Everyone hates Crit Fumbles, right? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

gr8artist

2013-09-15, 07:49 AM

I was looking over the thread full of stupid houserules and saw a LOT of people griping about critical fumbles. We've played with them to varying degrees, and a fumble usually results in "you drop your weapon," although the result can get more severe if the player is attempting a more dramatic action.
I, for one, don't see the problem with critical fumbles. Fighting is hard, and one bad mistake can turn things upside down.
I do, however, understand why people hate the DM's goofy explanation of fumbles. "LOL, you rolled a natural 1 on your surprise attack? You drop your weapon and give away your position."
So, no seasoned warrior is going to just "drop" his sword. But, maybe you get disarmed? Maybe a blow was intercepted in a way you didn't expect? Maybe your blade took a little damage?
Combat needs more fluidity, more excitement, more chance.

Help me make an interesting, usable, serious fumble mechanic.

It needs to cover attacks, but I'm not sure about fumbling skills. We don't want to turn our champions into the Three Stooges, tripping and stuttering all the time.

I'm thinking something like this: If natural result is less than or equal to X, roll for severity. Severity ranges include harm, loss of resources, loss of appearance, , and ordinary fail. Maybe make it weighted on a d8, something like 1/2/2/3. X could be some inversion of the ability modifier in use, with a minimum 1. For example, if we use 6-(ability mod)=X (minimum 1) then a str 16 (+3) character making an attack roll would fumble on a natural 1, 2, or 3. His fumble would have a 3/8 chance to auto-miss, a 1/4 chance to scar himself or look like a fool, a 1/4 chance to damage or drop his weapon, and a 1/8 chance to provoke an AoO.

Thoughts?

MagnusExultatio

2013-09-15, 07:51 AM

Help me make an interesting, usable, serious fumble mechanic.

You miss automatically on a natural 1. Done.

Yuki Akuma

2013-09-15, 07:51 AM

Here is a good critical fumble rule:

If you roll a 1 on an attack roll or saving throw, you fail.

Anything else is awful and badwrongfun.

Raven777

2013-09-15, 08:01 AM

Attacks miss on a natural d20 result of 1. Saving Throws fail on a natural d20 result of 1. The end.

Coincidentally, this is the only thing RAW ever says about the matter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm). Everything else is some kind of weird collective hallucination of rules that don't actually exist.

johnbragg

2013-09-15, 08:11 AM

Hecuba

2013-09-15, 08:13 AM

Anything worse than automatic failure should need to be confirmed.
Anything at all should have to account for the fact that PCs have to make many more rolls than NPCs and mundanes need to make many more rolls than casters.

My recommendation would be to make a deck of various possible effects.
It's important that you add an element of choice where possible to retain interest (example: "you loose your footing and need time to regain position. Choose: -2 to hit or -2 to AC until the end of your next turn").
Draw only on confirmed critical failures.
Draw, at most, once per round.

I still wouldn't implement it unless I could create something similar for casters (who don't often need to roll a d20).

Bhaakon

2013-09-15, 08:17 AM

I like the concept of critical fumbles--that a PC can screw something up badly enough to have negative consequences beyond failure--but I think the execution tends to be quite poor. Usually it's that rolling a 1 is critical fumble, which means that your PC, no matter how much he develops his talents and abilities, is going to derp up and drop his sword (or worse) on 5% of his swings. Since the number of attacks goes up with level, a high level PC is going to be rolling a 1 about every three or four rounds. They also tend to disproportionately affect non-casters (who are making most of the attack rolls).

So if I were going to implement them in a serious campaign, it would probably be with mechanics to ensure the following:

1) Chances of fumbles scale to level. A level 20 anything should hardly ever fumble, unless they're trying to do something exceptionally difficult (this would be offset, to a certain extent, but the fact that high level characters simply have more chances to fumble every round).

2) Chances of a fumble scale to the difficulty of the challenge faced. Something where it would be almost impossible for a lvl 20 fighter to fumble fighting a goblin, but he might against an ancient dragon.

3) Some sort of mechanic so that spellcasters can also fumble on spells that don't require an attack roll. Perhaps on a blown concentration check, or when a 20 is rolled on an opposing save.

4) Players should have the ability to design their character to minimize fumbles.

With such, I would tentatively propose the following:

Rolling a 1 on an attack roll, combat maneuver check, concentration check, or having a 20 rolled on an opposed save against a spell results in a potential fumble. A character has a chance to negate that fumble by rolling an appropriate save (reflex for a physical attack, will for magic). The DC of that save is 10 + the CR of the opponent faced (that is the CR of the individual opponent being attacked or making its save, not of the entire encounter). You make one save for all the fumbles in a given round, with each increasing the DC of the save.

johnbragg

2013-09-15, 08:21 AM

Anything worse than automatic failure should need to be confirmed.

What if your group has houseruled away confirming Critical Hits? I can't remember playing in a group that didn't play "20 does Crit damage, unless you needed a 20+ to hit in the first place." ("Crit damage" varied--double-dice, automatic max die roll, roll an extra attack)

Would you say "Confirm Critical Failures anyway using RAW for Critical Hits" or would you say "Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander."

(Assume that we've balanced the effects of Critical Success and Critical Failure--i.e., "Critical Success, roll a free attack, Critical Failure, lose your next attack" not "Critical Hit, roll an extra die for damage, Critical Failure, roll to see if you cut off your own head")

VariSami

2013-09-15, 08:21 AM

I am generally opposed to fumble rules, since WHFRPG 2nd edition actually has some rules for a "critical failure" and they have generally been bad.

The first thing to note is: do not make them too frequent. Most often people think that rolling a Nat 1 is reason enough for a fumble. But even Nat 20s barely work like that: while a Nat 20 is an automatic hit, it is already mirrored by the automatic miss of a Nat 1. As such, if you want to have critical fumbles, at least have them mirror critical hits: a second roll is made to see whether or not a fumble occurs. Probably the best bet would be to roll for attack again and see if you would fail with the second roll ("fumble confirmation").

Regarding possible fumbles... Yeah, having a table of like 3-4 possibilities should really suffice, and the least severe should probably have a heightened change of applying. Dropping your weapon is actually quite severe as picking it up messes with the action economy and causes attacks of opportunity. It should probably be as severe as it gets - 1/6 chance or so. Another severe but used fumble is provoking an attack of opportunity (and remember - only have the enemy make attacks of opportunity if they have any left for the round). A 1/6 chance at most. Some people have characters lose actions or attacks. I believe it should not apply to the rest of the attacks for the round - detracting one, the one with the least available bonus, should suffice if you want to go this way. Of course, this would not apply to the last attack fumbling. Maybe you can add another possibility which kicks in with that result in that situation - or leave it as it is.

Minor penalties include AC penalties (losing your footing, removing Dex bonus to AC?) and possible damage to weapons or other equipment (-1 dmg until repaired?).

But really, if you would go through all that trouble to have rules for something which primarily targets the weakest (or rather, most vulnerable) characters in the group and which should be an as rare as possible occurrence, is it worth it?

skyth

2013-09-15, 08:25 AM

Critical Fumbles really sound like an extension of the 'Guy at the gym' fallacy. Really, the chance of a high-level (3rd+ level) swordsman fumbling should be miniscule.

StreamOfTheSky

2013-09-15, 08:29 AM

The only good fumble rule is no fumble rule.

Or at least, a system where players can opt in and opt out of fumbles at character creation. Those that opt in can fumble and enemies can fumble attacking them. Those that opt out neither fumble, nor do NPCs attacking them fumble. The most horrid part of fumble rules is how they're forced on players who often do not want them.

I think a good principle of design is that the Critical Fumble should mirror the Critical Hit.

If the most a Critical Hit can do is triple damage, then the worst a Critical Fumble should do is cost you two more attacks, calculated very crudely.

So you drop your sword, spend your next action picking it up (one attack), take an attack of opportunity(two attacks). Or draw another weapon for your next action (no AoO), use next action to pick up main weapon (no AoO).

IF you're using a x2 weapon, then the ruling should be something like you've made a serious tactical error, ("he parries your attack effortlessly, strikes (if he hit you) and you barely get your weapon in position before his blade is at your throat") and either take an AC penalty next round or use your action to recover your normal position. So you lose one attack.

If you're playing that Critical Hits only do double damage on a re-roll, the same mechanic should apply for Critical Fumbles.

First of all, auto-missing on its own is costing you an attack in a fair amount of cases. If you don't believe me, clearly you've never rolled a 1 with your high level fighter on your first attack against a dinosaur/vermin/animal/ooze/etc... And having to pick up your weapon potentially screws you out of a LOT of attacks. Imagine: you're a high level fighter and hasted, you have 5 attacks per round. You fumble on your 3rd attack and drop the weapon. You immediately lose 2 attacks. Then you take an AoO picking it up. Then because you spent a move picking it up you can't full attack and lose another 4 attacks! That's 7 attacks that one fumble cost you! And that's not even counting the auto-miss on the fumble itself as a lost attack! Gods help you if you were using two weapons with Greater TWF, or a flurrying monk (assuming you'd make him "take a move action to rebalance himself" or whatever to work mechanically the same)!

Second of all, making crit fumbles worse for people with higher crit multipliers is horrifically awfully horribly stupidly bad. It makes high crit range weapons even MORE better than x3 and x4 weapons (overkilling someone by 50+ hp may be fun, but it's still not actually helpful like consistently doing an extra 30 damage is). It punishes the weapons for their crit features, when typically they've already paid the price for it with lower base damage. And most importantly of all... it's just nonsensical and random and unfair. Wait...that's crit fumble rules in general...

Bhaakon

2013-09-15, 08:32 AM

Critical Fumbles really sound like an extension of the 'Guy at the gym' fallacy. Really, the chance of a high-level (3rd+ level) swordsman fumbling should be miniscule.

There's more going on in combat than just a character's individual skill, enough that he'll make mistakes or look foolish doing things that he'd make look easy when not under duress. Think of how much better a professional baseball player looks taking batting practice than facing live pitching in a game (or pick a similar example from your sport of choice).

Hecuba

2013-09-15, 08:34 AM

What if your group has houseruled away confirming Critical Hits? I can't remember playing in a group that didn't play "20 does Crit damage, unless you needed a 20+ to hit in the first place." ("Crit damage" varied--double-dice, automatic max die roll, roll an extra attack)

Would you say "Confirm Critical Failures anyway using RAW for Critical Hits" or would you say "Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander."

(Assume that we've balanced the effects of Critical Success and Critical Failure--i.e., "Critical Success, roll a free attack, Critical Failure, lose your next attack" not "Critical Hit, roll an extra die for damage, Critical Failure, roll to see if you cut off your own head")

I would still be concerned about balancing it against the possibility of not rolling at all for spellcasters.

Additionally, we have 2 concerns in how we structure a penalty system:

It should account for the disparity between the importance of player rolls and NPC rolls.
It should not be a static penalty.

The first one you deal with well enough with your action denial structure (with some limits, like 1 fumble per/round max).

The second element is still outstanding: positive outcomes for PC actions tend to remain interesting over the long run because they advance the player toward their goals.
Negative results generally need some other mechanic to remain interesting over long tern use.

Andreaz

2013-09-15, 08:36 AM

There's more going on in combat than just a character's individual skill, enough that he'll make mistakes or look foolish doing things that he'd make look easy when not under duress. Think of how much better a professional baseball player looks taking batting practice than facing live pitching in a game (or pick a similar example from your sport of choice).And that is well-represented enough by misses.
Look at what "critical fumbles" do: the better you are, the more you screw up, because apparently skill works backwards. The guy before us already pointed out what the simplest case of critical fumble means: losing two entire rounds' worth of attacking. At the levels you lose that much, wasting 2 rounds is death.

Any ruling on a natural 1 past "you miss" is very, very harsh, counter to the way character progression works and utterly stupid.

Bhaakon

2013-09-15, 08:42 AM

Look at what "critical fumbles" do: the better you are, the more you screw up, because apparently skill works backwards. The guy before us already pointed out what the simplest case of critical fumble means: losing two entire rounds' worth of attacking. At the levels you lose that much, wasting 2 rounds is death.

Which is why, in my first post in the thread, I said that any critical fumbles system should be designed so that doesn't happen.

There are two arguments here, I suppose. That critical fumbles are intrinsically a bad idea, and that they're poorly implemented. The first is debatable, and largely a matter of taste, while the second (for reasons already stated) is unarguably true.

Emmerask

2013-09-15, 08:47 AM

In actual combat fumbles are not that rare, you slip on mud or a corpse or hit something wrongly so that you loose grip on your weapon etc.
Only Hollywood´s super stylish choreographed battles have little of that because well it does not look nice...

A lot of the times the 20 peasants training with dummies come up... but that is not really combat, you go through a training routine likely on perfectly even ground that is not slippery against an unmoving target.

However d&d in no way wants to depict reality and is much closer to a movie in all its mechanics so overall I do not really think that fumbles have a place in d&d especially since its pretty onesided against mundane characters.

Andreaz

2013-09-15, 08:50 AM

johnbragg

2013-09-15, 08:51 AM

The only good fumble rule is no fumble rule.

Or at least, a system where players can opt in and opt out of fumbles at character creation. Those that opt in can fumble and enemies can fumble attacking them. Those that opt out neither fumble, nor do NPCs attacking them fumble. The most horrid part of fumble rules is how they're forced on players who often do not want them.

This is always a good principle for GMs to follow. "Not Ravenloft Meatloaf Again!"

First of all, auto-missing on its own is costing you an attack in a fair amount of cases. If you don't believe me, clearly you've never rolled a 1 with your high level fighter on your first attack against a dinosaur/vermin/animal/ooze/etc...

I don't know if I made it clear, but the Mirror Principle says that if you would normally hit on a 1, the Critical Fumble is missing in the first place. I didn't address it, because I haven't experienced many combats with hits mathematically guaranteed.

And having to pick up your weapon potentially screws you out of a LOT of attacks.

Again, the Mirror Principle--for a high-level hasted fighter with 5 attacks per round, "drop your greatsword" is NOT balanced against double or triple damage. Lose next attack, next two attacks--not next five attacks plus taking attacks of opportunity.

Second of all, making crit fumbles worse for people with higher crit multipliers is horrifically awfully horribly stupidly bad. It makes high crit range weapons even MORE better than x3 and x4 weapons (overkilling someone by 50+ hp may be fun, but it's still not actually helpful like consistently doing an extra 30 damage is). It punishes the weapons for their crit features, when typically they've already paid the price for it with lower base damage.

This is true. I shouldn't be contributing to the "Screw Everyone Who Doesn't Use a Longsword" problem.

And most importantly of all... it's just nonsensical and random and unfair. Wait...that's crit fumble rules in general...

Well, I'm trying to make it less so than many people have.

Mando Knight

2013-09-15, 08:53 AM

Serpentine

2013-09-15, 08:54 AM

My rules: If you roll a 1, you miss. Roll again, as an attack. If you would have hit, it's just a boring ol' miss. If you would have missed, something embarrassing and/or with a chance to give you a disadvantage happens. Sometimes I use a crit fumble table, but they're kind of a pain. Sometimes I roll a percentile, or get them to, to get a degree of severity. I always ask the player what sort of thing their character would have been going for, in a flavour sort of way - were they just trying to stab through the middle? Hack the neck? A groin shot? Generally I get the player to decide exactly what happened, and accept their disadvantage or base it on what they say, and often they're a lot harsher than I would have been.
Basically, I play it by ear, depending on the situation and the mood of my players and with their input.

Bhaakon

2013-09-15, 08:57 AM

And out of every twenty pitches or so he swings at, the bat falls out of his hands as he misses the ball, right?

If you read all my my posts in the thread, you'd know that the 1-in-20 fumble mechanic is not one I support.

Though the bat does break with some regularity.

johnbragg

2013-09-15, 08:57 AM

Emmerask

2013-09-15, 08:57 AM

Considering pc classes are way above peasants sometimes from level 1 onwards, I don't see the point in booing "hollywood logic". They're great heroes doing impossible deeds. Automiss is harsh enough. The enemies' actions may be described as exploiting such "fumbles".

See my last point where I actually agree with you :smallwink:

Prince Raven

2013-09-15, 09:01 AM

"you swing your sword/axe/rubber chicken wildy and miss completely, your enemy laughs at your apparent lack of combat skill, take -5 on any intimidation check made against any enemy within five feet for the next 1d4 rounds."

Deophaun

2013-09-15, 09:01 AM

The way to make "Roll a 1, drop your weapon" fun is to play a druid.

(Assume that we've balanced the effects of Critical Success and Critical Failure--i.e., "Critical Success, roll a free attack, Critical Failure, lose your next attack" not "Critical Hit, roll an extra die for damage, Critical Failure, roll to see if you cut off your own head")
Critical hits are not balanced by critical fumbles. the two mechanics have no relation to each other. Critical hits are balanced by both sides being able to critically hit.

And even here, there are problems (as one side is composed of characters that are supposed to stick around, and the other side is composed mainly of characters that aren't expected to survive beyond an encounter)

Con_Brio1993

2013-09-15, 09:02 AM

I think fumble rules are acceptable if the game is intended to be extremely light hearted in tone. If you want people to whack eachother or themselves on a 1, combat shouldn't be deadly. I've had DM's who act like I have control over the dice and shouldn't have rolled a 1 if I didn't want my character to die. Just dumbfounding.

If you are going to do critical failure on skill rolls without confirms, then those rules directly contradict a serious setting. You can't have the PCs be the Three Stooges in a nitty gritty zombie horror game with the fate of the world on the line.

Bhaakon

2013-09-15, 09:03 AM

Looking at this from a politicians' standpoint:

1. Lots of folks hate Critical Fumbles. Whether because CF are always bad, or whether they've been tainted by idiotic Critical Fumble tables is beside the point--lots of folks hate them.
2. I don't think anybody likes them very much. There's an argument that says you need Critical Fumbles to balance Critical Hits, but you could argue just as easily that PC Critical Hits are balanced by NPC Critical Hits.

So are Critical Fumbles worth saving?

I don't know if saving is the right word, since most of the versions of fumbles out there are just terrible. I think they're potentially worth fixing, because something more than a binary "you hit"/"you miss" outcome on a roll can add interest. I don't think that fix is making charts full of increasingly horrible things that happen on every roll of 1, which is the direction most people seem to go.

Segev

2013-09-15, 09:03 AM

I have two different ideas to offer here. They are not particularly designed to work together, but might not be incompatible either.

Suggestion 1: Fumble Rules That Don't Make You "Worse" as You Gain Iteratives"

1s are still automatic misses
If all attacks you make since the end of your last turn come up "1," roll a d20: if it comes up less than your BAB, you have "fumbled."
A "fumble" should be no worse than dropping your weapon. It represents giving an opening to your foes. You have either provoked an AoO, had your weapon slip from your fingers, or broken a bow string or something. It should take no more than a standard action to recover, nor should it do more damage to you than could be done by the enemies who threaten your square. And it should only do one of these things.

Suggestion 2: "Fumbles" are actually something the foe must invest in to exploit.

Create a set of feats or class abilities or skill tricks or Martial Adept Maneuvers (not spells, maybe PsyWarrior list powers) which trigger on the foe rolling a "natural 1." Some may be as simple as a feat that says anybody rolling a natural 1 provokes an AoO. May or may not have Combat Reflexes as a prereq; CR is a feat anybody who takes this one would obviously want, though, unless this feat was only a gateway feat for them.

Martial Adepts don't really have many ranged options, but if you wanted to include some, a Maneuver that allowed a free ranged attack on somebody who rolled a "nat 1" on an attack roll in range might be appropriate.

A feat or psywarrior power that caused the foe, if he rolled a natural 1 when attacking you or a specific person you're defending, to allow you to roll to hit a target of your choice whom HE threatens (including himself, unless it's a Reach weapon that can't threaten adjacent spaces) using your attack bonuses, including any bonuses which might apply for your own mastery with his weapon (but no penalties for nonproficiency). If your roll hits, he rolls damage as if he had hit them using your roll. You may apply Power Attack damage as appropriate if you used the feat to adjust your to-hit roll (you must have the feat; he need not).

Basically, think of the "cool things" you want to happen on a fumble and make feats, feat trees, martial maneuvers, etc. around letting your cool enemies do it to somebody who rolls a "nat 1."

Andreaz

2013-09-15, 09:03 AM

If you read all my my posts in the thread, you'd know that the 1-in-20 fumble mechanic is not one I support.

Though the bat does break with some regularity.

That's why we use +5 adamantine bats :D

prufock

2013-09-15, 09:04 AM

Critical Fumbles really sound like an extension of the 'Guy at the gym' fallacy. Really, the chance of a high-level (3rd+ level) swordsman fumbling should be miniscule.

Not that I disagree, but by means of counterargument, a low-level swordsman should have a miniscule chance of striking a more adept swordsman, yet it will happen 1 in 20 times.

Brookshw

2013-09-15, 09:09 AM

Con_Brio1993

2013-09-15, 09:22 AM

There's an old parable in Japan that translates into "even monkeys fall out of trees" (even an expert makes mistakes). I've walked through my front door thousands of times with no issues, last night I stubbed my toe. The issue isn't that something bad couldn't happen I feel, it's that it happening 5% of the time isn't appropriate (not that this doesn't stop me from house rules that frustrate my players). Further support of the d6 method being more reflective of reality, but then again, in reality you can't roll a high enough balance check to balance on the air.....

I think the issue is you are taking a real life scenario (all people make mistakes!) and are applying it to a fantastical setting where the PCs are supposed be hyper competent. Nobody wants to play as the Three Stooges unless the setting calls for it.

Even worse is that apparently only mundane people make mistakes. A wizard or sorcerer never screws up the complex vocal and somatic requirements for a spell.

skyth

2013-09-15, 09:23 AM

If all attacks you make since the end of your last turn come up "1," roll a d20: if it comes up less than your BAB, you have "fumbled."

so a high-level fighter has a worse chance of fumbling than a low level one?

Under your system, 20th level fighter moves and gets a single attack. He rolls a 1. Well, that's all his attacks since the end of last round...Roll a 1d20...On a 1-19, he fumbles.

A 1st level fighter moves and gets a single attack...He rolls a 1 and possibly fumbles. Roll a 1d20, and on a 0 (IE impossible) he fumbles...

Serpentine

2013-09-15, 09:28 AM

2. I don't think anybody likes them very much. There's an argument that says you need Critical Fumbles to balance Critical Hits, but you could argue just as easily that PC Critical Hits are balanced by NPC Critical Hits.

So are Critical Fumbles worth saving?I, and the main groups I've played with, have liked them just fine. Some of our best stories have come from fumbles.
I don't care about "saving" anything, and outside of drastic imbalance I don't have any truly strong feelings about balance, either. I play what's fun for me and my players.

molten_dragon

2013-09-15, 09:32 AM

awa

2013-09-15, 09:34 AM

in my games i tend to say no fumbles unless your total result is 0 or less.
so a trained fighter in normal situation will never fumble even at level 1. but if he is drunk, not proficient, cursed with unluck thus suffering enough penalties that he can achieve a total score of 0 or less then he fumbles.

StreamOfTheSky

2013-09-15, 09:37 AM

The group I used to play with in college used a critical fumble rule that wasn't awful.

If you rolled a natural 1, you rolled to confirm, and if the confirmation missed too, you fumbled.

If you fumbled, you had two options. Either you lost your next attack (in addition to the auto-miss), or you could make the attack, but you provoked an attack of opportunity from the person you were attacking. Basically the DM explained it as if you fumbled, you had put yourself in a bad position (over-extended yourself, had poor footing for a second, etc.) and you either needed to back off from the attack for a second to fix it, or keep attacking but leave yourself vulnerable.

And that's the most reasonable one posted in here other than the "don't use it!" and my "allow opt outs" options. And it's still awful. Because higher level warriors will still fumble more frequently, and it's still entirely punitive only to martials and not casters, and it punishes non-reach TWF monks heavier while potentially not hurting the optimal build of a 2H reach weapon user at all (foe can't AoO if he's not in reach). But mostly because, yet again, it massively favors spellcasters.

prufock

2013-09-15, 09:40 AM

I think a good principle of design is that the Critical Fumble should mirror the Critical Hit.

If the most a Critical Hit can do is triple damage, then the worst a Critical Fumble should do is cost you two more attacks, calculated very crudely.

So you drop your sword, spend your next action picking it up (one attack), take an attack of opportunity(two attacks). Or draw another weapon for your next action (no AoO), use next action to pick up main weapon (no AoO).

IF you're using a x2 weapon, then the ruling should be something like you've made a serious tactical error, ("he parries your attack effortlessly, strikes (if he hit you) and you barely get your weapon in position before his blade is at your throat") and either take an AC penalty next round or use your action to recover your normal position. So you lose one attack.

If you're playing that Critical Hits only do double damage on a re-roll, the same mechanic should apply for Critical Fumbles.

This is the best suggestion I've seen for fumbles. I think, too, that the chance of fumbling should decrease as you gain levels, so a roll to avoid the fumble should be in place; something like roll d20, if the result is above your BAB, you fumble.

in my games i tend to say no fumbles unless your total result is 0 or less.
so a trained fighter in normal situation will never fumble even at level 1. but if he is drunk, not proficient, cursed with unluck thus suffering enough penalties that he can achieve a total score of 0 or less then he fumbles.

I also like this idea, checks only fumble if they are below 0.

Personally, though, I don't like fumbles at all.

Amphetryon

2013-09-15, 09:40 AM

The only one I've personally seen used without much wailing and gnashing of teeth:

At 1st level only, a roll of 1 followed by a "confirmed miss" on a d20 results in a single opponent getting a single AoO against the Character/Monster who Fumbled, provided the opponent is in a position to take such an AoO and has one available. 1st level here references PC Class level, so disregards LA, but I've never participated in games with LA higher than +2 and so cannot say how this would mesh with high LA creatures. Monsters faced above 1st level did not risk Fumble checks, regardless of their HD.

Brookshw

2013-09-15, 09:42 AM

I think the issue is you are taking a real life scenario (all people make mistakes!) and are applying it to a fantastical setting where the PCs are supposed be hyper competent. Nobody wants to play as the Three Stooges unless the setting calls for it.

Even worse is that apparently only mundane people make mistakes. A wizard or sorcerer never screws up the complex vocal and somatic requirements for a spell.

Well, as to the first the "hyper competent" is an assumed premise not necessarily applicable to a setting, something to be addressed in the context of a campaign between the players and the DM. This does not equate to "Three Stooges" as the only alternative. Straw man fallacy, but I do see your connection with your second point.

As to the second, true, there is no in game mechanic for a caster miscasting when not threatened (well, there is wild magic, UMD scroll fails etc). You could certainly add something in such as a concentration check every time they cast a spell if you wanted to reflect this and balance mundanes and casters having failure chances.

My point is that failing to accomplish something isn't necessarily the problem, it's that the frequency is the issue.

NNescio

2013-09-15, 09:55 AM

Critical Fumble Rule:
If at any time a DM shall propose using a "critical failure" or "fumble" table of any sort in a 3.X game, the players are to beat the DM with folding chairs until each of them has accidentally struck himself with his chair at least once, while keeping a count of the number of strikes made before this happens. Then, the average rate of such "fumbles" as generated by a table full of nerds swinging improvised weapons will establish the maximum probability of a "fumble" within the game mechanics for a level 1 Commoner (note that this already will probably require rolling multiple Natural 1's in succession to confirm a fumble), with the probability dropping by at least an order of magnitude per point of BAB of the attacking character. Thus a full-BAB character at level 20 might have to roll 20+ Natural 1's in a row to before you even bother glancing at the Fumble Table.

I suppose I might consider using fumble rules if full spellcasters had to roll Concentration for every spell they cast ever, and a Natural 1 on that roll had comparable consequences to a Natural 1 on a mundane attack... but really, No. Just no. Not even then.

Best. Fumble. Rules. Ever.

Con_Brio1993

2013-09-15, 09:55 AM

My point is that failing to accomplish something isn't necessarily the problem, it's that the frequency is the issue.

I'd agree that failing to accomplish anything isn't the problem. If you roll a 1 you miss. That is failing to accomplish something. It is in the game's rules.

Roll a 1, miss, and get punished however is not. It is a house rule that serves to punish melee classes even further.

Ninjaxenomorph

2013-09-15, 10:01 AM

What about using a more fluid opt-in system? For example, paizo's crit decks. If the player would like to use the crit deck, he has to use the fumble deck the next time he rolls a 1.

Prince Raven

2013-09-15, 10:03 AM

Best. Fumble. Rules. Ever.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Segev

2013-09-15, 10:07 AM

so a high-level fighter has a worse chance of fumbling than a low level one?

Under your system, 20th level fighter moves and gets a single attack. He rolls a 1. Well, that's all his attacks since the end of last round...Roll a 1d20...On a 1-19, he fumbles.

A 1st level fighter moves and gets a single attack...He rolls a 1 and possibly fumbles. Roll a 1d20, and on a 0 (IE impossible) he fumbles...

Gah, you're right; I meant you fumbled if you rolled higher, not lower, than your BAB. Sorry.

Hecuba

2013-09-15, 10:07 AM

But mostly because, yet again, it massively favors spellcasters.

This bears repeating. I've used fumble rules and enjoyed them before (the cards thing I mentioned before is a variation on a rule one of my tables has been using since 2nd edition). But I cannot recommend them as reasonable or desirable in the context of 3.5 unless you also apply the system to casters.

And it almost goes without saying, but introducing d20 rolls to spell-casting is a nontrivial project.

Morgarion

2013-09-15, 10:07 AM

There's more going on in combat than just a character's individual skill, enough that he'll make mistakes or look foolish doing things that he'd make look easy when not under duress. Think of how much better a professional baseball player looks taking batting practice than facing live pitching in a game (or pick a similar example from your sport of choice).

I know this post was from the previous page, but I was reading the bad houserules thread and I saw the argument about things that are generally easy but difficult under duress. Now I don't watch every game, but I've never seen a player drop his bat on a swing, much less strike himself with it.

StreamOfTheSky

2013-09-15, 10:11 AM

I wholeheartedly agree.

I also agree.

Maginomicon

2013-09-15, 11:07 AM

And it almost goes without saying, but introducing d20 rolls to spell-casting is a nontrivial project.
The Players Roll All The Dice variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm) did it fine (although it wasn't what they were aiming for) in that it replaced saving throw rolls with a "magic check". Ripping the save score / magic check system into its own thing and adding an effect on a Nat 1 on a magic check would do it.

Really though, vastly reducing the odds of a fumble and also vastly diversifying the potential results of a fumble would make it less "cheap" (although it admittedly would require more rolls in the end).

What matters is whether the player has fun with it.

JusticeZero

2013-09-15, 11:15 AM

They're generally awful, but here's one that i've pondered using:

Whenever you do things in a threatened space, like attack, cast a spell, or whatever, you have a 5% chance of incurring an attack of opportunity that can only be used for a combat maneuver. If attacking, your first (and only your first) attack roll doubles as this check.

Gavinfoxx

2013-09-15, 11:19 AM

bekeleven

2013-09-15, 11:30 AM

On the first attack your turn, if you roll a 1, roll to confirm vs the targeted AC. If you miss the target AC, you provoke an attack of opportunity from the enemy you were targeting, provided he threatens you. Characters above level 6 do not cause this provoking.

You've solved the following problems:

Fumbles increase as competence increases.
Career soldiers do things like hit themselves extremely often.

You still have the following issues:

PCs are punished more than their level-appropriate challengers
Martial characters are punished, powerful classes are not

Serpentine

2013-09-15, 11:32 AM

bekeleven

2013-09-15, 11:35 AM

It makes me kinda sad that pretty much all of the "best solutions" to critical fumbles seem to be devoted to making them as boring as possible. I incorporate fumbles because they're interesting and entertaining and add variety; I'm actually not sure why else you would have them. If I had to choose between no fumbles or one-size-fits-all fumbles... Well, I guess I wouldn't necessarily choose no fumbles, but it'd feel like basically the same thing.

If a fumbling mechanic is considered "better" when it does not hurt low-powered classes more than high-powered classes, than the best fumble mechanic is no fumble mechanic.

You will see this reflected in people's discussions on this board.

Con_Brio1993

2013-09-15, 11:39 AM

It makes me kinda sad that pretty much all of the "best solutions" to critical fumbles seem to be devoted to making them as boring as possible. I incorporate fumbles because they're interesting and entertaining and add variety; I'm actually not sure why else you would have them. If I had to choose between no fumbles or one-size-fits-all fumbles... Well, I guess I wouldn't necessarily choose no fumbles, but it'd feel like basically the same thing.

When your DM turns a failed skill check or attack roll into a character death or TPK and then starts you off with a lower level character and significantly less wealth it doesn't add much fun to the game.

paddyfool

2013-09-15, 11:41 AM

Help me make an interesting, usable, serious fumble mechanic.

There's already one out there, in Fantasy Craft. There's two limitations that make it work:

The small thing: You only fumble if you wouldn't have succeeded anyway. This means that if you'll hit by rolling a 1, you autosucceed; hence if a character's sufficiently awesome at something, fumbles simply don't happen unless he's attempting something especially difficult or something is impairing his performance, e.g. trying to do multiple things at once, stress damage, circumstantial penalties etc.

The big thing: Activating a fumble (i.e. an error) is an expensive use of Action Dice, one of the game's more fun resources, compared to many other ways to use them. So a player or GM is only likely to spend their Action Dice on such if it seems like a particularly tactically helpful or fun idea; they won't happen all the time, and when they do, it's almost welcomed by the recipient of the fumble, because it's generally a less harmful use of Action Dice against him/her than if, say, an opponent's critical is activated against him.

Raven777

2013-09-15, 11:45 AM

Right now, mundanes have a model with active offense (Attack rolls, possibility to critically hit or auto miss) trying to overcome a passive defense (Armor Class). Casters work the opposite way, with a passive offense (Spells with static DCs) trying to overcome an active defense (Saving Throws, possibility to auto succeed or auto fail).

Therefore, if we want casters to be subject to the same mechanics as mundanes for miss chances, the simplest solution is to reverse the burden of dice rolling for spell casting. Spell DCs would become dynamic, equal to 1d20 + Stat Modifier + Spell Level, while Saving Throws would become static, equal to 10 + Save Bonus. Casters would now have to aim at overcoming their target's save.

Frankly, now that I think about it, I wonder why this is not how things work by default.

Curmudgeon

2013-09-15, 11:49 AM

About the only thing I'd add to the standard 5% automatic miss is a d20 roll for every spell or Spell-like ability, with a rolled 1 indicating the spell or SLA is wasted with no effect. (Note: spellcasting failure is in addition to a spell which requires an attack roll to hit. They're two different things, each with their own fumble chance.) Why should martial characters have a 5% chance of screwing up every time they use one of their abilities, but spellcasters succeed all the time?

JusticeZero

2013-09-15, 11:51 AM

Honestly, i'd rather do it the other way and make people have to save versus getting hit in the head with an axe, so that people quit saying "you missed".

Deophaun

2013-09-15, 11:54 AM

The Players Roll All The Dice variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm) did it fine (although it wasn't what they were aiming for) in that it replaced saving throw rolls with a "magic check". Ripping the save score / magic check system into its own thing and adding an effect on a Nat 1 on a magic check would do it.
Not really. It doesn't make sense that if you roll a nat 1 on Mook #8 in the area of your fireball that you somehow fumble.

Segev

2013-09-15, 11:56 AM

Another possible way to handle "critical failure" and fumbles is to have d20s be open ended on both sides:

A natural 20 results in rolling again and adding 20 to the roll
A natural 1 results in rolling again and subtracting 20 to the roll
Both persist until neither a natural 1 nor a natural 20 appear on the roll

A "critical success" or auto-success no longer happens. Nor does an automatic failure.

In combat, a critical threat is when you get to re-roll the d20 and add the die. That is, instead of "roll again and add 20," it's "roll again and add the new roll to the old one every time you roll in the threat range of the weapon." You get a "critical hit" (including the crit multiplier) when you exceed the target's AC by at least 20.

You only critically fumble, with whatever rules a crit fumble implies, if, after all modifiers, your total roll is less than 0.

So you'd have to roll a natural "1" and subtract 20 from the re-roll enough times that your bonus to hit is not greater than the penalties you've accumulated.

johnbragg

2013-09-15, 12:06 PM

Not really. It doesn't make sense that if you roll a nat 1 on Mook #8 in the area of your fireball that you somehow fumble.

The idea is that you make one roll, which replaces the saving throw roll of all targets. You roll a 1, the spell itself fails somehow. You roll N, and if N is high enough to beat the mooks' Reflex save, they all get scorched. IF not, not. If the targets are a mix, you could roll right on the sweet spot where you torch the Fighter mook but not the Rogue mook. Or you torch the 6 2nd level orc Barbarians but not the 4th level orc Barbarian leader.

Deophaun

2013-09-15, 12:12 PM

The idea is that you make one roll, which replaces the saving throw roll of all targets.
The idea was already terrible. Now you made it worse!

Serpentine

2013-09-15, 12:14 PM

When your DM turns a failed skill check or attack roll into a character death or TPK and then starts you off with a lower level character and significantly less wealth it doesn't add much fun to the game.So the only options are deadly boring or just plain deadly? Funny, that's not the way it works in my games...
(well, except that one time nearly, but that was the first time I'd ever DMed and none of us knew what we were doing, and anyway everyone thought it was hilarious)

Con_Brio1993

2013-09-15, 12:17 PM

Why do we need fumble rules to even make things fun?

Why not describe characters who miss doing so in a funny way? Or those who fail a skill check do so in a humorous way. It wouldn't have gameplay significance but I feel most people want fumble rules to add more flavor.

So the only options are deadly boring or just plain deadly? Funny, that's not the way it works in my games...
(well, except that one time nearly, but that was the first time I'd ever DMed and none of us knew what we were doing, and anyway everyone thought it was hilarious)

Of course not. It depends on the group. But all too often someone running a dark gritty game feels the need to add fumble rules on attack rolls and sometimes skill checks, and punish players with death or permanent loss of limbs/stats.

If your players don't mind fumble rules then use them. But they seem forced on a lot of players.

Berenger

2013-09-15, 12:20 PM

I'd suggest you go to the Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282471) thread and ask the folks there about "real" / likely ways to botch attacks with the weapons you are talking about.

Serpentine

2013-09-15, 12:23 PM

Why do we need fumble rules to even make things fun?

Why not describe characters who miss doing so in a funny way? Or those who fail a skill check do so in a humorous way. It wouldn't have gameplay significance but I feel most people want fumble rules to add more flavor.That's pretty much the way I do it, and like I said a lot of the time I let my players decide the details, or at least the nature of the fumble. It's pretty rare that it'll be "you drop your weapon" or "you hit your ally" or "you fall over" - more often it's "you overbalance and are vulnerable to attack until your next turn" (-1AC/provoke an AoO) or "you miss and your axe is stuck in the wall; you need to spend a move action to remove it" or "you wrenched your shoulder and can't hit as hard for a few seconds" (-1 next attack). But it's always different and interesting, often decided with input from the player/s, and usually not as bad as what happens to the enemies when they fumble.

Con_Brio1993

2013-09-15, 12:24 PM

That's pretty much the way I do it, and like I said a lot of the time I let my players decide the details, or at least the nature of the fumble. It's pretty rare that it'll be "you drop your weapon" or "you hit your ally" or "you fall over" - more often it's "you overbalance and are vulnerable to attack until your next turn" (-1AC/provoke an AoO) or "you miss and your axe is stuck in the wall; you need to spend a move action to remove it" or "you wrenched your shoulder and can't hit as hard for a few seconds" (-1 next attack). But it's always different and interesting, often decided with input from the player/s, and usually not as bad as what happens to the enemies when they fumble.

What about casters? They are locked out of this.

Anyway you're doing fumble rules right by allowing players input. My last 3 DMs did the "you drop it" "you hit an ally" "you hit yourself" method.

My last DM also almost killed a character because they got a 1 on a fishing check and somehow fished up a dire polar bear that ripped them apart. He used DM fiat to save the party member, and said he was being "merciful."

And while the party member(s) chuckled a bit at the time, the chuckles vanished when they almost died, and then nobody ever bothered trying to roleplay out fishing again. Nobody ever roleplayed out their skills because it was so stupid and deadly.

Serpentine

2013-09-15, 12:36 PM

What about casters? They are locked out of this.Yeah, I'd like to have something similar for casters (although the fumbles do still apply to rays and things), but I'm afraid it'd require a big overhaul. Could you do it with a Spellcraft check, maybe DC being the spell's DC? 'course, then you'd have to decide what happens if you don't make the DC, even if they don't fumble - does it just fizzle? Do you lose that spell, or can you try it again later?
I'd certainly consider putting something like that in place as well, but I'd probably wanna do it in consultation with any players it'd effect.

Tim Proctor

2013-09-15, 12:43 PM

Besides the fact that crit fumble only gimps melee characters and leaves spellcasters alone.

The only really fair way I've every seen it done is the crit fumble, natural 1 and then a failed roll, is to have it provoke attacks of opportunity.

paddyfool

2013-09-15, 12:46 PM

My last DM also almost killed a character because they got a 1 on a fishing check and somehow fished up a dire polar bear that ripped them apart. He used DM fiat to save the party member, and said he was being "merciful."

And while the party member(s) chuckled a bit at the time, the chuckles vanished when they almost died, and then nobody ever bothered trying to roleplay out fishing again. Nobody ever roleplayed out their skills because it was so stupid and deadly.

Using crit fumbles to abuse the DM's position of power over the universe the PCs inhabit and victimise them in petty ways is exactly the wrong way to do things. And I'd suspect the problem here is more the DM than anything else...

Mando Knight

2013-09-15, 01:09 PM

Yeah, I'd like to have something similar for casters (although the fumbles do still apply to rays and things), but I'm afraid it'd require a big overhaul. Could you do it with a Spellcraft check, maybe DC being the spell's DC? 'course, then you'd have to decide what happens if you don't make the DC, even if they don't fumble - does it just fizzle? Do you lose that spell, or can you try it again later?
I'd certainly consider putting something like that in place as well, but I'd probably wanna do it in consultation with any players it'd effect.

Losing the spell probably wouldn't be out of the question, given how strong spells are anyway.

...How about a check of CL+Casting Stat (call it Base Casting Bonus or something), that also sets the DC of the spell's save (if it has one)? And then set the DC to cast a spell that doesn't have a save equal to 10+2*Level?

JusticeZero

2013-09-15, 01:12 PM

Honestly, incurring an AoO that can only be used for maneuvers (bull rush, disarm, trip, etc.) would give you all the chaos you need and make more sense than turning a master swordsman into Larry, Moe, or Curly.

Serpentine

2013-09-15, 01:28 PM

Mando Knight

2013-09-15, 01:42 PM

Hmmm... A check of spell level + caster level + casting stat, sets DC of spell opposed by target's save roll, with the potential to screw it up... Maybe! Not sure about the no-save DC, but that could work (by "level" you mean spell level?).

Spell level. That way, the DC scales slightly slower than what you're rolling against it (since the highest available spell level increases roughly every second caster level, and presumably a spellcaster would invest in the casting stat), meaning that your newest spells are the most unreliable.

I would poach the unlimited cantrips from Pathfinder and likely change the number of available spells/day across the board as well, though (to further limit high-level spells by decreasing the number available per day, but mitigate the chance of failure for the less powerful low-level spells by increasing the number available), and some spells that are much stronger or weaker compared to the rest of that level would likely need to be moved up or down, accordingly...

Another option would be to conflate SR and saving throws into a 4e-like array of static defenses, and force the no-save/SR offensive spells to play along like everything else, and give creatures with existing SR increased spell defenses. But that would be too 4e-ish for some people.

navar100

2013-09-15, 02:15 PM

While rolling to confirm the fumble sounds fair since you also have to roll to confirm the crit, it's still unfair because the confirmation is dependent upon the opponent's AC. The higher the opponent's AC, the more likely you are to fumble. That's fine for rolling to confirm a crit because a crit implies you managed to get by the opponent's defenses just that well. However, why should an opponent's platemail or natural armor mean you screwed up?

If you absolutely must have a critical fumble rule, then the confirmation roll needs to be more fair. I suggest a DC 10 BAB check. You roll adding your BAB for that attack. This means at 9th level fighter will never fumble on his first attack because he has +9 to the roll. However, he can still fumble on his second attack since he'll only have +4. A character who uses two weapons does not suffer a -2 penalty for this confirmation.

Having it be a DC 15 BAB check can also work if you allow bonuses to the roll, such as a weapon's magic enhancement and buffs that provide a bonus to hit that's morale, luck, competence, or insight. A 16th level fighter who rolls a 1 on his fourth attack will have a tough roll, but by that time he should have enough buffs to help. Even if he only has a +4 weapon he has a 50% chance of not fumbling, which isn't bad, and it would have to be his fourth attack specifically where he rolled the 1.

It also makes sense to allow Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus to be added to the roll. For Fighters in Pathfinder, they can add their Weapon Training bonus.

What about using a more fluid opt-in system? For example, paizo's crit decks. If the player would like to use the crit deck, he has to use the fumble deck the next time he rolls a 1.

Oh hell no! I love Pathfinder, but that deck is an abomination that needs to burn in the fires of Hell for eternity plus a year. I kid you not, there's one card in the critical fumble deck where the effect is you critically hit yourself!

skyth

2013-09-15, 02:41 PM

Hmm, how about integrating fumbles into action points.

On a natural 1, you automatically miss. In addition, an enemy who was able to see your failed attack can choose to spend an action point to convert the miss into a fumble. This can have one of the following effects:

The problem is that this affects PC's a lot worse than NPC's...NPC's always have action points available if they need them and since they only are in one encounter ever in their entire life, there is no incentive to save the AP's that they have for later...

Brookshw

2013-09-15, 02:45 PM

Therefore, if we want casters to be subject to the same mechanics as mundanes for miss chances, the simplest solution is to reverse the burden of dice rolling for spell casting. Spell DCs would become dynamic, equal to 1d20 + Stat Modifier + Spell Level, while Saving Throws would become static, equal to 10 + Save Bonus. Casters would now have to aim at overcoming their target's save.

Frankly, now that I think about it, I wonder why this is not how things work by default.

That sounds interesting, might have to float it by my players and test it out next campaign.

Alleine

2013-09-15, 02:56 PM

I think at one point one of the guys in my group brought out critical hit/miss deck. I don't remember it getting used much, but introducing better critical hits alongside with fumbles seems like a fairly good idea. Too often I've seen people complain about fumbles being awful, and there was never a counterpoint of a crit being awesome. I feel like it would go a long way towards making a fumble system better because it stops being a wholly negative thing.

Also I'm pretty sure one of the critical hit cards said something along the lines of "Target suffers decapitation and death" and made me wonder how many creatures aside from a hydra could get decapitated and not die.

Hecuba

2013-09-15, 03:14 PM

Losing the spell probably wouldn't be out of the question, given how strong spells are anyway.

...How about a check of CL+Casting Stat (call it Base Casting Bonus or something), that also sets the DC of the spell's save (if it has one)? And then set the DC to cast a spell that doesn't have a save equal to 10+2*Level?

I would avoid using Caster Level -- it's too easy to pump.

Base Casting Bonus would be good though. You could probably merge concentration into it.

Quick brainstorm:

Presume a wizard as an example. 1 BCB per wizard level.

To cast a spell successfully (with no concentration levels), you would need your Casting roll to be greater than the Spell Difficulty.

Instead of requiring a separate concentration roll, concentration modifiers instead modify the casting roll. The concentration skill is removed.

Casting Roll= BCB + Casting Stat Bonus + D20
Spell Difficulty = 5+ 3*Spell Level
Auto Pass on a 20 (shouldn't come up without significant debuffs). Auto Fail on a 1 (loose spell).

Allows introduction of the crit and fumble mechanics, which is the point, but is beyond the scope of this draft

Thus, presuming level 1 and Int of 18, our example wizard fails:

The check to cast level 0 Spells only on a roll of 1
The check to cast level 1 Spells on a roll between 1 and 3

And at level 17 with an Int of 34, our example wizard fails:

The check to cast level 9 Spells on a roll between 1 and 3
The check to cast spells of lower level on a 1

Notes:

I think the 3x multiplier is sound, but the base 5 to the difficulty may need to be higher.
Potentially, higher base but increase casting time by 1 action step to make the casting easier?
Aside - Potentially, higher Difficulty for metamagic instead of higher slots. Would require a modifier high enough to prevent the roll from being trivialized.

Scow2

2013-09-15, 03:25 PM

First off, "PCs crit-fail more often than NPCs" is only true on an individual level. Collectively, the side (NPCs or PCs) that makes more attacks on average in any given combat crit-fails more often than the other. The individual in question doesn't matter as much.

To make critical failures work, you need to have Critical Confirmation: You have to miss a second roll.

The strength of a Critical Hit is usually that of an extra attack. This should be reflected in the strength of a Critical Fail - Give the enemy a free attack by provoking an AoO.

I don't like "Critical fumble" tables, unless you add "Critical hit" tables as well. Or, allow Critical Hits to forgo a multiplier of damage to instead attempt a trip, disarm, or sunder attempt (With no reaction), and allow a Crit Fail's AoO to attempt one of those instead (Adding a third layer of confirmation)

Doug Lampert

2013-09-15, 04:04 PM

I know this post was from the previous page, but I was reading the bad houserules thread and I saw the argument about things that are generally easy but difficult under duress. Now I don't watch every game, but I've never seen a player drop his bat on a swing, much less strike himself with it.

I've seen both, I'd guess someone losing the grip on the bat happens a bit less than once a game on average, hitting yourself is much rarer but a player can lose his grip with one hand and the bat swing around and hit him in the back, typically pretty weakly (i.e., no actual damage in D&D terms).

I don't think ANYONE in the entire history of organized baseball has ever managed to injure himself by hitting himself with the bat while attempting to swing at a pitch.

But throwing the bat away does happen.

There are roughly 200-300 swings in a baseball game.

So in a really high stress situation, where letting go of the bat costs NOTHING but embarrassment and possibly the cost of the bat if it goes into the stands and thus little or no effort is made to avoid throwing bats away and where the bat handle isn't actually a very good grip we can MAYBE justify a second roll of "1" (not a miss, two ones in a row) as a dropped or thrown weapon.

Note that this should probably only apply if you are MAX power attacking or have a BAB of 0. Because they genuinely NEVER drop the bat on a bunt attempt or anything but swinging for the fences.

Big Fau

2013-09-15, 04:20 PM

I prefer the idea of having Fumbling being a class feature of the Fighter (that is enemies attacking the Fighter have a fumble chance, not the Fighter himself).

tadkins

2013-09-15, 04:48 PM

Your sword flies out of your hand, and the blade lands into the ground nearby, which starts to shake. A chasm is torn in the earth and none other than Orcus himself rises from the ground.

How's that for a critical fumble?

Hiro Protagonest

2013-09-15, 04:52 PM

Only one "good" thing has ever come out of fumble rules. (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sameo)

gr8artist

2013-09-15, 07:26 PM

Good. Freaking. God.

I know some of you like to go off on tangents, but this really got out of hand.
First off, thanks to Serpentine and the others who defended fumbles as an interesting houserule, and who actively tried to develop a good fumble mechanic.
Secondly, to ALL of you who ranted and raved, mocked the idea, complained about how it doesn't hurt casters, etc... Please stop. I didn't ask, and it has no real place here. I know that this has no impact on casters. Magic is its own problem, to be handled elsewhere.
If you think fumbles are a bad idea, then stay away.
If you think fumbles are an interesting idea, but need work, then please contribute.
If you think you have an excellent fumble houserule, please share.
I don't want to turn my group into the three stooges, but I want there to be more dynamic action in combat, than two armored warriors slamming into each other and trading blows until one drops.
I bolded my request on the first post because I knew people would get in a hissy fit and not read the whole post. What part of "Please help me make this" was complicated? I wasn't looking for people to tell me about how stupid the versions they'd used have been. My first post pointed out that most people didn't like them.
Geez.

Anyway, from the responses I can remember (3 pages in a day was a lot of info) the best suggestions have had fumble confirmation rolls. This makes sense. Also, you can't fumble on a mathematically infallible hit. Not as much sense, but still solid. Fumbles should not consist entirely of dropping your weapon. As others have pointed out, implementing such a system needs to affect casters as well. We'll get to that later, but for now assume that we'll have a group whose damage and competitiveness comes primarily from fighters and rogues. Here's what I'm thinking...

The fumble rule: If you make an attack roll or skill check which you have the possibility of failing, and the die results in a natural 1, then you have threatened a fumble. Roll your attack or check again as a fumble confirmation, with all the same bonuses. If this confirmation also fails, then your check resulted in a critical fumble. If the confirmation succeeds, then your check is only a failure.
If you critically fumble, you may make a Reflex save to lessen its effects. If your save succeeds (DC to be determined), then you take only a -2 penalty on AC and all attacks and checks until the start of your next turn. If your save fails, then you suffer a more severe event, in the flavor of the action you were performing. (Attacks would result in dropped weapons or AoO's, skill checks would result in damaged tools, etc.)

At first glance, it's too much rolling. Perhaps instead of a Reflex save, you could get the same result by splitting the confirmation result into two portions. If your confirmation also fails but is greater than half the DC, then you suffer the minor penalty. If your confirmation fails and is less than half the DC, then you suffer the major penalty. What about that?

TL, TSTR: I don't want people screaming about how critical fumbles are so mechanically terrible. My group likes them and wants to use them, but they need more flavor and balance. I would like assistance in making a homebrew rule that appropriately uses the idea of a critical fumble.

Con_Brio1993

2013-09-15, 07:41 PM

"More balance" makes no sense for critical fumbles which are inherently and objectively imbalanced. If your group has fun with them that is great. If you can find a way to make them even more fun for your group then good. But you won't be making them more balanced. Even if you somehow make it equal between mundane and spellcasters, all it does is increase the likelihood of player death.

If you want flavor why don't you just describe something flavorfully and then not give it any mechanical substance? I dunno if it is DnD thing, but like every DnD DM I ever met hated this concept. "You want to play a character who uses giant scissors? Sorry we can't just flavor your sword as a pair of giant scissors. You'll be using an improvised weapon with 1d2 damage."

JusticeZero

2013-09-15, 08:03 PM

The fumble rule:
Honestly, I would replace all those confirmations and whatnot with incurring one attack of opportunity by your target that can only be used for a maneuver (trip, disarm, etc.). Also, only on the first attack. You keep the unpredictable crazy stuff going on, and there is a confirmation - the maneuver might not hit/succeed.

Tvtyrant

2013-09-15, 08:29 PM

I usually have the fumble still benefit the party in some way. Sudden Maximize shocking grasp attack by our Duskblade misses on a 1? The opponent still takes half-damage from the electricity running up their legs (makes no sense but neither does wasting their big daily.)

Mando Knight

2013-09-15, 08:37 PM

I know some of you like to go off on tangents, but this really got out of hand.
First off, thanks to Serpentine and the others who defended fumbles as an interesting houserule, and who actively tried to develop a good fumble mechanic.
Secondly, to ALL of you who ranted and raved, mocked the idea, complained about how it doesn't hurt casters, etc... Please stop. I didn't ask, and it has no real place here. I know that this has no impact on casters. Magic is its own problem, to be handled elsewhere.
On the contrary, the problems with magic are intertwined with the problems with critical fumble rules. I firmly believe that the only way to introduce a "good" fumble mechanic is to do so without making it an asymmetric choice: if playing in a game with a fumble mechanic that only affects weapon users, the obvious workaround is to use the classes that never need to use a weapon anyway. This would be an alright choice if there was some major advantage that weapon-using classes had over non-weapon classes (and would thus be lost by not choosing a weapon-using class), but the problem here is that the strength of the non-weapon classes exceeds that of most weapon-using classes already. Introducing a weapons-only critical fumble mechanic in 3.X, no matter how "interesting," weakens already-weaker classes, which will further discourage players from playing characters that use the mechanic.

In short, if one attempts to add a critical fumble rule without addressing spells, they only further encourage the use of classes that make the added rule irrelevant.

Soupz

2013-09-15, 09:17 PM

I'm not in favor of them, but it comes up and players usually want to fall on their asses for no reason and if I fancy it I let them.

This comic came to mind.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/12/29

TuggyNE

2013-09-15, 10:52 PM

If you think fumbles are a bad idea, then stay away.
If you think fumbles are an interesting idea, but need work, then please contribute.
If you think you have an excellent fumble houserule, please share.
I don't want to turn my group into the three stooges, but I want there to be more dynamic action in combat, than two armored warriors slamming into each other and trading blows until one drops.

How about if we share the same desire (more dynamic action in combat), but consider fumbles a poor way to implement that goal?

AttilaTheGeek's project seems to me a far more interesting way to accomplish this desire.

Gavinfoxx

2013-09-15, 11:19 PM

How about if we share the same desire (more dynamic action in combat), but consider fumbles a poor way to implement that goal?

AttilaTheGeek's project seems to me a far more interesting way to accomplish this desire.

If I were you, I would download Codex Martialis rather than try and approach it from fumbles:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/65250/Codex-Martialis-Set-%5BBUNDLE%5D

ericp65

2013-09-16, 12:18 AM

I've always enjoyed the % table from an old Dragon mag article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" (sorry, the issue # escapes me). Most results for me have been "Slip: roll vs. DEX or lose your balance" in addition to losing that attack for the round. Long ago, a DM I knew ruled that a critical miss meant you lost all your remaining attacks for that round, which is a steep penalty IMHO.

What really sucks is when your best knightly character critically misses an attacker as he's keeping watch over the camp, and his own weapon ends up cutting a party member's larynx (happened with one of my characters once).

Gavinfoxx

2013-09-16, 01:12 AM

Jon_Dahl

2013-09-16, 01:23 AM

I have a fumble table (1d100 for different sorts of weapons) which I have used extensively for ninety-nine D&D sessions. No complaints from my players.

Unfortunately they are not in English, and it would take forever to translate them. To summarise: You drop your weapon or slip most of the time. I'm also a football fan, so I have added things that can happen to professional top-level athletes, such as muscle strains and leg cramps. Do you have any idea how much those hurt? :(

Some fumbles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXDY8bmnSck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdFP-R_LYSM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2609345.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLvwocKtt8Q

Everything that you just saw is possible in my game. And I love it.

Vizzerdrix

2013-09-16, 02:04 AM

My house rule for fumbles is you take the damage yourself (Damage is rolled before the attack roll). I also insist that casting spells also requires a D20 roll that can Crit fail (but can't Crit succeed). If the failed spell normally deals no damage, you take spell level number of D6 damage instead.

Juntao112

2013-09-16, 04:09 AM

My house rule for fumbles is you take the damage yourself (Damage is rolled before the attack roll).

I want to make a character whose entire schtick is that he is the worlds best tank. He fights with no weapons and waits for the enemies to kill themselves with their own armaments.

Emmerask

2013-09-16, 04:40 AM

I think most of the time the wording for a fumble is just poorly done.

You dont just lose grip on the weapon for no reason whatsoever,
the enemy parrys in such a way that the resulting shock numbs your arm and you lose your weapon.

You dont just fall on the ground for no reason,
you swing your sword in a huge arc but the enemy manages to sidestep your attack which leaves you unbalanced which the enemy uses to his advantage to knock you over.

etc

You could also give the target of the fumbled attempt a choice what should happen, in the last case for example he could chose to:
a) knock him over
b) get a free attack

Vizzerdrix

2013-09-16, 05:05 AM

the worst fumble rules I've ever had to endure was auto breaking whatever you attacked with. +5 weapon? Busted. Adamantine weapon? Same. You fist or a bite attack. You get the idea.

Serpentine

2013-09-16, 06:13 AM

Perseus

2013-09-16, 06:24 AM

Here is a good critical fumble rule:

If you roll a 1 on an attack roll or saving throw, you fail.

Anything else is awful and badwrongfun.

See even this is stupid. Why should mundanes that have trained for years always have a 5% chance of auto failing ?

The mental image alone is enough to make me chuckle.

Critical fumbles can have a negative impact but should not mean autofail. I've seen people miss step before a slam dunk and yet still pull the dunk off.

My rules are usually something like this...

Level 1 - 10 = -10 to attack roll.

Level 11 - 20 = -5 to attacks roll.

Sometimes we play these penalties against the single attack roll it was on or all the attack rolls for the turn.

Even with the -10 our level 10 fighter can kill a low cr creature without to much of a problem. This also shows a sense of growth for the characters skill.

*edit: about the only action star/fantasy hero that has ever crit failed and wasn't a side character would have to be Jackie Chan but that was more for the fact that his movies were comedies too. I do t know anyone else off the top of my head in fantasy/fiction that ever had crit fumbles who wasn't a bumbling idiot. Jet li and Bruce Lee certainly didn't fumble... Jon Claus Van Dam (sp?) didn't fumble. Critical fumbles are an attempt to bring realism into melee/ranged abilities in a game where the characters shouldn't be bound by that much realism.

Or are you saying that 5% of the time King Arthur should totally miss a straw dummy when swinging at it? Or that the Green Arrow will miss automatically 5% of the time.

Hell 5% of the time Batman misses with his bathook thing... Well let's just say the justice league needs a new broody guy...

Berenger

2013-09-16, 09:52 AM

See even this is stupid. Why should mundanes that have trained for years always have a 5% chance of auto failing ?

The mental image alone is enough to make me chuckle.

So... you'd rather have two mundanes that have trained for years have a 100% chance of seriously wounding or killing each other in the first 6 seconds of any given duel? You have no idea of bullet-to-kill-ratios, do you?

Prince Raven

2013-09-16, 10:06 AM

So... you'd rather have two mundanes that have trained for years have a 100% chance of heavily wounding or killing each other in the first 6 seconds of a duel?

Are both of them unarmoured and can't dodge? Then yes, that's actually pretty realistic.

Mando Knight

2013-09-16, 11:19 AM

Mm, I wouldn't have any really lasting damage, like broken equipment, for anything less than a really, REALLY bad fumble - like, two or three 1s in a row, that sort of thing.
I'd also have things like falling over or dropping your weapon be fairly rare events. I actually find it kind of strange how many people seem to default to those possibilities first, rather than just minor disadvantages like a lost partial action, or a momentary minor AC or attack penalty.

If, for example, the fumble chart had a hundred entries, I'd put 01-95 as relatively minor disadvantages, up to needing to soak a single, immediate OA. Then 96-00 would reference another table... this one where some things can go wrong, including the worst roll of them all, "roll once each on major and minor fumble tables, add" on a 00. Because as much as I dislike critical fumbles punishing you for making iterative attacks, such a wacky result only has a 0.0025% chance of showing up.

Of course, NPCs would be forced to use the fumble charts. Possibly rolling d20+80 instead of d%.

Juntao112

2013-09-16, 12:09 PM

So... you'd rather have two mundanes that have trained for years have a 100% chance of seriously wounding or killing each other in the first 6 seconds of any given duel? You have no idea of bullet-to-kill-ratios, do you?

That depends. Is one of them Andrew Jackson?

gr8artist

2013-09-16, 12:59 PM

The auto-miss of a natural 1 is there to prevent stagnate back and forth trading of blows. Logistically, it shouldn't even be necessary, but it's possible that with some amount of metagaming, one could get their bonuses high enough to auto-succeed. There are a lot of things that go into a fight: stress, fatigue, making mistakes, bad footing... DnD doesn't really account for most of this except with the 5% miss chance. In reality, it would probably be more realistic to make a combat skill check every round to manage footing and grip. The fumble doesn't represent clumsiness on the attacker's part, it represents the stress of combat and the defenses of his enemies.
Why would a few points of weapon damage be bad? Most weapons have a couple dozen hit points, and rarely take damage otherwise.
I feel like swinging a sword at a training dummy shouldn't require an attack roll; it would likely fall into some kind of taking 10 rule.
And while I understand that implementing a houserule that hurts mundanes without addressing the overbearing power of mages is USUALLY a bad idea, I maintain that the two problems are separate issues to be resolved separately. Magic causes serious problems, and it's possible that a similar system can be introduced for that, but we're not talking about magic here. We're talking about critical fumbles, specifically the ones that occur on attack rolls.
Action movie heroes are poor parallels, because Jackie Chan and Jean Claude Van Damme are the best warriors in their worlds. PC's are not. When an action movie hero takes down a room full of mooks, he does so easily because he's the hero and they're no match for him. This is rarely the case with DnD. PC's are average warriors in their worlds, frequently outclassed by the extraordinary things they fight. Even action movie heroes falter and make mistakes in the face of dragons.

On the subject of fumbles:

Obviously bad fumbles: Automatically breaking your weapon, hurting yourself or an ally.
Fumbles to avoid: Automatically disarming the attacker, tripping and falling over, losing iterative attacks.
I like the idea of provoking AoO's, which could be used to disarm or trip, when the attacker places himself in a bad position. Penalties and lost lesser actions also seem solid. In essense, rolling a fumble shouldn't outright hurt you, but should inconvenience you.

Serpentine

2013-09-16, 01:46 PM

If, for example, the fumble chart had a hundred entries, I'd put 01-95 as relatively minor disadvantages, up to needing to soak a single, immediate OA. Then 96-00 would reference another table... this one where some things can go wrong, including the worst roll of them all, "roll once each on major and minor fumble tables, add" on a 00. Because as much as I dislike critical fumbles punishing you for making iterative attacks, such a wacky result only has a 0.0025% chance of showing up.

Of course, NPCs would be forced to use the fumble charts. Possibly rolling d20+80 instead of d%.In a class recently I started fiddling with a fumble table that had a very, very small chance of Pulling a Homer - succeeding despite gross incompetence :smallbiggrin:
Most/about half the options are just embarrassing misses, most of the rest are minor setbacks (greater vulnerability to trip or disarm attempts)... Wait, I found it!
Keep in mind that this is an extremely rough draft that I sketched out when I was bored during a class, and that for the most part I prefer my "let the players have input" method:

If roll n1 on attack, roll to confirm - add attack bonus to second roll; if would hit, is just a miss. If would miss, roll on table. If roll a second n1, roll twice [on table] and add together.

1-40 Embarrassing miss
41-68 Humiliating miss
69-73 Distracted - on AoO
74-78 Off-balance - -1AC vs next attack or until next turn
79-83 Thrown - -1 to next attack
84-88 Stumble -vulnerable to Trip
89-91 Fall - prone
92-94 Blinded - flat-footed vs. next attack or til next turn
95-97 Mishap - spend move action to fix before next attack
98-99 Pull a muscle - -1 attack til end of encounter
100 Pull a Homer - succeed despite ineptitude.
101-155 Confused - injures self
156-198 Wild - risks attacking random other w/in range @ -5 attack, minding(? Can't read my own handwriting...)
199-200 Pull an epic Homer

Obviously I'd have more if I were doing it properly, but you get the idea

Emmerask

2013-09-16, 01:52 PM

Or are you saying that 5% of the time King Arthur should totally miss a straw dummy when swinging at it? Or that the Green Arrow will miss automatically 5% of the time.

Hell 5% of the time Batman misses with his bathook thing... Well let's just say the justice league needs a new broody guy...

Well firstly straw dummy training does in no way display the chaotic battlefield where one mistake can kill you.

Sports also are in no way an apt representation of a battle, you play on perfectly even ground, no one wants to actually kill you and even there you see fumbles from time to time, imagine how it will be on the chaotic field of battle where the other guy tries to kill you...

However as I said d&d wants more then anything to depict superhero gameplay and for that fumbles would seem kind of off even though they are more realistic then no fumbles (yes even for highly trained professionals though 5% is a bit much ^^).

ericp65

2013-09-16, 01:53 PM

Yea, how about no, hmmm? That would be cause for me to leave the game, using a table like that, unless we are playing paranoia or something...

Perhaps the worst was "Hit self, double damage" *L*

Gavinfoxx

2013-09-16, 01:57 PM

Perhaps the worst was "Hit self, double damage" *L*

Yea, I would ask the gm, 'This prevents me from playing a character is so awesome that he can make lots of attacks, or whose attacks do more individual damage than I have hit points. It prevents me from playing a badass. Why at all is this even remotely a good thing? Why are you punishing melee or archery badasses?'

and for that fumbles would seem kind of off even though they are more realistic then no fumbles (yes even for highly trained professionals though 5% is a bit much ^^).

That... depends...

http://www.thearma.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24395

Emmerask

2013-09-16, 02:08 PM

That... depends...

http://www.thearma.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24395

Well the question is very specific about self injuries, which yes they might be rare but not impossible, I was more talking about stuff like falling (due to obstacles, slippery ground) or losing your weapon (hitting something wrongly, sweat on your hands or blood etc).

Tim Proctor

2013-09-16, 02:21 PM

Well the question is very specific about self injuries, which yes they might be rare but not impossible, I was more talking about stuff like falling (due to obstacles, slippery ground) or losing your weapon (hitting something wrongly, sweat on your hands or blood etc).

If the 5% is to add in an element of variance, I'd probably consider it a 'Parry' or a 'loosened bowstring' or something that nullifies the attack but also hinders them slightly with the weapon and the provocation of an AoO the most suited.

The issue lets say with a lvl 20 Ranger or 20 Duelist with a whole bunch of attacks rolling 10 dice is going to give a 50% chance of there being a natural 1, from there with a confirmation for fumble lets say 25%, then once every 36 seconds in a heated battle the guy is shooting himself in the foot. To have it provoke an AoO least penalized the characters as well as makes the more realistic sense.

I guarantee (having been there done that, but look up statistics too) that in the heat of battle today 5% of the fighters don't accidently shoot themselves or their friends. The gun jams and they have to rack the weapon. The accidents hitting your friends/self are so very very few and far between that I would maybe leave that for 10 natural 1s. I'm sure there is a heisenberg's uncertainty calculator somewhere on the web that can calculate the sort of thing, but with dice it'd be really hard to do.

Soupz

2013-09-16, 07:19 PM

Tim Proctor

2013-09-16, 07:22 PM

What are the current bullet to kill ratios? 250,000 bullets to each one dead Taliban seems like overkill.

Well the issue is the Taliban guys have an AC of 10, the Army pigs have a BAB of 0, and with cover and range it they have to roll a natural 20. Luckily Marines have a BAB of +15 and thus 1 shot 1 kill.

Don't let the mundanes (Army) confuse you with the epic levels (Marines).

Hiro Protagonest

2013-09-16, 07:28 PM

Well the issue is the Taliban guys have an AC of 10, the Army pigs have a BAB of 0, and with cover and range it they have to roll a natural 20. Luckily Marines have a BAB of +15 and thus 1 shot 1 kill.

Don't let the mundanes (Army) confuse you with the epic levels (Marines).

Seems legit.

navar100

2013-09-16, 11:17 PM

To be fair,

there are fumbles,

then there are fumbles in sports.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxBEHWFYzbM

Totema

2013-09-16, 11:25 PM

I like to have rolls to confirm a critical fumble, like you would for a critical hit but in reverse. If their confirmation roll does not exceed the target's AC, then something spectacularly wrong happens to the attacker, such as overextending their arm. If it does, then the attacker simply misses. I think this keeps players from going insane while still preserving the idea of what it means to fumble. There's no confirmation roll for a save or skill check fumble, as there's none for a nat 20 on a save or skill check.

Of course, going by RAW, then all that happens is a miss. But that's hardly dramatic, don't you think?

JusticeZero

2013-09-16, 11:31 PM

What are the current bullet to kill ratios? 250,000 bullets to each one dead Taliban seems like overkill.
Bullets don't need to hit to do their jobs. If you tell a lot of troops "Attack every square over there and see if you hit something with concealment", they will throw a lot of ammo and not hit much - but that one rogue in square 8x14 is going to hate life when one of those attacks connect. Likewise, if the enemies stay under cover because of all the fire instead of attacking, the bullets have again done a good job.

paddyfool

2013-09-17, 01:51 AM

There's already one out there, in Fantasy Craft. There's two limitations that make it work:

The small thing: You only fumble if you wouldn't have succeeded anyway. This means that if you'll hit by rolling a 1, you autosucceed; hence if a character's sufficiently awesome at something, fumbles simply don't happen unless he's attempting something especially difficult or something is impairing his performance, e.g. trying to do multiple things at once, stress damage, circumstantial penalties etc.

The big thing: Activating a fumble (i.e. an error) is an expensive use of Action Dice, one of the game's more fun resources, compared to many other ways to use them. So a player or GM is only likely to spend their Action Dice on such if it seems like a particularly tactically helpful or fun idea; they won't happen all the time, and when they do, it's almost welcomed by the recipient of the fumble, because it's generally a less harmful use of Action Dice against him/her than if, say, an opponent's critical is activated against him.

Reading some more of the thread, it probably also helps that spellcasting (usually) requires a skill check, and so can also fumble. (There are sources of spellcasting that don't need a skill check, but they tend to be very limited).

Emmerask

2013-09-17, 05:36 AM

While I completely agree that especially for guns 5% is way to much, close combat melee fights are a rather different beast and a direct comparison is pretty much impossible imo.

Though 5% is also too much for melee combatants (or the 2% for confirmation), well it should be modified for external conditions actually.
During rain, on muddy ground with corpses all around you in the midst of a chaotic battle yes 2% might even be accurate.
During perfect conditions 1/1000 maybe?

lesser_minion

2013-09-17, 06:19 AM

If a fumbling mechanic is considered "better" when it does not hurt low-powered classes more than high-powered classes, than the best fumble mechanic is no fumble mechanic.

When assessing single houserules, you can't reasonably complain about them exacerbating known issues with the game. Not only is it quite possible that those issues simply don't manifest themselves at the table in question; but it's also possible that there are other houserules that mitigate them.

And I thought the goal of this thread was to figure out what it would take to make critical fumble rules fun and interesting; which means that any other part of the game can be changed if necessary.