Boarding Actions / Critical Hits

[Xca|iber]

Hey all, first post here.

I'm just getting into BFG and I'm trying to wrap my brain around all the rules. One thing I'm confused about is when you conduct a boarding action, how are critical hits resolved? Is the "Winner/Loser Crit on..." column in the result table for an additional crit?

Here's an example of how I've been playing it: Winner scores a 7, loser scores a 4 > Loser suffer 3 damage + "Driven Back" result. So the winner gets 3D6 regular critical rolls AND a 3+ critical roll from the boarding result. The loser then gets one 6+ critical roll against the winner.

Is that correct or am I totally off-base?

[Bessemer]

In Boarding Actions, you only roll for Critical Damage based on how much you won/lost by. So in your example, the winner would cause one a Critical Hit on a 3+, and the loser would cause a Critical hit on a 6+.

Hope that helps.

[Xca|iber]

I guess I'm just confused by the line in the crit rules (p. 24) that says you roll for crits for every point of damage regardless of source.

How do we know that boarding works differently?

Sorry to be a pain, I just want to be very clear.

[Bessemer]

On pg 34 it says "There is also a chance of each ship suffering a critical hit during the fighting as shown on the table below".

As far as I know, saying a critical hit instead of critical damage as normal (or wording to that degree) means only one critical hit is rolled for.

Couldn't find a clarification in the 2010 FAQ, so if anyone else can clarify/ debunk this, please reply!

[Xca|iber]

After letting this simmer for a bit I think I agree with you that boarding actions only cause the single possible crit, based on the wording like you said. My group has been playing it the other way, but it never made a difference (nobody's been rolling crits well recently).

Though I'd really like additional confirmation of this being the case, since I can't really justify the boarding critical rules replacing the normal "all damage causes crits on a 6" other than it being "intuitive" to play it as one crit roll per boarding action.

EDIT: It's the "regardless of source" bit on p14 that really gets me; without a specific, stated change to the contrary, it's very hard for me to dismiss "regular" crits from boarding results (on top of the special one). I'm surprised I can't find any threads on this issue in the past, I'm sure someone must have asked at some point...

[Bessemer]

Yeah, boarding actions are the least well-written rules in the book in my opinion. Can't speak for anyone else, but I've hardly ever used it, in fact I could probably count the number of times I've boarded on both hands, and the number of successful actions on one!

I still stand by BA's causing 1 Critical with the chance determined by degree of success. If you and your group want to run it another way, then who am I to stop you?

[Xca|iber]

We've "house-ruled" it (if you can call it that) to be just 1 from now on, it was getting a little ridiculous from time to time (especially with Orks).

Since I run SMs mostly, I like to board a lot  , which makes me sad that the rules aren't as clear as they could be.

[Junya]

I'm pretty new when it comes to (playing) BFG but having the rules in front of me: if you read the Boarding Action example given between the Hyperion and Plagueclaw- it only mentions "critical hit on a D6 roll of ...etc." Being that it's meant to be an example that ought to spell out exactly the steps and results involved I should think that if it were a case of multiple D6s then it would have mentioned x amount of D6s not just "a D6".

As I read it, this is the only way a critical hit can be inflicted (via the table) for Boarding Actions and the usual crit on a 6 does not apply- think of it as a mini-game. Also boarding actions are generally nowhere near as destructive as weapons batteries!

[Xca|iber]

Oh I agree. I'm just a stickler for specificity, and the regular crit rules go out of their way to emphasize that you always roll. I think it's a matter of what Bessemer said, namely that the boarding rules are probably one of the weakest sections of the original rulebook. It just surprised me, because overall the BFG ruleset is fairly tight and intuitive (not to mention the FAQs being mostly comprehensive) - so there being an "unanswered" issue like this came as a bit of a shock.