Critical Hits...

Something about -C's post here, has me thinking about an easy way to do Critical Hits. The post there really only mentions Critical Hits in passing, but something made me think, 'taking a penalty to hit should equate to something like a called shot, which in turn should cause more damage.' It was probably the similarities of how HPs started higher than other games at first level for Hackmaster. Same is true with my current rules preference; Microlite20.

This lead me to the following, which is not currently play-tested:

Taking a negative modifier to hit (say -3) will reduce increase the chance of a Critical (usually a natural 20) by an equal amount (17-20 in this example).

Typically in Microlite20, Critical Hits equate to max damage, but considering the inflated HPs that a character starts off with (typically Con Score, plus modifier, plus 1d6) we are looking at a rather large beginning threshold. I think to play-test it, a critical will do max damage + damage die roll (keeping in mind that my version of said mechanics will be 1d6 HP and Damage dice, exclusively). This could lead to 2d6 or 2-12 points of "damage" on a critical, which I think will scale well with the increased HP at 1st level

Part of me wants to make the damage die roll exploding as well, similar to what is described in the above linked post mentioned with Hackmaster.

I hope this will dovetail nicely with other alternate rules that I want to interject, such as Shields Shall Splinter (need to find link to originator) and some other choice bits.

Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think...
TB

PS - I hope the new style is acceptable. My old eyes don't care much for black print on white expanses much anymore.