(3.5) Arguments against Critical Misses

[dragonsamurai77]

I just finished playing my first IRL game, with a very inexperienced DM. She is a good storyteller, and really is a good DM, but has one flaw that I really can't stand: critical misses on attacks. I've given the usual arguments: it penalizes characters with more attacks, and it's ridiculous for a trained warrior to stab himself one out of every 20 attacks, but she maintains that it's "fun" and that she will make it "make sense". Does anyone have any other ideas on how to convince her, or will I have to put up with it if I'm to be able to play a game of D&D without it dying in a week?

[Everest]

Tell her that replacing a character and making a new backup because your warrior slipped and brained himself in the crucial moment of a fight isn't "fun".

[Safety Sword]

If you can't discourage this kind of thinking at least make it consistent with the critical hit rules.

For example you have to "confirm" critical misses. It moves you odds from 1 in 20 to somewhere near 1 in 400 so it's much less painful to put up with.

Should be easy to justify if you use critical hits in your game.

Just so we're clear. I find fumble rules and critical failures to be stupid and would never use them in my games. As you point out, having people trained with weapons hurting themselves 1 in 20 times is very unrealistic.

But it's D&D... so....

[tiercel]

Sometimes a DM gets their heart set on something "cool" -- part of it will be trying to figure out how THIS particular "fumble" mechanic works. Do natural 1s auto-fumble, or do you have to "confirm" a critical miss in a similar fashion to confirming a critical hit? (This still penalizes iterative attacks, since a 1 is more likely to be confirmed as a critical miss, of course.)

Of more point is what exactly happens on a critical miss -- some "fumble charts" are what have made critical misses so infamous. If you've got a serious RPer DM who is going to have something cinematic (but relatively minor) happen on a critical miss, you can probably live with it.

If your DM is going to be one of those folks who says "Ooh, critical miss, your clumsy blow causes critical hit damage to yourself, maims your sword hand making it useless, puts out your left eye, flings your sword 200' past your opponent into a fiery pool of magma capable of unmaking the One Ring, and then your trousers fall down," then you're better off (A) playing a spellcaster [well this is always true isn't it :P] who never makes attack rolls (B) playing a Total Defense specialist who runs up to monsters, cranks AC as high as possible, and just stands there waiting for the bad guy to commit Full Attack Natural 1 Seppuku or (C) not playing.

My point here is to find out exactly what you're up against before you panic. If it is that bad, then point out how, specifically, her critical-miss variant is disruptive/making the game less fun for you.

[Hiro Protagonest]

In another thread about critical fumbles, someone said this.

Have 20 level 1 warriors with simple longswords practice against training dummies for 1 minute. If by the end of that minute any of the warriors are bleeding or dead, you need to change your fumble rules.

[dragonsamurai77]

If you can't discourage this kind of thinking at least make it consistent with the critical hit rules.

For example you have to "confirm" critical misses. It moves you odds from 1 in 20 to somewhere near 1 in 400 so it's much less painful to put up with.

Should be easy to justify if you use critical hits in your game.

Just so we're clear. I find fumble rules and critical failures to be stupid and would never use them in my games. As you point out, having people trained with weapons hurting themselves 1 in 20 times is very unrealistic.

But it's D&D... so....

To be fair, we are also playing without critical confirmations either, so that part is at least balanced, plus it's only 1/2 of the damage you deal. I'm a Wizard anyway, so I won't be attacking beyond the occasional crossbow shot, it's just the idea behind it that bugs me, especially because I plan to be turning people into Hydras once we hit the higher levels.

[Dr.Epic]

I just finished playing my first IRL game, with a very inexperienced DM. She is a good storyteller, and really is a good DM, but has one flaw that I really can't stand: critical misses on attacks. I've given the usual arguments: it penalizes characters with more attacks, and it's ridiculous for a trained warrior to stab himself one out of every 20 attacks, but she maintains that it's "fun" and that she will make it "make sense". Does anyone have any other ideas on how to convince her, or will I have to put up with it if I'm to be able to play a game of D&D without it dying in a week?

You realize you'd have to remove the idea of natural 20s as well.

[Hiro Protagonest]

You realize you'd have to remove the idea of natural 20s as well.

He misspelled that. Stabbing yourself in the gut isn't a critical miss. He obviously meant fumble tables.

[unosarta]

So, basically, according to her rules, when a group of 10,000 soldiers are all attacking another enemy force, 500 of them are going to be dropping their swords, tripping, or hitting themselves or their allies? Seriously? That makes no sense.

[tiercel]

I can understand, if you MUST have a critical miss variant in your game, doing damage to yourself on a fumble IF wielding a weapon you aren't proficient in. (Dire flail looks like a fumble waiting to happen.)

Otherwise a saner version would be something like "you slip badly, lowering your guard for a second and giving your opponent an attack of opportunity!" That seems like a much more plausible result than "hur hur somehow I stabbed myself dur am I supposed to be holding other end of sword?"

As a wizard, sounds like disintegrate just got a LOT less attractive to you ;) But it does seem like additional unfairness that your nonspellcasting buddies are going to have one MORE burden to bear that your Awesome Studliness the Wizard won't.

[Doughnut Master]

We always ran it with confirmation rolls as well. Our fumbles weren't usually too devastating. Usually something like, "You swing and miss and your sword gets lodged in one of the wooden beams. Next round, you'll have to spend a move action to remove it."

[Hirax]

Critical misses are either fun or not fun. There isn't a right or wrong position, some people will find them one way, other the other, it isn't a mutable position. You're not going to argue someone into thinking the other way, any more than you're going to argue them into changing their favorite ice cream flavor.

That said, in my experience, far more people dislike critical miss rules.

[Dr.Epic]

He misspelled that. Stabbing yourself in the gut isn't a critical miss. He obviously meant fumble tables.

Doesn't matter. If you remove the idea a natural 1 is an auto-miss, you'd have to remove the idea that a natural 20 is an auto-hit.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Fumble tables were only good once (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sameo).

[Hirax]

Doesn't matter. If you remove the idea a natural 1 is an auto-miss, you'd have to remove the idea that a natural 20 is an auto-hit.

I, for one, am fine with that. On saves, too.

[Arbane]

See if the DM will let you play a Pathfinder Witch, and take the Misfortune Hex.

Give all your enemies _double_ their chance of getting a natural 1.

Profit!

[Douglas]

Doesn't matter. If you remove the idea a natural 1 is an auto-miss, you'd have to remove the idea that a natural 20 is an auto-hit.
Automatically missing on a 1 is not what anyone but you is talking about here. Having considerably worse things happen on a 1, such as dropping your weapon or hitting an ally, is the problem.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

In another thread about critical fumbles, someone said this.

Have 20 level 1 warriors with simple longswords practice against training dummies for 1 minute. If by the end of that minute any of the warriors are bleeding or dead, you need to change your fumble rules.The best part of the original quote was that you had to butter your fumble rules and eat them.

Provoking an AoO is almost as harsh as hitting yourself, and what sort of wizard is in range to provoke an AoO when casting Disintegrate anyway? The most reasonable fumble houserule* I've seen allows the fumbler some narrative control. Basically, the fumbler states the negative consequence, and the DM either approves or disapproves. Those of us who didn't like fumble rules could choose fluffy consequences like getting scarred in the face by a counterattack (no HP damage necessarily), and those more "into" the rule would provoke an AoO, or be forced to end a full attack, or fall prone, or have a spell oversurge and consume an extra slot. One of us was even pondering having a spell turn into wild magic a la a rod of wonder. I think he was hoping for the color change but also enjoyed the risk and mystery.

*In that there actually is one

[Kenneth]

So, basically, according to her rules, when a group of 10,000 soldiers are all attacking another enemy force, 500 of them are going to be dropping their swords, tripping, or hitting themselves or their allies? Seriously? That makes no sense.

i really have nothing to add to this pro/con crit misses arugemnt becuase as previously said it comes down to personal preference and you either like it or not.


but I do want to point out this and say 'have you ever actually read up on what battles were like back in mideval and acneint times?"

[BinaryMage]

In another thread about critical fumbles, someone said this.

Have 20 level 1 warriors with simple longswords practice against training dummies for 1 minute. If by the end of that minute any of the warriors are bleeding or dead, you need to change your fumble rules.

Not to defend critical fumbles (because I agree that this way of dealing with them is ridiculous), but I think the point of a fumble rule is not to emulate you stabbing yourself on accident. (That is not likely.) Rather, it is trying to emulate, in the heat of combat, the occasional fumbles that lead to you screwing up. Maybe your blade was deflected back at you by the enemies magical armor. Maybe you incorrectly parried an attack and nicked yourself in the leg. I agree, this sort of fumble rule is ridiculous, but I think that the training dummies argument is sort of missing the point.

[sreservoir]

Otherwise a saner version would be something like "you slip badly, lowering your guard for a second and giving your opponent an attack of opportunity!" That seems like a much more plausible result than "hur hur somehow I stabbed myself dur am I supposed to be holding other end of sword?"


that's actually a fairly plausible fumble. still possibly not a good idea, but reasonable, and not outright ridiculous.

[Ursus the Grim]

The solution is not to argue. Its to play a character with a minimum of attack rolls. Like, say, a Wizard.:smallwink:

[One Step Two]

I'd encourage the GM to modify the rule a little. In my groups, we tend to allow the natural 1 on attacks rolls to constitute a miss, but to add an element of danger, we then need to make a Dexterity Check, or lose our weapon, for example. For ranged touch attacks, you now need to roll an Int based check, to not accidentally hit allies. That sort of thing.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Not to defend critical fumbles (because I agree that this way of dealing with them is ridiculous), but I think the point of a fumble rule is not to emulate you stabbing yourself on accident. (That is not likely.) Rather, it is trying to emulate, in the heat of combat, the occasional fumbles that lead to you screwing up. Maybe your blade was deflected back at you by the enemies magical armor. Maybe you incorrectly parried an attack and nicked yourself in the leg. I agree, this sort of fumble rule is ridiculous, but I think that the training dummies argument is sort of missing the point.All of those seem like AoOs to me, or better yet them hitting on their own attack. The problem with the fumble rules isn't about nicking yourself on the knee. It's about dying or bleeding out, like in the training dummy example. Think of how cinematic it would be for your character to have his sword fly off the enemy's magic armor and then impale him on the first round of combat.

[CTrees]

Take two characters. Call them Dave and Sam.

-Dave is an ogre, but he's an ECL 30 ogre, who among his other (all melee) class levels has maxed out the weapon master PrC, and has divine rank 0 - he is literally an ogre (demi)god of war, and his favorite weapon is the club - simple as a weapon gets, and he is literally the most skilled being on the plane at bonking things with his mighty club (his personal favorite is a +10 Club of Hitting Things Really Hard). He attacks four times per round. Dave is playing whack-a-mole.

-Sam is a 3yo human. He was dropped as a baby - repeatedly. If he technically has a class level, it'd be commoner, and all of his mental stats are hovering somewhere around "cow." One day, Sam finds a local halfling adventurer's spiked chain, and decides to emulate what he's seen the adventurer do, and flails around wildly, trying to hit the family dog.

In one round, Sam has a 5% chance of rolling a natural 1 to hit, potentially invoking a critical fumble, while using a ridiculously dangerous, exotic weapon untrained . Dave has an 18.5% chance of rolling a natural 1 in the same time frame, with one of the simplest manufactured weapons available, which has been heavily ensorcelled to be better at hitting, versus an opponent not trying to fight back.

Missing? Okay, I can accept that, for rules balance. If you allow critical fumbles, Dave, a physical god of war, is 270% more likely to trip, disarm, or hurt himself than a retarded toddler.

[Keneth]

We use the Critical Fumble Deck in our 3.P game which, as was already suggested above, requires you to "confirm" the fumble by rolling against your target again and seeing if you fumble or just simply miss, thus reducing the chance of fumbling for attacker characters to a minimum and increasing that chance for non-attackers.

Fumbles are fun but not on every crit miss, that's just retarded and goes against all logic. :smallsmile:

[Ravens_cry]

To be fair, a critical miss chart is part of one of the best gaming stories ever* (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sameo).
*Something about how it is told rings false to me, part of me doubts if it is true. Still, it is a great story, whatever its factualness.

[Shotaro]

At my game we use "fumbles". But we have a variation on the rule

1st roll: natural 1 ONLY

2nd roll: d20+weapon attack bonus - DC10, a 1 will always fumble.

3rd roll: The outcome, a 20 is very little (skip your next attack while you recover) where as a 1 is DM's choice, but usually something VERY VERY bad indeed.*

It means that as a character gets more powerful the chance to "fumble" becomes less and less likely. At higher power levels the fumbles are usually the result of an extraordinary dodge on the part of the enemy rather than incompetence on the part of the character. We even have a table for fumbles using a d20 with fixed results (unless the player rolls a 1 on the table of course). For ranged attacks we usually have it be the result of a gust of wind if outside or a deflection inside. If the miss means they could hit a second player then the player makes an attack roll at the same attack bonus against that players AC. No criticals unless otherwise stated but a 20 is an automatic hit. A fumble on that attack would be a fail of epic proportions and become DM choice. Much fairer, allows use of a rule that can make the game more fun and unless the player is on the brink of death anyway is unlikely to do a great deal of harm

[CTrees]

Oh, I forgot to mention - when I take over DM'ing for my group, I'm likely going to be stuck using fumbles. What I've been thinking is, on a natural one, you don't provoke a normal AoO, but your target can opt to attempt a combat maneuver. I figure, you've whiffed badly, and your enemy might try to capitalize on that to knock your weapon out of your hand, or trip you, or whatever.

Powerful melee types attacking, say, a commoner or a straw dummy have nothing to worry about (and may welcome the maneuver, as the enemy could fail badly), whereas the wizard who got crazy and decided to run up with his dagger, attacking a fighter w/ improved trip, is in for real trouble if he fumbles. I don't like using fumble rules, but at least this leads to "people better at melee are less likely to hurt themselves in melee." I don't have a good corollary for the various ranged attack rolls, but missing is likely rough enough.

What do you guys think of that version? (if anyone can tear it apart and find the flaws, it's you guys)

[Keneth]

What I've been thinking is, on a natural one, you don't provoke a normal AoO, but your target can opt to attempt a combat maneuver. Most combat maneuvers are attacks, meaning you can already use them as it stands if you get an AoO.

[kamikasei]

she maintains that it's "fun"
Tell her you, her player, doesn't find it fun. You are quite certain you will find find the game less fun with these rules and would appreciate it if she would take that in to account and not decide she knows better than you what you'll enjoy.

[The Glyphstone]

The Dave and Sam example has been yoinked,

[Ravens_cry]

Tell her you, her player, doesn't find it fun. You are quite certain you will find find the game less fun with these rules and would appreciate it if she would take that in to account and not decide she knows better than you what you'll enjoy.
At the very least, I agree with the idea one must confirm said critical miss, just like one must confirm ones critical hits. Otherwise, yeah, natural 1 automatic fumble? Bit too much that.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Fumble tables were only good once (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sameo).


To be fair, a critical miss chart is part of one of the best gaming stories ever* (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sameo).
*Something about how it is told rings false to me, part of me doubts if it is true. Still, it is a great story, whatever its factualness.

Factotum'd. By like, 9 hours.

[Ravens_cry]

Factotum'd. By like, 9 hours.
Sorry, my only excuse is lack of sleeping. Go bed bye now. *waves then collapses in a heap of snores*

[Elitarismo]

"I will DM now."

Instant solution. Even if you are actually terrible at DMing, it will still be an improvement.

[CTrees]

Most combat maneuvers are attacks, meaning you can already use them as it stands if you get an AoO.

I'm aware of that. My fumble rules, in their current draft, would essentially create a second type of AoO - one where any combat maneuver allowable on a normal AoO is acceptable, but taking a normal attack action is not. Excepting builds like Jack B Quick, this is at least less punitive than the "the enemy gets a free hit on you" I see fairly commonly as a fumble rule and avoids the derp-warrior syndrome "you hurt yourself/fall down/drop your weapon/roll on a table and take out your spleen."

Note that I would rather simply not use fumble rules, but I'm very much overruled, here. The best I got, with my arguments, has been making it seem like everyone is fighting on rollerskates, ending up falling prone all the bloody time. This at least makes it depend on the power of the enemies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@Glyphstone :smallwink: :smallbiggrin:

[Barttjuh]

As DM I use the following rule

On a 1 roll again a D20 on an 11+ the player gets a -10 on its attack roll.
And 10 and below sumthing nasty happens :)

[Andreaz]

Anyone that comes to me telling that "it's fun" gets a "it's not" from me.
It doesn't even matter how much my enemies are screwed by it, or that it happens more often to them than to me, because it is not fun for a bad thing to happen increasingly often after you become more skilled. Seriously, it's a horrible idea which only capitalizes the weaknesses of the already weaker combative types.

In a system where such failures are supposed to occur, I only endorse them if getting better at what you do makes your chances of screwing up drop, not raise.

[Person_Man]

Since the math has always been so clear, I agree with the general argument that critical misses are a bad thing.

But lets assume that you live in a world where critical misses exist, and that your campaign does not include the type of mass combat where you would see 500 out of 10,000 soldiers dropping or breaking their weapons every round, and that it's not your turn to DM for a while.

The best thing that you can do from a player's perspective is to simply play a class that does not roll attack dice very often. You can do this as a full caster, Psion, Dragonfire Adept, Binder, etc. If you must play a melee build, then use the Tome of Battle build or an Uber-Charger who makes only 1ish attack roll per round.

Alternatively or in addition, you can make a build which specifically provokes your enemies into making lots of attacks. For example, a Incarnate can get very high DR/magic very early and retributive fire damage whenever he is hit. Just run around the battlefield and let your enemies hit your with attacks of opportunity, and they will kill themselves. A Binder or psionic builds can pull off similar combos using Shield Self or Share Pain. I also have a Vow of Non-Violence Knight build handy that forces enemies to attack you, which breaks their weapons.

Alternatively or in addition, you can ask your DM to remove effects that do not use attack dice. For example, adding a touch attack roll (in addition to the normal Saving Throw) to area of effect abilities like spells and breath weapons and magic which otherwise wouldn't require a roll. I think it would be a horribly cumbersome house rule, but at least it would level the playing field.

[MukkTB]

Simple house rule.
If you fumble you always miss.
Then you roll to confirm a fumble using your attack bonus for the attack you fumbled on.
Then you roll on a fumble chart where most of the time you drop your weapon or slip so mostly the bad thing is the enemy can make an attack of opportunity. Only really horrible fumble chart rolls do much more than that.

We use DC 10 to confirm a fumble. (Roll a 10 or higher -> no fumble)

If your DM doesn't like it point out that critical hits require confirmation to be anything more than solid blows.

An experienced swordsman quickly comes to a point where he only has to worry about rolling double 1s. Yeah if he flails all over the place then hes more likely to slip up, but I don't see a problem with that.

[darksolitaire]

I actually used fumble rules in one or two sessions, but came to my senses before players complained. One reason why fumble rules are bad I did not see mentioned is that they add complexity and dice rolling to all ready complex and dice-heavy portion of the game, and thus consume more time. They also gimp PCs more then anything they encounter. A single ancient dragon may go his entire NPC career without failing a single fumble, while PCs certainly screw up few times.

[Doug Lampert]

i really have nothing to add to this pro/con crit misses arugemnt becuase as previously said it comes down to personal preference and you either like it or not.


but I do want to point out this and say 'have you ever actually read up on what battles were like back in mideval and acneint times?"

Yes, quite a bit. They could last for hours and the winning side rarely suffered more than 1% fatalities and 5% seriously wounded.

That's about what they do TO THEMSELVES every single six seconds with a fumble rule.

If you think 500 dropped swords is reasonable (and it's likely low for a full battle) then consider that this happens 5,000 times in the first minute, then the second minute starts.

It's beyond absurd.

[Doug Lampert]

At the very least, I agree with the idea one must confirm said critical miss, just like one must confirm ones critical hits. Otherwise, yeah, natural 1 automatic fumble? Bit too much that.

So you fumble more often against high AC opponents. And itterative attacks are a bad thing?

[Big Fau]

Take two characters. Call them Dave and Sam.

-Dave is an ogre, but he's an ECL 30 ogre, who among his other (all melee) class levels has maxed out the weapon master PrC, and has divine ranks - he is literally the ogre god of war, and his favorite weapon is the club - simple as a weapon gets, and he is literally the most skilled being on the plane at bonking things with his mighty club (his personal favorite is a +10 Club of Hitting Things Really Hard). He attacks four times per round. Dave is playing whack-a-mole.

-Sam is a 3yo human. He was dropped as a baby - repeatedly. If he technically has a class level, it'd be commoner, and all of his mental stats are hovering somewhere around "cow." One day, Sam finds a local halfling adventurer's spiked chain, and decides to emulate what he's seen the adventurer do, and flails around wildly, trying to hit the family dog.

In one round, Sam has a 5% chance of rolling a natural 1 to hit, potentially invoking a critical fumble, while using a ridiculously dangerous, exotic weapon untrained . Dave has an 18.5% chance of rolling a natural 1 in the same time frame, with one of the simplest manufactured weapons available, which has been heavily ensorcelled to be better at hitting, versus an opponent not trying to fight back.

Missing? Okay, I can accept that, for rules balance. If you allow critical fumbles, Dave, a physical god of war, is 270% more likely to trip, disarm, or hurt himself than a retarded toddler.

Nitpick: Divine Ranks means he doesn't even have to roll the d20 to see if he hits. He treats all attack rolls as Nat 20s, and only needs to roll to confirm a critical hit.

You cannot fumble when confirming, at least as far as I'm aware.

[Douglas]

Nitpick: Divine Ranks means he doesn't even have to roll the d20 to see if he hits. He treats all attack rolls as Nat 20s, and only needs to roll to confirm a critical hit.

You cannot fumble when confirming, at least as far as I'm aware.
That's only for Greater Deities, the ones with 16 or more Divine Ranks.

Divine Rank 1 does explicitly get to ignore the 1 = autofail rule, though, which would presumably also negate any crit fumble chance.

You could give him Divine Rank 0 (aka quasi-deity) without screwing up the example, though.

[CTrees]

Ah, good point. It's been since 3.0 that I've actually read the rules on divine ranks. Well, divine rank: 0 still counts as a (quasi-)deity, so with the ambiguity in the example, it can work, even without editing. Which I believe I will do, anyway. The point of the hypothetical is still solid, though - critical miss rules are for stupids.

[The_Jackal]

Roll all spellcasters because you refuse to deal with a retarded house rule.

Fumbles are unheroic. They undercut the feel of the genre and turn the heroes into Inspector Clouseau.

[Doug Lampert]

Roll all spellcasters because you refuse to deal with a retarded house rule.

Fumbles are unheroic. They undercut the feel of the genre and turn the heroes into Inspector Clouseau.

We don't know that this particular implementation is a retarded house rule since we don't know the details. We just know that (painful) experience makes (many of) us EXPECT it to be retarded. We know that a fumble rule that makes serious screw ups rare enough to claim to be "realistic" is one where they're so rare as to not be worth rolling for. We don't roll dice to check to see if the enemy has a coronary and keels over right before the PCs enter the room. We don't roll dice to see if the PC trips getting out of the tub and kills himself while taking his anual bath at the inn. And we shouldn't need to roll dice to find out that the skilled warrior didn't hit himself in the foot or throw his sword away. Rolling dice and having it turn out that he does throw his sword away because the GM doesn't understand probability is even worse.

But all that said, the second point is the real point. About level 6 the characters are Big Damn Heroes! They can do stuff no one in the real world can do, even if they haven't particularly optimized their builds and don't use magic. One of them against 16 professional soldiers or city guards would be considered an even fight, except that the guidelines tell us when the enemy needs 16:1 odds or more then it's really off the range and shouldn't be considered a real enemy.

Big Damn Heroes! may screw-up. But the screw-up is likely to be stratigic or "you miss", not "you drop your weapon you newb" or "you hit yourself in the foot" or "you trip over your own feet". That's Inspector Clouseau territory, and if fighters have to play Inspector Clouseau then I'll play a caster, maybe a bard, I can claim my +1 to hit and damage is helping in combat, and I'll have all the hilarious hijinks as allegedly skilled warriors kill themselves to sing about.

It isn't "realistic" for a level one warrior to fumble a full 5% of the time, it's far less realistic for the heroes. Fumble rules fail on realism, they fail on fun (randomness is bad for PCs over the long run), they fail on genre. There's simply no way in which they are good.

DougL

[Tyndmyr]

I just finished playing my first IRL game, with a very inexperienced DM. She is a good storyteller, and really is a good DM, but has one flaw that I really can't stand: critical misses on attacks. I've given the usual arguments: it penalizes characters with more attacks, and it's ridiculous for a trained warrior to stab himself one out of every 20 attacks, but she maintains that it's "fun" and that she will make it "make sense". Does anyone have any other ideas on how to convince her, or will I have to put up with it if I'm to be able to play a game of D&D without it dying in a week?

I'll just leave this (http://travislerol.com/wordpress/?p=9) here.

Also, ask her why it is fun. Note that it is not fun for you, giving the above reasons.

Also, I suggest she learns the game well as is before modifying it. That generally leads to problems. Newcomers to almost any system should consider playing it strictly as written before changing it.

[JaronK]

Another obvious point: the more skilled you are, the more you fumble.

A level 1 Ranger fumbles once every two minutes of attacking. A level 20 Ranger with the full TWF line has 7 attacks a round, so on average he fumbles once every three rounds (17 seconds). Does this sound like a heroic warrior, or a bumbling idiot? Heck, this wouldn't even be acceptable in slapstick comedy, as it would happen so often it wouldn't be funny. And it's even worse on Monks. Think of the poor Monks, constantly hitting themselves in the face (which is a big step down from the current "not hitting anybody" method they currently focus on).

There are two solutions to this of course. One is to make a character who never uses attack rolls (how about a Wings of Flurry Sorcerer?). The other is to make one that uses lots of attacks, just to show how stupid this is... how about a TWF Monk with Snap Kick and Roundabout Kick?

JaronK

[Safety Sword]

Another obvious point: the more skilled you are, the more you fumble.

A level 1 Ranger fumbles once every two minutes of attacking. A level 20 Ranger with the full TWF line has 7 attacks a round, so on average he fumbles once every three rounds (17 seconds). Does this sound like a heroic warrior, or a bumbling idiot? Heck, this wouldn't even be acceptable in slapstick comedy, as it would happen so often it wouldn't be funny. And it's even worse on Monks. Think of the poor Monks, constantly hitting themselves in the face (which is a big step down from the current "not hitting anybody" method they currently focus on).

There are two solutions to this of course. One is to make a character who never uses attack rolls (how about a Wings of Flurry Sorcerer?). The other is to make one that uses lots of attacks, just to show how stupid this is... how about a TWF Monk with Snap Kick and Roundabout Kick?

JaronK

Yet another point for team "Your house rule is stupid".

I can't see how anyone who has any logic at all can think this is a good idea. It really baffles me.

I can deal with the fact that D&D has randomness built in. I can't deal with people adding stupid to it in the name of "fun".