What does "Critical" mean to you?

[Aeternis]

I've started keeping a pile of dice dedicated to what happens when I crit in a mid-level Pathfinder tabletop I'm in. The pile contains 8 dice, and the damage on a confirmed crit is 1d6+4d8+3d10+56. The last time it was rolled a mini-boss monk/rogue fell over without even getting an action (96 damage).

"Critical," in short, means that this encounter, the Gunslinger will be out-DPSing the combined efforts of the DPS mage and his pet flaming DPS cat.

[Pirate34]

I would have to say that the best crit I've ever hit was when I was being attacked by the guards in a major town, I was surrounded and using a keen scythe (which the GM should have never let me have) and had great cleave; went straight through the first guard then rolled 19 on the second hit, again a kill, the third guy I only barely dropped on a regular attack (he was already weakened by another party member) and the fourth guy I didn't manage to kill at first, then I landed my second attack for the round and hit a 5th guy without killing him.

We probably wouldn't have won the fight before that, and still wouldn't have afterwards but the GM decided to be nice and made the guards flee

[loki_ragnarock]

A friend ran a GURPS Fallout game.

I made a non-combat scientist character. To the tune of no points in any combat skills. At all.

Thanks to three eyed snake, he managed to fire a pistol over 60 yards into the skull of a soldier flanking one of his allies... while simply shooting from the hip.

There was something viscerally satisfying about that...

[Azathoth]

Oh, I've got another one. One of our players, Bob (yes, the one in my signature) was a complete moron, to the point that once, when he fell into a pit of oil, I was rewarded for throwing a torch in. But I digress. We were on an airship, piloted by a friend who sometimes would play with us. We were about to be boarded by an airship containing some pirates I may have pissed off by using some spells to drive a minotaur insane and have him kill most of the crew. Again, I digress. Bob was on the opposite side of the ship from the attackers, and the front of the ship was divided into two prongs with an open space in the middle. Of course, he decided to jump between them. He crit fumbled his roll, hit the side of the other section of the deck, snapped his neck, fell into the turbine where he was shredded, then the tiny bits of him were scattered across the desert. Of course, he was forced to roll a new character.

-

[Hihoshi334]

A critical in my eyes is, "You destroy the tavern when you just wanted to kill a couple of people inside," or, "Using a staff with a charm spell to calm down someone and instead making them fall in love with you."

[Morathor]

A critical failure is when Jack the Ripper gets his sword stuck in the wall.
That is all.

[English Language]

This happened a while ago, but it's the first thing that comes to mind now when I think crit. 4th edition.
Quick backstory:It's a sci-fi game(so magic is replaced by technology), level 14. I'm playing a Vryloka Blackguard. During one session where we had to take out 3 high-ranking assassins at once(which itself was an awesome moment for my character, but that's another story), so we split the party into 3(if we took on one, the other two would find out they might be in danger and go into hiding, being impossible to catch). The Lead Assassin(I didn't fight him, I should have. I was our party's only melee fighter, I fought the only guy that could fly) dropped a Fullblade on his death. Lucky me, I use Fullblades. It was a fantastic Weapon. A homebrewed Master's Fullblade, +4, on a hit I could add any number effects once per encounter(slide, prone, daze, slap a penatly, etc), and on a crit I could choose to either Stun them UEoNT, or make an At-Will attack as a no action in lieu of crit dice. Gravy was he let me pay some people to slap the Frost Weapon upgrade onto it as well so I could continue frostcheesing.

A few sessions prior, one of our PCs was killed(player couldn't make it anymore) by a skirmisher with dual laser blades. Though he got smacked hard by the headless body(long story) and ran away. During said character's funeral, I swore a blood oath to murder whoever did this to him.

The story: It was the last session before our DM would leave town for a while, so we had/have no idea when he'll be back. During a raid into an ancient spacestation to find what's rumored to be a weapon of mass destruction, we split into teams of two to tackle two paths at once. The path I pick, we run into a familiar face, the Lead Assassin, returned from the dead with many cybernetic implants so he's practically a cyborg. Him and his lackeys challenge us as he draws dual laser blades. Noting this, my character flew into a rage(Fury Blackguard) and threatened to end him.

First turn I got closer, was out of reach, and took a defensive position. The Assassin got a little closer and tried to attack me, missed badly.

Second turn, I charge him and choose to smash his face in with Vengeance Strike, critical hit! I choose to stun him.

Third turn comes around, I fly in with Blood of the Mighty, critical hit!(4d12 attack on a crit, hell yeah!). I action point and attack him with Vengeance Strike(add Dread Smite), critical hit! For both those crits, I still had two At-WIll attacks I could do. First Vengeance Strike, critical hit! The next two were hits that I rolled pretty high on. As part of my weapon's daily power, I slapped Daze on him. In all, I scored over 260 damage in that one round.

Fourth turn, I Vengeance Strike him one last time and END HIM! As part of my finishing move roleplay, I pretty much did a long combo where I juggled all three of the Fullblades I had on me, bashing him with each in turn, ending with the Master Fullblade where I pretty much lopped his head off, beat his body into a paste, and caught the head on my sword. As the implants let his head stay alive for a little longer, I glare coldly at him and just say "My oath..is fulfilled." before flipping head up and cutting it in half.

Later I also scored a crit on a Standard enemy, but that was much less exciting. 6 Nat 20s in one fight. The DM suggested I put the thing on a pedestal forever. My rationalization was that the dice didn't want me to be a liar after makign that blood oath.

Then afterwards we got the rumored Weapon of Mass Destruction. A mundane sword. I grab it and get bored, swinging it around randomly. We look the window and notice the sword is actually controlling a line of stars. We then get a news-feed from our pissed boss saying that a line of stars suddenly ran through and destroyed three galaxies. I was satisfied and kept the sword. I thought this was a fantastic send-off for our DM. He agreed.

Nowadays I threaten to make blood oaths every once in a while.

[Subjunctive]

I was playing a game with my brother, with myself rolling a fighter and him rolling a wizard. When our adventure started in a tavern, we obviously got into a roaring tavern brawl that spilled out into the streets and eventually got us locked in jail. I still hadn't stabilized from last night, so my brother had to open the lock. He decides to use acid splash to burn through a weak spot on the bars. That would've been fine, but he had to stand 10 ft. away from the bar to make it a ranged touch check. Of course he critically failed, hit me and sent me down to -10 to kill me. Our whole campaign lasted a total of 28 minutes.

[Arucard]

I was DMing for a chaotic evil Hexblade that was specialized in scythes and tripping. Upon entering a tavern, a drunken hobo at the bar stars hitting on the leather-clad, high-Charisma beauty. When he attempts to stand up, the hexblade decides to trip him to put him down onto his stool.

She rolls a natural 20.

The hobo's legs get severed cleanly at the knees, and being a commoner, instantly dies.

The ensuing panic-fueled stampede out of the tavern by all the patrons, and battle with the town guard, was priceless.

My memory of critical failure is related to the same character, actually. We brought a new player into the game, and we all decided we needed the chaotic-evil character to die and get a fresh start as things were getting out of hand - to the point where she was level 3 and had an entire kingdom hunting for her, limiting her to hiding in a cave. The player wanted her dead as well, but was determined to play her to the end and not take a fall. So the new guy rolls up a bounty hunter and finds the cave - begin encounter.

The hexblade rolls high on a Bluff check with massive Charisma bonuses and full ranks. The bounty hunter responds by rolling a 1 with no bonuses on Sense Motive. Despite having been sent to find this character, holding a paper with her picture, and not finding any other people of this description, the bounty hunter believes her when she tells him she's not the hexblade he's looking for.

He then rolls another crit fail on Sense Motive when the Hexblade offers him to sit down at the fire for a drink, and proceeds to get tripped from behind. Every attempt to get up is met with a successful AoO, and he eventually gets destroyed in a flawless victory by the character the encounter was meant to kill.

All because of a failed Sense Motive.

[lorddeox]

Critcal Success: Party had a few issues with an elven queen and had somehow managed to speak with her. Epic diplomacy later (too many crits) and she had offered us her support and that of her army.

Crit Fail: Trying to sneak round some gnolls. A crit fail later and we managed to sneak Into the gnolls camp. Geography was against us sooo much that campaign

[Watcher]

I had an Elven Ranger. He had very nice stats, but unfortunately that seemed to be the only good that came of any dice rolling with the character. Over the course of the campaign (on pen and paper, I might add), my Ranger was constantly rolling critical failures and results below 5-10. This resulted in him becoming the 'laughing stock' of the party, renown for not being able to do anything except get in the way...

We approached a necromancer's cave, which was littered with all kinds of evil goodness (paradox?). During the fighting, my dice kept rolling 1's, constantly. I believe my Ranger ended up doing more damage to the Fighter in the group than the enemies he was facing. In the end, everyone agreed my Ranger should carry the items, to lighten others loads.

We continued.

Along the way, my Ranger ended up being dangled across a chasm on a rope, before failing a use rope roll. He tumbled, crashing to the ground below - which, thankfully, wasn't very far down after all. The group followed, headed downward instead of across. My Ranger then got up, dusted himself off, and proceeded to walk into a trap, which singed him good and made everyone laugh.

We eventually reached the necromancer's lair. He was inside, not prepared for our group. We rushed in, weapons and spells flying - to which he summoned skeletons and dropped a spell of fog (effectively putting the area into total darkness). Everyone was stumbling around, trying to hit the necromancer. My Ranger, who was now given the task of standing rear-guard, was at the edge of the area of effect... to which I had him step 5 feet outside, into the open cave.

He saw the necromancer rushing for the exit, some thirty yards away. Without hesitating, I used quick draw to produce his bow, rolled my dice, and managed... a natural 20. The result was the fog spell fading, followed by the group stepping out to join my character, who was standing over the dead necromancer proudly, arrow through the guy's head.

The fighter turned around, shrugging, and said:

"Huh... guess he slipped and fell onto that arrow. Lucky."

Both I, and my character, deadpanned.

[Champion RED]

"Critical" means a body part has been severed.

I managed to do so to my right arm with an axe.

[William Imm]

To me, "Critical" means the receiving end ends up as a headless chicken. Hey, it happened.

[NuraMike]

In the same vein as William Imm. Nothing quite says critical success like Decapitation.... Especially when it involves a weapon with no cutting edges.

[Cleofatra]

Crit failure to me means trying to swing your sword and somehow tripping yourself and falling down several flights of stairs and falling unconscious :/