Here's a potential house rule I thought about while camping this weekend:

In addition to getting a critical hit when a player rolls a 1 in combat, they also get a critical hit if they roll and hit with a 12 or an 18.

This would allow higher ranked characters to polish off lesser foes in shorter order, and avoid the issue with a powerful warrior with dagger and plate mail having no advantage over the peasant who is similarly equipped.

In my own games, I've sometimes used a rule that if somebody chooses to use a d30 in combat instead of a d20, they can do double damage.

Because in my games both the To Hit and ABR dice are rolled at the same time any time a one is rolled on the d20 the unneeded ABR roll result is added to the damage total.

So crits in your game are pretty serious!

So my current (non-DW) game uses a variant of the critical charts from DCCRPG, and they've worked out great. In DW, though, I see how bypassing armor is both a pretty big deal and I'm worried about stacking other effects on top of that.

Does your rule apply to both players and NPCs? If so, have you run into any problems with this rule?

Our Knave did manage to kill an enemy knight by rolling a 1 To Hit and an 8 on ABR which did 12 dam, I narrated that one as her managing to stick her sword straight through the poor buggers visor slot.

Years of war and slaughter to hit 7th rank and to be taken out by 3 peasants with a pitch fork when you're caught without your armour wouldn't feel right.