Last time we got together for the Neopets d20 Thieves game, one of the players asked me, “John, how does L5R work?” So, I pulled up a character sheet .pdf and we went through the system, step-by-step. Took us all of five minutes. At the end of that five minutes, they understood how to do everything, and were even groking on the intricacies of free raises. After the conversation, this observation came to mind.
In d20, the chance of a 19th level character and a 1st level character getting a critical hit is exactly the same. Your skill doesn’t matter. Not one bit. (Okay, I’m talking about the “critical threat range,” but that’s an idea about as lame as the electoral college, so please don’t try to defend it.)
In L5R, players call their own critical hits. In other words, if you have the skill to back it up, your ability to get a critical increases dramatically. Thus, the better you are at something… the better you are at it. Funny idea, non?
Just wanted to share. And write it down so I can figure out a way to make what is true in L5R also true in d20. Hm…