So drkguy3107 mentioned in this thread that he thought the 4 or 5 die attack, seeking bypass, and with the dynamic critical rule, was a bit too powerful, since rolling a 20 means a probable instant kill. Especially since the defender can only block if they get a 20, and that doesn't mean that much (the attacker will just attack again).
I mentioned that there are already some MF which can help counter this, such as Miesterhau - Countercut, and Defanging the Snake. Other strategies such as a Feint or a Contra Tempo can help interrupt the attack; a guy with a shield and distance fighting MF could defend with the same amount of dice (4) and still have 2 left over for a counter attack. You can also combine this with Desperation Defense to throw in a couple more dice if necessary.
Finally, doing a 4 or 5 die attack against one opponent is really dangerous if there are any other opponents around because they can attack you, close to grapple whatever, and you can't do anything about it. In my own games this is what usually prevents players from making such all-out attacks.
But in a one-on-one fight or when ganging up on a smaller force this attack is still very powerful and more problematically, a bit too random and lethal. So maybe there should be some better ways to deal with it.
Should bypass and dynamic criticals work together?
The first thing I thought of was to just make an optional rule that if you bypass, you don't get the effects of a dynamic critical; i.e. you don't get the extra damage dice. Since most people or creatures in the Codex system don't have all that many hit points, a bypass is still a fairly viable type of attack - and the large number of potential damage dice with a dynamic crit, especially in a piercing or bludgeon attack, still make it a multi-die attack a viable strategy. But this is also kind of nerfing. Not certain if I like it or not yet.
Should a natural 20 be an automatic hit?
Maybe a counterattack (natural 20 on defense) should trump a Critical hit? Or maybe if both score critical hits, the tie breaker should be the total die roll bonus?
Do we need new martial feats?
This is usually my favorite design approach- and there usually are real-life ways to cope with real life strategies. Sometimes in sparring you DO get attacked with a phenomenal all-out effort, and there are several ways to cope with it. I think there are a couple of ways that would fit pretty well, one method you use in sparring is when you get a really hard attack, you absorb the impact of it with a hanging guard 'weak' in the bind, or some other deceptive measure, to kind of lure their attack in and redirect it, while also using the momentum of their attack to snap your weapon around to their most vulnerable opening. You can also do this with a shield, when you get a bind (which is covered by the Bind and Strike MF).
So in game terms, it might mean something like, the more dice they put into their attack, the more dice you get to use in your counter.
The problem is that this is related to the concept of zucken which I've already defined more specifically as a special MF allowing a type of true -edge / false edge cutting which gives you a speed bonus. Which is a real thing but it may not be the best term to use for that. So right now I'm looking into what a better term might be for these two concepts.
There is also another way to counter with a defensive Durchlauffen, by passing through their attack. And by reading their intent and voiding by stepping out of range. So I may need to define a couple of different MF designed to cope with this all-out type of attack.
Thoughts and opinions are welcome.
G