Fumble Chart Alternative?

[Jarmen4u]

Heya Gitp,

I'd love to get your opinion on these fumble rules I made. Most of the concepts are taken from other RPGs, but I was hoping to make something a bit more unique in the process.

Feedback, thoughts? Possible improvements?

http://i.4cdn.org/tg/1435291595725.jpg

EDIT: Fix'd the image, sorry

EDIT2:

Yeah, this isn't something I really addressed, but the flavor text was actually referencing hilarious events in previous games, to humor the players. For realistic examples, a success* would be something along the lines of "you did so well, there are consequences" or that kind of thing. Hitting someone so hard they knock the enemy into a support beam from the nearby library/orphan hospital, and the building becomes unstable. Or diplomacy-ing a politician so well, agents of the opposing party follow you home. As for the failure, death is most likely going to not be an option. The idea would be something like "you failed, and your action led to something else worse happening." For example, failing on a Heal check actually making the victim worse off, or crit failing a hide check where you hear someone coming down the hall, so you jump through the nearby window and fall into the enemy's barracks.

[Extra Anchovies]

With images that large ( >400 pixels wide), it's strongly encouraged to link to them rather than posting the image in-thread.

Anyways, on to the actual rules.

First off, it's completely optional on the part of the player. I like that. Second, it gives players an incentive to gamble rather than accepting the auto-fail. I like that even more.

Just to make sure, it's meant to be a 50/50 chance of succeeding with a complication or failing with a drawback, right?

Both of the stated examples are pretty nasty (losing your weapon; instant death), so hopefully in actual play you tone them down a bit from there (to use the provided examples, Aust's weapon would gain the broken condition, or Gra'Kosh would end up prone and take maximum damage). But compared to most fumble systems it's quite nice. Players can gamble with a routine failure in a low-stress situation (e.g. clearing out the mooks), or they can accept the automatic failure when they can't afford to screw up (e.g. fighting the BBEG).

[Jarmen4u]

With images that large ( >400 pixels wide), it's strongly encouraged to link to them rather than posting the image in-thread.

Anyways, on to the actual rules.

First off, it's completely optional on the part of the player. I like that. Second, it gives players an incentive to gamble rather than accepting the auto-fail. I like that even more.

Just to make sure, it's meant to be a 50/50 chance of succeeding with a complication or failing with a drawback, right?

Yeah, exactly.


Both of the stated examples are pretty nasty (losing your weapon; instant death), so hopefully in actual play you tone them down a bit from there (to use the provided examples, Aust's weapon would gain the broken condition, or Gra'Kosh would end up prone and take maximum damage). But compared to most fumble systems it's quite nice. Players can gamble with a routine failure in a low-stress situation (e.g. clearing out the mooks), or they can accept the automatic failure when they can't afford to screw up (e.g. fighting the BBEG).

Yeah, this isn't something I really addressed, but the flavor text was actually referencing hilarious events in previous games, to humor the players. For realistic examples, a success* would be something along the lines of "you did so well, there are consequences" or that kind of thing. Hitting someone so hard they knock the enemy into a support beam from the nearby library/orphan hospital, and the building becomes unstable. Or diplomacy-ing a politician so well, agents of the opposing party follow you home. As for the failure, death is most likely going to not be an option. The idea would be something like "you failed, and your action led to something else worse happening." For example, failing on a Heal check actually making the victim worse off, or crit failing a hide check where you hear someone coming down the hall, so you jump through the nearby window and fall into the enemy's barracks.

[Renen]

No! Only good fumble rules are no fumble... wait a second...

My god! That's actually good. Bravo.
Add something about DM having discretion on when players can gamble. Or people will just grab a training dummy and go whack on it till they got a buncha fate points.

Also, maybe have something like nWoD does it. If you roll a 1, you can choose to make it an "extra spectacular failure" in exchange for some XP or maybe some other bonus.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I recommended this exact thing in the last big fumble thread. It gives some agency back to the mundanes without further punishing them. This does create the situation were a natural 1 is almost always better than a natural 2.

[Jarmen4u]

I appreciate the positive feedback!

Is there anything you might change conceptually to make it better? I initially was going to just have them reroll the check, but depending on what it was, it would probably be either too easy or too hard to pass, hence the change to a flat d%.

[Karl Aegis]

So you have a choice whether or not you either fail or fail so spectacularly you may as well delete your character. Good enough, I guess.

[Jarmen4u]

So you have a choice whether or not you either fail or fail so spectacularly you may as well delete your character. Good enough, I guess.

Care to elaborate on your point, or did you just want to make a sarcastic comment of no value? :smallconfused:

[ZamielVanWeber]

Is there anything you might change conceptually to make it better? I initially was going to just have them reroll the check, but depending on what it was, it would probably be either too easy or too hard to pass, hence the change to a flat d%.

Base the chance roll off of their original roll. In theory a level 20 fighter could turn most errors to his advantage, so why give him the same chance as a level 1 fighter?
I would also avoid doing this with saves (I missed that originally). Failing a save against anything that doesn't do damage can be extremely devastating, so a fate point will not balance out the risk of making the situation worse.

[Jarmen4u]

Base the chance roll off of their original roll. In theory a level 20 fighter could turn most errors to his advantage, so why give him the same chance as a level 1 fighter?
I would also avoid doing this with saves (I missed that originally). Failing a save against anything that doesn't do damage can be extremely devastating, so a fate point will not balance out the risk of making the situation worse.

Fair enough. I'll try to see about moving the acceptable percentage roll based on how likely they are to succeed the initial check.

As for the saves bit, I want to emphasize that it is optional. If they want to just take the Fireball to the face, they can.

[Terazul]

Care to elaborate on your point, or did you just want to make a sarcastic comment of no value? :smallconfused:

You should probably add that bit from your reply to Extra Anchovies about "these aren't actual expected results" to the first post (or the image), because I had a similar reaction:

"Oh good, the character has a choice and gets a benefit if a complication arises--...and it's still stuff like getting your weapon stuck or instant death. Why bother?" One of the problems with most fumble tables is that even if they reward you for the fumble, sometimes the complication is so harsh you're likely to get killed before you ever get to use it. With examples like that, 99% of the time I'd just accept the miss/Fireball. Furthermore this seems like it's going to be applying to skill checks now, which irks me for two reasons:

1) Skill Checks do not normally automatically fail on a rolled 1,
2) Most characters using skills for something would be woefully more inefficient than magic anyway

So it just kinda kicks the proverbial stepstool from under people who invested in skills since the wording is "accept your failed roll". Feel free to clarify otherwise. Still a better love story than twilight set of fumble rules than most proposals I've seen.

[Jarmen4u]

You should probably add that bit from your reply to Extra Anchovies about "these aren't actual expected results" to the first post (or the image), because I had a similar reaction:

"Oh good, the character has a choice and gets a benefit if a complication arises--...and it's still stuff like getting your weapon stuck or instant death. Why bother?" One of the problems with most fumble tables is that even if they reward you for the fumble, sometimes the complication is so harsh you're likely to get killed before you ever get to use it. With examples like that, 99% of the time I'd just accept the miss/Fireball. Furthermore this seems like it's going to be applying to skill checks now, which irks me for two reasons:

1) Skill Checks do not normally automatically fail on a rolled 1,
2) Most characters using skills for something would be woefully more inefficient than magic anyway

So it just kinda kicks the proverbial stepstool from under people who invested in skills since the wording is "accept your failed roll". Feel free to clarify otherwise. Still a better love story than twilight set of fumble rules than most proposals I've seen.

Good point, just threw that up there.

Also, no skill checks. This is for saves/attack rolls only. I was just trying to use an example off the top of my head that wasn't so drastically anti-fun.

[ZamielVanWeber]

As for the saves bit, I want to emphasize that it is optional. If they want to just take the Fireball to the face, they can.

1) What happens when they fail vs Charm or Dominate? Or Flesh to Stone? Or a Nymph's Blinding beauty?
You are opening yourself a pile of complications. There are a lot of save vs effects and only some of them do damage.
2) People are naturally tempted to take options if you spruce them up a bit. If you fail a save vs a devastating effect then it becomes tempting to take that Fate point, but it probably is always a bad idea because of the cost of the point (saving even worse to an effect), vs the effect (possibly screwing a check or boosting one). The right choice would be to only take it vs damaging spells since their downsides can be soaked by simply having a high HP.

[OldTrees1]

It appears like a good system(how the fumbles generally work) but with bad content(the specific fumble results look excessive).

[Jarmen4u]

1) What happens when they fail vs Charm or Dominate? Or Flesh to Stone? Or a Nymph's Blinding beauty?
You are opening yourself a pile of complications. There are a lot of save vs effects and only some of them do damage.
2) People are naturally tempted to take options if you spruce them up a bit. If you fail a save vs a devastating effect then it becomes tempting to take that Fate point, but it probably is always a bad idea because of the cost of the point (saving even worse to an effect), vs the effect (possibly screwing a check or boosting one). The right choice would be to only take it vs damaging spells since their downsides can be soaked by simply having a high HP.

You raise an interesting point. The short answer is that it would really depend on the situation and the spell. For a charm person, if they fail and then succeed, maybe it doesn't work, but there are lingering effects. Or maybe that PC is now subconsciously sexually attracted to that enemy. A crit fail may allow the caster to make more drastic requests for the PC, or take a penalty on the Charisma checks required to resist.


It appears like a good system(how the fumbles generally work) but with bad content(the specific fumble results look excessive).

Yeah, like I edited up above, the examples given were references to previous things happening to us in game, made to humor the players a bit. Actual examples are posted in this thread.

[OldTrees1]

Yeah, like I edited up above, the examples given were references to previous things happening to us in game, made to humor the players a bit. Actual examples are posted in this thread.

Fair enough.

And content is the hardest thing to universally balance but the easiest thing to balance group by group.

[Flickerdart]

You should probably be more specific. For example, under your house rule as written, I could roll a 1 on my jump check to jump to the moon, and then Gamble with Fate to succeed automatically. To fix this, I would recommend that a) this only work on checks where a natural 1 is a failure, and b) instead of rolling percentile, you reroll the thing you rolled a 1 on, and failure or success is determined normally, but you gain a complication if it was 11+ and a downside if it was 10- regardless of the outcome.

[Renen]

You should probably be more specific. For example, under your house rule as written, I could roll a 1 on my jump check to jump to the moon, and then Gamble with Fate to succeed automatically. To fix this, I would recommend that a) this only work on checks where a natural 1 is a failure, and b) instead of rolling percentile, you reroll the thing you rolled a 1 on, and failure or success is determined normally, but you gain a complication if it was 11+ and a downside if it was 10- regardless of the outcome.

Or you could just roll till you get 20...
Though I don't think that skill checks are supposed to ever be auto success

[Jarmen4u]

You should probably be more specific. For example, under your house rule as written, I could roll a 1 on my jump check to jump to the moon, and then Gamble with Fate to succeed automatically. To fix this, I would recommend that a) this only work on checks where a natural 1 is a failure, and b) instead of rolling percentile, you reroll the thing you rolled a 1 on, and failure or success is determined normally, but you gain a complication if it was 11+ and a downside if it was 10- regardless of the outcome.

Yeah, like I said, hit rolls and saves only. No skill checks.

As for that last bit, seems the same as rolling percent, but just with a d20 instead.