Critical Hit Tables

Fallout and Fallout 2 do not ship critical hit tables as a normal loose data file. The vanilla tables are compiled into the executable. sfall and Fallout 2 CE expose them as runtime-editable data through ddraw.ini and an optional INI-style override file, commonly named CriticalOverrides.ini or another filename selected by [Misc] OverrideCriticalFile.

A critical hit table entry decides the damage multiplier, extra damage flags, optional defensive stat check, combat-message id, and alternate message/flags when that stat check fails. It is only used after an attack has already become a critical success; it does not by itself determine the chance to score a critical hit.

Runtime Shape

The engine stores critical effects as a three-dimensional table indexed by critter kill type, hit location, and effect tier.

Axis	Count	Meaning
Kill type	19 vanilla, 38 in sfall's extended range	Normally read from the target critter's PRO kill type field.
Hit location	9	Body part used by the attack, with uncalled attacks normalized to torso before the critical table lookup.
Effect tier	6	The result of the separate critical-effect roll.
Data fields	7	The fields inside one critical effect record.

The player character has a separate player table. In CE/sfall table APIs it is addressed with kill type 38, which is SFALL_KILL_TYPE_COUNT, not a normal critter kill type.

ddraw.ini Controls

Critical table override loading is controlled by ddraw.ini under [Misc]:

[Misc]
OverrideCriticalTable=3
OverrideCriticalFile=CriticalOverrides.ini

Mode	Behavior
0	Use the vanilla built-in executable table only. No sfall corrections and no external override file are applied.
1	Load an external override file in the original flat section layout. This covers the 19 vanilla kill types plus the player table.
2	Apply sfall's built-in critical table corrections, but do not read an external override file. Fallout 2 CE defaults to this mode.
3	Apply sfall's built-in corrections and then read an external override file in the expanded sfall layout. This covers 38 sfall kill-type slots plus the player table.

If OverrideCriticalTable is outside 0..3, CE falls back to mode 0. If OverrideCriticalFile is empty or the file cannot be read, the built-in table state for the selected mode remains in use.

[Misc] RemoveCriticalTimelimits is related but separate. It removes the early-game time gate for random critical successes/failures and for player critical failures. It does not change the table data itself.

Hit Locations

Id	Name	Default hit modifier
0	Head	-40
1	Left arm	-30
2	Right arm	-30
3	Torso	0
4	Right leg	-20
5	Left leg	-20
6	Eyes	-60
7	Groin	-30
8	Uncalled	0

Although the table contains uncalled rows, CE converts HIT_LOCATION_UNCALLED to torso before the normal attack roll and critical table lookup. The uncalled rows still matter for compatibility with data patches, script APIs, tooling, and source-level table corrections.

Kill Types

Normal critter kill types come from the critter PRO data. The vanilla ids are:

Id	Name
0	Men
1	Women
2	Children
3	Super mutants
4	Ghouls
5	Brahmin
6	Radscorpions
7	Rats
8	Floaters
9	Centaurs
10	Robots
11	Dogs
12	Mantis
13	Deathclaws
14	Plants
15	Geckos
16	Aliens
17	Giant ants
18	Big bad boss
19..37	sfall extended range. Names and meaning are mod/runtime convention.
38	Special player table slot.

Effect Tier Roll

Once an attack has become a critical success, the game rolls 1..100 and adds the attacker's STAT_BETTER_CRITICALS value. Better Criticals adds +20 through this stat, while the Heavy Handed trait contributes -30. The resulting value selects the effect tier:

Roll after modifiers	Effect index	Common table name
<= 20	0	Effect 1
21..45	1	Effect 2
46..70	2	Effect 3
71..90	3	Effect 4
91..100	4	Effect 5
> 100	5	Effect 6

The critical chance roll is earlier and different. For a normal non-burst attack, CE calls randomRoll(toHit, criticalChance - hitLocationPenalty). The hit-location penalty is negative, so aimed shots increase critical chance by the same magnitude as their accuracy penalty. Burst attacks use a separate spray calculation path.

Record Fields

Every critical effect record has seven signed integer fields. The key names below are the names used by sfall/CE override files.

Index	Key	Meaning
0	DamageMultiplier	Half-unit damage multiplier. 2 means normal damage, 3 means 1.5x, 4 means 2x, 8 means 4x. The vanilla damage path multiplies by this value and divides by 2.
1	EffectFlags	Damage flags always applied when this critical tier is selected.
2	StatCheck	SPECIAL/stat id checked for a massive critical side effect, or -1 for no check.
3	StatMod	Modifier added to the target's stat for the stat check. Positive is easier for the defender to pass; negative is harder.
4	FailureEffect	Additional damage flags applied if the stat check fails.
5	Message	Message id in combat.msg used for the normal critical result.
6	FailMessage	Message id in combat.msg used instead when the stat check fails.

The source names the stat-check fields as massiveCriticalStat, massiveCriticalStatModifier, massiveCriticalFlags, and massiveCriticalMessageId. The INI keys use the older FailureEffect and FailMessage names because they are triggered by a failed defensive stat check.

Stat Ids

The built-in critical tables mainly use Endurance, Agility, and Luck checks, but the engine accepts any stat id passed to statRoll. For compatibility, use SPECIAL ids unless a target runtime explicitly supports more.

Id	Stat
0	Strength
1	Perception
2	Endurance
3	Charisma
4	Intelligence
5	Agility
6	Luck
-1	No stat check.

Damage Flags

Use the integer flag values below in sfall/CE override files and script APIs. Older executable table articles sometimes show little-endian byte sequences such as 0x01000000 for knockout; that is the byte order seen when patching the original executable data directly, not the integer value used by the INI parser.

Value	Flag	Meaning
0x00000001	DAM_KNOCKED_OUT	Knockout.
0x00000002	DAM_KNOCKED_DOWN	Knockdown.
0x00000004	DAM_CRIP_LEG_LEFT	Cripple left leg.
0x00000008	DAM_CRIP_LEG_RIGHT	Cripple right leg.
0x00000010	DAM_CRIP_ARM_LEFT	Cripple left arm.
0x00000020	DAM_CRIP_ARM_RIGHT	Cripple right arm.
0x00000040	DAM_BLIND	Blind.
0x00000080	DAM_DEAD	Kill immediately.
0x00000400	DAM_ON_FIRE	On-fire/flame animation flag.
0x00000800	DAM_BYPASS	Bypass armor. CE reduces DT and DR to 20% before damage reduction for non-EMP damage.
0x00004000	DAM_DROP	Drop weapon. CE strips this flag when the defender cannot drop items or the held item is hidden.
0x00008000	DAM_LOSE_TURN	Lose next turn/action.
0x00020000	DAM_LOSE_AMMO	Lose ammo. Used by critical failure/random effects.
0x00100000	DAM_RANDOM_HIT	Redirect hit to a random target. Used by critical failure logic.
0x00200000	DAM_CRIP_RANDOM	Randomly choose a cripple effect.

Multiple flags are combined by addition or bitwise OR. For example, knockdown plus bypass armor is 0x00000002 | 0x00000800 = 0x00000802.

Original Flat Override Layout

Mode 1 reads the original flat section layout. It loops over kill types 0..19, where 19 is remapped internally to the player table slot 38. Each section represents one kill type, one hit location, and one effect index:

[c_00_0_0]
DamageMultiplier=4
EffectFlags=0
StatCheck=-1
StatMod=0
FailureEffect=0
Message=5001
FailMessage=5000

Section part	Meaning
c_00	Kill type 0, men.
0	Hit location 0, head.
0	Effect index 0, the <= 20 tier.

Every key is optional. Missing keys leave the current table value unchanged, which means mode 1 patches the built-in vanilla table rather than requiring a complete copy of every section.

Expanded sfall Override Layout

Mode 3 reads the expanded sfall section layout. It loops over kill types 0..38, where 38 is the player table. A kill-type section enables either selected body parts or the whole kill type, and the body-part section stores prefixed keys for all six effects.

[c_00]
Enabled=1
Part_0=1
Part_3=1

[c_00_0]
e0_DamageMultiplier=4
e0_EffectFlags=0
e0_StatCheck=-1
e0_StatMod=0
e0_FailureEffect=0
e0_Message=5001
e0_FailMessage=5000
e5_DamageMultiplier=6
e5_EffectFlags=128
e5_Message=5007

Key	Behavior
Enabled=0	Skip this kill type entirely.
Enabled=1	Read only hit locations whose Part_# key is true.
Enabled=2 or higher	Read all nine hit locations for this kill type without checking Part_#.
Part_#	Boolean selector for one hit location when Enabled=1.
e#_KeyName	One record field for effect index #, where # is 0..5.

Like the flat format, missing field keys leave existing values unchanged. In mode 3, those existing values already include sfall's built-in corrections because CE applies the corrections before reading the external file.

Built-in sfall Corrections

Modes 2 and 3 apply a built-in patch set to the vanilla executable table before saving the table as the reset baseline. These corrections mostly repair known table mistakes and Fallout 2 content mismatches.

The CE correction block changes rows for men, children, super mutants, ghouls, brahmin, radscorpions, centaurs, deathclaws, geckos, aliens, giant ants, and the big bad boss. Examples include fixing child leg critical rows that contained unrelated flags, repairing several uncalled-row messages/effects, making some failed stat-check effects match the intended body part, and providing more appropriate big bad boss message ids.

This is why OverrideCriticalTable=2 should be described as "vanilla plus sfall fixes", not pristine executable data.

Combat Message Dependency

Message and FailMessage are ids in text\<language>\game\combat.msg. The selected id becomes the attack's criticalMessageId, which is then used by combat text generation after damage is computed.

Many vanilla critical messages are grouped by kill type. For example, men use ids around 5000, women around 5100, children around 5200, and so on. This grouping is a data convention, not a parser rule. Custom tables can point at any loaded combat.msg id, but missing ids will display lookup fallback text.

PRO Dependency

For non-player critters, the critical table kill type is read from the target critter's PRO data. Changing a critter's kill type changes which table controls its critical effects. That can be useful for custom anatomy or enemy classes, but it also changes kill-count classification and any other logic using the same PRO field.

The player character does not use the critter PRO kill type path for incoming criticals. CE checks whether the defender is gDude and uses the separate player critical table.

Editing Notes

• Use decimal or parser-supported integer syntax accepted by the target INI parser. Decimal values are safest for classic tools.
• Keep effect indices zero-based in override files: e0_* is the first effect tier and e5_* is the sixth.
• Use mode 3 when you want sfall fixes plus an override file. Use mode 1 only when you intentionally want the original flat layout without the built-in correction pass.
• Do not copy damage flag values from executable byte-sequence tables unless you convert them to integer flag values first.
• When changing Message or FailMessage, update combat.msg at the same time.
• When changing a target class, update critter PRO kill types and the critical table together so the same enemy does not silently move to a different table.

Sources

• Fallout 2 CE combat.cc for the built-in tables, critical effect roll, override loader, sfall corrections, and damage application.
• Fallout 2 CE combat_defs.h for hit-location and critical-record structure definitions.
• Fallout 2 CE proto_types.h for kill-type ids and the sfall extended kill-type count.
• Fallout 2 CE obj_types.h for damage flag integer values.
• The Fallout Wiki critical hit table article for the public table legend and vanilla executable-table interpretation.
• sfall combat scripting documentation for runtime critical-table script APIs.