Good fumble rules

[martixy]

As another very popular thread is discussing right now - I also hate (badly written) fumble rules.

So I attempted to come up with good fumble rules, but I can't be sure how well they'd interact ingame, therefore a little public discussion is in order.

First of all, I am of the opinion that if there are fumble rules in play, there should be critical success rules as well, but their nature is beside the point for this discussion.

In any case, here's my variation:
* Fumble rules: A critical fail is confirmed against a DC10 Ability check based on which ability you used to modify to hit. A confirmed fail results in a d6 roll for the effect.
- 1: Drop weapon.
- 2: Throw weapon to adjacent square.
- 3: Slip up(flatfooted until the beginning of your next turn).
- 4: Swing/Shoot into adjacent square. Any creatures in that square are considered concealed and flat-footed against this attack(roll to determine if more than 1 creature).
- 5: Lose all remaining actions for the round.
- 6: Opponent gains immediate free grapple/trip attempt, no AoO allowed.

* Magic fumbles(In effect for caster/manifester level checks): Roll a concentration check of DC 13 + 2*Level of spell cast/power manifested.
- 1: 50% Chance a spell will fail if it has a somatic or verbal component.
- 2: All variable effects minimized.
- 3: Caster loses spell slots of total level equal to one lower than the level of spell being cast.
- 4: Spell is reflected/redirected into adjacent square.
- 5: Lose all remaining actions for the round.
- 6: Caster suffers half the effect of spell(roll normally, then divide by 2 and round down, caster suffers this effect, creature suffers the rest).
The design points being:
1. The fumbles should be confirmed, just as normal crits are. [It's D&D, dice are fun to roll.]
2. They should be ability dependant, so as not to penalize multi-attack characters. A character who optimizes to-hit will therefore minimize his changes of fumbling. Possibly even to 0 at higher levels with a +10 ability mod, which is doable when you stack multiple bonuses, which you want to anyway because this is your main attack stat. [A core design tenet of D&D is that advancing in the game minimizes the impact of the dice on performance. Preserve that.]
3. The consequences of fumbling should be simple and not excessively horrible. [KISS - Keep it simple, stupid is a design pattern that one should always aspire to follow. Failing should also have real tactical, but recoverable consequences.]
4. For the magic, it allows for even low SR/PR (even 1) to have some interesting effects on the game. [It makes the game both more interesting and adds an additional balance element to high-tier classes.]

Any input welcome.

[OldTrees1]

The design points being:
1. The fumbles should be confirmed, just as normal crits are.
2. They should be ability dependant, so as not to penalize multi-attack characters. A character who optimizes to-hit will therefore minimize his changes of fumbling. Possibly even to 0 at higher levels with a +10 ability mod, which is doable when you stack multiple bonuses, which you want to anyway because this is your main attack stat.
3. The consequences of fumbling should be simple and not excessively horrible.
4. For the magic, it allows for even low SR/PR (even 1) to have some interesting effects on the game.

Any input welcome.

1) Ok
2) Multi-attack characters are penalties by the frequency of nat 1s. This does not address that in a correlated manner and thus is an incomplete fix. TWF(and all forms of rapid shot/flurry) is penalized relative to THF. Furthermore this scales with ability modifiers which does not scale with BAB(source of attacks) so low level high stat monsters would have an advantage over high BAB PCs with normal(for PCs) abilities.
3) mundane #1, #2, #5, and sometimes #4 and magic #5 all are excessive in my opinion.

[Crake]

I think you'll find the general consensus on these boards is good fumble rules are no fumble rules.

[Lorddenorstrus]

I think you'll find the general consensus on these boards is good fumble rules are no fumble rules.

Yeah. Frankly the spellcasting failure one is a god damn shocker for me though. I mean is it really that necessary to have some random chance of screwing up on something that you can't optimize around? I mean that's kinda a design point... It sounds like most of the people in favor of that are playing the wrong game.

I mean one of the bigger cruxes of the game I would say is Character design. Unless your group is super casual (Example, not knowing to take natural spell on a druid. Thinks fighters are amazing because they can attack all day.) Or another way to word it is EXTREMELY LOW bar for Practical Optimization. You're going to have a lot of people designing around existing problems. I need X / Y etc to make my idea function.. but other things make that not function as well gotta get rid of those..

So design being a huge thing... having all of your effort mitigated by a simple d20 roll on a consistent basis... D&D is intended as a HIGH power fantasy world. Power level comparison I would think what a 6-8th level melee like a warblade or something is on par with Captain America? (I could be wrong on that estimate) Point being you get a hell of a lot stronger than that. How often do we see characters from respective universes, LOTR etc continue listing blah blah. Consistently failing in the listed manners. throw their weapon away by "accident" or snap a bow string from an expert archer like Legolas. Oh wait.. THEY DON'T. The game is NOT Slapstick humor. Your characters ARE SUPPOSED to be on par with those heroes and as such simply DO NOT screw up like that.

[martixy]

I realize it's kind of incongruous to compare something that relies of BAB vs something that relies on stats.

I kind of like that progression - starting from a 50% confirm chance and dropping it slowly to lower digits.
I also like the idea of not auto-failing on another nat1.

But this is kind of PC-centric since it will have the most impact on the PCs.
So while you do bring a valid point for monsters, I wonder how relevant it'd turn out to be.

As for excessive, the ones you listed are basically about stumbling so much that you lose actions correcting the situation. I kind of wanted something that modifies the action economy independent of the party. Especially since they have the upper hand in that department most of the time anyway. This is part of the reason why it's possible to tackle single high-CR monsters effectively.


Yeah. Frankly the spellcasting failure one is a god damn shocker for me though. I mean is it really that necessary to have some random chance of screwing up on something that you can't optimize around? I mean that's kinda a design point... It sounds like most of the people in favor of that are playing the wrong game.

How can you not optimize around it?
Get your conc check high enough and you're pretty much safe. Especially given the fact that you don't fail it on a nat1.

[jiriku]

As mentioned, your system still offers melee characters a higher fumble rate than spellcasters. It should not do this.

For melee 4, I see no reason why the defender should be flat-footed. For that matter, I see no reason why the "wild swing" should use the attack bonus of the attacker. A wild swing by an expert warrior is not "better aimed" than a wild swing by a novice, because in both cases, the wielder has by definition lost control of the weapon and is not using his skill and expertise to guide its path. If anything, the reverse should be true and an expert should be more able to retrieve a weapon before it does harm to an unintended target. You also need to specify a method for determining which adjacent square is targeted that takes into account how creatures of differing sizes have differing numbers of adjacent squares.

If a magic fumble is triggered by rolling a 1 on a caster level check, then effects 1, 2, and 6 are problematical. If you are rolling a caster level check, you are typically making a contested roll, in which case your natural 1 almost certainly means the spell fails. Thus, effects like 50% chance of failure, minimum effect, and 50% effect on target are meaningless. A good fumble table should not produce effects that are frequently irrelevant. Effect 2 is meaningless if the spell has no variable effects. Effect 6 is likewise difficult to adjudicate. For example, how does the caster suffer 50% of his own spell if the spell was charm person? Effect 4 produces no effect if the spell is targeted and the adjacent square is empty.

Overall, this feels like you haven't taken the time to consider how these effects interact with the myriad possible situations in a typical combat. That's what makes a fumble table so difficult -- it needs to work consistently for every character against every opponent in every situation, and should neither favor nor disfavor characters on the basis of anything other than their skill and experience. You run into similar problems when you try to make critical hit tables. I think you'll want to take this one back to the drawing board.

[martixy]

Not all the things have to be relevant all the time. For example having natural weapons invalidates 1 and 2 martial fumbles(which is fine).

The martial(not just melee), are easy to justify.

It's quite conceivable for you to swing is such a way that you need to spend precious seconds righting your stance, hence being flat-footed.

As for the wild swing, that's why the target is concealed and flat-footed against your attack. As for a better aimed wild swing by an expert, it's about abstraction. The same kind of abstraction that makes higher-strength characters hit better.
If you can justify being stronger making you hit more precisely, you can justify this.


But, damn... you do bring up a valid point for the magic version.
Do any other types of CL Checks exist besides these 2:
Overcoming SR/PR
Dispel
?

I'd welcome any ideas on that front.

[Karl Aegis]

Well, that is certainly an interesting way to increase character turnover. These fumble rules are bad enough that if one character fumbled once they would be booted from the party immediately. I don't want a character that is capable of dropping their weapon in the middle of combat or misfiring a spell in my party. Reliable party members mean we all live longer, a fumbler is a liability.

[Venger]

there is no such thing as a good fumble rule. all this does is punish the weakest characters, those who roll dice (mundies) and reward the strongest (casters) further widening the gap between the two. don't do it. just read the standard arguments against fumbles, there's no reason to rehash them, since you've already looked at the other thread (and presumably those like it)

[Ashtagon]

Has anyone tried running this rule through the practice dummy test?

Spoilered below is the best fumble rule i have seen yet:

none

[Venger]

Has anyone tried running this rule through the practice dummy test?

They tried: they died




Spoilered below is the best fumble rule i have seen yet:

none

wow, did you think of that all on your own? if it's all right with you, I'd like to use that in all the games I run from now on. it'll really add a lot of pep to my ravenloft game if I don't have my players randomly chopping their own heads off as they accrue more levels.

[eggynack]

As was discussed in the other thread, the best fumble rules are likely an upside mechanic, where characters that roll especially poorly have the option to incur some possibly mysterious or possibly randomized problem in exchange for an action point or bonus or some new type of point or something. That way, characters who would typically be damaged by the inclusion of fumbles, which tend to be at the bottom of the power curve, would increase their power instead of decreasing it. Alternatively, you could include non-optional fumbles which have as much upside as they have downside, if not more upside. I suggested splitting it 80/20 in favor of downside, with the upside outcomes being much larger to compensate. Finally, there's the option I always suggest, which is skipping out on mechanics altogether, and just coming up with especially creative and magical ways to miss on a critical fumble.

[jiriku]

The martial(not just melee), are easy to justify.

You and I differ as to whether those explanations are satisfying. In particular, why am I flat-footed against my ally's wild swing? If he suddenly betrayed me and attacked me on purpose, I wouldn't be flat-footed. Why does his incompetence catch me off guard when his betrayal wouldn't?


But, damn... you do bring up a valid point for the magic version.
Do any other types of CL Checks exist besides these 2:
Overcoming SR/PR, Dispel? I'd welcome any ideas on that front.

It even worse than it looks. Consider a wizard who casts fireball on a close-packed group of ten mind flayers for ten rounds in a row, and a second wizard who casts solid fog on that same group for ten rounds. The first wizard will make five fumble confirmation checks per minute. The second wizard will make none.

Suppose a dervish activates dervish dance and attacks them, making ten attacks per round for ten rounds. A second fighter, a mounted charger, charges them for ten rounds, making one charge attack per round. The first fighter makes five fumble confirmation checks per minute. The second fighter makes 0.5 per minute.

Compare the wizard and the fighter. The wizard's fumble confirmation check is a skill check against a DC that scales with level. The fighter's check is an ability check against a non-scaling DC. I get that you want to incorporate the idea that high-level spells are more difficult to pull off than low-level spells. But why is every swing of the sword equally difficult? Many of my friends are martial artists, and they're always talking about how this move or that move is particularly hard or particularly easy.

[Flickerdart]

If you must have fumble rules, they need to follow these guidelines:

The rules must be FAIR. That means that they must not punish people who attack 20 times per round over people who never attack at all.
The rules must be SENSIBLE. That means you can't kill yourself just by hitting a practice dummy.
The rules must be FUN. They need to add something to the game that makes you do more than just groan and curse when you fumble.
The rules must be NON-ARBITRARY. They have to create situations that fit into the story rather than switch from heroic fantasy to slapstick.
The rules must MATTER. If your fumble rules happen every 10,000 turns, they're a waste of paper. If they inflict -1 to farting for a round, they're a waste of paper.


As such, I propose this framework for fumble rules:

Once per encounter, the players (collectively) and the DM can each declare a Gamble at the start of any creature's turn, and roll a d20, modified by the following attributes of the creature in question:

+ one half CR/ECL: PCs and NPCs use their level. Monsters use their ECL. Minions or cohorts of any stripe use the level of their "owner" if one is not available for them (such as a druid's animal companion with bonus hit dice). Round down.
-1: Cumulative penalty for other, identical creatures in the encounter. In a fight against 10 ninjas, every ninja takes -9.
-2: No name. If the character is called "orc" or "farmer" by everyone, including the DM.
-5: Temporary creatures such as astral constructs or summoned monsters. This counts creatures with indefinite duration such as zombies created by animate dead, but not permanent allies such as a paladin's special mount that are still creatures without the influence of spells.


Modifiers cannot reduce the roll to a negative value. Thus, the Gamble ranges from +30 (for 20th level characters who roll a 20) to 0, and non-important guys have lower numbers.

The Gamble should include a gradient from results like "everyone gets a free AoO" at 0 to "the creature is invigorated, healing 1HP/HD" at 20 and perhaps something spectacular like "the creature may take an additional turn after this one" at 30.

The idea here is that this is fair (it affects everyone equally), sensible (heroes are better at having things go right for them), fun (nobody knows whether a Gamble will be good or bad), non-arbitrary (this happens when someone feels it is appropriate for this to happen, rather than at random), and it matters (because the penalties and benefits can be quite large indeed).

I don't really feel like writing up a table for this, and it should really be one that fits your own table's game style anyway. In more grim games, a Gamble might be mostly negative, and both player and DM will use it to inflict penalties upon especially successful foes. In heroic games, a Gamble might be mostly positive, used to make characters do cool stunts they're not normally able to do. The point is that it must range from good to bad.

[eggynack]

I like the idea, but I kinda dislike the fact that it's so non-random. By my understanding, a lot of the appeal of fumbles is that they can come out of nowhere and change things. Having people declare that a fumble is possibly about to happen defeats the purpose to some extent. A rule which has constant declarations occurring all the time, or declarations that there won't be declarations, also seems like it'd eat away at game time somewhat. Honestly, it sounds like gamble rules would be potentially good for a game, and the modifiers listed sound good, but they don't sound like fumble rules at all.

I still think the asserted "interesting times" variant is the ideal fumble rule as a result. They're fair, as power level is actually inversely proportional to how often you get fumble opportunities (attacking twenty times should actually be rewarded, rather than treated identically to not attacking all that much, for balance improving reasons). They're sensible, because their voluntary nature allows characters to not incur fumbles against training dummies, though here might be the biggest problem with the rule set, as actively pulling in criticals to accrue points could be a way to break this (I'd propose making there need to be a threat of some scale before you can call upon the rule). They're fun, because you get to make decisions and give your character extra personality. They're seemingly non-arbitrary, because the DM can make the threats suit the situation. And, finally, they presumably matter, as both the bonus and penalty are likely sizable.

[martixy]

I like the idea, but I kinda dislike the fact that it's so non-random. By my understanding, a lot of the appeal of fumbles is that they can come out of nowhere and change things. Having people declare that a fumble is possibly about to happen defeats the purpose to some extent. A rule which has constant declarations occurring all the time, or declarations that there won't be declarations, also seems like it'd eat away at game time somewhat. Honestly, it sounds like gamble rules would be potentially good for a game, and the modifiers listed sound good, but they don't sound like fumble rules at all.

I still think the asserted "interesting times" variant is the ideal fumble rule as a result. They're fair, as power level is actually inversely proportional to how often you get fumble opportunities (attacking twenty times should actually be rewarded, rather than treated identically to not attacking all that much, for balance improving reasons). They're sensible, because their voluntary nature allows characters to not incur fumbles against training dummies, though here might be the biggest problem with the rule set, as actively pulling in criticals to accrue points could be a way to break this (I'd propose making there need to be a threat of some scale before you can call upon the rule). They're fun, because you get to make decisions and give your character extra personality. They're seemingly non-arbitrary, because the DM can make the threats suit the situation. And, finally, they presumably matter, as both the bonus and penalty are likely sizable.

Agreed.

And might wanna elaborate on that "interesting times" variant.

[eggynack]

Agreed.

And might wanna elaborate on that "interesting times" variant.
Same one I mentioned before, and I don't have much elaboration beyond that. Someone mentioned that a different game system has a good fumble system of that sort. Essentially, whenever a character rolls a natural one, and presumably confirms the miss (though the exact mechanics could be changed to reflect the fact that the confirmation is positive), said character has the option to make things interesting in exchange for some kinda point, which would likely be action points because those are already a part of the game.

Said interesting thing could be some roll on a fumble table, but apparently the other system has the DM choose what goes wrong for the player based on context. Perhaps the fighter hits the floor with his sword and creates a hole which he partially falls through, or maybe he throws his weapon so its blade is embedded in a wall, or maybe his battle shout alerts some nearby guards. I kinda prefer that way, and the potential capriciousness of the DM is made up for by the fact that using the rule is fully optional.

So, casters get relatively little benefit, as they tend to melee with summoned creatures that don't throw back action points to their summoners, and if they do melee personally, I don't see a problem with that situation. Melee folk that make few big attacks get a bigger benefit, because they're always running up and stabbing folks. And, finally, melee folk that hit all the time get the biggest benefit, and they tend to be pretty far down on the sorting algorithm of power. As for the aforementioned confirmation roll, maybe just call it a 1/4th chance for now, though there are a lot of ways to do it, and you could apply some modifiers. I don't necessarily like the idea of powerful characters losing touch with their reckless fumbling side, so straight confirmation isn't great, but that might actually make some sense as high level folk would be less likely to screw up.

[DrMartin]

I have (simple) fumbles in my game, but they don't apply to any character with BAB 6 or greater. It fixes the problem with the experienced fighter fumbling more often than a commoner, by saying that the experienced fighter just does not fumble anymore.
It still doesn't solve the issue that two-weapon fighters are more prone to fumbles than ravin' mad THW-power attackers though.

[Sith_Happens]

Best fumble rule:


A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss.

[Barstro]

Were I to use fumbles (which I do not), it would be as follows;

1) Only the first attack roll of the round can be a fumble. Iterative 1s do not do anything.
2) There would be a small number of possible effects (I like the d6 idea previously posted, if not all the options)
3) Effects would be minimal
a. -2 on next single attack (upcoming iterative would count for that)
b. -2 AC for next single attack
c. auto-hit ally (must be in melee with enemy for a ranged attack or in weapon range of PC for melee attack, damage is limited to base damage of weapon (NdX), not any bonuses.
d. Vision obscured to 20 feet (sweat in eyes)
e. Something about a concentration check...

If the roll doesn't really effect the attacker (Concentration check on melee), too bad; attacker got lucky.

I think the above; 1) treats everyone fairly, 2) cannot cause someone to die from a practice dummy, 3) does not cause immediate death, 4) adds a little bit of "fun" or "drama", 5) doesn't take too much time.

[OldTrees1]

Why do people always critique fumble tables in isolation? Why are fumble tables ever considered in isolation? Even Flickerdart's Gamble rules include more than just fumbles(high rolls are positive results).

Currently nat 1s miss, nat 20s hit, and there is a chance for a damage mutiplier.

Has anyone considered good "criticals (fails and hits) are qualitatively different" rules as a solution for Fumbles for the people that want Fumbles?

Example:

Each attack* has a fumble range and a threat range. When the natural roll falls in one of these zones the player makes a confirmation check**. Looking up the result of the confirmation check on a table will determine which effect happens***. Now this example would not address every concern with fumbles(for example it does not address the PC/NPC frequency/impact imbalance) but it seems to address many of them.****

*Having it per attack is necessary for verisimilitude but introduces a problem that will need to be corrected later.
**The check would be something like 1d20+BAB+Ability+C per previous attack this round. (C would be some balanced integer. Maybe 2?)
***Proper results on a table for both fails and threats would take more time to think of but we know from the first note that there should not be anything that losses further attacks/actions. This means no dropping/throwing of weapons and no losing actions/ending turn. Things that might appear are provoking AoOs or becoming flatfooted for fails and inflicting nausea or pushing the target for threats.
****Hitting a practice dummy does not take an attack roll unless it is actually capable of countering your attacks.

[Jormengand]

****Hitting a practice dummy does not take an attack roll unless it is actually capable of countering your attacks.

Well, either you have everyone who picks up a bow become able to hit a dummy at 1100 feet, or you have to make ranged attack rolls to shoot it. And dropping your bow, hitting yourself with the arrow, etc. (in this case, dropping it, throwing it in an adjacent square, slipping up, or suddenly being unable to walk - provoking you would do anyway and missing into an adjacent square actually makes sense) are just as bad as doing the same with your sword in terms of how stupid they make you look.

[OldTrees1]

{scrubbed}

[Flickerdart]

Trying to get around the "practice dummy suicide" heuristic by making special rules about that scenario is kind of missing the point of the heuristic in the first place.

[DigoDragon]

The local group I used to game with Loved crit fumbles. Crazy accidents approaching Hackmaster levels of disaster. Maybe they just liked the challenge, I dunno. Then again, when I was GM I used to fumble for the bad guys a lot more than the players and since fumble rules applied to NPCs too... it sort of still favored the PCs. :smallbiggrin:

One campaign that I played in, the GM had a simple crit fumble rule: If you crit fumble, the next opponent to attempt an attack against you gets a +2 circumstantial bonus to hit. Once an attempt is made or your next turn comes up, the penalty ends. Also, it doesn't stack with itself so that rolling multiple 1s in a single turn didn't do anything terrible. I liked that one as it was a pretty soft penalty.

[OldTrees1]

Trying to get around the "practice dummy suicide" heuristic by making special rules about that scenario is kind of missing the point of the heuristic in the first place.

The point of the practice dummy heuristic is that nat 1s are silly against a practice dummy with or without fumble rules.
The point of the army committing suicide heuristic is that fumbles should not kill you. (and my example excludes suicide for the same reason it excludes dropping a weapon)

[Barstro]

Trying to get around the "practice dummy suicide" heuristic by making special rules about that scenario is kind of missing the point of the heuristic in the first place.

Well, some low HD character trying to use a morningstar on a dummy could kill himself, but that's an unlikely outlier to the rule.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Critical hits and critical fumbles aren't in opposition. The balance to your ability to crit is your opponent's ability to crit.

That being said, I like melee fumble #6 (free grapple/trip) attempt. It's not stupid-slapstick, it's not spitefully crippling, it doesn't seem wildly out of character for a skilled combatant, and-- best of all-- it's controllable. That is to say, it's still an unexpected turn in the fight, but it uses rolls that you can (and possibly have) already optimized, things that you'll naturally get better at as your level increases. I'd play a game with that fumble, possibly opening it up to any combat maneuver. Ideally, I'd pair it with the opposite effect on a crit (you get to make a free combat maneuver of some sort).

Oh, and I'd limit fumbles to 1/round. That alone alleviates the more-BAB=more-failure issue.

[Shackel]

Disregarding the usual vehement hatred(save it for the other thread, people, it's obvious this one isn't meant for it), throwing your weapon away sounds a lot more painful than, say, the damage a critical hit does. It also feels kind of strange that it doesn't matter how good your to-hit is, it all comes down to that ability, meaning that training(what one would think would matter in averting a catastrophic failure) means nothing, and I'd recommend making it much like a critical hit. After all, I think a fresh, +25 something to-hit blow would have a far less chance of failure than a tired, forced-out +5.

I toss my two cents for an "interesting times"-style fumble system. Hit but something bad happens, usually around the same negative consequences of getting hit yourself. It could be put in simple addition to yours.

[OldTrees1]

Critical hits and critical fumbles aren't in opposition. The balance to your ability to crit is your opponent's ability to crit.

1) When you have a multidimensional balance puzzle, opposition is no longer transitive.
Your ability to fail <-> Your ability to crit
Your ability to fail <-> Their ability to fail
Your ability to crit <-> Their ability to crit
Their ability to fail <-> Their ability to crit

2) I said critical hit tables and fumbles. I was not pairing fumbles with the existing "confirm for a damage multiplier" critical hits. The critical hits damage multiplier already has enough balance partners.

[Barstro]

That being said, I like melee fumble #6 (free grapple/trip) attempt. It's not stupid-slapstick, it's not spitefully crippling, it doesn't seem wildly out of character for a skilled combatant, and-- best of all-- it's controllable.

That can be spitefully crippling to a caster, though. Sure, those smug bastards deserve it, but still...

[Curmudgeon]

The only "fumble" rule I use is to make spellcasters have the same chance of failure as non-casters.
Every spell has a chance of failure during casting. If a 20th level Fighter attacking a straw training dummy misses 5% of all swings, the minimum chance of failure to cast any spell is also going to be 5%. This is separate from Arcane Spell Failure.

When a Fighter gets additional swings, the chances of missing in a round increase, and so should the chances of a Cleric/Druid/Wizard failing to cast a spell. The formula for spellcasting success is 19/20 = 95% for spell levels which are available to those primary spellcasters at class levels 1-5, (19/20)^2 = 90% for spells which first become available at class levels 6-10, (19/20)^3 = 86% for spells which first become available at levels 11-15, and (19/20)^4 = 81% for spells which are only available at levels 16+. That leads to the table below. When attempting to cast a spell, roll percentile dice; the spell is not cast if you fail to roll the required success percentage or less:

spell level 0-3: 95% success rate
spell level 4-5: 90%
spell level 6-8: 86%
spell level 9+: 81%

Note that the spell isn't wasted; the Fighter doesn't lose their sword when they fail to hit, and the spellcaster doesn't lose their spell when they fail to cast it on the above table; the cost is purely in the actions. Using items of spell completion (scrolls) or spell trigger (wands or staffs) is considered spellcasting (per the Dungeon Master's Guide), so roll to see if you succeed for those also. Activation of those items with Use Magic Device follows the same rule; if you don't succeed on the percentile roll then there's simply no result. Consuming potions isn't considered spellcasting, so they work as normal.

[martixy]

The only "fumble" rule I use is to make spellcasters have the same chance of failure as non-casters.
Every spell has a chance of failure during casting. If a 20th level Fighter attacking a straw training dummy misses 5% of all swings, the minimum chance of failure to cast any spell is also going to be 5%. This is separate from Arcane Spell Failure.

When a Fighter gets additional swings, the chances of missing in a round increase, and so should the chances of a Cleric/Druid/Wizard failing to cast a spell. The formula for spellcasting success is 19/20 = 95% for spell levels which are available to those primary spellcasters at class levels 1-5, (19/20)^2 = 90% for spells which first become available at class levels 6-10, (19/20)^3 = 86% for spells which first become available at levels 11-15, and (19/20)^4 = 81% for spells which are only available at levels 16+. That leads to the table below. When attempting to cast a spell, roll percentile dice; the spell is not cast if you fail to roll the required success percentage or less:

spell level 0-3: 95% success rate
spell level 4-5: 90%
spell level 6-8: 86%
spell level 9+: 81%

Note that the spell isn't wasted; the Fighter doesn't lose their sword when they fail to hit, and the spellcaster doesn't lose their spell when they fail to cast it on the above table; the cost is purely in the actions. Using items of spell completion (scrolls) or spell trigger (wands or staffs) is considered spellcasting (per the Dungeon Master's Guide), so roll to see if you succeed for those also. Activation of those items with Use Magic Device follows the same rule; if you don't succeed on the percentile roll then there's simply no result. Consuming potions isn't considered spellcasting, so they work as normal.

I actually really like that idea. Simple, consistent, non-crippling. Though I'd make it a d20 roll. At least it'd be easier for real-life rolls. Unless you specifically like rolling dice, which is your prerogative.

[Talakeal]

The rules must be NON-ARBITRARY. They have to create situations that fit into the story rather than switch from heroic fantasy to slapstick.
.

Could you elaborate on this point? I find that the DM's ability to narrate the effects of a fumble to suite the mood of the scene to be a vital component of any good fumble system, and I can't tell if you are saying the same thing, the opposite, or something else entirely.

[dextercorvia]

The only "fumble" rule I use is to make spellcasters have the same chance of failure as non-casters.
Every spell has a chance of failure during casting. If a 20th level Fighter attacking a straw training dummy misses 5% of all swings, the minimum chance of failure to cast any spell is also going to be 5%. This is separate from Arcane Spell Failure.

When a Fighter gets additional swings, the chances of missing in a round increase, and so should the chances of a Cleric/Druid/Wizard failing to cast a spell. The formula for spellcasting success is 19/20 = 95% for spell levels which are available to those primary spellcasters at class levels 1-5, (19/20)^2 = 90% for spells which first become available at class levels 6-10, (19/20)^3 = 86% for spells which first become available at levels 11-15, and (19/20)^4 = 81% for spells which are only available at levels 16+. That leads to the table below. When attempting to cast a spell, roll percentile dice; the spell is not cast if you fail to roll the required success percentage or less:

spell level 0-3: 95% success rate
spell level 4-5: 90%
spell level 6-8: 86%
spell level 9+: 81%

Note that the spell isn't wasted; the Fighter doesn't lose their sword when they fail to hit, and the spellcaster doesn't lose their spell when they fail to cast it on the above table; the cost is purely in the actions. Using items of spell completion (scrolls) or spell trigger (wands or staffs) is considered spellcasting (per the Dungeon Master's Guide), so roll to see if you succeed for those also. Activation of those items with Use Magic Device follows the same rule; if you don't succeed on the percentile roll then there's simply no result. Consuming potions isn't considered spellcasting, so they work as normal.

You've balanced a martial characters extra chances at losing a portion of their rounds actions with an increased chance of the spellcaster losing their entire round's action.

Over 100 rounds, a stock level 20 martial character will attack 400 times, and miss 20 of those times, losing 5 full rounds' worth of actions. A spellcaster will cast (neglecting quickened spells) 100 spells. If they are of the highest level available, then the caster will lose 19 of those spells, corresponding to 19 full rounds of missed actions. The martial character's ratio does not get worse if # of attacks is optimized hire, he still only loses 5% of his rounds, and then seldom all at once. A caster who uses swift action spells to compensate, will still lose 19 rounds of actions out of 100.

I'm afraid you've gone the other way.

[Hiro Quester]

I'm playing a druid7/monk1 right now, making at least four attacks on a full attack round (in leopard wildshape). My DM uses fumble rules (if you roll a 1 on attack roll, then confirm the fumble by missing on another attempt on that attack).

His rule is that a fumble invalidates all other attacks that round too. So in addition to missing that attack, I miss all other attacks that round, and I have a (often kind of severe) further injury. Last night's game I "sprained" something, and took 2 points of Dex damage. Also would have fumbled On another attack that same encounter, but the effect let me make a fort save to avoid and I made the save.

I'd like to protest that these fumble rules penalize those who try for secondary attacks, TWF, and wildshape natural attacks, in which the strategy is many attacks each with little chance of succeeding, but hoping that dome few succeed.

Given that he likes using fumble rules, I'm better off trying to at least try to convince him that missing on a subsequent attack (at same to-hit) to confirm the fumble is unfair and counterintuitive. You should get better at avoiding fumbles as you progress, but gaining iterative attacks makes it more likely you will confirm a fumble on your second or third attack.

How to make the confirm condition more fair? Would making the confirm-fumble be an attack as though it was your primary attack, be a more fair way to confirm fumbles, if you have to have them in the game?

[The Evil DM]

I don't like - Roll a 1, you fumble. I agree with most that 1 in 20 is far too frequent. Even roll a 1 and confirm with a second miss gives far to high a frequency of negative events.

However,

I also believe that no matter how good one gets at something there is always a remote chance of something going wrong. Down here in Tucson there are nearly 1000 rock climbing routes in the nearby mountains. A few years back an expert climber was working his way up a 75 foot cliff - free climbing. The guy was an expert, had done this particular route dozens of times.

Well on this day something tragic happened. The entire cliff face fell off the mountain and landed on him. A block of rock 20 or so feet wide, 75 feet high and about 10 feet thick released from the face of the mountain and fell backwards onto this guy.

My "Fumble" system isn't so much about fumbles rather its more about acts of extreme fate.

So - if you roll a 1 on a d20 (for anything, skill checks attacks whatever) its auto miss. But I say roll again.

If you roll a second 1, I ask you to roll a third time. (1 in 400 here)

If you get anything other than a third 1 well then something very minor occurs, -1 to hit on your next attempt at an attack roll. maybe -2 on a skill check if you are rolling again.

But on the event of the third 1 I ask, roll again. (1 in 8000 here)

If you get anything other than a one on this roll something a little worse than minor occurs, but nothing severely detrimental.

But if you get a fourth 1 I ask to roll again (1 in 160,000 here)

If you get anything other than a fifth 1, I have several tables moderate things that can occur depending on the situation. Usually I pick a few appropriate responses and then randomly select from them.

If you get the fifth 1, I have a table of bad things. (1 in 3,200,000 here)

If you get to the sixth 1, I have a table of nasty fatal things. (1 in 64,000,000)

I have seen 6 ones in a row on d20 twice in 40 years of gaming.

[OldTrees1]

How to make the confirm condition more fair? Would making the confirm-fumble be an attack as though it was your primary attack, be a more fair way to confirm fumbles, if you have to have them in the game?

Well the simple naive answer is to have a BAB check. This makes it so that your iteriatives have the same chance of failing as your first attack & having high BAB decreases your chance of fumbling in spite of gaining more attacks.

But as I said, that is the naive answer. The sophisticated answer would also fix TWF, Flurry, Haste, and Natural Attacks. A crude attempt would be to gain a bonus of +2(arbitrarily chosen) per previous attack that round when you make a fumble check.

[Curmudgeon]

You've balanced a martial characters extra chances at losing a portion of their rounds actions with an increased chance of the spellcaster losing their entire round's action.
So you're assuming every spellcaster can only cast a 1-round spell? Usually it's more like a swift action spell, a standard action spell, and a move action. And the percentage chance of wasting the action is dependent on the strength of the spell, so lower-level spells are less likely to be deferred.

I'm afraid you've gone the other way.
While I dispute that, would it be such a bad thing? We all know spellcasters dominate the game at high levels. Having them occasionally take an extra action to cast a spell just gives non-spellcasters more time to shine.

[razorback]

From the other thread

My group of friends from grade school up grew up more on Rolemaster/MERPS than 1st and 2nd Ed (at the time), though we did play them. In the 3.x games I run I've ported over the RM carts.
That being said, for combat I run fumbles like criticals (which I have remade the RM charts for, too). You have to confirm. If you roll a 1 on the original roll, you confirm on (20 - BAB) on D100 with a second 1 always being a fumble. Not too complicated, even for the math challenged. So, after the fumble threat, a 19th+ fighter will have a 1% chance while the 1st level wizard will have a 20% chance of a true fumble on the confirmation.

I train with weapons multiple times a week. Escrima sticks, regular staves, knives, and swords every week along with nunchucks, wooden swords, ropes, small sticks, etc for years and mistakes happen.

At my table, once people get used to the difference, everyone likes it. No one has died directly from it and it adds another level of drama, suspense and excitement. And my players for the most part, when they DM, have adopted it because they think it is fun while they play. If it weren't, we would have discarded it years ago. We agree before any new game begins.
With the bold being a bit of a clarification.



The only "fumble" rule I use is to make spellcasters have the same chance of failure as non-casters.
Every spell has a chance of failure during casting. If a 20th level Fighter attacking a straw training dummy misses 5% of all swings, the minimum chance of failure to cast any spell is also going to be 5%. This is separate from Arcane Spell Failure.

When a Fighter gets additional swings, the chances of missing in a round increase, and so should the chances of a Cleric/Druid/Wizard failing to cast a spell. The formula for spellcasting success is 19/20 = 95% for spell levels which are available to those primary spellcasters at class levels 1-5, (19/20)^2 = 90% for spells which first become available at class levels 6-10, (19/20)^3 = 86% for spells which first become available at levels 11-15, and (19/20)^4 = 81% for spells which are only available at levels 16+. That leads to the table below. When attempting to cast a spell, roll percentile dice; the spell is not cast if you fail to roll the required success percentage or less:

spell level 0-3: 95% success rate
spell level 4-5: 90%
spell level 6-8: 86%
spell level 9+: 81%

Note that the spell isn't wasted; the Fighter doesn't lose their sword when they fail to hit, and the spellcaster doesn't lose their spell when they fail to cast it on the above table; the cost is purely in the actions. Using items of spell completion (scrolls) or spell trigger (wands or staffs) is considered spellcasting (per the Dungeon Master's Guide), so roll to see if you succeed for those also. Activation of those items with Use Magic Device follows the same rule; if you don't succeed on the percentile roll then there's simply no result. Consuming potions isn't considered spellcasting, so they work as normal.

I like aspects of this and my borrow and/or adapt in our game, with everyone's approval.

So, to elaborate. I think that fumbles should be decided by the group as a whole. If not everyone buys in, then you shouldn't use them. We use RM charts that have been modified to use 3.X terms rather than RM terms. Come up with a chart that everyone can agree upon.

Most people don't like fumbles. I get that. Not everyone wants high adventure. Some of want something resembling what we would imagine what would happen with 'realism' thrown in. Yes, I realize we are talking about a make believe game where wizards destroy gods, mundanes carrying as much as our normal military personel do and still run faster 100m dashes faster than the best olympians. But, adversity, whether external or self-inflicted by circumstances, feels great when overcome.
To take Alfred slightly out of context -

Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.

And, we eliminated any autokills if there were any on the charts from RM. I'd have to go back and check.

As far as the dummy test, I wouldn't run that as combat but more of a skill test because it's not active combat, nothing is swinging back at you, although the argument could be made that this is no different than someone who has chopped wood all their life and, one day, missed and ended up with a chunk of metal sticking out of their foot and/or leg.

[atemu1234]

Has anyone tried running this rule through the practice dummy test?

Spoilered below is the best fumble rule i have seen yet:

none

Oh, you cheeky little... :smallbiggrin:.

[Curmudgeon]

I actually really like that idea. Simple, consistent, non-crippling. Though I'd make it a d20 roll. At least it'd be easier for real-life rolls. Unless you specifically like rolling dice, which is your prerogative.
Oh, I'm perfectly happy for the players to use a d20 instead of percentile dice; I just didn't want any complaints that I was imposing a 20% failure chance when the math says it should only be 19%.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

- 1: Drop weapon.
- 2: Throw weapon to adjacent square.
- 3: Slip up(flatfooted until the beginning of your next turn).
- 4: Swing/Shoot into adjacent square. Any creatures in that square are considered concealed and flat-footed against this attack(roll to determine if more than 1 creature).
- 5: Lose all remaining actions for the round.
- 6: Opponent gains immediate free grapple/trip attempt, no AoO allowed.

#1, #2, #4, and #5 are all major issues. In my opinion Fumbles, if implemented, should not unduly inconvenience the attacker.

I'd prefer something like the following, if I was forced to implement a Fumble system:

1: Opponent may attempt to Disarm you as an Immediate Action.
2: Opponent may attempt to Trip you as an Immediate Action.
3: Opponent may attempt to Grapple you as an Immediate Action.
4: Opponent gets an Attack of Opportunity against you.
5: All adjacent opponents OTHER than your target get an Attack of Opportunity against you.
6: You are flat-footed for the next attack made against you.

There's no auto-lose: the opponent gets a free action to do things, but still must be able to reliably beat you (or hit you) with those things. You won't throw your sword away when fighting a training dummy, but a skilled opponent might take advantage of your recovery to knock your weapon aside. These rules also give power to your OPPONENT, making it more fun for the PCs when the MONSTERS fumble, rather than seeing small penalties applied to them.

[dextercorvia]

While I dispute that, would it be such a bad thing? We all know spellcasters dominate the game at high levels. Having them occasionally take an extra action to cast a spell just gives non-spellcasters more time to shine.

I would like to see the reasoning behind the dispute. I posted fairly clear math that shows that your increased failure rates for spellcasters means they lose more actions than an equal leveled martial character regardless of how many attacks or spells are used each round.

As to the 'would it be so bad', I think Grod's law would apply here. Balancing bad mechanics (spellcasting being inherently better than attacking) by making them more annoying to use is not the answer. I would argue that this makes it more likely that spellcasters will do their thing outside of combat, where there is no impact to losing the action. I can see spellcasters moving toward either minion abuse or buffing up and outshining the less magical martial characters.

[Curmudgeon]

I would like to see the reasoning behind the dispute. I posted fairly clear math ...
Your math ignores quickened spells, immediate spells, and swift spells. That's rubbish unless you're proposing to ban casting more than once per round.

[SinsI]

Bad things should happen to characters only in two cases:
1) they made some risky decision
2) antagonists did something to them

Fumbles are neither.
The only "fumble" rules mentioned in the top thread worth considering are the ones where the character is given a choice to accept something bad bad from the random fumble table but in exchange gets an additional reward (i.e. Action Point). In that case fumbles no longer come from a dumb luck but from a conscious decision made by the player - thus those bad things are acceptable.

[Talakeal]

Bad things should happen to characters only in two cases:
1) they made some risky decision
2) antagonists did something to them


Might I ask why?

This seems to fly in the face of virtually all of my experiences with both reality and fiction. Even children's cartoons and games like Candy Land contain elements of failure and disappointment.

[Curmudgeon]

Bad things should happen to characters only in two cases:
1) they made some risky decision
2) antagonists did something to them
So wandering monsters don't exist? Bad weather can't happen naturally? Unless you consider living outside of a fortified cave as a "risky decision", I don't think these are good D&D parameters. You'll suck all the spontaneity out of the game world.

[dextercorvia]

Your math ignores quickened spells, immediate spells, and swift spells. That's rubbish unless you're proposing to ban casting more than once per round.


A caster who uses swift action spells to compensate, will still lose 19 rounds of actions out of 100.

It does not. A Wizard who has an 19% spell failure chance is going to lose 19% of his spells, which means losing 19% of his actions. Expand the example I gave above to include a swift or immediate action in ever round. In 100 rounds, he is now casting 200 spells, and losing 38 of them, which amounts to 19 of his rounds being negated -- the exact same as the wizard casting only a single spell per round.

If a fighter attacks 1 time per round for 100 rounds, he loses 5 attacks on average, or 5 rounds. If a different fighter attacks 20 times per round, he'll make 2000 attacks in 100 rounds, but lose 100 of them -- 5 rounds worth.

Whatever you set the failure rate at -- that will be the percent of rounds that are negated in the long run, no matter how many actions you are allowed in the round. So, by giving spellcasters an increased chance of lost actions, you are negating more of their rounds

There is nothing wrong with giving spells a failure chance, but it is actually more equal if you set it at the same 5% as weapon attacks have. Even there you still double up with Ray spells receiving two failure chances. That should be addressed.

[Curmudgeon]

It does not. A Wizard who has an 19% spell failure chance is going to lose 19% of his spells, which means losing 19% of his actions.
The Wizard won't lose 19% of anything. They will only fail to cast 19% of 9th level spells; the delay percentage is lower for less powerful spells. If they're trying to cast a 3rd level swift action spell the chance of that spell being delayed is only 5%.

[SinsI]

So wandering monsters don't exist? Bad weather can't happen naturally? Unless you consider living outside of a fortified cave as a "risky decision", I don't think these are good D&D parameters. You'll suck all the spontaneity out of the game world.

Being outside in bad weather is either a risky behaviour or a kind of antagonist, wondering monsters are antagonists. But a banana peel that you slip on and break your neck is neither.

[Curmudgeon]

Bad weather and wondering monsters are antagonists.
Wandering monsters with no hostile intent aren't antagonists. Clouds have no feelings, and thus can't be antagonistic.

[SinsI]

Wandering monsters with no hostile intent aren't antagonists. Clouds have no feelings, and thus can't be antagonistic.

If they have no hostile intent they won't attack the party. And having feelings or not doesn't matter - what is important is that PCs can do something about them, be it in the form of staying at home or casting Control Winds.

[Hrugner]

I've been playing with critical fumbles provoking an attack of opportunity from the target, is that a house rule I just forgot was a house rule?

Regardless, it ends up working in the favor of the party since for the most part the party has more attacks incoming than out going which results in them getting more attacks against large groups of weaker targets. Combat reflexes becomes a must for most martials, but that doesn't seem like too bad of a change.

[nyjastul69]

I've been playing with critical fumbles provoking an attack of opportunity from the target, is that a house rule I just forgot was a house rule?

Regardless, it ends up working in the favor of the party since for the most part the party has more attacks incoming than out going which results in them getting more attacks against large groups of weaker targets. Combat reflexes becomes a must for most martials, but that doesn't seem like too bad of a change.

Yes it is a house rule. That house rule causes your players to take a feat tax. It doesn't help them in any way regardless of incoming or outgoing attacks.

[Brookshw]

Yes it is a house rule. That house rule causes your players to take a feat tax. It doesn't help them in any way regardless of incoming or outgoing attacks.

I don't think taking something because its effably useful in extent is quite the same thing as a feat tax. Sounds like he's talking about something that seems to be a bit common sense in the face of its intrinsic value, like natural spell for druids.

[The Vagabond]

I always used the "If you roll a 1, you may permit something interesting to happen to you in exchange for a Hero/Action point." An example would be for reinforcement to arrive, a vial of oil to fall over and catch the building on fire, your weapon to get stuck in their chest, you fall out the window into the cooking quarters, stuff like that. Stuff to make it more intresting, rather than simply as a punishment.

[nyjastul69]

I don't think taking something because its effably useful in extent is quite the same thing as a feat tax. Sounds like he's talking about something that seems to be a bit common sense in the face of its intrinsic value, like natural spell for druids.

Maybe feat tax was the wrong term. But the house rule seems to have created a situation where CR is basically a 'must have' feat. This, to me, is a clear sign that the house rule should be reevaluated.

It's just another in the litany of reasons why fumble rules tend to suck.

[SkipSandwich]

This isn't precisely related to fumbles per se, but when dealing with special actions that provoke some sort of retaliation from the defender on a failure, rather then requiring a separate roll the retaliation just happens automatically if you fail the opposed roll by 5 or more. I find this both speeds up play (less rolls, easy to remember results) and is easily fluffed as the result of a 'fumble'. Examples;

Trip: If you win, you trip the opponent, if you fail the opponent avoids or resists the trip, if you fail by 5 or more your opponent trips you in retaliation (no roll, you may drop your weapon as normal to avoid being tripped)

Disarm: If you win the opposed check the opponent is disarmed, failure nothing happens, fail by 5 or more and your opponent may disarm you in retaliation (no roll)

Bull Rush/Overrun: Win and shove back/past opponent as normal, failure your movement ends with you on your feet adjacent to the target, fail by 5 or more and you end up prone in a square of the opponent's choosing

Grapple/Pin: Win the check to maintain a grapple/pin or break free of one, win a grapple check by 5 or more and your opponent is now pinned (the +5 is only required to start a pin, not maintain one). Fail the check to maintain a grapple and your opponent may choose to escape, fail a check to maintain a pin and the pin is released (you are still grappling), fail a grapple check by 5 or more and your opponent may choose to pin you, if pinning the opponent, a failure by 5 or more means they not only escape the pin but can immediately escape the grapple if they so choose. A character resisting a grapple with Escape Artist may only escape from a grapple/pin and may not choose to continue the grapple or pin the opponent in retaliation.

Aid Another: You may attempt greater aid by declaring a higher DC for the check, for every 5 point increase you assign to the DC, the bonus increases by +1 (max bonus +8 at DC 40), declare your target DC before you roll. Fail the check by 5 or more points and your attempt to help ends up interfering instead, causing a penalty equal to one-half the bonus you attempted to provide.

Normal attacks never provoke fumbles, and skilled characters are less likely to fumble against opponents less skilled then themselves when they attempt a special maneuver.

[Brookshw]

Maybe feat tax was the wrong term. But the house rule seems to have created a situation where CR is basically a 'must have' feat. This, to me, is a clear sign that the house rule should be reevaluated. I get where your coming from but a lot of new rules, once introduced, already make things "must have" in the sense they can provide significant value to wide ranges of characters, for example whirling frenzy barbarian which is not a default element of the game but if introduced becomes a major bonus for just about any melee character. Certainly its always worth considering how any rule introduced may affect the power of characters in the game.


It's just another in the litany of reasons why fumble rules tend to suck.
Eh, my players still fondly remember and joke about our bygone crit and fumble tables which brings us back to the OP, to which I would respond good fumble rules are those conducive to the nature of, and fun had by the players and DM equally in, a particular game or campaign, and should only be evaluated on their merit in such applications. No one size game fits all groups and no one sized opinion or consensus regarding fumble rules would be sufficient to address any and all possible nuance of preference in the wide variety that exist in various groups.

[nyjastul69]

I get where your coming from but a lot of new rules, once introduced, already make things "must have" in the sense they can provide significant value to wide ranges of characters, for example whirling frenzy barbarian which is not a default element of the game but if introduced becomes a major bonus for just about any melee character. Certainly its always worth considering how any rule introduced may affect the power of characters in the game.


Eh, my players still fondly remember and joke about our bygone crit and fumble tables which brings us back to the OP, to which I would respond good fumble rules are those conducive to the nature of, and fun had by the players and DM equally in, a particular game or campaign, and should only be evaluated on their merit in such applications. No one size game fits all groups and no one sized opinion or consensus regarding fumble rules would be sufficient to address any and all possible nuance of preference in the wide variety that exist in various groups.

I agree. That's why I said 'tend to'. If everyone in the group likes them, go for it. I find they punish players more than beasties and also bog down play. Everyone's mileage varies on these points.

[Karl Aegis]

Fumble rules are probably better if they are only on specific enemies related to luck. A powerful curse or a powerful blessing an enemy can use is a better explanation for why your supposed expert at guisarme fighting suddenly throws their weapon across the room and gets the entire party killed. More importantly, it's an effect the players have a means of removing if they don't like it themselves. Disjuction, Antimagic Field, Remove Curse or Break Enchantment effects shouldn't be uncommon enough that PCs won't have access to them if they wanted them.

[Yahzi]

The only fumble rule I would want is: when casting any spell, roll two d20. If they both come up 1, a demon of CR equal to the spell level appears and immediately attacks the caster (the demon gets a surprise round; killing the demon gains no XP).

This would strongly discourage casters from casting magic except when they absolutely had too. But then, I would prefer magic was used like that: only after every other solution failed.

[SinsI]

The only fumble rule I would want is: when casting any spell, roll two d20. If they both come up 1, a demon of CR equal to the spell level appears and immediately attacks the caster (the demon gets a surprise round; killing the demon gains no XP).

This would strongly discourage casters from casting magic except when they absolutely had too. But then, I would prefer magic was used like that: only after every other solution failed.

Discourage casters? How would it do that? CR9 demon to Wizard 17 is a walk in the park!

[Brookshw]

Everyone's mileage varies on these points.


Well said. I've been thinking on this and while we can't, and shouldn't, try to dissuade people from their preferences, I wonder if it might be possible and beneficial to try and categorize the types of fumble tables that may exist. From what people have said I'm gathering that quite often it's not fumbles in general that many people object to, but rather specific fumbles (notably things that offend verisimilitude, i.e., dropping a sword).

Offhand I'd consider potential categories to be;

Realism - permit things expected to be in the real of possibility for an experienced expert. Examples being leaving oneself exposed or unbalanced.
Mechanical - disregards elements of realism and uses penalties regardless of likelihood. Examples being dropping the sword, stabbing an ally (albeit friendly fire makes me wonder on this)
Slapstick - throws realism out the window and focus on entertainment value and absurdity. Examples being eye pokes, buses hitting players, falling through a Plane.

Admittedly there could easily be some overlap and how an effect is fluffed could affect what category something might fall into.

Balance could be another category possibly based on a way to turn around the fumble to not be entirely negative, or a critical chart that favorable conditions, but that seems like something that could be applied to any of the earlier categories (as opposed to a game that uses only entirely negative tables).

Plenty of room to expand and refine these but maybe there isn't any interest.

[eggynack]

Discourage casters? How would it do that? CR9 demon to Wizard 17 is a walk in the park!
To be fair, that's the level where the distance between spell level and real level is greatest. A CR 1 demon at level one is obviously a large threat, and even a CR 5 demon at nine at least eats some resources. I can't say I like the scaling on that though, where the fumbles transition from massive and potentially catastrophic problem to almost meaningless nuisance on a rather rapid basis.

[atemu1234]

To be fair, that's the level where the distance between spell level and real level is greatest. A CR 1 demon at level one is obviously a large threat, and even a CR 5 demon at nine at least eats some resources. I can't say I like the scaling on that though, where the fumbles transition from massive and potentially catastrophic problem to almost meaningless nuisance on a rather rapid basis.

CR = CL maybe?

[eggynack]

CR = CL maybe?
I'm inclined to think that level could make sense, or level with some negative modifier if you want to reduce the impact. CL boosters are a thing, after all, and while they're a thing associated with optimization, it's not like they're
powerful enough to justify a jump in power. Way I figure it, even if you have some melee fellow that dipped into cleric or something, that character would still find a roughly fair threat in an equally CR'd demon, and they'd be using magic a lot less to compensate. Theurge builds are the odd man out, I suppose, as they cast more spells than anyone and are weaker for it, but the same fair threat reasoning works here, and it's not like theurges are crazy weak.

[SkipSandwich]

I'm inclined to think that level could make sense, or level with some negative modifier if you want to reduce the impact. CL boosters are a thing, after all, and while they're a thing associated with optimization, it's not like they're
powerful enough to justify a jump in power. Way I figure it, even if you have some melee fellow that dipped into cleric or something, that character would still find a roughly fair threat in an equally CR'd demon, and they'd be using magic a lot less to compensate. Theurge builds are the odd man out, I suppose, as they cast more spells than anyone and are weaker for it, but the same fair threat reasoning works here, and it's not like theurges are crazy weak.

I'd use CL/2 + Spell level myself, lower level spells are less risky, though higher level casters still attract more powerful demons.

[OldTrees1]

Well said. I've been thinking on this and while we can't, and shouldn't, try to dissuade people from their preferences, I wonder if it might be possible and beneficial to try and categorize the types of fumble tables that may exist. From what people have said I'm gathering that quite often it's not fumbles in general that many people object to, but rather specific fumbles (notably things that offend verisimilitude, i.e., dropping a sword).

Well said.

I think that is a very accurate and useful categorization. Most won't find much use for this since most avoid fumble rules. However for those that do like fumble rules this gives some language to help identity if their DM's fumble rules would or would not be fun for them.

[eggynack]

I'd use CL/2 + Spell level myself, lower level spells are less risky, though higher level casters still attract more powerful demons.
I still don't think CL is a good statistic to use. It varies too widely across characters, and it doesn't seem like the kinda thing I'd like to penalize.

[dextercorvia]

Basing it on CL would mean that a CL40 epic wizard will more seriously screw up casting prestidigitation than a lowly apprentice. Seems counter intuitive. If you want it to scale faster, I'd recommend something like 2*spell level, and only have it apply to your 2-3 highest levels of spells. Unless you are playing in a very different system, there is no reason that a high level caster casting mage armor at the beginning of the day should have a random chance of summoning Orcus.

[Pex]

The only fumble rule I would want is: when casting any spell, roll two d20. If they both come up 1, a demon of CR equal to the spell level appears and immediately attacks the caster (the demon gets a surprise round; killing the demon gains no XP).

This would strongly discourage casters from casting magic except when they absolutely had too. But then, I would prefer magic was used like that: only after every other solution failed.

"There are a lot of orcs. Now would be a good time for a Fireball. "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"That vampire got be good. I could use a Restoration spell." "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"You know, if you Sleep the kobolds we can get by without them alerting others." "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"Hey guys, how come no one is playing a wizard or a cleric?" "Oh no, we might summon a demon. We dare not cast a spell with a DM who hates spellcasters casting spells."

[OldTrees1]

"There are a lot of orcs. Now would be a good time for a Fireball. "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"That vampire got be good. I could use a Restoration spell." "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"You know, if you Sleep the kobolds we can get by without them alerting others." "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"Hey guys, how come no one is playing a wizard or a cleric?" "Oh no, we might summon a demon. We dare not cast a spell with a DM who hates spellcasters casting spells."

Give those casters a few ranks in Knowledge(Math). Take the Orc example:
You can either:
A) Not cast fireball. Now you have a lot of orcs to deal with. Presuming the Orcs are CR 1/2 and "a lot" is around 8, that is a EL 4 fight.
B) Cast fireball eliminating a good deal of them(say 6). You have a 1/400 or 0.25% chance of facing 2 Orcs and a CR 3 demon(EL 4) and a 99.75% chance of facing 2 Orcs(EL 1).

Therefore the caster obviously should cast the fireball unless their Int/Wis is 12 or lower.

[SowZ]

"There are a lot of orcs. Now would be a good time for a Fireball. "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"That vampire got be good. I could use a Restoration spell." "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"You know, if you Sleep the kobolds we can get by without them alerting others." "Oh no, I might summon a demon. I dare not cast."

"Hey guys, how come no one is playing a wizard or a cleric?" "Oh no, we might summon a demon. We dare not cast a spell with a DM who hates spellcasters casting spells."

I once gave a player a spell book, (he found it in the Abyss,) written in infernal that was gibberish to him. He could cast a spell from a page, and in so doing learn what that page did, but a random spell effect took place that was frequently something like that. This is one way to add a cool randomized effect, but it gives players choice. I've done similar things with a paintbrush that performed a random conjuration spell, (from all such spells in the game,) and a staff that randomly performed any evocation spell. These have all been good fun but without nerfing character concepts.

The idea that all magic is eldritch and from hell and so has a chance of summoning a demon would work in a horror game, though.

[Psyren]

As this is the designated Master Fumble Thread I wanted to address a post that was replying to me in one of the previous ones:


I played in a game where the DM used "you drop your weapon" as a fumble, and falling prone if dropping it was impossible (like an unarmed monk). Those absolutely are harsh effects! In my case it was a high level game and I made a guisarme-using tripping dervish. DM forgot to tell me there were fumble rules till I rolled my first 1, which due to a slow pace and lots of noncombat scenarios and some sheer dumb luck, no one rolled a nat 1 in combat after I joined until 2 months in, when we were facing large numbers of foes...the very thing my character was supposed to be good at, having lead armies and fought in many wars.

Thanks to the number of attacks, AoOs, bonus trips from Cause Overreach tactic of Elusive Target, and the fact that tripping involves potentially double the attack rolls of attacking normally, I was making 20+ attack rolls each turn. And I was fumbling every single turn. I'd draw backup weapons and in a few seconds drop those as well on an AoO. I stopped bothering to use the tripping I invested so much into out of fear of dropping my freaking weapon. When you lose your weapon mid-full attack, you instantly lose the rest of your turn as you have no move actions left. Then next turn you need a move to pickup (and provoke an AoO! yay!) your weapon or draw a crappier copy if you have any, and again cannot full attack. Combats only last a few rounds, that's pretty brutal!

I did at least get to make an awesome snide fourth wall-breaking comment in character. I considered purchasing locked gauntlets to hold onto my weapon, but decided against it because then I'd start falling down all the time. The DM got pretty upset at me humorously pointing out how stupid his fumble rules were in-character. :smallbiggrin:

I was ready to drop the character despite really enjoying playing as her due to the fumble rules in favor of a God Wizard who'd never make an attack roll to avoid the whole bs, but then he caved and dropped the fumbles. So yes, those stipulations are still REALLY BAD. Ironically, more so the higher level you are, which you'd normally think is when your character has become more competent.

No offense, but neither game is designed for 20 attacks per round. That just isn't a reasonable expectation for most tables. You should not only have been fumbling every round, you should have been critting every round too, and in fact critting much more often than you fumbled since fumble ranges can't be Keened or whatever. Seems to me you were wanting to have your combat cake and eat it too. I would honestly consider it odd if you were attacking that ridiculously fast with no downsides.

And again, if you were forced to confirm fumbles as I suggested, there was no way that even a ridiculous 20 attacks per round would result in 1 fumble per round.



And adding fumbles for casters, but only to attack roll spells? That's totally fair.... /heavy sarcasm
If anything, any spell should require 10 freaking fumble rolls, cause a martial can make way more attacks in a round than a caster can put out spells.

Why do people who demand that casters be nerfed consistently fail to distinguish between spells that let said caster steal the spotlight, and spells that said caster needs to play the utility/support role that lets everyone else at the table shine? :smallsigh:

[SowZ]

As this is the designated Master Fumble Thread I wanted to address a post that was replying to me in one of the previous ones:



No offense, but neither game is designed for 20 attacks per round. That just isn't a reasonable expectation for most tables. You should not only have been fumbling every round, you should have been critting every round too, and in fact critting much more often than you fumbled since fumble ranges can't be Keened or whatever. Seems to me you were wanting to have your combat cake and eat it too. I would honestly consider it odd if you were attacking that ridiculously fast with no downsides.

And again, if you were forced to confirm fumbles as I suggested, there was no way that even a ridiculous 20 attacks per round would result in 1 fumble per round.



Why do people who demand that casters be nerfed consistently fail to distinguish between spells that let said caster steal the spotlight, and spells that said caster needs to play the utility/support role that lets everyone else at the table shine? :smallsigh:

No matter how hard the DM wanted a serious game, when fighters are dropping their swords every 400 attacks, I just couldn't ever take his world seriously as it would strike me as so clearly a slapstick style shonen-comedy-anime.

[Arbane]

I always used the "If you roll a 1, you may permit something interesting to happen to you in exchange for a Hero/Action point." An example would be for reinforcement to arrive, a vial of oil to fall over and catch the building on fire, your weapon to get stuck in their chest, you fall out the window into the cooking quarters, stuff like that. Stuff to make it more intresting, rather than simply as a punishment.

I like it. I especially like that it has an opt-out, for when things are bad enough already.


The only fumble rule I would want is: when casting any spell, roll two d20. If they both come up 1, a demon of CR equal to the spell level appears and immediately attacks the caster (the demon gets a surprise round; killing the demon gains no XP).

This would strongly discourage casters from casting magic except when they absolutely had too. But then, I would prefer magic was used like that: only after every other solution failed.

1: How does anyone make it through their apprenticeship un-devoured?
2: This would be great, if D&D spellcasters had any FIRST resorts for magic to be the last resort to. But some-but-not-all spellcasting classes kind of suck at anything else.

[Psyren]

No matter how hard the DM wanted a serious game, when fighters are dropping their swords every 400 attacks, I just couldn't ever take his world seriously as it would strike me as so clearly a slapstick style shonen-comedy-anime.

What about 4000? Or 40000? You mean to tell me Musashi never dropped his sword even once? At what number of swings would you accept one of them having an unintended consequence?

Disarming is just one potential outcome among many. Others include 1 round of sickened, or dazzled, or entangled, or staggered, or taking nonlethal, or provoking an aoo from one adjacent foe, or no special attacks for 1 round, or small str/dex penalty, or small attack roll penalty on your next attack, or small damage penalty on your next hit, or take a small amount of bleed damage, or can't attack that target next round, or can only attack that target next round, or target gains partial cover, or drop your offhand, or lose a hero point etc. There's a lot of potential options.



This would strongly discourage casters from casting magic except when they absolutely had too. But then, I would prefer magic was used like that: only after every other solution failed.

Eh just ban casters altogether and skip the foreplay.

[SowZ]

What about 4000? Or 40000? You mean to tell me Musashi never dropped his sword even once? At what number of swings would you accept one of them having an unintended consequence?

Disarming is just one potential outcome among many. Others include 1 round of sickened, or dazzled, or entangled, or staggered, or taking nonlethal, or provoking an aoo from one adjacent foe, or no special attacks for 1 round, or small str/dex penalty, or small attack roll penalty on your next attack, or small damage penalty on your next hit, or take a small amount of bleed damage, or can't attack that target next round, or can only attack that target next round, or target gains partial cover, or drop your offhand, or lose a hero point etc. There's a lot of potential options.



Eh just ban casters altogether and skip the foreplay.

I would be surprised if Musashi ever dropped his sword during a fight, a spar, or training, yes, only because of my experiences and talking to other people with similar experiences. I've done some sort of HEMA/SCA/LARP combat for the past five or six years, so not the biggest expert, but certainly not someone brand new to it, either. Dropping your sword during a fight is not a thing that happens. I would believe one in a hundred and twenty-five thousand, I guess, if I am being lenient. Even then, people have done hundreds of thousands of swings during their fencing careers and not dropped swords. Maybe foil guys drop it every once and a while if the whippiness gets out of control? But that wouldn't be a problem with a real sword.

I don't know how many tens of thousands of times I have swung a sword. I have never once dropped it. I just did a tournament yesterday. I must have watched over two hundred bouts, each with several swings or more from two parties. This is full contact blunted steel allowing kicks, punches, throws, etc. No sword hit the ground outside of someone else's hand. The only thing close to a disarm was during a grapple where a large man just ripped the sword out of his opponents hand. I myself probably did forty bouts within six matches. Nothing close to a sword drop or disarm.Everyone else I've talked to about it or seen talk about it, from Rattan SCA guys to Olympic Fencers agree. People that have done it for a decade or more and maybe dropped their sword once or never. Dropping your sword is not a thing that happens in the same way that jiu jitsu practitioners don't punch themselves in the nose after messing up a throw.

You might drop your sword while absently standing there and talking to someone. But dropping your sword or hitting yourself with it while you are sparring or training? I imagine if you asked a soldier or cop or even a firearm enthusiast, "On the shooting range, about how many shots do you average before dropping your rifle mid clip?" you'd get a funny stare. I haven't shot enough guns to know for sure, but I imagine they don't drop their weapons, either.

I've been disarmed, but never when using a steel weapon. Maybe a boffer. Certainly not when I'm using two hands. Still, I can suspend my disbelief that disarming is easier in D&D world. I can't suspend it enough that people just drop their swords for no reason.

As to playability, if dropping your sword is just one possibility and is rare, I could probably suspend my disbelief even though it would take me out of it knowing my master swordsman has a worse grip than I do. But I could get past it. A lot of people make sword dropping the default fumble, which I find silly as it is such an astronomically rare event. The others seem fine, although the bleed damage one is a little silly, I think, and I don't like the Hero Point one for playability reasons as it encourages people with lots of attacks to spend it rather than save it and potentially lose it. The things like dazed one round might represent over stretching a muscle or temporarily losing your sense of direction, which can happen. Fumbles like that I honestly don't mind. Some games have action points where you have 7 a round or something. A fumble that loses an action point, or -1 AC for a turn, or -1 on the initiative roster for the rest of combat, or even gun jams if they are rare enough. I use systems that have similar things. But I still find it odd that higher level characters will fumble more often.

[Psyren]

With respect to those who LARP, I don't consider it very meaningful or persuasive to this topic. What I do see are actual boxers, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AYwn6FqfH4) fencers, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Oys7NnWCc) and UFC fighters (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiTgd1yl_Z8) occasionally slipping up and making mistakes, mistakes that their opponents are quick to capitalize on (if they even need to.) And even those contests are not the desperate life-or-death duels that we're attempting to model through dice rolls.

And for the third time, losing your weapon or falling prone are but two of the myriad potential consequence of a fumble. If you don't particularly like either of those, there are many, many more to choose from.

[SowZ]

With respect to those who LARP, I don't consider it very meaningful or persuasive to this topic. What I do see are actual boxers, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AYwn6FqfH4) fencers, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Oys7NnWCc) and UFC fighters (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiTgd1yl_Z8) occasionally slipping up and making mistakes, mistakes that their opponents are quick to capitalize on (if they even need to.) And even those contests are not the desperate life-or-death duels that we're attempting to model through dice rolls.

And for the third time, losing your weapon or falling prone are but two of the myriad potential consequence of a fumble. If you don't particularly like either of those, there are many, many more to choose from.

Sure, LARPing isn't very accurate, but I've done it so I thought I'd mention it. The tournament I did yesterday was HEMA Longsword, the closest thing you can get to an actual medieval swordfight. Find me a video where a HEMA fencer drops his sword. Even SCA rattan would do. My point about the boffer was that maybe I've been disarmed using boffers, but never real weapons.

I don't deny fails can happen. I've fallen to my knees before during fights. I've ended up in accidental grapples a lot. Occasionally I'll even get accidentally turned the wrong way. It's just the sword dropping thing and the hitting yourself thing that irks me. People don't drop their sword. They don't punch themself in the face or stab themself. These things just don't really happen, not with enough frequency to justify putting in the rules, and yet they are often considered the bread and butter of fumble rules. The most common fumbles I've seen are, "Drop your weapon, stab yourself, fall prone, stab an ally." The fall prone one, (and depending on the circumstances, hit an ally,) are the only reasonable ones.

[The Glyphstone]

That's a side of fumbles that no one really pays much attention to. It might actually be worth fumbles to play in a game where a monk could throw a punch, critically fail, and accidentally snap his spine in half.

[Ashtagon]

Realistic fumble rule:

If your BAB is +0 or less, On a natural 1, roll to confirm. if the fumble is confirmed, all adjacent opponents get a free attack of opportunity or combat manoeuvre against you. Characters with a BAB of +1 to +5 must roll to confirm the fumble twice. Characters with a BAB of +6 or higher do not fumble.

[OldTrees1]

It is fallacious to continue to critique potential Fumble rules based on results they may not have. You can critique the dropped weapon effect all you want, it is completely irrelevant to all the Fumble rules that do not have that effect.

In other words "Dropping a weapon is stupid therefore fumbles are stupid" is an invalid argument due to all the Fumble tables that don't include that effect.



PS: There is also a lot of the "I don't find this fun therefore you should not play with it." fallacy in this argument.

[Brookshw]

Realistic fumble rule:

If your BAB is +0 or less, On a natural 1, roll to confirm. if the fumble is confirmed, all adjacent opponents get a free attack of opportunity or combat manoeuvre against you. Characters with a BAB of +1 to +5 must roll to confirm the fumble twice. Characters with a BAB of +6 or higher do not fumble.

Ehhh.....I'm taking from this that after a certain point an expert simply can't make a mistake and that's not something I'd consider to be within the realm of realistic, especially if faced with someone who might also be an expert and could likely capitalize on small mistakes. As an alternative, perhaps tying the capacity to fumble to the differences between BAB?

[Andreaz]

It is fallacious to continue to critique potential Fumble rules based on results they may not have. You can critique the dropped weapon effect all you want, it is completely irrelevant to all the Fumble rules that do not have that effect.

In other words "Dropping a weapon is stupid therefore fumbles are stupid" is an invalid argument due to all the Fumble tables that don't include that effect.



PS: There is also a lot of the "I don't find this fun therefore you should not play with it." fallacy in this argument.

I don't know about the others, but the core complaint I have with fumbles is that they punish people for no good reason (fumbles are by definition here an aggravation of a mistake), and on both mechanical and realistic sense they also operate in a backwards fashion (punishments worsen as the characters get...better)

[Brookshw]

I don't know about the others, but the core complaint I have with fumbles is that they punish people for no good reason (fumbles are by definition here an aggravation of a mistake), and on both mechanical and realistic sense they also operate in a backwards fashion (punishments worsen as the characters get...better)

Out of curiosity, do you assume that fumbles exist without corresponding crit tables?

[Ashtagon]

Ehhh.....I'm taking from this that after a certain point an expert simply can't make a mistake and that's not something I'd consider to be within the realm of realistic, especially if faced with someone who might also be an expert and could likely capitalize on small mistakes. As an alternative, perhaps tying the capacity to fumble to the differences between BAB?

Based on that old Alexandrian article, 6th level is where characters are comparable to the greatest historical humans who ever lived. Realistic humans do fumble in combat, yes. The greatest ones that ever lived? When Bruce Lee fumbles, it's because he accidentally killed a guy by kicking harder than intended (didn't actually happen, it's part of the larger-than-life legend). Mere mortals may fumble. Once you're figuratively a god amongst men, better than any real person ever, living or dead, fumbles cease to happen. If that's beyond teh realms of realistic, well, so be it. At that character level, you *are* beyond the realms of realistic.

But you know what? Once you reach levels of rocket tag combat, even a normal miss is as good (bad?) as a fumble.

[OldTrees1]

I don't know about the others, but the core complaint I have with fumbles is that they punish people for no good reason (fumbles are by definition here an aggravation of a mistake), and on both mechanical and realistic sense they also operate in a backwards fashion (punishments worsen as the characters get...better)

I was referring to the more vocal or repetitive complaints in the argument at this time.


Your complaints are engineering problems that have been thought about and some innovations made even before these threads started but they are remain reminders for the need for innovation in designing complex systems.

Punishment: Beyond the fact that not all players find the aggravation as punishing to the player, there are many ways to implement fumbles (either by themselves or with their sibling the critical tables) such that it is not more punishing(some implementations are less punishing) per attack than the current non fumble rules.

Backwards Fashion: While the math to actually avoid this seems harder than expected(a simple BAB check is insufficient) it is not without valid attempts(Ex: You gain +X on the check per previous attack this round). It also excludes certain less thought through potential fumble results(dropped weapon, losing actions, hit ally, hit self, break weapon).

I guess this is the lesson to learn about mechanical systems. There are always many formulations of them and sometimes what initially looks like a fatal critique can actually be an engineering/design puzzle with a variety of solutions.

[Andreaz]

Out of curiosity, do you assume that fumbles exist without corresponding crit tables?No, but crits are rewarding the player, which is a far more satisfying experience even if they know the enemy can capitalize on that just as easily as they can. "I have this prize, but the other guy also has it" is leagues ahead in fun making than "i have this punishment, but the other guy also has it"


I guess this is the lesson to learn about mechanical systems. There are always many formulations of them and sometimes what initially looks like a fatal critique can actually be an engineering/design puzzle with a variety of solutions.I most definitely agree. I have never been shown a fumble system that satisfies me in this manner.
Also, if a fumble is actually less troublesome than a miss, it's not a fumble anymore, it's just a way to color misses without being more punishing than "you missed" already is.
Missing is important. Missing harder with no discernible reason or statistical sensibility isn't.

[Brookshw]

At that character level, you *are* beyond the realms of realistic

In a game where catapults can't shoot over white picket fences you were already outside the bounds of realism :smalltongue: But more to my point, what happens when you're opponents are likewise gods of combat outside of those same realms? Honestly neither's my cup of tea but I wanted to suggest using a relativistic model might be preferable for your aims over an intrinsic model.


No, but crits are rewarding the player, which is a far more satisfying experience even if they know the enemy can capitalize on that just as easily as they can. "I have this prize, but the other guy also has it" is leagues ahead in fun making than "i have this punishment, but the other guy also has it"

Gotcha, thanks for elaborating.

[Andreaz]

In a game where catapults can't shoot over white picket fences you were already outside the bounds of realism :smalltongue:Oh? You'll have to show me that. PM if must, since it's offtopic. At least in pathfinder catapults explicitly break cover, as do any indirect-fire method. You can even lob a grenade this way no problem.

[OldTrees1]

No, but crits are rewarding the player, which is a far more satisfying experience even if they know the enemy can capitalize on that just as easily as they can. "I have this prize, but the other guy also has it" is leagues ahead in fun making than "i have this punishment, but the other guy also has it"

(I had a rather long reply to your post above that might have been missed at the page turn)

While prizes are much more satisfying to many people. Some prefer to gain additional bonuses and penalties in roughly equal measures. This is more likely if the player reward for the bonuses is unrelated to them being bonuses (Ex: Someone that likes variety in their combat would enjoy qualitative changes even if they were penalties because the player reward would be the changes not the bonus/penalty). In some manner both the bonuses and the penalties might be prizes to the player even if not to the PC.

[Andreaz]

While prizes are much more satisfying to many people. Some prefer to gain additional bonuses and penalties in roughly equal measures. This is more likely if the player reward for the bonuses is unrelated to them being bonuses (Ex: Someone that likes variety in their combat would enjoy qualitative changes even if they were penalties because the player reward would be the changes not the bonus/penalty). In some manner both the bonuses and the penalties might be prizes to the player even if not to the PC.A fair point, but I feel it is fundamentally flawed. Here's hoping I can transmit that feeling correctly. One important thing to consider is that scarcity does not apply. As a pure thought form we can add and remove as much as we want.
Some prefer to gain additional bonuses and penalties in roughly equal measures.A fair point, preference is preference, but because of that we can't consider anedoctal evidence. One has to look at the big picture to see how often that happens, in what measures and so on.
This is more likely if the player reward for the bonuses is unrelated to them being bonusesI'm not sure I understand this one. You said there is an indirect reward? I'll run with that one: For example the variety itself was the reward, even if it came with a cost, like using a sword&pistol fighting style in d&d. It does look cool and I love that, and indeed am willing to put up with the penalties involved... But ultimately the penalties are arbitrary, which I consider an obstacle to the enjoyment of the game. Their ultimate effect is to disistimulate, without a clear purpose.
Look over the boards and you'll see that lots of common complaints and houserules revolve around the excess of pre-requisites to do things that just aren't that good, but people want because they're fun. There's even a popular name for the problem in d&d: Feat Tax. Essentially it boils down to the feeling of unfairness stemming from 'why do I have to pay x to do this thing I find fun and powerful if that other dude pays x/4 to do something he finds just as much fun but is more powerful?'.
Thus most such things are unfairly priced, which undercuts the entertainment value of someone who knows how the system works (and please, let's not punish people for knowing). Things don't need to be perfect, but the disparity can get pretty wild. It certainly does in d&d.Fumbles, like feat taxes, are a completely arbitrary complication, which is hardly going to be fun.
In some manner both the bonuses and the penalties might be prizes to the playerIs your bet safe? Look at game design. Typically a game has its gameplay improved when the hurdles are removed rather than added. Hurdles that are fun tend to be very well thought and are ultimately fair. It's fair to be sneak attacked if it was clear you should be on alert and you weren't. It's fair to be sneak attacked if you see the enemies flanking you and you don't move to counter it. It's fair to be sneak attacked because you miscalculated risks and bit more than you could chew. It's not fair to be sneak attacked because you are shadowing the powerful rogue whose reliable intel said he was alone and out of nowhere a second rogue pops with a knife to your ribs even though you were not only viably certain he was alone, but you also prepared for outsneaking a rogue. It's not fair to be sneak attacked because you had no indication you should be alert and it still happened.Notice how ultimately even sheer bad luck isn't arbitrary in a good difficult game. Cat Mario is a terrible difficult game. Dark Souls is a good difficult game. Back to tabletops, Call of Cthulhu, Inominable Cults and Paranoia are good difficult games. The common ground is always that the obstacles are majorly in your actions and in your choices, not in the dice. And the obstacles are aligned with the game's premise. Apocalyptically bad luck is acceptable, but it belongs in the realm of "proportionally rare" coupled with "let's make this interesting, not arbitrary".TL;DR
Do fumbles punish your actions, or do they punish your dice?
Is d&d's premise, today, to deliver a realistic pseudo-medieval fighting experience? Fumbles are not aligned with that.
Is d&d's premise, today, to deliver a fantastic pseudo-medieval fighting experience? Fumbles are not aligned with that.

[atemu1234]

Anyone else notice that the disarm point is a bunch of guys who have used swords saying it doesn't work that way, and people who have never touched actual sword combat in their life accusing them of lying or just being wrong?

[Flickerdart]

Anyone else notice that the disarm point is a bunch of guys who have used swords saying it doesn't work that way, and people who have never touched actual sword combat in their life accusing them of lying or just being wrong?
In general, RPG forums have no shortage of armchair generals and bathtub admirals.

[dextercorvia]

bathtub admirals.

IMO that would make an awesome avatar.

[Brookshw]

Anyone else notice that the disarm point is a bunch of guys who have used swords saying it doesn't work that way, and people who have never touched actual sword combat in their life accusing them of lying or just being wrong?

Actually I've already admitted in one of the threads I've definitely dropped a sword and, likewise Sowz has admitted to losing a blade on contact with another. Easy to miss with the various threads moving around. I believe the standing objection is based on the fluff of dropping your sword. If we add that dropping the weapon is the result of a free and automatically successful disarm we resolve the fluff issue people have with the "slapstick" fumble.

[OldTrees1]

A fair point, but I feel it is fundamentally flawed. Here's hoping I can transmit that feeling correctly. One important thing to consider is that scarcity does not apply. As a pure thought form we can add and remove as much as we want.
Some prefer to gain additional bonuses and penalties in roughly equal measures.A fair point, preference is preference, but because of that we can't consider anedoctal evidence. One has to look at the big picture to see how often that happens, in what measures and so on.
This is more likely if the player reward for the bonuses is unrelated to them being bonusesI'm not sure I understand this one. You said there is an indirect reward? I'll run with that one: For example the variety itself was the reward, even if it came with a cost, like using a sword&pistol fighting style in d&d. It does look cool and I love that, and indeed am willing to put up with the penalties involved... But ultimately the penalties are arbitrary, which I consider an obstacle to the enjoyment of the game. Their ultimate effect is to disistimulate, without a clear purpose.
Look over the boards and you'll see that lots of common complaints and houserules revolve around the excess of pre-requisites to do things that just aren't that good, but people want because they're fun. There's even a popular name for the problem in d&d: Feat Tax. Essentially it boils down to the feeling of unfairness stemming from 'why do I have to pay x to do this thing I find fun and powerful if that other dude pays x/4 to do something he finds just as much fun but is more powerful?'.
Thus most such things are unfairly priced, which undercuts the entertainment value of someone who knows how the system works (and please, let's not punish people for knowing). Things don't need to be perfect, but the disparity can get pretty wild. It certainly does in d&d.Fumbles, like feat taxes, are a completely arbitrary complication, which is hardly going to be fun.
In some manner both the bonuses and the penalties might be prizes to the playerIs your bet safe? Look at game design. Typically a game has its gameplay improved when the hurdles are removed rather than added. Hurdles that are fun tend to be very well thought and are ultimately fair. It's fair to be sneak attacked if it was clear you should be on alert and you weren't. It's fair to be sneak attacked if you see the enemies flanking you and you don't move to counter it. It's fair to be sneak attacked because you miscalculated risks and bit more than you could chew. It's not fair to be sneak attacked because you are shadowing the powerful rogue whose reliable intel said he was alone and out of nowhere a second rogue pops with a knife to your ribs even though you were not only viably certain he was alone, but you also prepared for outsneaking a rogue. It's not fair to be sneak attacked because you had no indication you should be alert and it still happened.Notice how ultimately even sheer bad luck isn't arbitrary in a good difficult game. Cat Mario is a terrible difficult game. Dark Souls is a good difficult game. Back to tabletops, Call of Cthulhu, Inominable Cults and Paranoia are good difficult games. The common ground is always that the obstacles are majorly in your actions and in your choices, not in the dice. And the obstacles are aligned with the game's premise. Apocalyptically bad luck is acceptable, but it belongs in the realm of "proportionally rare" coupled with "let's make this interesting, not arbitrary".TL;DR
Do fumbles punish your actions, or do they punish your dice?
Is d&d's premise, today, to deliver a realistic pseudo-medieval fighting experience? Fumbles are not aligned with that.
Is d&d's premise, today, to deliver a fantastic pseudo-medieval fighting experience? Fumbles are not aligned with that.

Thanks for the high quality reply. It made my day to see that you carefully read my post and came back with such a well thought out reply.

First I should clarify what I meant by:

Some prefer to gain additional bonuses and penalties in roughly equal measures. This is more likely if the player's(typo) reward for the bonuses is unrelated to them being bonuses.
People play D&D for a variety of reasons and almost exclusively for multiple reasons at once. Having our characters be powerful is merely one of these player rewards. Having a varied combat (terrain, status effects, other qualitative effects) is another. A player that has this second motive is rewarded by the increased variety of anything that makes a varied combat regardless of whether it boosts their PC's strength or not, or even decreases their PC's strength. These players(ones motivated by things beyond the Power Fantasy) are more likely to want bonuses and penalties in equal measure since the alternative (ones only motivated by the Power Fantasy) only want bonuses.

I think, from reading your reply, that you got that but I noticed I could clarify.

You then went on to discuss game design because poor game design is something that detracts from your experience (so we are talking about a 3rd common player motive here). Here you mention arbitrary and unfair as poor game design traits. While these a both traits to avoid/exclude, I am not sure if they are necessarily in fumble mechanics.

Let's start with arbitrary. D&D is a dice based game where IC skill modifies the luck of the die. So as long as skill is given its due then Fumbles would not be arbitrary relative to the baseline(D&D being a dice based RPG). Now skill is not necessarily given its due despite the fact it can be. This is why I called Fumbles and engineering puzzle since we can create better designed mechanics by seeing the failings of the naive versions of those same mechanics.

On the topic of unfair, I assume you are referring to imbalanced additions(like adding fumbles without something at least comparable in return) rather than referring to consequences of checks(skill+RNG) being inherently unfair. Again this is a puzzle that I believe can be solved(maybe with multiple solutions) by adding something at least comparable in return and balancing the causes so that more attacks is not punished harsher.


TL;DR
Do fumbles punish your actions, or do they punish your dice?
Is d&d's premise, today, to deliver a realistic pseudo-medieval fighting experience? Fumbles are not aligned with that.
Is d&d's premise, today, to deliver a fantastic pseudo-medieval fighting experience? Fumbles are not aligned with that.
1) Fumbles and Criticals are more likely to be appreciated by people that like RNG more than you(or I) do. However I think it is safe to say that well designed fumbles punish the combination rather than either alone.
2) D&D's premise, today, is to be enjoyable to those at the table in question. Depending on the players in question, Fumbles could align with that.


Actually I've already admitted in one of the threads I've definitely dropped a sword and, likewise Sowz has admitted to losing a blade on contact with another. Easy to miss with the various threads moving around. I believe the standing objection is based on the fluff of dropping your sword. If we add that dropping the weapon is the result of a free and automatically successful disarm we resolve the fluff issue people have with the "slapstick" fumble.

I think removing the automatic success would further resolve the fluff issue since it would remove the lvl 1 automatically disarming a lvl 20 Barbarian fluff issue.

[Psyren]

Actually I've already admitted in one of the threads I've definitely dropped a sword and, likewise Sowz has admitted to losing a blade on contact with another. Easy to miss with the various threads moving around. I believe the standing objection is based on the fluff of dropping your sword. If we add that dropping the weapon is the result of a free and automatically successful disarm we resolve the fluff issue people have with the "slapstick" fumble.

Also, boffers aren't really swords and LARPing isn't really combat.

But instead of an automatic "drop your weapon," you could have the fumble invite a free disarm check by the opponent that doesn't provoke, with like a +15 bonus or something. That would still allow your martial skill to play a factor in preventing it (as well as things like locked gauntlets), but the odds are against you.

[Brookshw]

Also, boffers aren't really swords and LARPing isn't really combat.


Thankfully no one's referring to those.

[Flickerdart]

Hm...so what would the spellcasting equivalents be? Opponent gains a free counterspell opportunity? Opponent gains a bonus on the save?

[Andreaz]

Thanks for the high quality reply. It made my day to see that you carefully read my post and came back with such a well thought out reply.[...]You're welcome. I was trying to be concise as well, but didn't do it too well.
You then went on to discuss game design because poor game design is something that detracts from your experience (so we are talking about a 3rd common player motive here). Here you mention arbitrary and unfair as poor game design traits. While these a both traits to avoid/exclude, I am not sure if they are necessarily in fumble mechanics.

Let's start with arbitrary. D&D is a dice based game where IC skill modifies the luck of the die. So as long as skill is given its due then Fumbles would not be arbitrary relative to the baseline(D&D being a dice based RPG). Now skill is not necessarily given its due despite the fact it can be. This is why I called Fumbles and engineering puzzle since we can create better designed mechanics by seeing the failings of the naive versions of those same mechanics.

On the topic of unfair, I assume you are referring to imbalanced additions(like adding fumbles without something at least comparable in return) rather than referring to consequences of checks(skill+RNG) being inherently unfair. Again this is a puzzle that I believe can be solved(maybe with multiple solutions) by adding something at least comparable in return and balancing the causes so that more attacks is not punished harsher.
By and large, you are correct. Our core disagreement stems from what we think about the inherent characteristic of fumbles. To me, they make a random factor problematic (mostly an agency thing, we don't control the randomness). The randomness is already sufficient on its own, without further complications. The fumbles' quality of giving the game further variety is better placed elsewhere.

1) Fumbles and Criticals are more likely to be appreciated by people that like RNG more than you(or I) do. However I think it is safe to say that well designed fumbles punish the combination rather than either alone.
2) D&D's premise, today, is to be enjoyable to those at the table in question. Depending on the players in question, Fumbles could align with that.Yeah, pretty much. And I agree it can be made to work, and that people can certainly like it. I just don't feel it's a good tool for that purpose.

And to the premise thing...well, "have fun" is sort of so deep and open it's supposed to be unsaid. The primary element of the communication is still the listener, after all.
I I mean... when talking about premise, we already filter through that. It's that very important question that starts the books: "How do we want to deliver a fun game?".

I'm a writer myself, and am a dm-by-hire along with my fellow co-writers. When we started our creative process we determined "We want to deliver a game that offers incredible tactical variety, yet it's simple enough one need not exploit it and fast enough one should still be able to resolve their turns in a matter of seconds.". That goes places, and the playtests drove us nuts with quite the headaches...

But I digress. I must go now, as my classical mechanics professor won't wait because I'm arguing the finer points of game design applied through the lens of random factors and their impact on gameplay.

[Arbane]

Hm...so what would the spellcasting equivalents be? Opponent gains a free counterspell opportunity? Opponent gains a bonus on the save?

You hit yourself with your spell, obviously.

[Psyren]

Thankfully no one's referring to those.

SowZ did but it was more of a general comment towards anyone using simulated combat of any kind as a rebuttal. In other words, our dice are already the simulation, meant to stand in for life-and-death swashbuckling; saying "X never happens when I LARP" is not a meaningful counterargument because that would mean our die roll is a simulation of a simulation instead of simulating a fight to the death between two skilled combatants, where losing your grip could happen regardless of your wishes.

I actually agree with your post, I just wanted to make that point.


Hm...so what would the spellcasting equivalents be? Opponent gains a free counterspell opportunity? Opponent gains a bonus on the save?

Unlike the fumbles being discussed above, those two are not functionally any different than the spell simply whiffing and being wasted. I would go more for something like a mishap or a short-duration spellblight.

[Flickerdart]

Unlike the fumbles being discussed above, those two are not functionally any different than the spell simply whiffing and being wasted. I would go more for something like a mishap or a short-duration spellblight.
I see no difference between "the opponent gets a free disarm attempt" and "the opponent gets a free counterspell attempt." Sure, the fighter's weapon might be on the ground afterwards, but it's not like the mage can cast that spell again either.

Although messing around with the variables isn't a terrible idea. Minimized spell effects, reduced duration, that sort of thing.

[Brookshw]

SowZ did but it was more of a general comment towards anyone using simulated combat of any kind as a rebuttal. In other words, our dice are already the simulation, meant to stand in for life-and-death swashbuckling; saying "X never happens when I LARP" is not a meaningful counterargument because that would mean our die roll is a simulation of a simulation instead of simulating a fight to the death between two skilled combatants, where losing your grip could happen regardless of your wishes.

I actually agree with your post, I just wanted to make that point.


Ah, gotcha and thanks for clarifying.

Personally I feel that the most productive outcome we can hope for in a discussion of fumbles, given the variety of tastes and preferences that exist across games, would ne to try and categorize fumble tables in a general sense so if/when someone encounters a game that uses them there would be a point of reference for if those fumbles match their individual preferences. Going back and forth about fumbles good/bad doesn't much help anything other to inform on our individual preferences.

[OldTrees1]

You're welcome. I was trying to be concise as well, but didn't do it too well. By and large, you are correct. Our core disagreement stems from what we think about the inherent characteristic of fumbles. To me, they make a random factor problematic (mostly an agency thing, we don't control the randomness). The randomness is already sufficient on its own, without further complications. The fumbles' quality of giving the game further variety is better placed elsewhere.Yeah, pretty much. And I agree it can be made to work, and that people can certainly like it. I just don't feel it's a good tool for that purpose.

And to the premise thing...well, "have fun" is sort of so deep and open it's supposed to be unsaid. The primary element of the communication is still the listener, after all.
I I mean... when talking about premise, we already filter through that. It's that very important question that starts the books: "How do we want to deliver a fun game?".

I'm a writer myself, and am a dm-by-hire along with my fellow co-writers. When we started our creative process we determined "We want to deliver a game that offers incredible tactical variety, yet it's simple enough one need not exploit it and fast enough one should still be able to resolve their turns in a matter of seconds.". That goes places, and the playtests drove us nuts with quite the headaches...

But I digress. I must go now, as my classical mechanics professor won't wait because I'm arguing the finer points of game design applied through the lens of random factors and their impact on gameplay.

On the contrary, your post was quite concise despite its length. Any shorter and you would have been removing meaning.

Our personal preference are not in disagreement. We both prefer much more agency than a fumble or critical table system would offer. I was more speaking to how this degree of preference of ours is not universal and trying to explain why properly designed fumbles might actually be valuable to someone less RNG adverse than us.

Hope you enjoyed your classical mechanics class.

[SowZ]

Actually I've already admitted in one of the threads I've definitely dropped a sword and, likewise Sowz has admitted to losing a blade on contact with another. Easy to miss with the various threads moving around. I believe the standing objection is based on the fluff of dropping your sword. If we add that dropping the weapon is the result of a free and automatically successful disarm we resolve the fluff issue people have with the "slapstick" fumble.

Except that the odds of being disarmed are the same against a commoner or a master swordsman, or an unarmed wizard, or someone who is paralyzed with Hold Person. Disarms are really, really hard to pull off, and nearly impossible against someone better than you. This fluff helps, but doesn't really solve the issue.


SowZ did but it was more of a general comment towards anyone using simulated combat of any kind as a rebuttal. In other words, our dice are already the simulation, meant to stand in for life-and-death swashbuckling; saying "X never happens when I LARP" is not a meaningful counterargument because that would mean our die roll is a simulation of a simulation instead of simulating a fight to the death between two skilled combatants, where losing your grip could happen regardless of your wishes.

I actually agree with your post, I just wanted to make that point.



Unlike the fumbles being discussed above, those two are not functionally any different than the spell simply whiffing and being wasted. I would go more for something like a mishap or a short-duration spellblight.

There are reasonably good simulations, though. HEMA, for example, uses real swords and has found that medieval training manuals are still the most effective. And you don't just lose your grip like that. If you drop your sword in life-or-death combat, it is because of a disarm or because you are engaged in a grapple or because you just got hit pretty hard. Not because you missed a swing.


Things like a free disarm attempt don't bother me. Even an AoO. That's fine.

[Psyren]

I see no difference between "the opponent gets a free disarm attempt" and "the opponent gets a free counterspell attempt." Sure, the fighter's weapon might be on the ground afterwards, but it's not like the mage can cast that spell again either.

Because if the caster "fumbled" that spell, they've already lost/wasted the spell at that point. There is nothing left to counterspell. See the issue?

(Unless you're saying the opponent should get a free counter against their next spell?)


Ah, gotcha and thanks for clarifying.

Personally I feel that the most productive outcome we can hope for in a discussion of fumbles, given the variety of tastes and preferences that exist across games, would ne to try and categorize fumble tables in a general sense so if/when someone encounters a game that uses them there would be a point of reference for if those fumbles match their individual preferences. Going back and forth about fumbles good/bad doesn't much help anything other to inform on our individual preferences.

Well, speaking personally, my goal in this discussion was to point out that there are a lot more options besides the contentious "Fred McFighter runs himself through" or "Bob the Barbarian lops his leg off."

I recall the old saw that gets brought up in threads like these, about a roomful of warriors attacking practice dummies and ending up greviously injured, crippled or bleeding out 10 minutes later. I think this outcome is as silly as everyone else, but you can avoid it while still having fumble rules. Those warriors can get sickened or fall prone dozens of times without taking any damage at all, and if they do damage themselves for nonlethal, the worst they'll have to worry about is taking a short nap if that happens too often.


There are reasonably good simulations, though. HEMA, for example, uses real swords and has found that medieval training manuals are still the most effective. And you don't just lose your grip like that. If you drop your sword in life-or-death combat, it is because of a disarm or because you are engaged in a grapple or because you just got hit pretty hard. Not because you missed a swing.

Things like a free disarm attempt don't bother me. Even an AoO. That's fine.

I still think a simulation of a simulation doesn't hold much weight, but I suppose I'd be okay with a free disarm attempt (at a bonus) too.

[Brookshw]

Except that the odds of being disarmed are the same against a commoner or a master swordsman, or an unarmed wizard, or someone who is paralyzed with Hold Person. Disarms are really, really hard to pull off, and nearly impossible against someone better than you. This fluff helps, but doesn't really solve the issue.



Eh, if it bothers you make it contingent on having BAB within a range of the combatants as discussed up thread, or a normal opposed roll. All we're doing is haggling over how to handle it and not really relevant unless we want to design a set of fumble tables (or multiple tables for varieties of games).

[Flickerdart]

Because if the caster "fumbled" that spell, they've already lost/wasted the spell at that point. There is nothing left to counterspell. See the issue?
Why should the caster lose the spell automatically?

[Psyren]

Why should the caster lose the spell automatically?

I'm assuming that if you "fumbled" at all, it was because you failed an attack roll or CL check of some kind. In those instances, the spell is wasted, is it not?

Or to ask a different way - what circumstances do you think would cause a caster to fumble at all?

[Flickerdart]

I'm assuming that if you "fumbled" at all, it was because you failed an attack roll or CL check of some kind. In those instances, the spell is wasted, is it not?

Or to ask a different way - what circumstances do you think would cause a caster to fumble at all?
Mundanes have a risk of fumbling every time they attack. Spellcasters should have a similar mechanic bolted on, since not every spell requires an attack roll or CL check.

[Psyren]

Mundanes have a risk of fumbling every time they attack. Spellcasters should have a similar mechanic bolted on, since not every spell requires an attack roll or CL check.

I agree but with a caveat - not every spell is the caster directly affecting the fight or stealing the spotlight from their companions. I would argue that healing and buffing allies should never fumble (as that would discourage casters from being team players in this way), and many utility spells should not either. (Self-buffing however, or buffing pets, might.)

Unchained lets you bolt on a fumble mechanic. For instance, you can impose Limited Magic (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/variant-magic-rules/limited-magic), and then require casters to Overclock (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/variant-magic-rules/active-spellcasting-variant-rules) all their spells to remove the limitation, with a failure of X or more (or a natural one if you prefer) resulting in a Spell Fumble. It could use a few tweaks (such as the exceptions I mentioned above, and perhaps increasing the DC) but it's a start.

[SowZ]

I still think a simulation of a simulation doesn't hold much weight, but I suppose I'd be okay with a free disarm attempt (at a bonus) too.

Well, a full contact swordfight with real swords using the same techniques as people of the period is the best thing we've got. It is reasonably close, and while a real fight to the death is sure to have differences, there is just no reason to believe people drop their swords in a life or death fight. All evidence is to the contrary.

[Talakeal]

You know, I think a lot of the problem is historical inertia.

If this was a, say, White Wolf forum, where people accept botches as part of the game, you wouldn't get nearly so many people opposed to them.

A lot of the arguments against fumbles could be equally applied to 3.X rules. For example, people don't like random arbitrary death and failure, but that is all that a Saving Throw is, and enemy critical hits are far more likely to randomly kill a PC than fumble rules are.

Also, people talk about how failure should be punishment enough and anything more is just insulting, but I never hear anyone rant and rave about how terrible the printed skill rules are because many of them have consequences for failing by 5 or more.

[SowZ]

You know, I think a lot of the problem is historical inertia.

If this was a, say, White Wolf forum, where people accept botches as part of the game, you wouldn't get nearly so many people opposed to them.

A lot of the arguments against fumbles could be equally applied to 3.X rules. For example, people don't like random arbitrary death and failure, but that is all that a Saving Throw is, and enemy critical hits are far more likely to randomly kill a PC than fumble rules are.

Also, people talk about how failure should be punishment enough and anything more is just insulting, but I never hear anyone rant and rave about how terrible the printed skill rules are because many of them have consequences for failing by 5 or more.

Part of it is the slapstick nature. A trained swordsman accidentally cutting his own head off once out of every eight thousand swings is just comical, not heroic.

[Talakeal]

Part of it is the slapstick nature. A trained swordsman accidentally cutting his own head off once out of every eight thousand swings is just comical, not heroic.

While "every 8,000 swings" seems like a lot, you have to realize that you only dice when something important is happening, and I would wager your average character does not even roll 8,000 dice over the course of a long running campaign.

I have been playing with fumble rules for ~20 years and I have never seen someone kill themself.

Actually, that is a lie, I saw it happen once.

The party was fighting the avatar of the God of War, and he was just too strong for the party. So the party magician used a wild magic spell on him which increased his critical and fumble tests to nearly 50% each. Then the party goaded him into a rage and did their best to weather his storm of critical hits until he eventually did himself in with a fumble of his own.

This wasn't really random, it was a deliberate (and very clever) tactic on the part of the players.

Now, I could have made it a slapstick comedy, easily. I mean, the GOD OF WAR dying because he keeps tripping up due to minor misfortunes like slick cobblestones and untied shoe laces? Comedy gold!

But I did it.

I described him as growing more frustrated and wrathful as everything that could go wrong did, and when he eventually killed himself by falling on his own sword I presented it as a case of irony, talking about how his own rage and arrogance burned him out and in the end he proved the old adage about those who live by the sword dying by the sword to be correct.

[The Glyphstone]

You know, I think a lot of the problem is historical inertia.

If this was a, say, White Wolf forum, where people accept botches as part of the game, you wouldn't get nearly so many people opposed to them.

A lot of the arguments against fumbles could be equally applied to 3.X rules. For example, people don't like random arbitrary death and failure, but that is all that a Saving Throw is, and enemy critical hits are far more likely to randomly kill a PC than fumble rules are.

Also, people talk about how failure should be punishment enough and anything more is just insulting, but I never hear anyone rant and rave about how terrible the printed skill rules are because many of them have consequences for failing by 5 or more.

The problem is that all your examples are already inherent in the rules, which is why no one complains about them. The game(s) is/are balanced, tenuous as it is, around having botches/saves/criticals. When you decide to houserule and add fumbles into a game for 'realism' despite them being nothing of the sort, you throw off that already fragile balance, to the detriment of the classes already on the low end of the totem pole in power (mundanes).

[Talakeal]

The problem is that all your examples are already inherent in the rules, which is why no one complains about them. The game(s) is/are balanced, tenuous as it is, around having botches/saves/criticals. When you decide to houserule and add fumbles into a game for 'realism' despite them being nothing of the sort, you throw off that already fragile balance, to the detriment of the classes already on the low end of the totem pole in power (mundanes).

Are we talking about the concept of "fumbles in RPGs in general" or "specific house rules for adding fumbles to 3.5"?

Because I am very much in favor of the former and very much against the latter, and I was merely pointing out how many arguments against one don't hold up against the other.

Also, I am not sure if I would say fumbles are completely realistic. Rules where people fumble all the time are silly and unrealistic, but so are rules where people never fumble. I would personally prefer them to happen rarely, which is not terribly hard to do (although I haven't seen any 3.X patches that do it properly). Admittedly though, do to the nature of the "spotlight" fumbles will be slightly more common during dramatic events and slightly less common during the daily grind as dice are typically not rolled for uninteresting things and lack the granularity to smoothly simulate very rare events.

[Psyren]

Well, a full contact swordfight with real swords using the same techniques as people of the period is the best thing we've got. It is reasonably close, and while a real fight to the death is sure to have differences, there is just no reason to believe people drop their swords in a life or death fight. All evidence is to the contrary.

And yet somehow it's engrained in our drama and fiction. Jedi are supposedly trained combatants for instance, with reflexes honed to a razor's edge, yet they can drop their lightsabers in pitched battles too.


Part of it is the slapstick nature. A trained swordsman accidentally cutting his own head off once out of every eight thousand swings is just comical, not heroic.

So drop that one off the table. That is an issue with one specific line item in a fumble ruleset, not one with fumble rules themselves.

[SowZ]

And yet somehow it's engrained in our drama and fiction. Jedi are supposedly trained combatants for instance, with reflexes honed to a razor's edge, yet they can drop their lightsabers in pitched battles too.



So drop that one off the table. That is an issue with one specific line item in a fumble ruleset, not one with fumble rules themselves.

Jedi aren't real. Jedi wouldn't really drop their lightsabers without being disarmed because in real life swordsman don't drop their swords without being disarmed just like marines don't drop their rifles for no reason. I can't recall any jedi dropping their weapon for no reason other than a missed swing. I can't recall it in any swordfighting movie or book, either. Where do you get that this is engrained in our fiction? Examples, please?

Anyway, I've said before I don't have a problem with the idea of fumbles and even use them to some extent.

Yet people keep defending stabbing oneself/dropping ones sword even though it makes no sense, so I'm going to keep pointing out why those fumbles are dumb.


While "every 8,000 swings" seems like a lot, you have to realize that you only dice when something important is happening, and I would wager your average character does not even roll 8,000 dice over the course of a long running campaign.

I have been playing with fumble rules for ~20 years and I have never seen someone kill themself.

Actually, that is a lie, I saw it happen once.

The party was fighting the avatar of the God of War, and he was just too strong for the party. So the party magician used a wild magic spell on him which increased his critical and fumble tests to nearly 50% each. Then the party goaded him into a rage and did their best to weather his storm of critical hits until he eventually did himself in with a fumble of his own.

This wasn't really random, it was a deliberate (and very clever) tactic on the part of the players.

Now, I could have made it a slapstick comedy, easily. I mean, the GOD OF WAR dying because he keeps tripping up due to minor misfortunes like slick cobblestones and untied shoe laces? Comedy gold!

But I did it.

I described him as growing more frustrated and wrathful as everything that could go wrong did, and when he eventually killed himself by falling on his own sword I presented it as a case of irony, talking about how his own rage and arrogance burned him out and in the end he proved the old adage about those who live by the sword dying by the sword to be correct.

I actually analyzed this in another thread. I found that if you play from 1-20 with the triple 1 on an attack=death rule, you are very likely to kill yourself.

For the triple ones=death rule, let us assume that you have 13 encounters per level and each encounter averages 6 rounds. Let's say it takes 1 round to close distance/notice the enemy/get set up, leaving 5 rounds of actual combat. To be conservative, we will assume you never have haste, never start in melee range, never have longer fights, (or shorter ones,) and let's say 3 of those encounters are resolved with 0 combat, leaving only 10 combats per level. Let us then assume you can only full attack 50% of the time rounded up. We will use Fighter McGee or any full BAB class with no extra attack abilities and no pounce to be conservative.

For level 1-5, that's 5 attacks per encounter. For levels 6-10, only 8. For 11-15, 11. For levels 16-20, 14 attacks. This is a fairly low estimate and most groups have more than 10 fights per level I think. Also, lot's of groups get off full attacks a lot and have long, epic fights that go 10+ rounds, at least occasionally. We will throw that out just to be merciful to the triple 1s houserule. Fighter McGee has a very typical 6 man party. He has his Barbarian friend who makes the same number of attacks, a rogue friend who uses TWF, (this means he should attack more, but since his BAB is lower and he has to move more to get flanks, we can be conservative and say he gets the same number of attacks,) a Wizard who almost never attacks so let's pretend like he never makes an attack roll, a Cleric who, between a lower BAB and spellcasting, makes one third the number of attacks rounded down, and a Ranger archer buddy who has Rapid Shot so he should get more attacks AND will get Full Attacks more since he is archery, (but since he casts spells occasionally, we will be extremely conservative and say that he gets the same number of attacks. I'm being way nice to you, triple 1s rule!)

If your party makes it to level 13 without someone having killed themselves, you are very lucky. If you make it to 18? Wow. By 20, odds are at least two members of the party are dead by their own sword. What can this possibly add to the game? I used to think this was a rule. It did come up once at level 4. I never cheat dice, but I thought it was so stupid, I told the player to re-roll because he 'dropped the die' the third time and it hadn't rolled, (which was true, but mostly me looking for an excuse not to have a player lose his first ever D&D character in such a stupid fashion. Also, how do you shoot yourself with a bow, anyway?)

Also, every other TWF Fighter will kill themselves by level 20.

[Talakeal]

Jedi aren't real. Jedi wouldn't really drop their lightsabers without being disarmed because in real life swordsman don't drop their swords without being disarmed just like marines don't drop their rifles for no reason. I can't recall any jedi dropping their weapon for no reason other than a missed swing. I can't recall it in any swordfighting movie or book, either. Where do you get that this is engrained in our fiction? Examples, please?

Anyway, I've said before I don't have a problem with the idea of fumbles and even use them to some extent.

Yet people keep defending stabbing oneself/dropping ones sword even though it makes no sense, so I'm going to keep pointing out why those fumbles are dumb.



I actually analyzed this in another thread. I found that if you play from 1-20 with the triple 1 on an attack=death rule, you are very likely to kill yourself.

For the triple ones=death rule, let us assume that you have 13 encounters per level and each encounter averages 6 rounds. Let's say it takes 1 round to close distance/notice the enemy/get set up, leaving 5 rounds of actual combat. To be conservative, we will assume you never have haste, never start in melee range, never have longer fights, (or shorter ones,) and let's say 3 of those encounters are resolved with 0 combat, leaving only 10 combats per level. Let us then assume you can only full attack 50% of the time rounded up. We will use Fighter McGee or any full BAB class with no extra attack abilities and no pounce to be conservative.

For level 1-5, that's 5 attacks per encounter. For levels 6-10, only 8. For 11-15, 11. For levels 16-20, 14 attacks. This is a fairly low estimate and most groups have more than 10 fights per level I think. Also, lot's of groups get off full attacks a lot and have long, epic fights that go 10+ rounds, at least occasionally. We will throw that out just to be merciful to the triple 1s houserule. Fighter McGee has a very typical 6 man party. He has his Barbarian friend who makes the same number of attacks, a rogue friend who uses TWF, (this means he should attack more, but since his BAB is lower and he has to move more to get flanks, we can be conservative and say he gets the same number of attacks,) a Wizard who almost never attacks so let's pretend like he never makes an attack roll, a Cleric who, between a lower BAB and spellcasting, makes one third the number of attacks rounded down, and a Ranger archer buddy who has Rapid Shot so he should get more attacks AND will get Full Attacks more since he is archery, (but since he casts spells occasionally, we will be extremely conservative and say that he gets the same number of attacks. I'm being way nice to you, triple 1s rule!)

If your party makes it to level 13 without someone having killed themselves, you are very lucky. If you make it to 18? Wow. By 20, odds are at least two members of the party are dead by their own sword. What can this possibly add to the game? I used to think this was a rule. It did come up once at level 4. I never cheat dice, but I thought it was so stupid, I told the player to re-roll because he 'dropped the die' the third time and it hadn't rolled, (which was true, but mostly me looking for an excuse not to have a player lose his first ever D&D character in such a stupid fashion. Also, how do you shoot yourself with a bow, anyway?)

Also, every other TWF Fighter will kill themselves by level 20.

Ok, so you have a 6 person party that full attacks all the time and even then you only have a bit over a 50% chance that one of them will roll this over the course of a long campaign. Now, don't get me wrong, this is still a ludicrously bad fumble system and I would never design one like it or happily play in a game that featured it, but this is still a very rare occurrence, and if you have a half way competent DM I would hope they could find a way to describe this likely 1 time event in a manner that was tragic rather than comical.


And I agree that simply dropping your sword or stabbing yourself is stupid. But accidents do happen and people do get hurt. A quick Google search shows that roughly 1% of reported casualties in modern warfare is the result of friendly fire, and this is dramatically lower than it has been historically, to the point where many people accuse modern militaries are intentionally under reporting friendly fire incidents.


Simply looking at sports one will find a dramatic amount of injuries, most minor, some taking people out of the game / season, some career ending.
My brother played high school basketball and I seem to recall someone getting hurt just about every game.
I know I hurt myself frequently playing outside as a kid, and most of my friends in elementary school broke bones playing games.
Hell, I have one friend in college who broke his ankle doing ARCHERY.
My family members hunt fairly often and they have all lost friends in hunting accidents, and my mother knows several people who drowned or suffocated playing in canals, sand dunes, or hay piles as a kid.

Are you really trying to tell me that accidently hurting yourself in actual life or death combat is significantly rarer than it is when simply playing physical games?

[SowZ]

Ok, so you have a 6 person party that full attacks all the time and even then you only have a bit over a 50% chance that one of them will roll this over the course of a long campaign. Now, don't get me wrong, this is still a ludicrously bad fumble system and I would never design one like it or happily play in a game that featured it, but this is still a very rare occurrence, and if you have a half way competent DM I would hope they could find a way to describe this likely 1 time event in a manner that was tragic rather than comical.


And I agree that simply dropping your sword or stabbing yourself is stupid. But accidents do happen and people do get hurt. A quick Google search shows that roughly 1% of reported casualties in modern warfare is the result of friendly fire, and this is dramatically lower than it has been historically, to the point where people seem to say that modern militaries are intentionally under reporting friendly fire incidents.


Simply looking at sports one will find a dramatic amount of injuries, most minor, some taking people out of the game / season, some career ending.
My brother played high school basketball and I seem to recall someone getting hurt just about every game.
I know I hurt myself frequently playing outside as a kid, and most of my friends in elementary school broke bones playing games.
Hell, I have one friend in college who broke his ankle doing ARCHERY.
My family members hunt fairly often and they have all lost friends in hunting accidents, and my mother knows several people who drowned or suffocated playing in canals, sand dunes, or hay piles as a kid.

Are you really trying to tell me that accidently hurting yourself in actual life or death combat is significantly rarer than it is when simply playing physical games?

Well, from 1-20, odds are two members of that party kill themselves, and they only full attack half the time, (and then only some of the party members, the wizard never attacks and the Cleric only rarely,) and I was fairly conservative in estimating how many attacks they perform per battle.

Anyway, I'm specifically talking about killing yourself and dropping your sword. People who think it is easy to accidentally slash or stab oneself are clearly ignorant as to how cutting works. Falling down, twisting an ankle, etc. etc. are all things I've seen happen or done myself. Certain fumbles are just silly.

[Talakeal]

No, I'm specifically talking about killing yourself and dropping your sword. Falling down, twisting an ankle, etc. etc. are all things I've seen happen or done myself.

Ok; so you don't disagree on the concept of fumbles, just on the implementation? Because if that is the case I 100% support you, most fumble systems are ill thought out and terrible.

[Psyren]

Jedi aren't real.

Neither are D&D characters.


Yet people keep defending stabbing oneself/dropping ones sword even though it makes no sense, so I'm going to keep pointing out why those fumbles are dumb.

I've already said I'm fine with the "drop" being represented by a free disarm attempt by the enemy so I think we can leave it at that.

[SowZ]

Ok; so you don't disagree on the concept of fumbles, just on the implementation? Because if that is the case I 100% support you, most fumble systems are ill thought out and terrible.

I saw one fumble table where one of the results was, "You cut off one of your toes. Half movement speed forever." And I don't even know if there was confirmation. They asked me to play with them, but I knew they were a particularly Gygaxian style of AD&D players so I passed.


Neither are D&D characters.



I've already said I'm fine with the "drop" being represented by a free disarm attempt by the enemy so I think we can leave it at that.

Sure, it's not just you either, it's just a point that is still being argued so I'm still responding to it. Also, D&D characters and Jedi shouldn't have a worse grip than me, someone with a hobby.

[Andreaz]

While "every 8,000 swings" seems like a lot, you have to realize that you only dice when something important is happening, and I would wager your average character does not even roll 8,000 dice over the course of a long running campaign.As I have said in the other thread...A bad rule that doesn't apply to you is still a bad rule. And if the (good or bad) rule won't apply to you, why do you have it anyway?

[The Glyphstone]

Are we talking about the concept of "fumbles in RPGs in general" or "specific house rules for adding fumbles to 3.5"?

Because I am very much in favor of the former and very much against the latter, and I was merely pointing out how many arguments against one don't hold up against the other.

Also, I am not sure if I would say fumbles are completely realistic. Rules where people fumble all the time are silly and unrealistic, but so are rules where people never fumble. I would personally prefer them to happen rarely, which is not terribly hard to do (although I haven't seen any 3.X patches that do it properly). Admittedly though, do to the nature of the "spotlight" fumbles will be slightly more common during dramatic events and slightly less common during the daily grind as dice are typically not rolled for uninteresting things and lack the granularity to smoothly simulate very rare events.

Both, really. Systems where fumbles are built-in as part of the core rules are generally balanced around their presence, so removing them would be as imbalancing as adding them to D&D3.5 is. 3.5 itself already has 'fumbles' in its rules, in the sense that a Natural 1 on a d20 for attacks and saves is an automatic failure regardless of your bonus to the roll or the DC needed. Making that 1 have additional punitive effects above and beyond 'you just miss, do not pass go and do not collect $200' is just excessively harmful to the people who can least afford it.

If they must be implemented, which I don't think is ever needed, they should only do so alongside a 'critical hit' houserule that gives bonuses above and beyond extra damage. It's still overall detrimental to the PCs in the long run, but at least then it is symmetrical and feels less arbitrarily punitive.

[Psyren]

Sure, it's not just you either, it's just a point that is still being argued so I'm still responding to it. Also, D&D characters and Jedi shouldn't have a worse grip than me, someone with a hobby.

But (at least to my knowledge) you've never fought anyone to the death, nor really with any true stakes beyond a game or simulation of some kind. This is precisely what I mean when I say that LARPing or even HEMA isn't all that persuasive, at least not to me.



If they must be implemented, which I don't think is ever needed, they should only do so alongside a 'critical hit' houserule that gives bonuses above and beyond extra damage. It's still overall detrimental to the PCs in the long run, but at least then it is symmetrical and feels less arbitrarily punitive.

I definitely get behind that - in fact, in PF when you pull from the crit deck you have the option of taking the cool thing on the card or just getting the bonus damage normally.

[SowZ]

But (at least to my knowledge) you've never fought anyone to the death, nor really with any true stakes beyond a game or simulation of some kind. This is precisely what I mean when I say that LARPing or even HEMA isn't all that persuasive, at least not to me.



I definitely get behind that - in fact, in PF when you pull from the crit deck you have the option of taking the cool thing on the card or just getting the bonus damage normally.

But what convinces you that people do drop swords, when the closest evidence all points to not dropping swords? What do you find persuasive when training in the same manner that people did in the medieval period is not persuasive? I don't hear of real soldiers dropping their rifles after a missed shot, and have no reason to believe people just drop their knives occasionally in knife fights, (Which happen with some frequency.)

And when you have the same weapons using the same swings and stances and grapples and kicks and pommels, it is going to be at least a fairly accurate representation of medieval period duels, as such duels usually weren't to the death, either. There really is nothing to accurately represent a medieval battlefield, however.

[Talakeal]

As I have said in the other thread...A bad rule that doesn't apply to you is still a bad rule. And if the (good or bad) rule won't apply to you, why do you have it anyway?

100% Agreed. Dying on a triple 1 is a stupid rule. But my point was that it doesn't come up often enough to turn the game into a comedic farce, not that it isn't a stupid rule.


Both, really. Systems where fumbles are built-in as part of the core rules are generally balanced around their presence, so removing them would be as imbalancing as adding them to D&D3.5 is. 3.5 itself already has 'fumbles' in its rules, in the sense that a Natural 1 on a d20 for attacks and saves is an automatic failure regardless of your bonus to the roll or the DC needed. Making that 1 have additional punitive effects above and beyond 'you just miss, do not pass go and do not collect $200' is just excessively harmful to the people who can least afford it.

If they must be implemented, which I don't think is ever needed, they should only do so alongside a 'critical hit' houserule that gives bonuses above and beyond extra damage. It's still overall detrimental to the PCs in the long run, but at least then it is symmetrical and feels less arbitrarily punitive.

Generally more randomness is beneficial to the underdog. While the PCs are usually the strongest people in the room, this isn't always the case, and I am not sure that mechanics that throw things in the underdogs favor can be called "unfair" in any case.

I tell you what though, the last session I played in I was low on health and up against a melee bruiser with a attack bonus higher than my AC and a minimum damage that would have killed me outright at my current HP. When he rolled a nat 1 to hit that sure didn't seem detrimental to the PCs.

[Rhyltran]

But (at least to my knowledge) you've never fought anyone to the death, nor really with any true stakes beyond a game or simulation of some kind. This is precisely what I mean when I say that LARPing or even HEMA isn't all that persuasive, at least not to me.



I definitely get behind that - in fact, in PF when you pull from the crit deck you have the option of taking the cool thing on the card or just getting the bonus damage normally.

You mention it's not to the death or that the poster hasn't fought to the death. If you're fighting to the death you're going to be even more careful and less reckless because in real life there's no respawn. If you're more careful you're going to hold your sword tigheter. You're going to be less casual about your opponent and where they are/their blade is. Why would you be more likely to "Accidentally" drop your sword when you're fighting for your life and have higher stakes at the table than something far more casual where dropping it is no big deal?

[Psyren]

But what convinces you that people do drop swords, when the closest evidence all points to not dropping swords? What do you find persuasive when training in the same manner that people did in the medieval period is not persuasive? I don't hear of real soldiers dropping their rifles after a missed shot, and have no reason to believe people just drop their knives occasionally in knife fights, (Which happen with some frequency.)

Because training and sparring represent optimal conditions, while actual combat between two professionals is often anything but. Hence the boxers/MMA fighters hitting themselves, and the fencers stumbling and breaking their foils, that I linked to previously. And even those examples I linked are not truly combat, though they come closer to it than boffering.



And when you have the same weapons using the same swings and stances and grapples and kicks and pommels, it is going to be at least a fairly accurate representation of medieval period duels, as such duels usually weren't to the death, either. There really is nothing to accurately represent a medieval battlefield, however.

Thing is, D&D isn't trying to model the non-lethal duels either. It is very much going for mortal combat - blood in your eyes, sweaty hands, wrenched limbs, unsteady footing and all.


You mention it's not to the death or that the poster hasn't fought to the death. If you're fighting to the death you're going to be even more careful and less reckless because in real life there's no respawn. If you're more careful you're going to hold your sword tigheter. You're going to be less casual about your opponent and where they are/their blade is. Why would you be more likely to "Accidentally" drop your sword when you're fighting for your life and have higher stakes at the table than something far more casual where dropping it is no big deal?

And what is the other guy doing while you're taking your time and being more careful? What happens when one or both of you gets desperate, knowing at some point into the fight that death is a real possibility?

[SowZ]

Because training and sparring represent optimal conditions, while actual combat between two professionals is often anything but. Hence the boxers/MMA fighters hitting themselves, and the fencers stumbling and breaking their foils, that I linked to previously. And even those examples I linked are not truly combat, though they come closer to it than boffering.



Thing is, D&D isn't trying to model the non-lethal duels either. It is very much going for mortal combat - blood in your eyes, sweaty hands, wrenched limbs, unsteady footing and all.

Why is boffering relevant? There are certainly several things closer to a historical sword-fight than Fencing, including HEMA and probably SCA which I am admittedly not as familiar with, (but a little.) And none of what you said is an argument for swordsman dropping their weapon after a missed swing.

[Brookshw]

Why is boffering relevant? There are certainly several things closer to a historical sword-fight than Fencing, including HEMA and probably SCA which I am admittedly not as familiar with, (but a little.) And none of what you said is an argument for swordsman dropping their weapon after a missed swing.

Last I checked none of which accounted for fighting a several ton dragon that's trying to eat your face :smallwink:

But more to the point this isn't a game that's trying to be a perfect simulation of actual combat, people in a fight aren't moving one at a time in discrete 6 second increments. What your arguing ultimately strikes me mostly as a dislike of a particular piece of fluff, e.g., swinging, missing completely, and dropping the weapon. None of that has to actually be any part of an explanation of why you've dropped the weapon. It deflecting off something, poor footing, many other explanations van be provided, choosing an absurd explanation (you swung and dropped the weapon) just means its an absurd explanation you've chosen, especially for a game that treats many nuances in combat purely in an abstract manner to begin with. Arguments for likelihood of events are well and good but at that point we're discussing mechanical preferences rather than a more general topic of the existence of fumbles at all.

[Terazul]

Last I checked none of which accounted for fighting a several ton dragon that's trying to eat your face :smallwink:


For all this talk of how boffers aren't relevant, how sparring is "optimal conditions and isn't a real swordfight", and how none of this thinks about dragons, and "well it wasn't a fight to the death", I find the "well I think mundanes should have more failure" accounts for the fact that none of us are Heracles. PC's are far more powerful and competent than any of us. You lose your footing. You drop your car keys because you're a level 1 commoner with BAB +0 and no weapon proficiencies. Heracles doesn't. A player character is beyond Heracles at level 6.

I really don't understand the "well I could see myself messing up" argument when applied to people who know what they're actually doing (especially when being told by people of roughly equivalent "level" who doknow what they're doing, that that doesn't actually happen). Fumbles are already accounted for by the Natural 1. In terms of abstraction it accounts for missed footing, deflections and all sorts of other mishaps (because why else would someone of your skill level miss beyond your opponent's equal skill?), and still don't understand the desire to add anything beyond that.

I am also generally amazed at the lengths that people are going to in order to discount actual personal, physical experience on the matter. Wowee zowee.

[Talakeal]

Last I checked none of which accounted for fighting a several ton dragon that's trying to eat your face :smallwink:

But more to the point this isn't a game that's trying to be a perfect simulation of actual combat, people in a fight aren't moving one at a time in discrete 6 second increments. What your arguing ultimately strikes me mostly as a dislike of a particular piece of fluff, e.g., swinging, missing completely, and dropping the weapon. None of that has to actually be any part of an explanation of why you've dropped the weapon. It deflecting off something, poor footing, many other explanations van be provided, choosing an absurd explanation (you swung and dropped the weapon) just means its an absurd explanation you've chosen, especially for a game that treats many nuances in combat purely in an abstract manner to begin with. Arguments for likelihood of events are well and good but at that point we're discussing mechanical preferences rather than a more general topic of the existence of fumbles at all.

I remember one time when I was a kid I was playing with a toy sword near some railroad tracks. A train came by and, just to see what would happen, I tried poking it with my toy sword. It was torn out of my hands in an instant and flung a good way down the track. I can't imagine that you wouldn't get a similar effect if you tried to jab a spear into the flank of a charging dragon or tried to sunder a golem made from solid iron with a sword.


For all this talk of how boffers aren't relevant, how sparring is "optimal conditions and isn't a real swordfight", and how none of this thinks about dragons, and "well it wasn't a fight to the death", I find the "well I think mundanes should have more failure" accounts for the fact that none of us are Heracles. PC's are far more powerful and competent than any of us. You lose your footing. You drop your car keys because you're a level 1 commoner with BAB +0 and no weapon proficiencies. Heracles doesn't. A player character is beyond Heracles at level 6.


In real life very talented people sometimes make very big mistakes. Whether or not you want to subject super humans to the same human frailties as the rest of us is pretty much up to the individual DM. Personally I feel that the base rules should be balanced around real humans and then giving the super heroes ways to ignore or exceed them, but that is just me.


I am also generally amazed at the lengths that people are going to in order to discount actual personal, physical experience on the matter. Wowee zowee.

Wait, wasn't the point of the previous paragraph about how personal experience shouldn't apply?

[Terazul]

I remember one time when I was a kid I was playing with a toy sword near some railroad tracks. A train came by and, just to see what would happen, I tried poking it with my toy sword. It was torn out of my hands in an instant and flung a good way down the track. I can't imagine that you wouldn't get a similar effect if you tried to jab a spear into the flank of a charging dragon or tried to sunder a golem made from solid iron with a sword.
Yeah that sounds like a kid playing with a toy sword poking a train alright.


In real life very talented people sometimes make very big mistakes. Whether or not you want to subject super humans to the same human frailties as the rest of us is pretty much up to the individual DM. Personally I feel that the base rules should be balanced around real humans and then giving the super heroes ways to ignore or exceed them, but that is just me.

Which is already accounted for by natural 1s.



Wait, wasn't the point of the previous paragraph about how personal experience shouldn't apply?

Given that the previous paragraph was a criticism of people's armchair musings about what they think should happen in comparison with people who actually know what they're doing, of course not. The Heracles example points out that Heracles is even beyond the individuals here who actually swordfight. So yeah. That last sentence still applies.

[martixy]

Also, how do you shoot yourself with a bow, anyway?


Humorous story time: By being dominated by the bad guy and rolling 3 nat20s, thereby killing a fellow party member. (Metaphorically anyway.)

[Talakeal]

Yeah that sounds like a kid playing with a toy sword poking a train alright.

And what do you think would happen if an adult poked the train with a real sword might I ask?

A dragon has scales harder than steel, flies at ~90 mph, and can weigh hundreds of tons. Why do you think that attempting to strike the dragon couldn't have similar results?


[I]Which is already accounted for by natural 1s.


A natural 1 is not a "mistake", it is simply a failure. A D&D character can not know something sure, but they can never be wrong. Also, natural 1s only apply to attacks and saving throws, they have no bearing on any of the other rolls in the game.

[Elbeyon]

A dragon has scales harder than steel, flies at ~90 mph, and can weigh hundreds of tons.The same is true for certain characters too.

[Terazul]

And what do you think would happen if an adult poked the train with a real sword might I ask?

A dragon has scales harder than steel, flies at ~90 mph, and can weigh hundreds of tons. Why do you think that attempting to strike the dragon couldn't have similar results?
Because one of them involves a herculean strength martial legend and not a child poking at a train.




A natural 1 is not a "mistake", it is simply a failure. A D&D character can not know something sure, but they can never be wrong. Also, natural 1s only apply to attacks and saving throws, they have no bearing on any of the other rolls in the game.

What? What is the mechanical difference at this point? Especially when we're trying to attach "mistakes" to something that is entirely impossible to circumvent? What is the goal here?

[Brookshw]

Given that the previous paragraph was a criticism of people's armchair musings about what they think should happen in comparison with people who actually know what they're doing, of course not. The Heracles example points out that Heracles is even beyond the individuals here who actually swordfight. So yeah. That last sentence still applies.

It's a bit dishonest of you to assume that others do not likewise have years of experience:smallsigh:

[The Glyphstone]

100% Agreed. Dying on a triple 1 is a stupid rule. But my point was that it doesn't come up often enough to turn the game into a comedic farce, not that it isn't a stupid rule.



Generally more randomness is beneficial to the underdog. While the PCs are usually the strongest people in the room, this isn't always the case, and I am not sure that mechanics that throw things in the underdogs favor can be called "unfair" in any case.

I tell you what though, the last session I played in I was low on health and up against a melee bruiser with a attack bonus higher than my AC and a minimum damage that would have killed me outright at my current HP. When he rolled a nat 1 to hit that sure didn't seem detrimental to the PCs.

You're completely missing my point. The PCs aren't the underdogs I'm talking about, I'm taking about melee/mundanes versus magic-users. Casters simply ignore 90% of fumble rules to begin with, in addition to being the most powerful classes in 3.5. Only mundanes worry about it, and TWF/flurry mundanes worry even more, in addition to being the weakest type of Mundane class to begin with.

Also, 'randomness' has nothing to do with it. Attacks automatically miss on a 1, that is incorporated into the rules. It is not more 'random' to change 'miss automatically' to 'miss plus fall on your butt/drop your sword/rip out your own intestines', it's just pointlessly punitive. D&D is a game of heroic fantasy, not Saw X: Three Stooges Edition.

[Talakeal]

Because one of them involves a herculean strength martial legend and not a child poking at a train.




What? What is the mechanical difference at this point? Especially when we're trying to attach "mistakes" to something that is entirely impossible to circumvent? What is the goal here?

There are so many assumptions in this post I am not quite sure where to start.

First off, why do you assume the baseline is "a herculean strength martial legend"? I usually play e6, very rarely do I see something with either the strength or skill of Hercules at the table, and even when I do, the majority of people involved in the combat are normally far more normal, either because they aren't combat classes, don't have superhuman stats, or are just hired mooks. If you hit something that hard moving that fast with that much force the energy needs to go somewhere, and while a very skilled person could direct it into destroying their subject this not the likeliest outcome until the very highest tiers of play.


The mechanical difference between a fumble and a mere failure is that in the latter nothing happens and in the former the situation is made worse.

I already listed the benefits of fumbles up thread, but I can do so again:


1: It gives the DM a handy tool to alter the mood of the game session
2: It makes the game more variable and interesting
3: More randomness tends to give the underdog a bit of a leg up and makes fights less of a one sided affair with a foregone conclusion
4: It is smoother than having artificial rules for categories of failure like the 3.x climb or disable device skills
5: You can have certain outcomes which only take affect on a fumble to make failure less harsh, for example a poison that only kills on a fumbled save but still deals damage on a failure
6: It serves as a soft form of role protection where it is risky to perform actions you know nothing about without having stupid absolutes like non rogues being forbidden to disarm high end traps
7: It allows more possibilities from a narrative perspective. Going by RAW, for example, you could never have a sage misidentify a monster, have a surgeon commit malpractice, see someone injure them self in a hunting accident, or break a piece of equipment in the field.
8: It makes the game world more realistic. Although you can quibble about the exact effects or frequency of a fumble, it is something that happens quite often in the real world and the narrative seems flat without the possibility.

Also, I do agree that 3.X is quite a bit too random and would work a bit better if there was a little bit more narrative control, but not having any say on how the dice roll is the name of the game. Like every other aspect of the game you can try and set up the situation so you have the best odds possible, but ultimately you have no control over anything the game throws at you. Still, I find critical hits a much worse offender than fumbles here as an enemy critical is a heck of a lot more likely to kill a player or take them out of the game than their own fumbles, yet for some reason we see threads about adding fumbles all the time but I can't remember a single person wanting to remove criticals.


You're completely missing my point. The PCs aren't the underdogs I'm talking about, I'm taking about melee/mundanes versus magic-users. Casters simply ignore 90% of fumble rules to begin with, in addition to being the most powerful classes in 3.5. Only mundanes worry about it, and TWF/flurry mundanes worry even more, in addition to being the weakest type of Mundane class to begin with.

Also, 'randomness' has nothing to do with it. Attacks automatically miss on a 1, that is incorporated into the rules. It is not more 'random' to change 'miss automatically' to 'miss plus fall on your butt/drop your sword/rip out your own intestines', it's just pointlessly punitive. D&D is a game of heroic fantasy, not Saw X: Three Stooges Edition.

I 100% agree here. I think that simply adding a "roll a 1 on an attack and something bad happens" is a horrible fumble system for any game, especially 3.X where melee combatants have enough to worry about.

I am simply arguing in favor of the concept of fumbles, not any particular implementation, as all of my favorites games, as a player, as a GM, and as a designer, have fairly robust fumble rules and I feel they are better for it. I think D&D could benefit from one, but it would require a very heavy revision of the system, which is way more work than myself (or anyone else in this thread afaik) has put into it.

[Rhyltran]

Because training and sparring represent optimal conditions, while actual combat between two professionals is often anything but. Hence the boxers/MMA fighters hitting themselves, and the fencers stumbling and breaking their foils, that I linked to previously. And even those examples I linked are not truly combat, though they come closer to it than boffering.



Thing is, D&D isn't trying to model the non-lethal duels either. It is very much going for mortal combat - blood in your eyes, sweaty hands, wrenched limbs, unsteady footing and all.



And what is the other guy doing while you're taking your time and being more careful? What happens when one or both of you gets desperate, knowing at some point into the fight that death is a real possibility?

If he gets desperate and what he's doing isn't going to make me suddenly decide I should loosen my grip and hold it very casually. If I get desperate if anything I'm going to hold it tighter. I am not going to let go. I am not going to loosen my grip. I will not flail around. That's how you die. If he cuts my arm off that's not me accidentally dropping my blade. If he disarms me. That's not me dropping my blade. Nothing is going to make me accidentally drop my blade in a life or death situation. I don't do it in a CASUAL situation. I'm not going to do it in a life or death one where dropping it literally means "You die." Against a good swordsman the last thing I want is my blade on the floor.


It's a bit dishonest of you to assume that others do not likewise have years of experience:smallsigh:

Except nobody in the "People drop their swords by accident" camp are claiming real life experience. Most of the posters admit they don't have real life experience. It's the opposite. Those of us with real life experience are all claiming the same thing. We don't drop our swords. Now our characters are people who have the technique and skill to slice a dragon which might as well be a moving train. This is something that none of us would be able to hurt let alone actually cut. These are characters that can survive short trips in lava, being dropped from orbit, and take on hundreds of soldiers single handedly. These characters are so far beyond us that if a skilled "swordsman" won't drop their weapon there's no reason to assume they would.

Argue fumble rules being fun. That's an argument we can't beat because it's subjective. Argue about it happening in real life.. it just doesn't happen.

[Terazul]

There are so many assumptions in this post I am not quite sure where to start.

First off, why do you assume the baseline is "a herculean strength martial legend"? I usually play e6...
Cool that you play E6, but we've been discussing the broad application of fumble rules to 3.5, in which a typical PC will reach those levels very quickly. Furthermore, it still doesn't say anything about the fact that they are orders of magnitude more skilled than the best olympic athletes of our world. Plus we're getting into killing catgirls when we start going "well what about real world physics?". We're getting off base here.



The mechanical difference between a fumble and a mere failure is that in the latter nothing happens and in the former the situation is made worse.
And I still don't see the necessity of making anything worse.



I already listed the benefits of fumbles up thread, but I can do so again:
Alright.



1: It gives the DM a handy tool to alter the mood of the game session

It's not a tool, because the DM has no control over when it happens. It just does. Also, we have language for that. Room descriptions. The DM has a ton of tools already, I don't see the need for one that needlessly punishes players further. The "weakest" ones at that.


2: It makes the game more variable and interesting
We'll disagree here. Variable, yes. Interesting, no. Frustrating? Quite possibly.


3: More randomness tends to give the underdog a bit of a leg up and makes fights less of a one sided affair with a foregone conclusion
The assumption here is that the PCs are the underdogs, or that fights are one-sided at all if fumbles aren't in play. Which they aren't. Plus if we're discussing the Martial/Magical dichotomy, it further penalizes the underdog within that context.


4: It is smoother than having artificial rules for categories of failure like the 3.x climb or disable device skills
I... disagree? It's actively disrupting. Disable Device is incredibly straightforward: You fail, try again, if it was a trap, you spring it. A failed climb check by a margin of 4 or less makes no progress, 5 or more you begin falling. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/climb.htm) There are rules for these exact things.



5: You can have certain outcomes which only take affect on a fumble to make failure less harsh, for example a poison that only kills on a fumbled save but still deals damage on a failure
Except this is already covered by the rules by the poison rules. It is the entire point of secondary poison saves.



6: It serves as a soft form of role protection where it is risky to perform actions you know nothing about without having stupid absolutes like non rogues being forbidden to disarm high end traps
How? From what I'm hearing it seems it's just as risky to perform actions regardless of whether you know anything or not.



7: It allows more possibilities from a narrative perspective. Going by RAW, for example, you could never have a sage misidentify a monster, have a surgeon commit malpractice, see someone injure them self in a hunting accident, or break a piece of equipment in the field.
Yes, you can. This is exactly what skill DCs are for. If you roll a 35 on Knowledge but the DC was 40, you don't know what it was. If the DC was below 35, then it's something someone who identifies as a sage should be able to identify. Same thing with a surgeon, or a hunter. Mistakes and mishaps come from outside circumstances. Do you play games where outside of fumbles nobody actually fails? Because I keep seeing this "there's no consequences/possibility of failure!" argument when there are clear indications in the rules of what happens when you mess up, and the fact that you can in the first place.



8: It makes the game world more realistic. Although you can quibble about the exact effects or frequency of a fumble, it is something that happens quite often in the real world and the narrative seems flat without the possibility.
Just going to disagree again here, since this has been shown to be demonstrably false. Many, many times.

Again, if you find fumbles fun, sure, I disagree, but whatever floats your boat. But I'm not going to pretend they are "realistic" or anything of the sort.

[Psyren]

Last I checked none of which accounted for fighting a several ton dragon that's trying to eat your face :smallwink:

But more to the point this isn't a game that's trying to be a perfect simulation of actual combat, people in a fight aren't moving one at a time in discrete 6 second increments. What your arguing ultimately strikes me mostly as a dislike of a particular piece of fluff, e.g., swinging, missing completely, and dropping the weapon. None of that has to actually be any part of an explanation of why you've dropped the weapon. It deflecting off something, poor footing, many other explanations van be provided, choosing an absurd explanation (you swung and dropped the weapon) just means its an absurd explanation you've chosen, especially for a game that treats many nuances in combat purely in an abstract manner to begin with. Arguments for likelihood of events are well and good but at that point we're discussing mechanical preferences rather than a more general topic of the existence of fumbles at all.

Exactly this.


For all this talk of how boffers aren't relevant, how sparring is "optimal conditions and isn't a real swordfight", and how none of this thinks about dragons, and "well it wasn't a fight to the death", I find the "well I think mundanes should have more failure" accounts for the fact that none of us are Heracles. PC's are far more powerful and competent than any of us. You lose your footing. You drop your car keys because you're a level 1 commoner with BAB +0 and no weapon proficiencies. Heracles doesn't. A player character is beyond Heracles at level 6.

You do realize that the things you fight keep pace with "Heracles" as you level, right? Unless you're going to be exclusively fighting muggles, wolves and bandits from level 6-20? No?

[Brookshw]

Except nobody in the "People drop their swords by accident" camp are claiming real life experience. Most of the posters admit they don't have real life experience. It's the opposite. Those of us with real life experience are all claiming the same thing.

Not so, I have experience and have certainly dropped a sword. I've known many other people who've dropped weapons in sparring. I've watched people with decades of experience drop swords. Everytime I look in the mirror I see the scar across my forehead from the last time I did any form or weapon sparring. It's rare, exceedingly rare, but these things happen, its not "never".

However its not worth arguing personal experience and real world because it presumes a preference that is not going to be shared. The variety of preferences, theatrical, realism, mechanical, slapstick, what one person dislike isn't going to matter to someone who doesn't value that in a game or a fumble table. So why sit here getting bogged down debating a particular like dropping a weapon.

[Pex]

To arbitrarily make fumble rules for spellcasters casting any spell because warriors are given fumbles is itself a hint that the house rule fumble rules aren't a good idea. When a house rule itself needs a house rule to fix its affect on the game, the better solution is not to have the original house rule in the first place.

[Venger]

To arbitrarily make fumble rules for spellcasters casting any spell because warriors are given fumbles is itself a hint that the house rule fumble rules aren't a good idea. When a house rule itself needs a house rule to fix its affect on the game, the better solution is not to have the original house rule in the first place.

yep. this is known as the oberoni fallacy. "(rule) is not problematic, because you can use (houserule) to fix it."

when the first rule is a houserule... yeah. better not to use it.

[Psyren]

yep. this is known as the oberoni fallacy. "(rule) is not problematic, because you can use (houserule) to fix it."

when the first rule is a houserule... yeah. better not to use it.

This conclusion does not follow - "X is problematic, so better to throw it out than fix it with a houserule" would basically keep you from playing 3.5 at all.

[Flickerdart]

This conclusion does not follow - "X is problematic, so better to throw it out than fix it with a houserule" would basically keep you from playing 3.5 at all.
Except in this case it's "X is problematic, so let's not add it into the game in the first place."

[Venger]

Except in this case it's "X is problematic, so let's not add it into the game in the first place."

yeah, exactly. fumbles are not a part of the rules (for good reason)

[Psyren]

Except in this case it's "X is problematic, so let's not add it into the game in the first place."

Dull efficiency (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0836.html) it is then I guess.

The fact that this topic keeps coming up (and multiple times on the front page even) suggests to me that some folks find them fun though.

[Brookshw]

Dull efficiency (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0836.html) it is then I guess.

The fact that this topic keeps coming up (and multiple times on the front page even) suggests to me that some folks find them fun though.

Come to think of it, I think just about every rpg I've played had at least a fumble option if not having them as an intrinsic part of the rules. The prevalence speaks for itself I'd think.


However a possible option we could consider might be putting fumbles/criticals in as a trait/flaw combo. Or, alternatively a Prc, a melee wild mage in a sense.

[Talakeal]

You know, fumbles are a real rule. They are an (optional) rule in printed in no uncertain terms in the DMG of every edition of D&D I have ever seriously played, so it isn't like this is just a wild "house rule" people are making up on the spot.

Again, let me repeat, this implementation is pretty bad, but the concept of fumbles is a sound one and most RPGs that are not D&D include them without any major problems.



To arbitrarily make fumble rules for spellcasters casting any spell because warriors are given fumbles is itself a hint that the house rule fumble rules aren't a good idea. When a house rule itself needs a house rule to fix its affect on the game, the better solution is not to have the original house rule in the first place.

It does require a lot of effort to implement properly, yes. I don't think that just because a rule required a lot of effort to implement means it is a bad rule, if that was the case we would still be playing OD&D.

[OldTrees1]

Come to think of it, I think just about every rpg I've played had at least a fumble option if not having them as an intrinsic part of the rules. The prevalence speaks for itself I'd think.


However a possible option we could consider might be putting fumbles/criticals in as a trait/flaw combo. Or, alternatively a Prc, a melee wild mage in a sense.

Based on the prevalence and the polarizing nature of the topic, I think it is best implemented as a variant houserules (used only by those that enjoy them) rather than costing a trait/flaw/levels.

[Talakeal]

stuff.


Hoo-boy. Ok let me try and respond here.

1: I am not sure why not being able to control when it comes up makes it not a tool, but would you prefer if I called it an "opportunity" instead? Also, fumbles don't punish the players. The negatively impact the "characters". This isn't a punishment, and this isn't a bad thing. Maybe I am just not "old school" enough, but I find that being able to react in character to a new situation to be a reward, regardless of whether or not it helps me "win the game".

2: Ok, agree to disagree then,

3: No, PCs are not guaranteed to be the underdog, and no, fumbles are not guaranteed to turn the tide and lack of them doesn't mean that fights are always one sided. But they do tend to help the underdog, or at least upset the status quo, and that is a good thing in my book. Also, just because the printed fumble rules in D&D does it that way doesn't mean to all fumbles systems favor casters; look at any of the Warhammer RPGs if you want to see a system where fumbles are particularly detrimental to spell casters and are indeed one of the main limitations to their power.


4: Right, SOME of the skills have a built in fumble mechanic. Others do not. And this mechanic is totally different than the fumble mechanic for combats presented in the DMG. I would prefer if the game had a single unified mechanic rather than needing to look up the rules for it in each individual instance.

5: The secondary saves are more of a "DOT" mechanic than what I am talking about. I am more referring to something like the rules in World of Darkness where a werewolf can only become a vampire if they botch their test to resist the vampire's blood, on a mere failure they just die. It is something really rare and really bad, yet something that is a definite possibility. In real life most poisonous animals are not usually fatal, but there is a small chance that a person can die from them, much rarer than a mere 1 in 20 auto fails. Keep in mind that except for con damage it is literally impossible to die from any of the poisons listed in the DMG.

6: Yeah, always have a confirmation for fumbles. Disable Device has a built in consequence, if you fail by 5 or more you set off the trap. This is bad. This means that attempting to disarm a trap when you don't know what you are doing becomes a risk you need to weigh. This should be enough to dissuade non rogues from attempting to disarm the trap, but instead we just have a blanket "NOPE" for any trap with a DC higher than 20, which to me is less fun, less balanced, and less realistic, the trifecta of bad rules design imo.


7: Ok, "failure" means you don't accomplish the task. A fumble means something bad happens as a result of your attempt. Real life has plenty of negative consequences for doing things and getting unlucky or not knowing what you are doing. D&D has them for SOME tasks, but by no means all, and I would prefer a more unified system. As I said, knowledge is binary, you either know something or you don't, there is no mechanism for being wrong.

8: Ok, seriously, you must be using some different definition of "fumble" than I am if you think it is "demonstrably lacking in real life." Again, I am using the definition of something goes wrong and there is a negative consequence that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't attempted the task. As I said, you might quibble about the frequency of how often fumbles occur or what their specific effect is, but to climb they don't happen in real life is ludicrous. Just open the newspaper on any given day and I guarantee you will find a long list of fumbles, many of them from professionals who "should know better".

People get hurt and die in accidents, be it household activities, sports, play, driving, hunting, cleaning their guns, construction, or actual combat all the time. People accidently burn down, lose, or break valuable possessions. People are wrong about important issues. Doctors and other professionals get sued for malpractice. Athletes botch easy tasks in hilarious ways. Products are recalled and structures collapse.

This is the world we live in, and if you can't see how misadventure is all around us all the time then your view of the world is literally so different from mine that I don't think we can have a meaningful conversation.

[Terazul]

People get hurt and die in accidents, be it household activities, sports, play, driving, hunting, cleaning their guns, construction, or actual combat all the time. People accidently burn down, lose, or break valuable possessions. People are wrong about important issues. Doctors and other professionals get sued for malpractice. Athletes botch easy tasks in hilarious ways. Products are recalled and structures collapse.

This is the world we live in, and if you can't see how misadventure is all around us all the time then your view of the world is literally so different from mine that I don't think we can have a meaningful conversation.

I can see that in the world we live in, because we're all a bunch of commoners flailing about.

Let me put it this way, I don't see what people dying and becoming injured from, in your own examples, cleaning their guns in DnD adds to the game.

Yeah, we're not going to have meaningful conversation. I'm out.

[SowZ]

Not so, I have experience and have certainly dropped a sword. I've known many other people who've dropped weapons in sparring. I've watched people with decades of experience drop swords. Everytime I look in the mirror I see the scar across my forehead from the last time I did any form or weapon sparring. It's rare, exceedingly rare, but these things happen, its not "never".

However its not worth arguing personal experience and real world because it presumes a preference that is not going to be shared. The variety of preferences, theatrical, realism, mechanical, slapstick, what one person dislike isn't going to matter to someone who doesn't value that in a game or a fumble table. So why sit here getting bogged down debating a particular like dropping a weapon.

Was this sword dropping after contact with another sword or just randomly after a miss?

[Talakeal]

I can see that in the world we live in, because we're all a bunch of commoners flailing about.

Let me put it this way, I don't see what people dying and becoming injured from, in your own examples, cleaning their guns in DnD adds to the game.

Yeah, we're not going to have meaningful conversation. I'm out.

That particular case, no, I doubt it would anything to the game, it was just an example of something that seems easy but is fatal a disturbing often amount of the time which I used to counter the argument that deadly fumbles for trivial tasks was unrealistic.

I can't see why a player would ever be rolling to clean their gear, let alone often enough that dying from it would be a real possibility; HOWEVER I can see it being a potential plot hook for an NPC, and there are many players who get mad when a DM uses a narrative tool that is not a mechanical possibility. I remember a very long thread on this forum a couple of years ago about a high level NPC knight dying by breaking his neck in a horseback riding accident and leaving his unfinished quest to the PCs and the PCs refusing to accept it as a valid plot hook because "there are no rules for a high level character being killed by falling of a horse therefore it shatters my image of the game world for the DM to declare it."

But, back on topic, saying that you prefer to play a larger than life character who never fumbles because he is flat out better than humanity is a valid stylistic choice. It isn't a game I would want to play in, but there is nothing wrong with it. And I agree that in such a game fumbles (and perhaps meaningful failure of any sort) is perhaps not appropriate. But that still doesn't mean that fumbles can never be mechanically or thematically appropriate for games of any sort.

[Terazul]

But, back on topic, saying that you prefer to play a larger than life character who never fails because he is flat out better than humanity is a valid stylistic choice.

Stop. Stop treating "lack of fumbles" as "lack of possibility failure".

[SowZ]

That particular case, no, I doubt it would anything to the game, it was just an example of something that seems easy but is fatal a disturbing often amount of the time which I used to counter the argument that deadly fumbles for trivial tasks was unrealistic.

I can't see why a player would ever be rolling to clean their gear, let alone often enough that dying from it would be a real possibility; HOWEVER I can see it being a potential plot hook for an NPC, and there are many players who get mad when a DM uses a narrative tool that is not a mechanical possibility. I remember a very long thread on this forum a couple of years ago about a high level NPC knight dying by breaking his neck in a horseback riding accident and leaving his unfinished quest to the PCs and the PCs refusing to accept it as a valid plot hook because "there are no rules for a high level character being killed by falling of a horse therefore it shatters my image of the game world for the DM to declare it."

But, back on topic, saying that you prefer to play a larger than life character who never fails because he is flat out better than humanity is a valid stylistic choice. It isn't a game I would want to play in, but there is nothing wrong with it. And I agree that in such a game fumbles (and perhaps meaningful failure of any sort) is perhaps not appropriate. But that still doesn't mean that fumbles can never be mechanically or thematically appropriate for games of any sort.

There are also no rules for having a heart attack, yet it is valid to have heart attacks be a thing in setting. Certain things are so rare or unfun that they don't need rules. That doesn't mean it shouldn't happen as a plot hook.

I have the exact opposite philosophy. This is not OOTS or Goblins Comic. Rules are an abstraction that makes playing the game possible. They are not hard and fast laws of physics. I can see a case to be made that anything NPCs can do, PCs should theoretically be able to do at some point. I do not see a case that anything that happens should be backed up by mechanics. There are no rules for how often you need to poop, either.

[Talakeal]

There are also no rules for having a heart attack, yet it is valid to have heart attacks be a thing in setting. Certain things are so rare or unfun that they don't need rules. That doesn't mean it shouldn't happen as a plot hook.

I have the exact opposite philosophy. This is not OOTS or Goblins Comic. Rules are an abstraction that makes playing the game possible. They are not hard and fast laws of physics. I can see a case to be made that anything NPCs can do, PCs should theoretically be able to do at some point. I do not see a case that anything that happens should be backed up by mechanics. There are no rules for how often you need to poop, either.

I don't think that way either, but a lot of players do, and when you have one of them at the table I find it best to have a rule to point to. Unless it is actively getting in the way of the game I find it is better to have a rule and not need it than need it and not have it.

Frankly I like it when I suffer setbacks, but I prefer them to happen naturally. As a player I would feel better if misfortune befell my PC as a result of a string of bad dice rolls rather than the DM just steeping in and heaping misfortune on me arbitrarily.



Stop. Stop treating "lack of fumbles" as "lack of possibility failure".

Chill man, that's what I meant, no need to yell. I will edit my post to fix it if it makes you that mad.

Although I am a little perplexed as to how you can think I am arguing that a fumble and a failure are the same thing or you can't have failure without fumbles as I have already said:


"It allows more possibilities from a narrative perspective. Going by RAW, for example, you could never have a sage misidentify a monster, have a surgeon commit malpractice, see someone injure them self in a hunting accident, or break a piece of equipment in the field.

Which I then clarified with:


" 7: Ok, "failure" means you don't accomplish the task. A fumble means something bad happens as a result of your attempt. Real life has plenty of negative consequences for doing things and getting unlucky or not knowing what you are doing. D&D has them for SOME tasks, but by no means all, and I would prefer a more unified system. As I said, knowledge is binary, you either know something or you don't, there is no mechanism for being wrong..


If you want me to clarify further; as I said before a failure means you don't accomplish anything of note, a fumble means you make the situation worse.

For Example:
A blacksmith goes to make a sword. On a failure he doesn't produce a useable item, on a fumble he ruins the materials.
A doctor attempts to treat a disease. On a failure he doesn't cure the disease, on a fumble he harms the patient by giving them the wrong drugs.
A sage tries to identify a monster. On a failure he doesn't know, on a fumble he is mistaken and gives false information.
An archer fires an arrow. On a failure he misses his mark, on a fumble he shoots an ally in the back.
A climber tries to scale a wall. On a failure he doesn't make any progress, on a fumble he falls.
A rogue goes to pick a lock. On a failure he can't get it open, on a fumble he makes enough noise to alert the guards to his presence.


In short, a failure is still a failure, it does not succeed. But it does not have negative consequences, at least no worse than if you had done nothing at all.
Some skills have a built in "fumble" mechanic (although they don't call it such) which occurs if you fail the roll by 5 or more, others do not.

[Psyren]

Stop. Stop treating "lack of fumbles" as "lack of possibility failure".

Fine - how about "lack of the possibility of failure that has no unintended consequences beyond the failure itself whatsoever." Better?

[Terazul]

Fine - how about "lack of the possibility of failure that has no unintended consequences beyond the failure itself whatsoever." Better?

At this point we're talking past each other, because now it's "well shouldn't every action have a possibility of unintended consequences?" as opposed to fumble rules within the context of DnD and combat. This is ignoring the fact that failures already have consequences by virtue of being failures. If you fail your Heal check you don't stabilize/fix the person, and they will typically die. If you fail an Intimidate check, you just piss off the guy instead of him being neutral or whatever it is before. If you fail a Survival check, you get lost or stuck in quicksand or something. You are saying "those types of things cannot happen without fumbles" and I'm saying that:

A) You're wrong, because that type of thing is already accounted for and
B) I'm still talking about fumbles within the context of 3.5 which has everything to do with attack rolls and combat.


...
See, most (4/6) of the things you listed there, in 3.5 are a result of a normal failure of a check (Archer is the light cover/firing into melee rules), not fumbles within the context of this discussion and thread.

You can keep using your own definitions if you want. Don't tell me to chill. I am particularly tired of pointing out how combat fumbles within the context of DnD 3.5, which we are discussing, are non-realistic, non-applicable to real life people let alone heroic figures (which the game represents), and then being immediately told "oh, so you don't like consequences for failure?"

[Brookshw]

Was this sword dropping after contact with another sword or just randomly after a miss?

A number though I know I've had my grip simply slip for one at least. Iirc I believe another was the wrap on a handle being very worn and shifting. I get where you're coming from and agree its a pretty rare occurance. If someone wanted a realistic fumble table that included likelihood they're probably want to refluff it.

[Psyren]

At this point we're talking past each other, because now it's "well shouldn't every action have a possibility of unintended consequences?" as opposed to fumble rules within the context of DnD and combat. This is ignoring the fact that failures already have consequences by virtue of being failures.

Those failures are largely a known quantity though, i.e. dull and boring. If people didn't find the added uncertainty/chaos of a true fumble engaging, it wouldn't keep coming up in gaming fora or be mentioned in multiple editions/versions of the game.



You are saying "those types of things cannot happen without fumbles" and I'm saying that:

A) You're wrong, because that type of thing is already accounted for and
B) I'm still talking about fumbles within the context of 3.5 which has everything to do with attack rolls and combat.

Except I didn't say a thing about skill checks, did I? So I don't know who you're responding to here, but it isn't me.

[Rhyltran]

Not so, I have experience and have certainly dropped a sword. I've known many other people who've dropped weapons in sparring. I've watched people with decades of experience drop swords. Everytime I look in the mirror I see the scar across my forehead from the last time I did any form or weapon sparring. It's rare, exceedingly rare, but these things happen, its not "never".

However its not worth arguing personal experience and real world because it presumes a preference that is not going to be shared. The variety of preferences, theatrical, realism, mechanical, slapstick, what one person dislike isn't going to matter to someone who doesn't value that in a game or a fumble table. So why sit here getting bogged down debating a particular like dropping a weapon.

Did you drop your weapon on a missed swing or because someone hit your hand? Disarmed you? Etc. This is not what we're talking about. I mean, with no one in the way did you swing and accidentally throw your weapon? I can relate to the scar but I think these are important. As for why dropping a weapon? A lot of fumble rules people use involve weapon dropping. Also someone else brought up realism. I'm only arguing from that angle because trying to convince people it's not fun when they think it's fun is a fool's errand because the whole point of an RPG is to use what you find fun. The DM has the power to do so and I would never debate against someone who's entire table enjoys doing it.

I missed that you answered this question but I did answer your later post. I don't argue against people who like the system. Just those that claim realism as already mentioned.

Now if it's about realism.. that I can argue against.

[Psyren]

Can we all then agree that the best way to model a fumble causing you to (potentially) drop your weapon then is the free disarm from the opponent, perhaps with a bonus of some kind? That way everybody wins and we can move on from that bone of contention.

[Rhyltran]

Can we all then agree that the best way to model a fumble causing you to (potentially) drop your weapon then is the free disarm from the opponent, perhaps with a bonus of some kind? That way everybody wins and we can move on from that bone of contention.

Why give the players/enemies a chance at something someone else must take a feat in? To me it kind of lowers the value of the feat itself. Yes being able to target and do it at need be is more powerful but it still lowers the value if a simple unlucky dice roll basically provides the equivalent of said feat. In most games if you have a chance to do something and there's a "Skill" or "Feat" you can pick that enables you to actively aim to do it barely anyone ever takes it. It's more powerful to have something you can't do as opposed to something that can happen whether you have it or not.

This is true in most competitive RPGs. While D&D is more casual the point still stands. I will also say "Knight falling from horseback breaking his neck" is also an annoying idea to me. D&D past level six you're no longer a simple human. D&D portrays the real world very good from level 1-6. Past that you can do things like survive a fall from orbit. Someone bringing up heracles is making a very good but interesting point. Your characters past level 6 resemble heroes/demi-gods from legends as opposed to normal human beings. Falling from a horse? Your character gets back up. I mean, the average person can move 20-30 feet according to D&D in a round. We have monks that can hit 80-120. These aren't normal people and shouldn't be treated as such. If a level 12 knight fell off his horse and broke his neck it would take me out of the mood as well. This should be a man of LEGEND.

[Psyren]

Why give the players/enemies a chance at something someone else must take a feat in? To me it kind of lowers the value of the feat itself.

Actually it's quite the opposite. If you give them a free disarm attempt, even with a bonus, then any feats or abilities they have that help disarm would play into that. You're actually increasing the value of said feats rather than decreasing them. Similarly, for the guy who fumbled, any rules elements they possess to help them resist disarm would apply. This way is even superior because it allows things like weapon chains or locked gauntlets to play a role, just like they would in a real fight.



D&D past level six you're no longer a simple human. D&D portrays the real world very good from level 1-6. Past that you can do things like survive a fall from orbit. Someone bringing up heracles is making a very good but interesting point. Your characters past level 6 resemble heroes/demi-gods from legends as opposed to normal human beings. Falling from a horse? Your character gets back up. I mean, the average person can move 20-30 feet according to D&D in a round. We have monks that can hit 80-120. These aren't normal people and shouldn't be treated as such. If a level 12 knight fell off his horse and broke his neck it would take me out of the mood as well. This should be a man of LEGEND.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that your "man of LEGEND" is fighting legendary threats. So I agree, maybe he would never ever be disarmed while fighting a common brigand or dockside rowdy. But pit him against a Marilith, or Oni, or Zelekhut, or Storm Giant, and suddenly he is pressed again.

The point is that the game assumes threats scale with you. Being legendary doesn't make you immune to failure, nor even to very specific/spectacular kinds of failure. And a disarm or sunder attempt would represent that, because an extremely strong monster - one who could crack boulders, say - would certainly have a chance at damaging or relieving even a "supernormal" combatant of their weapon.

[Sacrieur]

Good fumble rules are no fumble rules.

For a very good reason too. Never use your DM powers to arbitrarily decide what happens to their detriment in combat. In order for fumble rules to be even remotely fair for players you'd have to write a few pages about how it works and what happens with what weapons and at what percentages that they roll a d100 for. The whole thing is a big mess and I haven't met a player that likes it.

You could, and I don't suggest it, replace the natural 1 miss with simply provoking an attack of opportunity (but you don't automatically fail the attack). I think that could be a reasonable fumble rule.

[Rhyltran]

Actually it's quite the opposite. If you give them a free disarm attempt, even with a bonus, then any feats or abilities they have that help disarm would play into that. You're actually increasing the value of said feats rather than decreasing them. Similarly, for the guy who fumbled, any rules elements they possess to help them resist disarm would apply. This way is even superior because it allows things like weapon chains or locked gauntlets to play a role, just like they would in a real fight.



The problem with this line of reasoning is that your "man of LEGEND" is fighting legendary threats. So I agree, maybe he would never ever be disarmed while fighting a common brigand or dockside rowdy. But pit him against a Marilith, or Oni, or Zelekhut, or Storm Giant, and suddenly he is pressed again.

The point is that the game assumes threats scale with you. Being legendary doesn't make you immune to failure, nor even to very specific/spectacular kinds of failure. And a disarm or sunder attempt would represent that, because an extremely strong monster - one who could crack boulders, say - would certainly have a chance at damaging or relieving even a "supernormal" combatant of their weapon.

To be fair I was more commenting about "High level knight falls off his horse and breaks his neck." I do agree your way does sound better than any fumble rules I've seen. If I was at your table I'd be more agreeable to your fluff reasoning of "Enemy knocks your sword away. Enemy manages to get a lucky opportunity and disarms you." I can go by that. "You accidentally toss your sword 16 feet away from you." No but your way actually has an explanation.

[Barstro]

The problem with this line of reasoning is that your "man of LEGEND" is fighting legendary threats. So I agree, maybe he would never ever be disarmed while fighting a common brigand or dockside rowdy. But pit him against a Marilith, or Oni, or Zelekhut, or Storm Giant, and suddenly he is pressed again.

While I 100% agree with the above statement, I think it is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

The fact that the PC is fighting a Marilith is viewing an external scenario. Fumbles, being a result of the PC's roll, are internal factors. As they are a result of what the PC is doing, the value of the enemies should not be taken into effect.

After typing the above, I now somewhat disagree with my statement, and provide a different view;
1) A "Fumble" provides an opening for the opponent to exploit, similar to the Attack of Opportunity rules. This is an internal view; the PC created the opening.
2) The opening DOES require looking at what the opponent can do (again, like AoO) and rolls are needed. The is is external view; power of the opponent determines if the opening can be exploited.

The above is somewhat logical and inherently fair. (My personal view is that even stupid rules are inherently fair if they are applied equally, but that's besides the point and I can always find a way to prove that they are not applied equally. :smallbiggrin:) At any rate, allowing an opening gets rid of the chance of a fighter dying due to a dummy because a dummy cannot take an action due to an opening.

I would then change my views on fumble to;
1) Rolling a 1 on the first attack of the round creates an opening.
2) Opponent makes some sort of check (Combat Maneuver, maybe) to take advantage of the opening. (Reaction of Opportunity?)
3) Successful RoO leads to a 1d6 to determine the effect.

While this DOES punish melee, I don't care. It benefits opponent melee just as much and is a wash. Spellcasters from across the room do not get harmed by a failure because nobody is there to take advantage of it. But, a spellcaster foolishly in melee could be torn apart.

[Psyren]

While I 100% agree with the above statement, I think it is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

The fact that the PC is fighting a Marilith is viewing an external scenario. Fumbles, being a result of the PC's roll, are internal factors. As they are a result of what the PC is doing, the value of the enemies should not be taken into effect.

But the external factors do matter if (as we were discussing, and as you mention later in your post) the fumble provokes a free AoO/maneuver instead of being "you automatically drop your weapon." So if you provoke a disarm attempt for instance, a common bandit just won't be able to take proper advantage of that momentary lapse in your defenses (you are too legendary/well-trained for that), while a Sword Archon or Chain Devil easily would, depending on your level.



At any rate, allowing an opening gets rid of the chance of a fighter dying due to a dummy because a dummy cannot take an action due to an opening.

I would then change my views on fumble to;
1) Rolling a 1 on the first attack of the round creates an opening.
2) Opponent makes some sort of check (Combat Maneuver, maybe) to take advantage of the opening. (Reaction of Opportunity?)
3) Successful RoO leads to a 1d6 to determine the effect.

While this DOES punish melee, I don't care. It benefits opponent melee just as much and is a wash. Spellcasters from across the room do not get harmed by a failure because nobody is there to take advantage of it. But, a spellcaster foolishly in melee could be torn apart.

Yeah, basically this, except I would roll for the type of "reaction" when the fumble happens, just like we do now, because no two fumbles are exactly alike. If your fumble is that you overbalance for instance, that provokes a trip attempt, and if the enemy is terrible at tripping then that sucks for them, they have no chance to try for a disarm instead, because the nature of the fumble was that you briefly had unsteady footing.

[Rhyltran]

But the external factors do matter if (as we were discussing, and as you mention later in your post) the fumble provokes a free AoO/maneuver instead of being "you automatically drop your weapon." So if you provoke a disarm attempt for instance, a common bandit just won't be able to take proper advantage of that momentary lapse in your defenses (you are too legendary/well-trained for that), while a Sword Archon or Chain Devil easily would, depending on your level.



Yeah, basically this, except I would roll for the type of "reaction" when the fumble happens, just like we do now, because no two fumbles are exactly alike. If your fumble is that you overbalance for instance, that provokes a trip attempt, and if the enemy is terrible at tripping then that sucks for them, they have no chance to try for a disarm instead, because the nature of the fumble was that you briefly had unsteady footing.

Now we're getting somewhere that I think is entertaining. That instead of a disarm automatically happening when you fumble your opponent instead gets to use a feat based on what happens, if they have it, and this makes the feats more powerful because you're getting greater use of them. If someone builds something like a charger they won't get as much mileage out of fumbles but someone like monk who might have both disarm and trip he'll have more opportunities to exploit the enemies' weakness. This makes tripping/disabling builds even more useful because you'll have more opportunities to use them. It also means fumbles won't mean much against a wizard because he's not going to know how to exploit the opening. At the same time if the wizard somehow fumbles then suddenly he might end up on the floor or worse.

[Barstro]

except I would roll for the type of "reaction" when the fumble happens, just like we do now, because no two fumbles are exactly alike. If your fumble is that you overbalance for instance, that provokes a trip attempt, and if the enemy is terrible at tripping then that sucks for them, they have no chance to try for a disarm instead, because the nature of the fumble was that you briefly had unsteady footing.

I originally had that order, but changed it to reduce rolls (no need to roll effect if the attempt failed). But I see your point; someone could be more skilled in a particular type of Reaction of Opportunity.

EDIT: my only counterargument would be that trying to disarm someone who has unsteady footing would still make for an easy disarm; their attention would be split between holding the weapon due to the RoO and balance due to the Fumble. Likewise, losing your grip on the weapon could make you easier to trip, since you are concentrating on not losing the weapon. Your argument, however, does lead to more varied feat choices.

[SowZ]

Honestly, a far more 'realistic' fumble is to provoke an Attack of Opportunity. The Disarm rules aren't actually very realistic because Disarming is actually really rare among people who know what they are doing at all. There's a thing called overrunning where you overextend and miss, (probably because the opponent steps to the side or because you foolishly swung toward the opponents weapon and they dropped their guard on purpose, knowing you would just whiff.) When you overrun, it is really easy to for the opponent to land a counter blow.

[Talakeal]

You can keep using your own definitions if you want. Don't tell me to chill. I am particularly tired of pointing out how combat fumbles within the context of DnD 3.5, which we are discussing, are non-realistic, non-applicable to real life people let alone heroic figures (which the game represents), and then being immediately told "oh, so you don't like consequences for failure?"

I have said about a dozen times that combat fumbles in 3.X are a bad idea without a major system overhaul, but that the idea of fumbles in RPGs is a good one if done right.

Why do you keep attacking my arguments if you are only talking about combat fumbles in 3.X, which we both agree are a bad idea?

[razorback]

What I think is getting muddied here is that an attack roll as determined by the roll of the dice isn't a single swing of the sword along with the fact that everyone gets their 'turn' within a 6 second Turn.
The abstract attack is really a combination of footwork, feints, swings, etc that happen simultaneously with your opponent doing the same. Within those 6 seconds your attack may be countered and riposted, you may swing wildly and miss, or you may misstep and slip among a myriad of things. That's where some DM arbitration and a little give and take from the players has to happen.



If he gets desperate and what he's doing isn't going to make me suddenly decide I should loosen my grip and hold it very casually. If I get desperate if anything I'm going to hold it tighter. I am not going to let go. I am not going to loosen my grip. I will not flail around. That's how you die. If he cuts my arm off that's not me accidentally dropping my blade. If he disarms me. That's not me dropping my blade. Nothing is going to make me accidentally drop my blade in a life or death situation. I don't do it in a CASUAL situation. I'm not going to do it in a life or death one where dropping it literally means "You die." Against a good swordsman the last thing I want is my blade on the floor.



I've done boxing and help teach martial arts. Now, sparring with 16oz gloves is a chore and having to yell at people who have been doing this for years while training to 'keep your hands up' because of the fatigue always happens. You know you need to keep them up and when you don't you pay for it but everyone does it because you're tired and been taking a beating and even your most basic training fails you at some point because you can't thinks straight.

At some point holding on to the sword tighter becomes detrimental. You are locking out your wrist and, probably, your elbow. At some point you have to relax that system in order to make the attack. If you're opponent is good enough or lucky enough, that is when they strike.
Within the 3.X framework, a fumble doesn't have to be a simple 'You drop your sword' but a more elaborate 'You swing but your opponent raises his sword or shield and turns your blow, driving your sword down. As it strikes the ground, the follow up pressure forces it out of your sweaty hands as it clangs on the ground." A disarm as a part of the natural flow of events, bad luck and timing as opposed to a disarm as a conscious effort on your opponents part.

As far as a 'roll a 1 and kill yourself' thinking goes, I would never use that. To me, anyone that does is being extremely punitive.
I use: on a roll of 1 on a d20, roll D100 and if it is less than or equal to (20-BAB, minimum of 1), then roll no a modified for d20 Rolemaster chart. From 1-100, only 100 has a 'see Critical chart X'. On said Crit Chart, only 100 on a 1-100 has a chance of instant kill.
So, if my math is right, a 1st level wizard has a 1% chance of failing and (.05*.2*.01*.01) or 1 in a million while a 19th+ level fighter has a 1 in 2000 chance to fumble and (.05*.01*.01*.01) has a 1 in 20 million chance of instant killing themselves. This would be for game life and death combat, not swinging at some target that doesn't react, counter and swing back.

[SowZ]

What I think is getting muddied here is that an attack roll as determined by the roll of the dice isn't a single swing of the sword along with the fact that everyone gets their 'turn' within a 6 second Turn.
The abstract attack is really a combination of footwork, feints, swings, etc that happen simultaneously with your opponent doing the same. Within those 6 seconds your attack may be countered and riposted, you may swing wildly and miss, or you may misstep and slip among a myriad of things. That's where some DM arbitration and a little give and take from the players has to happen.




I've done boxing and help teach martial arts. Now, sparring with 16oz gloves is a chore and having to yell at people who have been doing this for years while training to 'keep your hands up' because of the fatigue always happens. You know you need to keep them up and when you don't you pay for it but everyone does it because you're tired and been taking a beating and even your most basic training fails you at some point because you can't thinks straight.

At some point holding on to the sword tighter becomes detrimental. You are locking out your wrist and, probably, your elbow. At some point you have to relax that system in order to make the attack. If you're opponent is good enough or lucky enough, that is when they strike.
Within the 3.X framework, a fumble doesn't have to be a simple 'You drop your sword' but a more elaborate 'You swing but your opponent raises his sword or shield and turns your blow, driving your sword down. As it strikes the ground, the follow up pressure forces it out of your sweaty hands as it clangs on the ground." A disarm as a part of the natural flow of events, bad luck and timing as opposed to a disarm as a conscious effort on your opponents part.

As far as a 'roll a 1 and kill yourself' thinking goes, I would never use that. To me, anyone that does is being extremely punitive.
I use: on a roll of 1 on a d20, roll D100 and if it is less than or equal to (20-BAB, minimum of 1), then roll no a modified for d20 Rolemaster chart. From 1-100, only 100 has a 'see Critical chart X'. On said Crit Chart, only 100 on a 1-100 has a chance of instant kill.
So, if my math is right, a 1st level wizard has a 1% chance of failing and (.05*.2*.01*.01) or 1 in a million while a 19th+ level fighter has a 1 in 2000 chance to fumble and (.05*.01*.01*.01) has a 1 in 20 million chance of instant killing themselves. This would be for game life and death combat, not swinging at some target that doesn't react, counter and swing back.

Except that the odds of me dropping my sword are identical against the greatest swordsman in the history of time, a commoner wielding a rusty spoon, and an orc who is paralyzed by Hold Person.

[razorback]

Except that the odds of me dropping my sword are identical against the greatest swordsman in the history of time, a commoner wielding a rusty spoon, and an orc who is paralyzed by Hold Person.


Perhaps adding in some qualifier based on your opponents ability?,
But the rules as stated say that no one has a chance of ever dropping their sword in combat, slipping due to bad footing, or dropped their grenade in their own foxhole.

[razorback]

You can keep using your own definitions if you want. Don't tell me to chill. I am particularly tired of pointing out how combat fumbles within the context of DnD 3.5, which we are discussing, are non-realistic, non-applicable to real life people let alone heroic figures (which the game represents), and then being immediately told "oh, so you don't like consequences for failure?"

The thing is, not everyone wants to play a heroic figure and would like the game to run a certain way, which is why they have to come up with some house rules to get the feel of what they want. Which would be why E6 games have some popularity is my guess.

[Psyren]

Honestly, a far more 'realistic' fumble is to provoke an Attack of Opportunity. The Disarm rules aren't actually very realistic because Disarming is actually really rare among people who know what they are doing at all. There's a thing called overrunning where you overextend and miss, (probably because the opponent steps to the side or because you foolishly swung toward the opponents weapon and they dropped their guard on purpose, knowing you would just whiff.) When you overrun, it is really easy to for the opponent to land a counter blow.

If you provoke a generic AoO, they can just use that to disarm (or trip etc.) anyway if they're good at it. I actually consider that less realistic since it means that every fumble is equally suitable for any kind of attack by your opponent - for me it's more immersive if you have a specific kind of fumble that can be capitalized on in a specific way (and that if you're adept at defending against that particular method, even being off-balance of caught off guard won't let them get the best of you.)

[SowZ]

Perhaps adding in some qualifier based on your opponents ability?,
But the rules as stated say that no one has a chance of ever dropping their sword in combat, slipping due to bad footing, or dropped their grenade in their own foxhole.

Practically no one ever would drop their sword in combat. The odds aren't zero, but pretty close. It is not a thing that happens just as boxers don't miss a jab and punch themselves square in the nose. It just plain doesn't happen. When people drop their swords, it is with collision to another sword, or getting struck in the arm, and even then it is very rare. I've never been disarmed with a real sword. I've been struck in the hand or arm with real swords, (the force being identical to a real sword hitting you if you were wearing padded armor,) and never come close to dropping it. Again, it could happen, but people just dropping it because their hands are sweaty? A swordsman could swing his sword a hundred thousand times and not do such a thing. Maybe it would happen once or twice in one's life. I've never seen it happen.

As to, "There is a chance, but there are no rules for it," well, there are no rules for having a heart attack in battle. There are no rules for an aneurysm. There are no rules for choking on your food and dying. There are no rules for tying your belt wrong so that your pants fall about your ankles at inopportune times.

[Flickerdart]

As to, "There is a chance, but there are no rules for it," well, there are no rules for having a heart attack in battle. There are no rules for an aneurysm. There are no rules for choking on your food and dying. There are no rules for tying your belt wrong so that your pants fall about your ankles at inopportune times.
Keep them coming - I'm trying to make my games more realistic out of combat, and these are all excellent for the table I roll on if the PCs fumble their "stay alive while walking around" checks.

[Talakeal]

So how about ranged combat?

It seems to me that friendly fire incidents, hunting accidents, ricochets, and simply missing and hitting a bystander with a stray bullet happens pretty frequently irl, although nowhere near 1 in ever 20 shots, and at the same time something like the enemy getting an AoO or a free disarm attempt don't work in ranged combat.

Anyone have any ideas there?




On a related note, are there any rules in 3.X for friendly fire, or are these house rules? Because I have played in games where we shot each other in the back, and my DM told a story the other night about how the last time he was a player his allies kept shooting him in the back so he eventually had enough and intentionally TPKed his own party to teach them a lesson, but actually looking at the rules I don't see anything aside from a -4 penalty for shooting into melee.



Practically no one ever would drop their sword in combat. The odds aren't zero, but pretty close. It is not a thing that happens just as boxers don't miss a jab and punch themselves square in the nose. It just plain doesn't happen. When people drop their swords, it is with collision to another sword, or getting struck in the arm, and even then it is very rare. I've never been disarmed with a real sword. I've been struck in the hand or arm with real swords, (the force being identical to a real sword hitting you if you were wearing padded armor,) and never come close to dropping it. Again, it could happen, but people just dropping it because their hands are sweaty? A swordsman could swing his sword a hundred thousand times and not do such a thing. Maybe it would happen once or twice in one's life. I've never seen it happen.

As to, "There is a chance, but there are no rules for it," well, there are no rules for having a heart attack in battle. There are no rules for an aneurysm. There are no rules for choking on your food and dying. There are no rules for tying your belt wrong so that your pants fall about your ankles at inopportune times.

Does getting your weapon stuck in your opponent's armor / dead body happen irl? Because I have actually heard about that far more often in media and "historical documentaries" than I have people just dropping their weapons.

[SowZ]

If you provoke a generic AoO, they can just use that to disarm (or trip etc.) anyway if they're good at it. I actually consider that less realistic since it means that every fumble is equally suitable for any kind of attack by your opponent - for me it's more immersive if you have a specific kind of fumble that can be capitalized on in a specific way (and that if you're adept at defending against that particular method, even being off-balance of caught off guard won't let them get the best of you.)

Well if it really is about realism, then just say it is a generic AoO that must be used for a standard attack. If we made realistic disarm rules, no one would ever play them because the build would be totally useless. Yesterday I went to longsword practice. Two days before I went to a tournament where I watched literally hundreds of bouts, with experience levels going from a few weeks to many years. No one was disarmed. The closest thing was once during a grapple someone literally ripped the sword out of a much smaller person's hand.

We have hundreds of pages of historical manuals of arms masters training people in sword play and none of the stances or guards focus on disarming, even though incredibly obscure moves were recorded. Disarming was not, historically, something people were expected to do. You wouldn't base a strategy on it. Provoking a disarm isn't realistic, either. But as I've said, it is something that happens occasionally so I can suspend my disbelief. But provoking a general AoO is very realistic. And honestly, when someone overruns, there are going to be lots of ways to counter it. At the tournament, I overran a man whose sword was held above his head, so he crashed it down on my arm. Point him, bruised bone me. A guy overran me once, but I was crouched low to the ground, so I responded by bull rushing him, getting to close to swing a sword, and pommeling his face. If I had been in the Ox guard, (the sword is high up and pointed forward,) I probably would have just stabbed him. If I was in the Heedless guard, (the sword behind your neck.) I would have Zwerched his head, (kind of this helicopter swing.)

Which counter would have worked against my overrunning opponent had nothing to do with the opponent and everything to do with the stance I am in. I can't think of an instance where the opponent leaves himself exposed in such a way that it would be easier to disarm him than it would be to just slice his arms.


Does getting your weapon stuck in your opponent's armor / dead body happen irl? Because I have actually heard about that far more often in media and "historical documentaries" than I have people just dropping their weapons.

Yes, that could happen. Clearly never to me, but yeah, it is sensible. Your sword can get caught up in the person's ribs or your spear head stuck on the other side of the armor. An axe can be tough to get out of a skull. Swords break sometimes, too. Which is why I prefer more narrative fumble systems that gives the GM more discretion. In D&D, a 1 is an insta miss, so getting your weapon stuck in the body is a non issue. In a more narrative fumble system, the GM has more adduction. If you were fighting a mook that you could easily kill, the GM might decide it hampers you more to kill the enemy but lose the weapon, (or else choose to lose a turn retrieving it.) A more narrative fumble system also allows for friendly fire. Before you shoot, the GM might say, "If you miss, there is a chance to hit your allies. Still want to take the shot?" which has the added benefit of giving players meaningful decisions.


Keep them coming - I'm trying to make my games more realistic out of combat, and these are all excellent for the table I roll on if the PCs fumble their "stay alive while walking around" checks.

Don't forget randomly tripping and falling while walking at normal speed. I saw someone do that just two days ago IRL.

[Psyren]

As to, "There is a chance, but there are no rules for it," well, there are no rules for having a heart attack in battle. There are no rules for an aneurysm. There are no rules for choking on your food and dying. There are no rules for tying your belt wrong so that your pants fall about your ankles at inopportune times.

The unspoken secondary statement of course being "...and there shouldn't be." But none of these are equivalent to fumbles anyway, particularly since they all involve activities the character is presumably undertaking outside of a pressured combat situation.


Well if it really is about realism, then just say it is a generic AoO that must be used for a standard attack.

So stumbling/overreaching shouldn't make you easier to trip? Caroming or glancing your blade shouldn't make it easier to knock out of your hand? How is that more realistic?

[SowZ]

The unspoken secondary statement of course being "...and there shouldn't be." But none of these are equivalent to fumbles anyway, particularly since they all involve activities the character is presumably undertaking outside of a pressured combat situation.



So stumbling/overreaching shouldn't make you easier to trip? Caroming or glancing your blade shouldn't make it easier to knock out of your hand? How is that more realistic?

It's just odd that the AoO is specific to tripping or disarming. My point is that if I overreach, you could respond with a dozen techniques. Yeah, I'm off balance and overstretched, so it will be easier to trip me or stab me or even disarm me but all are valid, (although disarming is a risky move since it is unlikely to work. Of course, if you hit the base of my blade hard enough, even if I hold on you might have knocked my guard to the floor making stabbing me easier, so it isn't a total loss. It is hard to represent this in a game since most checks have a flat DC where you either fail or succeed, incorporating rules where you fail but set yourself up for a follow up attack would be difficult.) My point is that a general AoO that gets a +5 bonus no matter what it is used for is more realistic. If you want more specific AoOs, like provoke a trip, that is not so unrealistic that I would question it. I would be fine with that at a table. But it isn't the most realistic.

[Barstro]

So how about ranged combat?

I think this is why there is a -4 for shooting into melee (harder to hit your opponent when you are being careful to not hit your ally), and provoking an attack of opportunity for doing this in melee. Despite being in a stressful battle, holding a bow in combat is not nearly as difficult as holding a sword in combat. People at the range do not routinely drop their bows (or guns) 5% of the time.

Besides, by my method it would provoke; it just so happens that there is nobody around to make a Combat Maneuver check to trip the ranged person when he provides an opening.

[Barstro]

It's just odd that the AoO is specific to tripping or disarming. My point is that if I overreach, you could respond with a dozen techniques. Yeah, I'm off balance and overstretched, so it will be easier to trip me or stab me or even disarm me but all are valid, (although disarming is a risky move since it is unlikely to work. Of course, if you hit the base of my blade hard enough, even if I hold on you might have knocked my guard to the floor making stabbing me easier, so it isn't a total loss. It is hard to represent this in a game since most checks have a flat DC where you either fail or succeed, incorporating rules where you fail but set yourself up for a follow up attack would be difficult.) My point is that a general AoO that gets a +5 bonus no matter what it is used for is more realistic. If you want more specific AoOs, like provoke a trip, that is not so unrealistic that I would question it. I would be fine with that at a table. But it isn't the most realistic.

Is this about being realistic, or about having Fumbles that are not ridiculously unbalanced? I don't think you can ever be realistic when you use a 5% die. I question getting a +5 bonus to an AoO (straight AoO, maybe). Responding with one of "a dozen techniques" will still probably have only one of a few results. D&D has only so many conditions that are relevant to combat; tripped and disarmed being the main ones spoken here, but you could easily have a maneuver that makes one fatigued for a round, makes one flat-footed, gives a negative to hit. In the end, they are all simply changes to the die roll.

I find it amusing that we can ask if Fumbles are realistic in a world where planets can be destroyed because someone has a large gemstone and slept for eight hours.

[SowZ]

Is this about being realistic, or about having Fumbles that are not ridiculously unbalanced? I don't think you can ever be realistic when you use a 5% die. I question getting a +5 bonus to an AoO (straight AoO, maybe). Responding with one of "a dozen techniques" will still probably have only one of a few results. D&D has only so many conditions that are relevant to combat; tripped and disarmed being the main ones spoken here, but you could easily have a maneuver that makes one fatigued for a round, makes one flat-footed, gives a negative to hit. In the end, they are all simply changes to the die roll.

I find it amusing that we can ask if Fumbles are realistic in a world where planets can be destroyed because someone has a large gemstone and slept for eight hours.

Sure, my point isn't that we should make the game some perfect simulation. I was just responding to the statement than a fumble which provokes disarming AoOs might be more realistic than general AoOs, as I didn't really agree.

[Talakeal]

I find it amusing that we can ask if Fumbles are realistic in a world where planets can be destroyed because someone has a large gemstone and slept for eight hours.

Looks like we have a classic "But dragons!" fallacy here.

So glad I finally got to use the name :smallbiggrin:

[Flickerdart]

Looks to me like a classic "But dragons!" Fallacy to me.

So glad I finally got to use the name :smallbiggrin:
I knew there were a whole bunch of different dragon types. Butt dragons are just too much, though. Watch out for its breath weapon - a cone of poison gas! :smallbiggrin:

[Ashtagon]

Speaking of which, does anyone have a good fumble rule for dragon breath?

[Brookshw]

Speaking of which, does anyone have a good fumble rule for dragon breath?

Yeah, I have a hiccup great one, everytime the hiccup. Whoops, sorry, as I was hiccup. No, forget it. I give up.

[Flickerdart]

Speaking of which, does anyone have a good fumble rule for dragon breath?
00: The breath weapon comes out of the wrong end.

[Ashtagon]

00: The breath weapon comes out of the wrong end.

So basically, a bonnacon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnacon)?

[Pex]

Practically no one ever would drop their sword in combat. The odds aren't zero, but pretty close. It is not a thing that happens just as boxers don't miss a jab and punch themselves square in the nose. It just plain doesn't happen. When people drop their swords, it is with collision to another sword, or getting struck in the arm, and even then it is very rare. I've never been disarmed with a real sword. I've been struck in the hand or arm with real swords, (the force being identical to a real sword hitting you if you were wearing padded armor,) and never come close to dropping it. Again, it could happen, but people just dropping it because their hands are sweaty? A swordsman could swing his sword a hundred thousand times and not do such a thing. Maybe it would happen once or twice in one's life. I've never seen it happen.

As to, "There is a chance, but there are no rules for it," well, there are no rules for having a heart attack in battle. There are no rules for an aneurysm. There are no rules for choking on your food and dying. There are no rules for tying your belt wrong so that your pants fall about your ankles at inopportune times.

While I agree fumbles are a bad idea, I remember hearing a while ago a boxer did exactly that.

(Does a google search.)

Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcBmf6dDmeE

:smalltongue:

[Barstro]

While I agree fumbles are a bad idea, I remember hearing a while ago a boxer did exactly that.

(Does a google search.)

Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcBmf6dDmeE

:smalltongue:

To be fair, the other boxer blocked (just a bit) and that caused the punch to hit the original boxer in the face.

[OldTrees1]

To be fair, the other boxer blocked (just a bit) and that caused the punch to hit the original boxer in the face.

To be fair, that is considered a fumble by several in this thread.

[YossarianLives]

I really like the "fumble" rules from the Mouse Guard RPG.

Basically, depending on how much "damage" you take in a combat unforeseen complications can occur. Such as your character getting angry and losing concentration, sustaining a minor wound that can make fighting difficult, or as an example from my groups most recent session the bridge you were fighting on becoming damaged and collapsing. However, if you perform well in a combat and lose only a very small amount of health you can avoid these complications entirely.

[Rhyltran]

While I agree fumbles are a bad idea, I remember hearing a while ago a boxer did exactly that.

(Does a google search.)

Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcBmf6dDmeE

:smalltongue:

To be fair we're talking about an isolated incident that's barely happened in the course of boxing history. In a system where there's twelve rounds. Each round consisting of three minutes. So that's about 36 minutes of fighting if someone makes it that far. Now in D&D each combat round is six seconds. So that's 10 attacks in a single minute. So 30 attacks in one boxing round. So we're talking 360 attacks in a match. This guy didn't even do this each match. This guy has had many matches his entire career. This happened once. It hasn't even happened to most of his opponents and not every boxer has this even happen. It's a fluke. Then you realize that high level characters can roll 4+ attacks in a single combat round. So let's go with four attacks. Now 360 x 4.

[Barstro]

To be fair, that is considered a fumble by several in this thread.

Agreed. I was just pointing out that it was not something the Fighter did to himself (practicing on a dummy would not have caused it). The opponent's action was required as well. It was a bad punch coupled with an improbably well placed block.

[Psyren]

Agreed. I was just pointing out that it was not something the Fighter did to himself (practicing on a dummy would not have caused it). The opponent's action was required as well. It was a bad punch coupled with an improbably well placed block.

You could fumble while striking a dummy at an angle and have a similar result though. People injure themselves while practicing alone all the time.

But again, I prefer fumbles that could not result in damage from a dummy as that is what leads to the silly scenario of the roomful of dead warriors.

[SowZ]

You could fumble while striking a dummy at an angle and have a similar result though. People injure themselves while practicing alone all the time.

But again, I prefer fumbles that could not result in damage from a dummy as that is what leads to the silly scenario of the roomful of dead warriors.

You could punch a dummy in such a way that hurts your wrist or knuckles or elbow. You couldn't really punch yourself in the face, because it couldn't push back.

[Psyren]

You could punch a dummy in such a way that hurts your wrist or knuckles or elbow. You couldn't really punch yourself in the face, because it couldn't push back.

See, whenever I read something like "this occurrence has never happened anywhere in thousands of years of history, even once" - unless it's talking about somebody swallowing the sun or something similarly outlandish, I just instantly tune out. I find it just too implausible.

[SowZ]

See, whenever I read something like "this occurrence has never happened anywhere in thousands of years of history, even once" - unless it's talking about somebody swallowing the sun or something similarly outlandish, I just instantly tune out. I find it just too implausible.

Look, you're the one being absolutist, not me. You are intentionally warping my words in a dishonest manner and I don't know why you feel the need to do that. You made up this phrase I never implied at is very rude. When people say, "That doesn't happen," they don't mean it could never happen in the history of the universe. That is not how human beings talk. This is not how language works. If I heard that someone fell off a seventeen story building with no parachute and nothing slowed his fall and he landed on concrete and I said, "Well, I'm sure he's dead." that doesn't mean there is a zero percent chance of his survival. It has happened a couple of times. But it is fine to say, "Falling seventeen stories onto concrete will kill you," it is not untrue.

[OldTrees1]

Look, you're the one being absolutist, not me. You are intentionally warping my words in a dishonest manner and I don't know why you feel the need to do that.

I think you both would say that about each other and deny it about yourselves.

[SowZ]

I think you both would say that about each other and deny it about yourselves.

Throughout the course of this discussion, I've admitted several times that it could happen and probably does happen from time to time, but that it is so rare that it doesn't practically happen. I have said that as plainly as possible multiple times. So it is rude to then say that my claim is, "These things can never happen and will never happen in all of human history." Also, making such absurd statements while pretending to quote someone is clearly an insult. It is an obvious example of mocking someone to their face. This discussion has never yet reached that level of rudeness and I don't see why it has to.

[OldTrees1]

Throughout the course of this discussion, I've admitted several times that it could happen and probably does happen from time to time, but that it is so rare that it doesn't practically happen. I have said that as plainly as possible multiple times. So it is rude to then say that my claim is, "These things can never happen and will never happen in all of human history." Also, making such absurd statements while pretending to quote someone is clearly an insult. It is an obvious example of mocking someone to their face. This discussion has never yet reached that level of rudeness and I don't see why it has to.

I understand that you see it that way. I also understand that Psyren has a similar perspective just with the some of the nouns swapped. This discussion reached that level of rudeness a while ago. (Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc&list=LL7Haf3zwVbgaZ7xSWLqEb8w&index=1&ab_channel=CGPGrey) is a good video explaining the effect)

[SowZ]

I understand that you see it that way. I also understand that Psyren has a similar perspective just with the some of the nouns swapped. This discussion reached that level of rudeness a while ago. (Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc&list=LL7Haf3zwVbgaZ7xSWLqEb8w&index=1&ab_channel=CGPGrey) is a good video explaining the effect)

If that rudeness was ever reached, and I ever mocked somebody, I apologize. But less than half a page ago, I said, "Practically no one ever would drop their sword in combat. The odds aren't zero, but pretty close." So I don't see what is gained by trying to represent me as a ludicrous person making statements like, "this would never happen in human history," except for mocking.

[Talakeal]

Out of curiosity, does ANYONE in this thread actually like the official fumble rules found in the DMG?

[OldTrees1]

If that rudeness was ever reached, and I ever mocked somebody, I apologize. But less than half a page ago, I said, "Practically no one ever would drop their sword in combat. The odds aren't zero, but pretty close." So I don't see what is gained by trying to represent me as a ludicrous person making statements like, "this would never happen in human history," except for mocking.

That video really does do a better job of explaining this but I'll give it a go:

1) When 2 sides argue there are 4 sides involved when you count the positions as separate from the people(useful for analysis of the memetic evolution). The positions tend to adjust and shift over time. Versions of the positions that tend to reach compromise or understanding tend to drop out of the argument(look back over the thread for many example discussions that have gone quiet). So as time goes on the positions adjust and shift to be resilient and resistant to compromise or understanding.

2) When 2 sides argue, each side frequently talks to itself about the other side. This ends up with each side having a distorted/strawman version of the other side.

So the constant misrepresentation is unlikely to be intentionally mocking if it were even intentional in the first place.

Sidenote: This forum has some structural components that leave it more vulnerable to this kind of problem.


Out of curiosity, does ANYONE in this thread actually like the official fumble rules found in the DMG?
There were official fumble rules in 3.5? I honestly did not know that. Without even looking at them I can guess that WotC was not up to the task of making decent fumble rules. [checking now] I couldn't find them.

[Brookshw]

Honestly this has been pretty civil overall as I see it, especially for what can be a hot button topic.

Also, Flickerdart, your list of how we die by day to day activities? Shins man, shins. Coffee tables the world over are quietly plotting to overthrow us. First step, cripple us all with broken legs by banging our shins.

Actually that's surprisingly like D&D with mimics, suffocating pillows, rooms that eat adventurers. Just can't trust home furnishings.....



There were official fumble rules in 3.5?

I had that same reaction :smallbiggrin:

[Psyren]

Throughout the course of this discussion, I've admitted several times that it could happen and probably does happen from time to time, but that it is so rare that it doesn't practically happen.

The implied follow-up conclusion from this is "and therefore it shouldn't be in any fumble rules." And that's a perfectly fine stance to take at your table; I'm merely pointing out why some other tables won't agree with you.



There were official fumble rules in 3.5? I honestly did not know that. Without even looking at them I can guess that WotC was not up to the task of making decent fumble rules. [checking now] I couldn't find them.

DMG 28, in a sidebar. They're also in the index.

(And no, I don't like them.)

[SinsI]

Well, at least those ones allow a DC 10 Dexterity check, so you can make yourself immune.

[OldTrees1]

DMG 28, in a sidebar. They're also in the index.

(And no, I don't like them.)

Found it. Thanks.

An unmodified Dex check on a nat 1? With the suggested effects being in line with a lost turn? Ouch, that's a worse design than Monk.

I do not like them and even the players I know that kinda like fumbles would not like those fumbles.

[Psyren]

Well, at least those ones allow a DC 10 Dexterity check, so you can make yourself immune.

Exactly - they're either pointless or crippling - the nadir of rules design.

[SinsI]

Exactly - they're either pointless or crippling - the nadir of rules design.

If you've made yourself immune it doesn't make your enemies immune. High level Weapon Finese TWF fighter will easily have +9, while a STR-based THW fighter would fail that check far more often. So in that sense it makes the weaker choice stronger, contributing to the balance among the melee guys, and even increases the power of TWF fighters relative to casters.

[Flickerdart]

Also, Flickerdart, your list of how we die by day to day activities? Shins man, shins. Coffee tables the world over are quietly plotting to overthrow us. First step, cripple us all with broken legs by banging our shins.

Actually that's surprisingly like D&D with mimics, suffocating pillows, rooms that eat adventurers. Just can't trust home furnishings.....

Don't forget the dread gazebo...

[atemu1234]

Don't forget the dread gazebo...

I don't think I know that one.

[Ashtagon]

I don't think I know that one.

http://www.dndadventure.com/html/articles/gaming_stories.html

you're welcome

[atemu1234]

http://www.dndadventure.com/html/articles/gaming_stories.html

you're welcome

Thank you.

[Psyren]

If you've made yourself immune it doesn't make your enemies immune. High level Weapon Finese TWF fighter will easily have +9, while a STR-based THW fighter would fail that check far more often. So in that sense it makes the weaker choice stronger, contributing to the balance among the melee guys, and even increases the power of TWF fighters relative to casters.

DC 10 is so miniscule it's not worth taking seriously. Very few PCs and almost no monsters are going to fail this past the lowest of levels, so the rule may as well not be there at all. And losing an entire turn is far worse than being sickened, shaken or even falling prone.

[OldTrees1]

DC 10 is so miniscule it's not worth taking seriously. Very few PCs and almost no monsters are going to fail this past the lowest of levels, so the rule may as well not be there at all. And losing an entire turn is far worse than being sickened, shaken or even falling prone.

I think some of that was hyperbole since how many PCs get 28+ Dex(even assuming +6 Gloves)? :)

[Psyren]

You don't have to get to +9 though (and I apologize for not being clear.) You're talking about a check that only triggers 5% of the time to begin with. Getting it down to 35% failure (i.e. 16 dex) means you will only lose a turn ~2% of the time. I'd rather have a lighter penalty (e.g. sickened or prone) that triggers more often.

[OldTrees1]

You don't have to get to +9 though (and I apologize for not being clear.) You're talking about a check that only triggers 5% of the time to begin with. Getting it down to 35% failure (i.e. 16 dex) means you will only lose a turn ~2% of the time. I'd rather have a lighter penalty (e.g. sickened or prone) that triggers more often.

Ah. Then you could start with an 8 Dex for only a 2.5% occurrence.
I definitely agree on the lighter penalty.

[SinsI]

Getting it down to 35% failure (i.e. 16 dex) means you will only lose a turn ~2% of the time.
...if you attack only once a round. Plenty of monsters have 3 attacks and dex in the 10-17 range.

[martixy]

There were official fumble rules in 3.5?

It's where I started from way back when... :)

[Brookshw]

It's where I started from way back when... :)

Hey its you! So 8 pages later where are you on the topic?

[Psyren]

...if you attack only once a round. Plenty of monsters have 3 attacks and dex in the 10-17 range.

Point, but for monsters with multiple attacks, that only makes the "daze" penalty even worse. At the very least it shouldn't be the only result of a fumble.

[martixy]

Hey its you! So 8 pages later where are you on the topic?

Yes, yes I am still here... even with a slight delay due to life.

It has been an illuminating discussion - one that's changed my mind - from "Yes, I will have fumble rules in my game." to "I will have to think really hard how to balance this and I will notify my players before-hand and it will be optional/players decision as whether to stick with them."
So I'd like to thank everyone who contributed.

I still like the idea a lot.
But I've learned that:
1. Don't force them.
2. This is a game, gameplay considerations take priority over "But in real life...".
3. Don't make the players hate the rule, just their luck.

The current working concept is this:
Less egregious fumbles(and only for mundanes), and you get to choose if you take the fumble in exchange for an action point.
But they go hand in hand with the opposite side - extra cool things on nat20s.

Basically a unique shtick to set apart mundanes from casters, and add to their options.

[SinsI]

Less egregious fumbles(and only for mundanes), and you get to choose if you take the fumble in exchange for an action point.

That one is not problem free either: 10th level warrior dons his armor, gets Fast Healing 1 and some DR, grabs two whips and picks a fight with some CR 1/3 creature that has natural armor 3 or greater. The fight lasts till that creature kills itself due to fumbles and the warrior ends up with a bunch of extra Action Points.

It might be better to attach Fumble rules to story appropriate moments and challenges, and not to arbitrary in-combat moments. I.e. failed fumbled Climb check for a cliff can make that whole cliff collapse...

[The Glyphstone]

That one is not problem free either: 10th level warrior dons his armor, gets Fast Healing 1 and some DR, grabs two whips and picks a fight with some CR 1/3 creature that has natural armor 3 or greater. The fight lasts till that creature kills itself due to fumbles and the warrior ends up with a bunch of extra Action Points.

It might be better to attach Fumble rules to story appropriate moments and challenges, and not to arbitrary in-combat moments. I.e. failed fumbled Climb check for a cliff can make that whole cliff collapse...

That's easy enough to fix - if you can't get XP from a monster, you can't get action points from it either. Still not totally problem free, but I think the idea is solid if you apply a bit of common sense to it.

[Arbane]

As I said, knowledge is binary, you either know something or you don't, there is no mechanism for being wrong.

Which is the exact opposite of how it works in the real world, now that I think about it.


People get hurt and die in accidents, be it household activities, sports, play, driving, hunting, cleaning their guns, construction, or actual combat all the time. People accidently burn down, lose, or break valuable possessions. People are wrong about important issues. Doctors and other professionals get sued for malpractice. Athletes botch easy tasks in hilarious ways. Products are recalled and structures collapse.

This is the world we live in, and if you can't see how misadventure is all around us all the time then your view of the world is literally so different from mine that I don't think we can have a meaningful conversation.

When I play an RPG, I generally want to play the Three Musketeers, not the Three Stooges.

And outside of an infomercial, even the biggest klutz screws up catastrophically a lot less often than 1 in 20 times. (People who DO screw up that often don't like to make it to level 1, let alone level 20.)


There are also no rules for having a heart attack, yet it is valid to have heart attacks be a thing in setting. Certain things are so rare or unfun that they don't need rules. That doesn't mean it shouldn't happen as a plot hook.

I have the exact opposite philosophy. This is not OOTS or Goblins Comic. Rules are an abstraction that makes playing the game possible. They are not hard and fast laws of physics. I can see a case to be made that anything NPCs can do, PCs should theoretically be able to do at some point. I do not see a case that anything that happens should be backed up by mechanics. There are no rules for how often you need to poop, either.

How am I supposed to maintain verisimilitude without my Random Spontaneous Human Combustion Tables?




This is true in most competitive RPGs. While D&D is more casual the point still stands. I will also say "Knight falling from horseback breaking his neck" is also an annoying idea to me. D&D past level six you're no longer a simple human. D&D portrays the real world very good from level 1-6. Past that you can do things like survive a fall from orbit.
(SNIP)
If a level 12 knight fell off his horse and broke his neck it would take me out of the mood as well. This should be a man of LEGEND.

Maybe he'd already been in a fight earlier that knocked off most of his Plot Armor?

As much as I hate to admit it, I can see ONE reasonable excuse for the 'Hit Yourself' fumbles - weapons like flails, where you've got a spiky thing on the end of a chain. But with a skilled user it should be rarer than 1 in 20 (or else nobody sane would USE the things), it should still have to roll to hit (you're not swinging it INSIDE your armor, I hope), and it still makes no sense for weapons like, say, spears.

Similarly, I can see "Weapon Breaks" results for cheap/rusty/improvised weapons, but for a magic sword, the only way it's breaking is either PLOT! Or someone sundering it with a better magic weapon.

But again, 1 in 20 is too often, and adding confirmation rolls and tables tables tables tables just slows down a game that often runs like a three-legged sloth to begin with. :smallsigh:

[SinsI]

That's easy enough to fix - if you can't get XP from a monster, you can't get action points from it either. Still not totally problem free, but I think the idea is solid if you apply a bit of common sense to it.

That was just illustrating that no one would ever use those fumble rules in any important situation,and would just end in people bullying the last few minions after the boss is already vanquished for the sake of a few extra action points.
All because the reward is the same regardless of its Encounter Level relative to the party.


As for the most realistic weapon fumble result, it should definitely be weapon breakdown (via item damage rules): weapons break all the time both in reality and in fiction. A few historical battles were even lost due to rain making the bowstrings of the crossbows useless.
Plus Newton's 2nd Law means the more damage you deal, the more damage should the weapon receive, too. Some weapons (jousting lances) were even made to break after the hit, as to not drug down the rider together with the enemy.
+5 should be the best weapon enhancement of all simply because it makes it last that much longer.

[HurinTheCursed]

I already listed the benefits of fumbles up thread, but I can do so again:


1: It gives the DM a handy tool to alter the mood of the game session
2: It makes the game more variable and interesting
3: More randomness tends to give the underdog a bit of a leg up and makes fights less of a one sided affair with a foregone conclusion
4: It is smoother than having artificial rules for categories of failure like the 3.x climb or disable device skills
5: You can have certain outcomes which only take affect on a fumble to make failure less harsh, for example a poison that only kills on a fumbled save but still deals damage on a failure
6: It serves as a soft form of role protection where it is risky to perform actions you know nothing about without having stupid absolutes like non rogues being forbidden to disarm high end traps
7: It allows more possibilities from a narrative perspective. Going by RAW, for example, you could never have a sage misidentify a monster, have a surgeon commit malpractice, see someone injure them self in a hunting accident, or break a piece of equipment in the field.
8: It makes the game world more realistic. Although you can quibble about the exact effects or frequency of a fumble, it is something that happens quite often in the real world and the narrative seems flat without the possibility.
1: Using a table to randomly alter the tone the DM spent efforts to set is not beneficial IMO. However, the GM could use the opportunity to choose an effect that would alter the mood accordingly with what we believes suitable (something interesting happens).
2: Depends on the implementation
3: Why is it good ? the underdog may be taken serously as potentially dangerous for other reasons than dumb luck (and criticals) ? make them stronger, mix opponents, make the terrain more interesting, set ambush... if you prefer a group to be challenged, don't choose more low CR encounters, but less higher CR.
5: Killing a main protagonist or antagonist on a fumble is not fun IMO. Anyway, some poisons already do that as said.
6: Something worth digging IMO, at least for skills. But I feel it isn't needed for combat because being ineffective during your actions is already detrimental for the group, even more if you bring your L1 wizard in melee.
7: that wouldn't happen in real world as well. how many fumbles do you expect before an aircraft pilot or a surgeon is fired / disgraced / dies from his own mistake ? It would necessitate a lot more rounds to generate these fumbles than any adventurer will ever spend in combat from L1 to L20 !
8: Fumbles that matter hardly ever happen. how often do fumble when your car is at max allowed driving speed (the only life or death risk many peaople take everyday) ? An adventurer has less than 1 minut of life or death combat each day, 6 hours a year if your campaign lasts that long. Odds are no combat fumble system is going to take into account such low probabilities without being more trouble than it is worth.



[...] Still, I find critical hits a much worse offender than fumbles here as an enemy critical is a heck of a lot more likely to kill a player or take them out of the game than their own fumbles, yet for some reason we see threads about adding fumbles all the time but I can't remember a single person wanting to remove criticals.
About critical, I fully agree with you, as I had said in the other thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19406916&postcount=149). As you said it, I found less people to back my idea of removing crit than to wonder why removing "one of the few things martials have that they can enjoy" !
I feel sorry for the DM when a crit on the BBEG ruins the encounter's fun as well as when a PC's fumble make him look bad / puts him in dire situation / puts him out of action for some rounds or when the BBEG loses any badassery after a comic fumble.


As Curmudgeon suggested, why should mundane be the only one randomly punished ? A critical hit (20) is usually +100% effect if confirmed, a critical miss (1) is -100% effect without confirmation.
At least when a caster throws a multi opponent spell that allows a save, if some pass the save on 20 thanks to critical, the action is his round is partially wasted but not completly wasted like a charger that rolls a 1 on his attack.
In case some forget how an automatic miss on a 1 is already punishing without additional fumbles, if a d20 had to be rolled everytime a no-save/no-touch spell is cast in combat and that the spell failed to fire on a 1 (flat 5% chance no matter the context), how good would that rule be ?

No, I believe most RPG should not punish the players but make them feel their characters helps making a difference. Fumbles happen once in many many rounds of real life ? I don't want to play real life in D&D, sitting with friends on my spare time is supposed to be quality time while real life also always has less interesting components. Fumble should make the game more enjoyable, not punish players who already picked sub-optimal options.

If someone really wants to implement a fumble table for d&d, I would rather have something that allows a roll that scales with levels, so that a L1 can hardly benefit from a mid level character's operture. Djinn_in_Tonic's page 2 is quite good at that for melee (since it scales rather well), but then under what condition is it triggered ?

The odds of fumbling don't matter to know if the rule is good. If a guy beheads himself once every 8000 swings, then one of 8000 L1-5 fighters beheads himself 6 seconds. Even if the opposing army just defends hitself and never attepts to strike, that's 100 dead men every 10 minutes ! If it never happens discard the rule. If it's bad with 5% chance, then it's bad with 1/10000 and should be changed.

[Banjoman42]

there is no such thing as a good fumble rule. all this does is punish the weakest characters, those who roll dice (mundies) and reward the strongest (casters) further widening the gap between the two. don't do it. just read the standard arguments against fumbles, there's no reason to rehash them, since you've already looked at the other thread (and presumably those like it)
That's why the OP tried to incorporate casters into this rule. Granted, I don't believe they did a good job of it, but it's there. I think it's close minded to state that all fumble rules are bad, especially if a group enjoys one and doesn't give a crap about tiers.

Something that always bugs me is when people say a rule is bad but don't offer or suggest a solution. So, here we go: my own fumble rule.

On a confirmed critical, the player rolls a d10 and determines the extra effects of the attack from the result:
1-2: The character gets a +1 bonus on their next attack roll, provided they make the attack roll before the end of their next turn.
3-4: The character deals 1 extra damage with their strike, which is not factored into the critical.
5-6: The character gets a +2 bonus on their next trip, disarm, or grapple attempt, provided they make it before the end of their next turn.
7-8: The person being struck takes a -1 penalty on their next attack roll, provided they make the attack roll before the end of their next turn.
9-10: The person being stuck takes a -1 penalty to AC until the end of their next turn.

On a confirmed fumble (a natural 1 followed by a confirmation roll that misses), the player rolls a d10 and determines an adverse affect based on the result:
1-2: The character takes a -1 penalty on their next attack roll, provided they make the attack roll before the end of their next turn.
3-4: The character takes 1 subdual damage, provided they fail a DC 10 fortitude save
5-6: The character takes a -2 penalty on their next opposed roll from a disarm attempt, grapple check, or trip attempt, provided they make it before the end of their next turn.
7-8: The character's weapon takes 1d6 damage.
9-10: The person to be struck by the fumbled attack gains a +1 bonus on their next attack roll against the character, provided they make it before their next turn.

Note that this rule addresses the mechanical issues with a fumble rule, but it doesn't alter whether or not your group enjoys fumble rules. If you don't enjoy fumble rules, move along. Simple as that.

Also, I have another rule that addresses the problem with crits, which, I do not believe should be removed:

Every living creature has a range of hit points, from their max HP to (their max HP minus their hit dice and CON modifier). This is called their HP threshold. If a creature is reduced from their threshold to 0 or negative HP, they may make a reflex save (DC equals the amount of HP below 1 HP they would be put at +10, for a maximum DC of 20) to reduce the amount of damage taken by however much they pass the DC by +1, but they are always reduced to at least 1 hit point.
It doesn't help BBEGs much. It's more geared towards players not dieing, and a BBEG who is reduced to 1 is toast unless they have some healing or mooks, which they should have anyway.

Edit: Anticipating that someone will have a problem with the HP damage I put on the fumble table, think of it this way: eventually you will exhaust yourself. This is what I was trying to represent, not striking yourself. Say we have commoner with 2 HP swinging a sword. No attack bonus, no fortitude save bonus. So, he rolls a 1 one in 20 times, confirms that 1 in 2 times, gets a 3 or 4 on the d10 roll 1 in 5 times, and fails the save 1 in 2 times. 20 times 2 times 2 times 5 gives us 400 rounds before he takes 1 damage. It will take him approximately 800 rounds of swinging before he exhausts himself, or 1 hour and 20 minutes. That's quite a while to be swinging a sword over and over again.

[HurinTheCursed]

At least your fumble / crit rule balanced and inoffensive.

For your crit rule, why reflex rather than fort or even will ? It seems arbitrary. By the way it looks like rogues's Defensive Roll.

[Banjoman42]

At least your fumble / crit rule balanced and inoffensive.

For your crit rule, why reflex rather than fort or even will ? It seems arbitrary. By the way it looks like rogues's Defensive Roll.

It does look like that, it was inspired by that. I wouldn't say will, but I couldn't really decide between fortitude or reflex, so I just did reflex. Doesn't really have much of an effect, except that coup de graces can be avoided with another fortitude save if you use Fort.