Drizzt Do'Urden: When novels and games collide

In 1989 TSR released the Forgotten Realms supplement, Hall of Heroes. Back then I was a huge fan of the FR novels, so I was very excited to get this book because it had the game stats for the major FR novel characters. I was especially eager to see Drizzt's stats, because I thought he was awesome (I know, burn me at the stake). I bought the book, cracked it open and thought, "Wow, that's pretty stupid!"

The thing about novels compared to games is that an author can have his characters do all sorts of things and not have to worry about fitting the actions into a framework of game rules. A powerful character can be stabbed in the heart with a dagger and die if the story requires it. That sort of thing.

So when I looked at the Drizzt stats I expected to see a ranger, albeit a drow ranger. For the most part that's what we got, and his basic stats were nothing special. Then as I read further I got to this part that really gave me the shits:

"So accurate are his wicked cuts, that if Drizzt's 'to hit' roll exceeds the minimum required for a hit by more than 5, he scores double weapon damage and has a base 10%, plus or minus 3% per level difference between him and his opponent, chance of killing the foe instantly."

AGGGGHHH!! Why did they do this? They invented a special critical hit system exclusive to Drizzt!!! My nerd rage knows no bounds!

Yeah. See, for those of you who never read the novels Drizzt appears in, he kicks so much ass it almost becomes comical, especially in the Dark Elf Trilogy. Drizzt wields two scimitars simultaneously, and dances around sticking one scimitar here, another scimitar there, artfully slicing here dicing there dancing over there flashing the blade to one side then to the other side then upside down in a circle up the ribcage to the brain while standing on his head picking his nose...

...all while balancing his checkbook at the same time.

He's the Ultimate Master of the Blade, have no doubt about that. His sword prowess is described in such detail over and over again in the books that I guess I can't blame the writers for needing to somehow justify it when presenting Drizzt in actual game terms. The problem though is that I wanted to play out little arena battles between my favorite character and Drizzt, but he had that damn special critical hit ability. Without that my character would stomp him like the sissy elf he is.

Sometimes I think the best policy is what happens in the novel, stays in the novel.