So I've finally gotten around to trying out Fallout! Wish me luck.

However, I'm having a problem: despite Perception 8, Agility 10, Intelligence 10, Luck 8, Gifted, Finesse, Small guns ability, and an overall critical hit chance of 18%, I've not seen one single critical hit, out of hundreds and hundreds of shots fired.

I've watched YT vids that confirm a statement "critically hit" appears in the log when it does happen. Not for me; all I see is the reduced damage from Finesse.
I've read guides talking about this that whatever complexity regarding straight shots, targeted shots, and how crits play into it -- and I don't get it at all (some of it even seems conflicting). (simplified explanations welcome)
I've even followed advice to wait 7 or so days and try again, as there is a crit-blocking timer in FO2, apparently. No good.

Still. Not. One. Crit. Ever.

What am I missing?

guess you have bad RNG rolls for that 18% crit chance (which is pretty low odds)
from what i have read aimed shots that hit can randomly give a small boost to crit chance (up to a +9% boost)
whether this is true or not i cannot say

once you get sniper (guns) or slayer (melee) perks you should get a massive amount of criticals with that 8 luck
note the requirements for sniper are (level 18, perception 8+ agility 8+ Small guns skill 80%+)

in the end my advice is do not worry overmuch about getting crits at least until you get sniper and/or slayer

or a much higher crit chance via more criticals perk that gives +5% critical chance
you can learn it up to 3 times for a total +15 added on to your 18% chance
should give you 33% critical chance unless i messed up the math there


anyways i hope my wordy mess there helps you out some

so are you playing FO1 or FO2? Any mods?

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate them (I'm desperate to start this game for real!).

@burn: I'm playing vanilla FO1. Downloaded straight from GOG and installed, no mods.

@Vyraexii: Actually, 18% crits is quite a high frequency, statistically (the whole assertion and point of Finesse). Almost 1 in every 5 shots should be a critical.

I've cleared the starting rat area about 6 times, tweaking stats slightly or just testing criticals. There are about 15 or so rats in the area (I'm not at my game machine so the number could be off a little), and I'm needing around 2-3 hits to kill each, due to reduced damage from Finesse.

15 rats x 2.5 hits each x 6 complete area passes = 225 hits

225 hits * 0.18 crits per hit => 40 critical hits

I should have seen approximately 40 critical hits so far. Instead, I've seen ZERO.

To repeat from above: I've read that FO2 has a critical hit blocker for the first five days of play. As such, I've purposely waited 7+ days and continued play from there. Still, no criticals.

Something's wrong...

Look, once in a while from its release I try a "no-reload" Fallout run and my favourite character build includes gifted and finesse, my attributes are somewhat different since I increase endurance for obvious reasons and believe me ... it's a lot of fun:)
However, the possibility of a critical hit is strongly influenced by the statistics of the weapon chosen (small guns in your case) and the part of the body you hit (usually head and eyes), and mind you I NEVER use untargeted attacks .... apart from the initial dungeon with all the rats.
An advice, the very first mission that you are given after leaving is cleaning up a radscorpion cave, for that moment you will be advanced a couple of levels, invest all the skill points in small guns and you will get around 100% of skill ... hit the scorpions in the head or in the eye (personally I go with the first critical hit in the head) and .... we'll talk about it again ... trust me, you will not be disappointed :)

No, weapons don't affect critical chance. But targeting body parts does.

Making a critical does not necessarily display "critical" in message window. It could be "forceful blow", "serious wound", "with no defences", etc.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Critical_Hit
http://falloutmods.wikia.com/wiki/Critical_hit_tables

@burn
Yeah you are right, what i was trying to say it's that you wiill get critical hits more often with a high weapon skill since you have to hit in the first place to land a critical and sometimes (especially in dark areas) tha chances to hit eyes and head are quite low.

Unable to wait anymore, I moved on. :D I settled on a slightly modified build and for traits I went with Gifted and Skilled, for a bit of counter-balancing and what overall is a nice benefit. Regarding the original question, I think there might be a limiting factor in the game much like FO2 is said to have, because although I still could not crit even once throughout the entire first area (7 complete passes), as soon as I got to V15, I was critting now and then. This is for both targeted and non-targeted shots. So while the question isn't really answered definitively, it does suggest there's a limiter in place.

Don't ever use the first area to test things out. I think those rats are immun to criticals.

I thought both Fallout 1 and 2 effectively disabled all critical rolls for the first area(s) - it may also be time locked (i.e. no crits on first day).

Applies to all types of criticals (hits and misses), for everyone (enemies as well as you).