Needs Help: Critical Hit

The "stealth ambush" trope you're looking for is Sneak Attack.

Edit: ...which is a redirect to Back Stab. I could've sworn that either Sneak Attack or Surprise Attack was a trope for "attacking an enemy who's unaware of you". Huh.

edited 1st Jul '16 7:31:23 AM by NativeJovian

They are, in part because the original Back Stab from D&D has always been about surprise. It's only been in more recent games that just attacking an enemy from behind does more damage. It probably needs to be split off from Back Stab but that needs it's own TRS.

Sometimes you need to know the evolution of games and their mechanics to know the why of them. Even with video games, a lot of it traces back to D&D ultimately.

edited 1st Jul '16 11:41:38 AM by shimaspawn

I think I see. A backstab is a sneak attack. It is not a critical hit, although it may abuse the critical hit mechanic in place of giving a damage multiplier. A backstab is just another weak point, and therefore may easily be a critical hit.

Let's go with Back Stab and Back Attack for clarity, but you're correct about the difference. They can overlap. After all, examples can easily fall into multiple tropes. It doesn't need to be an either or.

The sneak attack variety can also be used to 1 hit ko if your opponent doesn't know you're there, but often in that case only knocks an opponent out rather than killing them.

In any case, they need their own thread. Not this one.

edited 1st Jul '16 6:15:05 PM by shimaspawn

I think this trope should be renamed Critical Success and cover successful skill rolls (like Crafting and Diplomacy) as well as hits, as the opposite trope (Critical Fail) does just that. This trope is based after Role-Playing Games like Dungeons & Dragons, after all.

Critical success would really be a sister trope to critical hit. Critical Hit has moved way beyond that over the years.

Chance Of Success Critical Failure and such are quite different, more related to Hit Percentage instead of Crit Percentage outside of rare glancing blows mechanics which are based on level difference.

edited 3rd Jul '16 2:52:12 AM by Memers

So, this should be brought up in Trope Launch Pad?

Critical Success as in chance to make or receive improved quality of, or more of, items / rewards from crafting, Random Drops, diplomacy etc would be a good Trope Launch IMO.

It's something that is getting to be quite common as of late like World Of Warcraft's a Warforged item system, soon to be rebranded as 'Titanforged', and Diablo III 'Ancient' quality of legendary items.

As for numbers World Of Warcraft had at one time a 'master' system for things like alchemy, every item you made had a chance to give you up to 4 more of that item at no extra cost. It's been shelved for years though.

edited 3rd Jul '16 3:13:37 AM by Memers

Anyone else here played DDR? I am quite familiar with critical successes for things that don't involve hitting things. Especially common in *shudder* Time Management Games.

I just assumed that this kind of Critical Hit would be a legal use of the regular Critical Hit trope.

Possibly, depending on the example. DDR is a Perfect Timing Hit, rhythm games are the primary usage of that, which I brought up earlier. The way the game treats it would make it a critical hit.

Several Perfect Timing Hit would fall under Critical Success via crafting minigames and the like. Or it literally might do nothing at all but bragging rights via a trophy or something.

Time Management games are extremely varied there isnt any standard critical mechanic to them, they might use one or more of them. Atelier Rorona for example uses regular Random Critical Hit for its combat system and Critical Success to improve item quality in its crafting / gathering system, nothing in it has a chance to improve time.

edited 3rd Jul '16 4:19:02 AM by Memers

With Critical Success already being an alternate name to Critical Hit, I can't use it in TLP. Is there a way of resetting it?

Sure. I'll cut it for you. Give me a second.

I see it's gone now, but TLP still says the name and namespace is already in use O_o

Use Critical Successes and we'll fix it later?

Yes. I used Critical Successes instead and it works. Thanks for the help.

I'd say that Critical Hit would be a subtrope of Critical Success. A Critical Hit is basically a Critical Success on an attack roll.

edited 3rd Jul '16 9:58:16 AM by NativeJovian

IMO it would be a sister trope. Critical Hit usually has its own connotations and mechanics wrapped around it completely separate from Critcal Success mechanics.

Not to mention Critical Success tends to accomplish a different objective most of the time than a run of the mill Critical Hit.

I think it's the other way around. A critical success is a critical hit that does not involve actually hitting a living person. So the subtrope is Critical Success.

A Critical Hit is a Critical Success that involves hitting people. A Critical Hit is a more specific type of Critical Success, so I see the former as a subtrope of the latter.

Edit: Which is what Native Jovian was saying. I agree with him, basically.

Don't think difference in mechanics matters. Getting a 20 on a diplomacy check is more similar to getting a 20 on an attack roll than hitting a jackpot when playing the slots. They're all critical successes, but only one is a critical hit.

edited 4th Jul '16 2:28:57 PM by supergod

I'm kinda late, yeah.

I'm still going by Native Jovian's suggestion about Extra Damage Attack. Just that we gotta add Quad Damage, Situational Damage Attack, Injured Vulnerability and maybe Status Buff and Charged Attack there. (Am I allowed to add those myself?)

Reading 271-275, I guess we're gonna define Critical Hit as "whatever the game define a Critical Hit as"? That strikes me as one of those "our x are different" tropes.

So well, maybe we can call the new, hypothetical Critical Hit trope as Our Critical Hits Are Different?

I really dislike that snowclone. I really don't see any reason to call it anything other than Critical Hit.

We use that snowclone for the monster tropes because we've found that it drastically increases the quality of the examples on them. It sounds clunky, but it really really works as far as curbing ZC Es. Hate it all you want, but it's the best of all possible names for them.

For the monster tropes, sure, but I don't think it works for this trope.

That's utterly fair. I'm just pointing out why we use it, clunky as it is.