input (weapon draw) to accurately line up its target. Head shot will slash the throat while a lower target (less time) scores a Vital hit / accurate location damage.
[--] Short Sword - Parry --> Used in combat and must be timed (after swing before strike) to the opponents attack. Much easier with decreased enemy fatigue or lighter weapons. Adds a stagger effect to the NPC while PC readiness is shortened.
[--] Great Sword - Strike Through --> Sneak (yes) or staggered. Soft / light armors could be negated for the single attack and heavily damaging any armor; again Soft / light especially. Also a longer recovery period.
[--] Blunt - Strike Through --> Sneak (again yes) or staggered. Plate / heavy armors could be negated for the single attack and heavily damaging any armor; again Plate / heavy especially. Also a longer recovery period.
[--] Axe - Decapimemberments --> Sneak (stop asking) or staggered, provided armor is heavily damaged or gone. This is a stolid swing and requires a few seconds of focus. In the case of awareness, armor, or inaccurate swing the result is heavy location / limb damage. Also a longer recovery period.
[--] Spear - Impale --> Sneak or heavily fatigued opponents at a distance. Impaling also requires Soft armor, no armor, or damaged-heavily damaged chest armor. It results in heavily damaged armor and heavy location damage. Also a longer recovery period.
[--] Staff - Parry Strike --> Used in combat and must be timed (after swing before strike) to the opponents attack. This blocks / parries the attack and gives an initial strike. Block readiness is decreased after doing this but additional attacks (flowing combat) are encouraged.
[--] Marksman (bow) - Quick Draw --> Used in combat if there is a known opponent within X distance, representing a danger or challenge. The bow is drawn to strength in a much quicker time allowing for multiple shots on near enemies. No damage increase or precision bonus though.

*weapon draw (readying to swing) will increase stress on sneak (via enemy's Perception)
**none of the Critical Moves are necessarily automatic kills
***aside from Short Sword and Staff all of the Critical Moves require an extended attack input time.

And my head is still clicking away so if there are extra weapon classes I would like to hear it.


[edit]
Yes, but I think thats a physics issue. Criticals are more what inexplicably happens within the moment to allow such events. I hope they could replace the sneak / other multipliers.

Since Battlespire you mean
Don't remember if Medical was in, but of course they will both be in TES5 since it's going to improve, not dumb down further, the series, right Bethesda?


I'm expecting to see a CS skill. If damage in general is made more realistic, a 6x multiplier should be quite near an insta kill hit. Killing backstabs should have own animations, while CSs in combat should be handled differently. A sound effects is enough as in TES2. A text works too, as in BS. But today it needs to be more 'cool'. Visual stunning of enemies, them falling on their knees as in TES3, maybe even dropping their weapons.

I don't like power strikes so they can be replaced by a good CS system, which is character, not player based.

And, in Fallout luck affects the chances of CS. It could work for TES too. Luck is pretty useless as it is now.

I agree, but I think the marksman one should also have a long-distance ability with it.

Factors for landing a critical strike would be the attacker's weapon skill, the attacker's governing attribute for his weapon skill, the defender's weapon skill (for whichever weapon the defender is wielding), and the defender's governing attribute for his weapon skill. If there are special power attacks as there are in Oblivion, then I think that using such an attack should increase your vulnerbility to critical strikes. Other factors include being off balance, dazed, or unconscious.

I figure it as a given that skill in a weapon includes knowing how to recognize and take advantage of an opponent's vulnerbilities. It also includes knowing how to keep from exposing yourself while using your weapon.

I was raised to believe that anything the player character can do, NPC's should be allowed to do. It feels too cheap otherwise. Also, having critical strikes result from blind chance -- whether influenced by skills or not -- means that they will happen to you. Therefore, I am leery of permitting instant-death types of critical strikes. Instant-death strikes against the player are fine if they are consequences of the player's own negligence, but are not so fine nor so fun when they just periodically happen from circumstances outside the player's control. You might as well just have a random chance of a meteor striking the character dead. Likewise, achieving critical strikes is more satisfying if it is tied to a player's making smart choices, such as it is in Oblivion through the sneak system.

Hence the split. Critical Strikes are attacks that have been slightly super powered. Damage is calculated in addition to the standard hit / miss and damage calculations. So by the time either Critical is possible the game already ran through - PC weapon skill, agility, strength, and luck :versus: NPC weapon skill, agility, strength, and luck.
Critical Moves would not be restricted to the player either.

Weapon skill, depends on attributes and weapon skill, automatic.

every 10 ranks = +1% chance of critical hit. Max 10% chance at rank 100.
Each rank increases the min/max damage of a critical hit (which also depends on attributes, too).

Therefore, you can look forward to getting your tenth rank, but each individual rank is also important. One thing I disliked about OB's perks (especially for spell schools) was that ranks between perk-ranks were essentially useless.