Critical hit!? And critical failed

[Doomwhispo]

So a few minutes ago.I read somewhere that when you crit. You just add one more dice. Or as many dices as you threw in the first place. This sometimes could be one :p at my table we just do the attack normally and then we double the resulting dmg. Is that too much? On a natural 1 is just a fail

So here is the questions:
1. At your table how do you do crits?
2. What do you do with a natural 1?
3. Is there a 'best' way to handle these?

[JumboWheat01]

"Best Way" is definitely a per-table, heck, a per-game thing.

As for the other two...

1) We just follow the rules as stated, all dice get rolled again for the critical damage. The only time we roll one extra weapon dice, rather than all of them, is for things like the Half-orc or the Barbarian's critical damage abilities, again, as per the normal rules. I haven't see a full 6d12 roll for a great axe critical hit yet, but I imagine it's a thing of glory.

2) Depends on what Rule of Funny demands at the time.

We also use "Critical Success" and "Critical Failure" for skills too. Groping a guard while trying to pick his pockets has happened far too often to count.

[PeteNutButter]

Crit's in 5e are pretty clearly roll twice as many dice, RAW.

It can be lackluster at times, or very powerful when combined with sneak attack or smite.

Homebrew as you like, but everything probably comes with its own imbalance.

[Sabeta]

My table plays it by RAW, as far as I can recall, which means

1) A critical hit is always a hit
2) You double the dice thrown

There are pros and cons to simply doubling damage. On one hand it's exciting to double maximum damage. On the other it's sad to double minimum damage. I think I prefer throwing more dice.

Critical Fails we also play by Raw, which simply means it's a guaranteed Miss. However I've played with a lot of variations. One DM used a Maim feature. If you critically failed or were critically hit you have a chance of doing permanent injury to yourself. The worst result I've seen from that system was the Ranger losing an eye, which ruined depth perception and forced him to give up the bow.

[Wondermndjr]

On a 20, we add an extra roll to the maximum damage of a non critical. It makes criticals always feel more powerful than normal attacks.

For example, with a greatsword 2d6 + 5 critical, we would reroll 1d6 and add that to 17.

On a 1, it's usually just a miss but with a penalty. If you were firing into melee, you might hit your ally for minor damage, or drop your sword and have to pick it up next turn.

These are just our rules though. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to do this. If 20 is just an auto hit and 1 is just a miss, then that's fine. Maybe 20 is triple damage and 1 hurts yourself. As long as everyone is OK with the consequences, it's all good.

[CaptainSarathai]

1) Roll twice as many dice on a critical. You roll 2D6+1D8+Str? Congratulations, now you roll 4D6+2D8+Str

2) We use Critical Fails at my table. In combat, this usually means that enemies attacking you have Advantage until the start of your next turn.
The best critical-fails come from Skills though. In one campaign, we had a character search a room.
DM: Roll it!
Player: and, uh... that's a 1. I don't find anything, do I?
DM: You see a string
Player: I pull it? I guess??
DM: Your shoe's untied...

[Tanarii]

The problem with critical fumbles on a 1 is the more attacks you get, the more often you fumble.

[LordVonDerp]

On a 20, we add an extra roll to the maximum damage of a non critical. It makes criticals always feel more powerful than normal attacks.

For example, with a greatsword 2d6 + 5 critical, we would reroll 1d6 and add that to 17.


That's half an extra roll.

[Arial Black]

The problem with critical fumbles on a 1 is the more attacks you get, the more often you fumble.

This.

A nat 1 on an attack roll is just a miss. No untied shoes, no poking out your own eye with your quarterstaff(?), no hitting your friends.

'Fumbles' are used by DMs for their own amusement, so they can make up something horrible to do to you that makes them laugh but not you, while shifting the blame for that little bit of evil to the innocent d20.

Also, a nat 1 on an ability check or a saving throw is not even an auto-fail, let alone a disaster that the DM invents on the spot.

Do not use fumbles of any kind. They are not the rule, and have never been the rule in any edition of D&D ever. They are just made up by DMs for evil purposes. The only thing required for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing. Players of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but those fumbles!

...where....where was I?....What was I saying...?

[DwarvenGM]

1.) Crits are used as described in the book, and if it results in a kill the players describes their epic it to the group.

2.) 1's are usually auto fails only unless the player is doing something really risky. A 1 on a handle animal check with a horse results in it ignoring you. A 1 on a flying mount you have never ridden before while trying to preform a sharp turn could result in you being bucked off.


3.)No way is best in general, In my opinion what ever your group prefers is best for your table.

[Gwiz]

I do crits like described in the rules, you roll all the damage dice you would normally roll for that attack twice (including fx sneak attack damage), then you add your damage bonus to the total amount afterwards.

You can also crit on spells and double the damage dice if it requires an attack to hit with the spell.

As for natural 1 there is no fumbling in 5th edition, but you can choose to implement it if you want. You are the DM if you like the feature and miss it, simply incorporate it in your game. You can probably easily find some fumble tables online or make up your own.

[Plaguescarred]

We use 1 as automati miss and 20 automatic hit and critical hit to boot, which add extra damage dice. I may provide extra ruling depending on the situation that i see fit i.e knock prone, shove etc.. but these are extraordinaires.

[JAL_1138]

I mostly do crits per the book; double all damage dice. I will occasionally allow an instant kill for a particularly epic and unlikely crit, going by rule of cool rather than any particular formula. E.g., you're down to 1HP, you have Disadvantage, and you crit (nat 20 on both dice)? Yeah, you cleave the enemy's head clean off (or something else suitable for the weapon used and the foe in question).

On rare occasions I'll describe a nat 20 as a particularly good success on a skill roll (assuming it would be a success); mostly it's just a number though. No autosuccess (there are DCs even a 20 won't beat--if a Rogue with Expertise is sneaking at 25, and you nat-20 for a total of 22 on the perception check, you still don't see the Rogue).

I don't use fumbles mechanically, other than the "automatic miss on attack rolls" in combat. I occasionally describe nat-1s as particularly embarrassing (but not otherwise mechanically significant) fails...assuming they do fail; it's possible to beat some DCs with a 1 on a skill check.

[Tanarii]

...where....where was I?....What was I saying...?:smalleek:
I dunno, but I'd like to make a formal statement that my comment on critical fumbles is in no way associated with any views on DMs being evil.

I like it when DMs are evil. I just prefer mechanically sound evil. :smallbiggrin:

[Laserlight]

Crit's in 5e are pretty clearly roll twice as many dice, RAW.

It can be lackluster at times, or very powerful when combined with sneak attack or smite.

In our last campaign, the BBEG was finished off by a paladin/swashbuckler's crit + sneak attack + max-spell-slot smite. It was glorious.

[DKing9114]

1. we've been playing RAW-double all damage dice for the attack. On skill checks, a nat 20 is an automatic success, often with some bonus and a boost to your character in the story (you succeed, because you are just that awesome). If someone tries to beat a DC 30, at a -3 modifier, that will probably not be allowed, but the game mechanics imply that a 1 or 20 represent failure or success despite all the odds.
2. We don't play fumbles in the "you poke your eye out" fashion, but they do frequently represent an embarrassing or similarly unfortunate explanation for the failure.
In our first session, multiple 1's on insight rolls caused a PC to get into a fight (nonlethal) with a local NPC because the barbarian PC considered telling his enemies he would hack apart their body if he killed them a compliment and a sign of respect.
A city boy rogue rolling a 1 on perception in the forest means he's staring at all the trees with a slackjawed expression, and too preoccupied to notice anything relevant.
When we faced a cambion, the DM let us roll perception to see if we could differentiate it from the tieflings who were everywhere; the monk was distracted by how incredibly handsome he was.
As for combat, I was once indecisive as a player as to who I should attack. The result was that I swung between two targets because I couldn't make up my mind.

[Mith]

What I have heard for crits is to figure out maximum damage of an attack, and add your damage roll to the maximum. SO you throw your d20 and damage simultaneously and if you crit you still only have to do the one dice throw.

Fumbles I just keep as an auto-miss. If there is something like a charge failing, I might grant advantage on attacks against the charger. Fumbled arrows are always irretrievable.

Skills do not have critical success or failures.

[Gwiz]

1. we've been playing RAW-double all damage dice for the attack. On skill checks, a nat 20 is an automatic success, often with some bonus and a boost to your character in the story (you succeed, because you are just that awesome). If someone tries to beat a DC 30, at a -3 modifier, that will probably not be allowed, but the game mechanics imply that a 1 or 20 represent failure or success despite all the odds.
2. We don't play fumbles in the "you poke your eye out" fashion, but they do frequently represent an embarrassing or similarly unfortunate explanation for the failure.
In our first session, multiple 1's on insight rolls caused a PC to get into a fight (nonlethal) with a local NPC because the barbarian PC considered telling his enemies he would hack apart their body if he killed them a compliment and a sign of respect.
A city boy rogue rolling a 1 on perception in the forest means he's staring at all the trees with a slackjawed expression, and too preoccupied to notice anything relevant.
When we faced a cambion, the DM let us roll perception to see if we could differentiate it from the tieflings who were everywhere; the monk was distracted by how incredibly handsome he was.
As for combat, I was once indecisive as a player as to who I should attack. The result was that I swung between two targets because I couldn't make up my mind.

You realise nat 20 on skill check doesn't guarantee any succes according to the official rules right? You can't crit on a skill check.

[HolyDraconus]

On a crit, we reroll all damage die and readd any + bonuses. Its more or less another hit. On a crit fail, a 1, well that's bad. You roll a d20. IF that d20 is anything other than a 1 or 20, then you fumbled. Missed epically, dropped weapon, enspelled the wrong person. Hit a team mate. That sort of thing. But if the gods of Luck gave you a 1 or 20 well damn. You rerolling. Your entire character. Cause for some reason she killed herself. Seriously. Critting on a crit fail is supposed to be epically bad.

[Laserlight]

On a crit, we reroll all damage die and readd any + bonuses. Its more or less another hit. On a crit fail, a 1, well that's bad. You roll a d20. IF that d20 is anything other than a 1 or 20, then you fumbled. Missed epically, dropped weapon, enspelled the wrong person. Hit a team mate. That sort of thing. But if the gods of Luck gave you a 1 or 20 well damn. You rerolling. Your entire character. Cause for some reason she killed herself. Seriously. Critting on a crit fail is supposed to be epically bad.

Using that sort of Fumble mechanism: If it's "1 to crit, then 1 or 20 to kill yourself", you have a 1-in-200 chance to die every time you make an attack. You won't make it to L5.

[HolyDraconus]

Using that sort of Fumble mechanism: If it's "1 to crit, then 1 or 20 to kill yourself", you have a 1-in-200 chance to die every time you make an attack. You won't make it to L5.

The few times someone rolled that badly they had Inspiration. Which is like the roll was never made in this case.

[MrStabby]

As others, no critical fails on attacks. Critical hits double dice.

For me this works well. I disliked in 3rd edition how the weapon type often became pretty unimportant when it came to damage type. D6+37 is pretty similar to d8+37 damage. I like the role that the critical plays in keeping the weapon damage die type as a reasonably important feature. Sure it still gets overshadowed by sharpshooter, a maxed combat stat, hunters mark bonuses and so on but it gets to feel a little more relevant.

For skills I don't operate a critical success or fail rule, with the exception of some knowledge checks. If a player scores a 22 with an 18 on the d20 I would probably give less information than if a player scored a 22 with a natural 20. The same being true of a 1 as well. Some of this is self indulgent - if I build a world and flesh it out, I want the players to know about it.:smallwink:

[mephnick]

We use max damage + extra roll. There's no worse feeling in gaming than rolling a crit and then doing like half damage because you rolled 1's.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I personally despise 5e's critical hits for exactly the reasons you mentioned-- an extra few points of damage doesn't feel good at all. I use the 3e style "double your damage before adding bonus dice."

[Ruslan]

1. Critical hit: the rules say roll twice as many dice and add. When I crit for the monsters, I just roll once and double, to save time. When my players crit, they like rolling twice.

2. Natural 1: depending on the mood at the table at the moment. Sometimes it's just a miss, and we move along, sometimes we commiserate with the player who rolled a '1', and sometimes make up a fun narration about how badly they missed.

3. I'm afraid there is no one 'best' way to handle it.

[Ruslan]

Using that sort of Fumble mechanism: If it's "1 to crit, then 1 or 20 to kill yourself", you have a 1-in-200 chance to die every time you make an attack. You won't make it to L5.
Fun fact: a 20th level Fighter fighting a training dummy will die within 5 minutes under these rules. But a 1st level Fighter can survive a whole 20 minutes!

[HolyDraconus]

Fun fact: a 20th level Fighter fighting a training dummy will die within 5 minutes under these rules. But a 1st level Fighter can survive a whole 20 minutes!

There are deaths in training in real life. Why tempt fate when you know what may happen?

[DwarvenGM]

There are deaths in training in real life. Why tempt fate when you know what may happen?

Yeah.... but if this was even close to realistic every professional fighter would die in practice before their first fight. every soldier would die on their fist trip to the rifle range.

[JumboWheat01]

There are deaths in training in real life. Why tempt fate when you know what may happen?


Yeah.... but if this was even close to realistic every professional fighter would die in practice before their first fight. every soldier would die on their fist trip to the rifle range.

Murphy's Law counters this. If you expect things to go wrong, things will in fact not go wrong because you were expecting them to.

[HolyDraconus]

To add to that, a 1 in 200 chance doesn't mean that after 199 attempts you WILL die. That's not how odds works

[georgie_leech]

To add to that, a 1 in 200 chance doesn't mean that after 199 attempts you WILL die. That's not how odds works

No, it means that if you put a bunch of Fighters in rooms with training dummies and a stick, you'd expect about 75% of them to be dead in 5 minutes. If you were training 100 soldiers, 75 of them would die. While training accidents can happen, I can assure you that practicing to fight is most definitely not that lethal.

[JAL_1138]

To add to that, a 1 in 200 chance doesn't mean that after 199 attempts you WILL die. That's not how odds works

You have about 63.3% chance of dying at or before 200 rolls with a 1-in-200 chance of death, assuming the method of calculating it I found on the interwebs is right.

1/200=.005
Chance of not dying = .995
.995^200 = 36.7%
Chance of dying = 100%-36.7% = 63.3%

EDIT: By this method, your chance of dying over 500 attacks becomes 91.8%. No, it'll never reach 100%, and the probability of death on each attack is still 1/200.

[D.U.P.A.]

You may play with fumbles in like 4e, where almost all classes got one attack (as standard action) and no races playing with various rolls. But 5e is totally unsuitable. Advantage/disadvantage basically doubles the chance of a critical/fumble, halflings can reroll 1s, some classes focus on weaker multiple attacks instead of big one hit. It is funny to see how a level 20 fighter, which should be on par with god wizards casting level 9 spells, to fail and embarass himself everytime he uses attack action on his turn.

[Vogonjeltz]

So a few minutes ago.I read somewhere that when you crit. You just add one more dice. Or as many dices as you threw in the first place. This sometimes could be one :p at my table we just do the attack normally and then we double the resulting dmg. Is that too much? On a natural 1 is just a fail

So here is the questions:
1. At your table how do you do crits?
2. What do you do with a natural 1?
3. Is there a 'best' way to handle these?

Per the rules you only roll the for the attack twice everything that's not a die is added once as per normal, a 1 is an automatic miss.

1 and 20 have no significance outside of melee.

How my table handles it otherwise doesn't really matter, them's the rules.

[Cl0001]

For Critical hits, I've seen a couple of ways to rule it.
- roll double the dice that would normally be rolled
- take max damage and add on another roll
- roll one set and double it, or roll again and add it.

For crit fails, many things have happened. Personally, I have
-shot an ally
-lit myself on fire
-Broke my weapon
-fallen off a cliff
-attacked myself
But my main dm usually makes crit fails become less common as we level up by rolling another d20 to determine if we really failed badly.

[DwarvenGM]

To add to that, a 1 in 200 chance doesn't mean that after 199 attempts you WILL die. That's not how odds works


Yup you are correct but still 1/200 chance of loosing a soldier in training would still be far too high in real life. But aside from that if this system works for you that's awesome. I can see how it could add a level of tension to game play. My group would most likely walk away if I chose to implement something this severe but different tables have different play styles.

[MrStabby]

Per the rules you only roll the for the attack twice everything that's not a die is added once as per normal, a 1 is an automatic miss.

1 and 20 have no significance outside of melee.

How my table handles it otherwise doesn't really matter, them's the rules.

Off the top of my head, I don't think this is right. Both ranged weapons and ranged attack rolls can critical hit.

[JumboWheat01]

Off the top of my head, I don't think this is right. Both ranged weapons and ranged attack rolls can critical hit.

Indeed. Attack rolls can crit, while non attack rolls cannot. You can critical hit with a Firebolt, but not with a Fireball. And you can critically hit just as well with a shot from a heavy crossbow as you can with a good ol' longsword, or with a fist to the face.

[MeeposFire]

Indeed. Attack rolls can crit, while non attack rolls cannot. You can critical hit with a Firebolt, but not with a Fireball. And you can critically hit just as well with a shot from a heavy crossbow as you can with a good ol' longsword, or with a fist to the face.

Actually per RAW most people's fists (ones that did not take tavern brawler or is a monk) will not be affected by a crit since they deal 1 damage and not any dice (though you could choose to pretend that 1 damage is actually 1D1 in which case you could double that but that would not be standard for most). They still auto hit and the like of course and if you do have tavern brawler or are a monk it works just fine too.

[Aelyn]

I do crits as described in the PHB, it seems balanced and fun without being brutal - at least in low-to-mid levels with good but not optimised characters.

Fumbles are done on a case-by-case basis, but my rough rules are:

- Only the first roll of a given action can be a fumble - take the example of a TWF Fighter 11 using his Action, Bonus Action, and Action Surge to attack, for 3+1+3 attacks. He is risking three Fumbles that turn, one for each type of action.

- The player gets to make an appropriate check to avoid the fumble effect. They can spend an Inspiration to automatically avoid it if they want.

- The effect is minor, but visible - for example, in melee, the attacked target may get Advantage for a single attack due to an opening; at range, an adjacent model at random is hit for a single dice of damage with no modifier, etc. This is very context-dependant and is why there's no "fumble table" for me.

- Skills can be fumbled, giving exactly the wrong impression for social or knowledge skills. It's always amusing when a Ranger reports from scouting that there's a strange, floating eye with eyestalks in the next cavern, and the Wizard responds "Oh, that sounds like a Beholder. It's an old myth, they don't really exist. Must be like a scarecrow or something." Note this is more effective if certain player rolls are done by the DM jn secret.

- If a 1 would otherwise be a success, it's a failure but there's no fumble.

- Fumbles are there to heighten amusement and/or drama. If the table mood is such that a fumble results in a negative experience, it's just a failure instead.

[Arial Black]

So high level fighters are more likely to crit fail than low level fighters, killing themselves roughly once every 5 minutes.

This would be enough to get me to walk away from such a game, but as this thread shows different people like different things.

So, for those of you who think that being better is worse than being worse(?), how do you spread around this wierd kind of love? How do you get equal amusement from those PCs who deal with Forces Man Was Not Meant To Know?

In short, how do you do fumbles for spells if those spells don't have attack rolls? Surely, summoning creatures from another dimension, fireballs and lightning bolts flying around, minds being shifted into jars, and the mere speaking of a word actually killing someone, are all inherently more hazardous to handle than a stick!

So if you think a stick is so hazardous to its (highly skilled) user that it will kill him in 5 minutes, how soon will the unleashing of unpredictable arcane energies from another dimension kill the caster? Four minutes? Three?

Or do casters inexplicably get to cast in complete ****ing safety while there is a warning label on every stick?

[JAL_1138]

Let's even do an example where there's a 1-in-400 chance of death. You'd first have to roll a 1, then confirm it with another nat 1 to truly botch and kill yourself instead of just miss.

You have a .0025 (or 0.25%) chance of dying per roll. That means you have a .9975 (or 99.75%) chance of NOT dying. Over 1,000 attacks, that gives you .9975^1000 = 0.08183 (or 8.183%) chance of surviving, and therefore a 91.817% chance of death.

The chance of death increases to 97.66% over the course of 1500 attacks.

A 20th-level Fighter not using Action Surge can make 40 attacks per minute. The Fighter has under 40 minutes of combat in their Lvl 20 career, tops, before they're practically guaranteed to kill themselves. Not that they'll survive to Lvl 20 without a miracle of improbability, since that 1-in-400 chance has been there since Level 1.

[JumboWheat01]

Actually per RAW most people's fists (ones that did not take tavern brawler or is a monk) will not be affected by a crit since they deal 1 damage and not any dice (though you could choose to pretend that 1 damage is actually 1D1 in which case you could double that but that would not be standard for most). They still auto hit and the like of course and if you do have tavern brawler or are a monk it works just fine too.

Ah, good point. I was mostly referring to the weirdness that is a monk's punches, which use attack rolls, but are neither weapons or spells. It's one of those weird things.

[pwykersotz]

So high level fighters are more likely to crit fail than low level fighters, killing themselves roughly once every 5 minutes.

This would be enough to get me to walk away from such a game, but as this thread shows different people like different things.

So, for those of you who think that being better is worse than being worse(?), how do you spread around this wierd kind of love? How do you get equal amusement from those PCs who deal with Forces Man Was Not Meant To Know?

In short, how do you do fumbles for spells if those spells don't have attack rolls? Surely, summoning creatures from another dimension, fireballs and lightning bolts flying around, minds being shifted into jars, and the mere speaking of a word actually killing someone, are all inherently more hazardous to handle than a stick!

So if you think a stick is so hazardous to its (highly skilled) user that it will kill him in 5 minutes, how soon will the unleashing of unpredictable arcane energies from another dimension kill the caster? Four minutes? Three?

Or do casters inexplicably get to cast in complete ****ing safety while there is a warning label on every stick?

In my experience, tables which use fumbles add similar rules for casters. Sometimes by saying that an enemy who makes a nat 20 save blows the spell back at the caster or some-such.

Also, if you wanted to, it's fairly trivial to get around critical failures being more prevalent on high level fighters. Just say that the rule only applies to the first attack made each round. That way you also don't penalize dual wielders in the same fashion.

[HolyDraconus]

As I stated before: the few times (once actually) that a player was in danger of killing them self they had inspiration. The Luck feat is pretty powerful at our table, but we play highly lethal games with severe reroll penalties to enhance role play. A rogue surrounded by kobolds 10 levels lower than them may normally not see them as a threat. With our critical fail rules and reroll penalties though, they do exercise the other half of Valor quite more often.

[JAL_1138]

Meanwhile an Evoker wizard in the same circumstances can drop a Fireball in perfect safety, never worrying that he'll accidentally kill himself rolling poorly.

[HolyDraconus]

Meanwhile an Evoker wizard in the same circumstances can drop a Fireball in perfect safety, never worrying that he'll accidentally kill himself rolling poorly.

That doesn't happen at our table. I stated earlier that spells are subject to that too. If you have to roll to hit, you have a chance. Period.

[Rysto]

That doesn't happen at our table. I stated earlier that spells are subject to that too. If you have to roll to hit, you have a chance. Period.

Fireball doesn't roll to hit.

[JAL_1138]

That doesn't happen at our table. I stated earlier that spells are subject to that too. If you have to roll to hit, you have a chance. Period.

You don't have to roll to hit with a Fireball. Or certain cantrips, e.g. Sacred Flame. The enemy makes a save instead. And the Evoker gets a class feature that explicitly allows them to shape AoE spells to exclude certain creatures from the effects.

EDIT: Ninja'd Shadow Monk'd.

[D.U.P.A.]

As I stated before: the few times (once actually) that a player was in danger of killing them self they had inspiration. The Luck feat is pretty powerful at our table, but we play highly lethal games with severe reroll penalties to enhance role play. A rogue surrounded by kobolds 10 levels lower than them may normally not see them as a threat. With our critical fail rules and reroll penalties though, they do exercise the other half of Valor quite more often.

A 10 level Rogue surrounded by kobolds would still be in a trouble, all kobolds having advantage on him due to pack tactics, while him having only one attack per round (even though they would be finished in one hit) and roguish AC is not going to be skyhigh.

Also using critical failures save spells are much stronger, they already have a bonus compared to attack spells by not having melee penalty, also most of them deal half damage on successful save (those higher than cantrips), while attack spells have very few exceptions. And Scorching ray is rather useless.

[HolyDraconus]

You don't have to roll to hit with a Fireball. Or certain cantrips, e.g. Sacred Flame. The enemy makes a save instead. And the Evoker gets a class feature that explicitly allows them to shape AoE spells to exclude certain creatures from the effects.

EDIT: Ninja'd Shadow Monk'd.
Saves are powerful, yes, but generally a creature without investment has a +2 to 5 in most saves, with an average roll of 10 needed to beat the DC of most spells.

A 10 level Rogue surrounded by kobolds would still be in a trouble, all kobolds having advantage on him due to pack tactics, while him having only one attack per round (even though they would be finished in one hit) and roguish AC is not going to be skyhigh.

Also using critical failures save spells are much stronger, they already have a bonus compared to attack spells by not having melee penalty, also most of them deal half damage on successful save (those higher than cantrips), while attack spells have very few exceptions. And Scorching ray is rather useless.

That's the idea. High lethality. Spells are on the whole limited by slots. So switching from roll to hit to save or suck doesn't affect much negatively.

On the whole, it works for us, so why is everyone getting upset by it? No player has died by it at our table.

[poolio]

I've never really mind crit fails, how else would "Bill, the one armed swordsman" come to be? :smallsmile:

I'm a very go with the flow kind of player, i see any given game as a story, and the rolls are just helping to decide if it happens to be an action or a comedy :smallwink:

[D.U.P.A.]

Saves are powerful, yes, but generally a creature without investment has a +2 to 5 in most saves, with an average roll of 10 needed to beat the DC of most spells.


That's the idea. High lethality. Spells are on the whole limited by slots. So switching from roll to hit to save or suck doesn't affect much negatively.

On the whole, it works for us, so why is everyone getting upset by it? No player has died by it at our table.

Maybe at lower levels. But at higher levels we rarely run out of slots.

[HolyDraconus]

Maybe at lower levels. But at higher levels we rarely run out of slots.


No player has died by it at our table.

We been playing as a whole since 3.0, while I personally have been in games with those same rules since 2e. No player has died by it at our table. Yes, we hit epic, and multiple times too. Generally though, player death happens when someone overestimates their abilities and rolls falter on that. The times that a player COULD of died from it were twice: Once in 3.5 Ebberon (which had a similar Inspiration mechanic) and once in 5e/Next ( which, again, the Inspiration mechanic was live, but was backed by Lucky feat.) Spells on the whole are far fewer than how many there was in 3.5. That's a fact. The best loop I seen for refreshing them involves a demiplane, which, honestly, isn't really a combat effective loop at our table.

[FrostAce]

Fumbles for rolls, in my gaming experience, almost always exclusively hurt characters dependent on a lot of d20 rolls to be useful. I.E. Any non magical character and skill monkeys. Note the specific lack of spell casters, the type of characters historically known to be far and above the rest already.

If anything, it's dumb from a thematic standpoint. A Fighter that can lop off a troll's head as easily as I can type lol on my phone should, under no circumstance, just hurt/hinder themselves due to incompetence. Like how a master chef only makes a 4 star cake rather than 5 when he screws up, not a poisonous abomination, bad for a hero is... missing. These are heroes we're talking about. If youre standing toe-to-toe with a dragon, and confident in you swordsmanship to kill it, your likely beyond the point of butterfingers.

[georgie_leech]

We been playing as a whole since 3.0, while I personally have been in games with those same rules since 2e. No player has died by it at our table. Yes, we hit epic, and multiple times too. Generally though, player death happens when someone overestimates their abilities and rolls falter on that.

You're a bit of a statistical outlier in that regard. Assuming as few as 7 attacks a week (unless you're playing a non-combat game, extremely unlikely) per player, and an average of 4 players, you're looking at about 3328 attacks over that period. That gives us a 0.00000569% odds that no one died. In short, I don't believe you. And the reason why I'm objecting to it on these grounds is that I don't want a prospective DM reading this kind of thread and seeing you winning this lottery jackpot, deciding that it means critical fumble rules that can lead to death are a good idea.

[Maxilian]

I use the RAW rules, no critical fumbles (I think that only make caster even stronger -cause you're actually making it harder for anyone that base themselves on Hits to do damage -Aka... melee characters and their extra attack, worse if you're a high lvl Fighter)

[Maxilian]

We been playing as a whole since 3.0, while I personally have been in games with those same rules since 2e. No player has died by it at our table. Yes, we hit epic, and multiple times too. Generally though, player death happens when someone overestimates their abilities and rolls falter on that. The times that a player COULD of died from it were twice: Once in 3.5 Ebberon (which had a similar Inspiration mechanic) and once in 5e/Next ( which, again, the Inspiration mechanic was live, but was backed by Lucky feat.) Spells on the whole are far fewer than how many there was in 3.5. That's a fact. The best loop I seen for refreshing them involves a demiplane, which, honestly, isn't really a combat effective loop at our table.

You guys may not have died, but that means that the DM is actually playing in your favor sometimes (Giving the enemies weaker rolls or saving the player hide in the last moment without they realizing)

[Daishain]

So a few minutes ago.I read somewhere that when you crit. You just add one more dice. Or as many dices as you threw in the first place. This sometimes could be one :p at my table we just do the attack normally and then we double the resulting dmg. Is that too much? On a natural 1 is just a fail

So here is the questions:
1. At your table how do you do crits?
2. What do you do with a natural 1?
3. Is there a 'best' way to handle these?
1. As written in 5E rules, 20 is an automatic crit, with all standard damage being rolled twice. Class/race abilities potentially modifying

2. I have my own modified crit fail setup that slightly favors the players. Any nonBAMF NPCs that roll a 1 on a D20 roll do something detrimental to themselves, usually in a highly amusing fashion. I've had them stabbing themselves/allies, throwing weapons into rivers, breaking tools that normally don't get broken, causing massive piles of noisy stuff to crash around while sneaking ala Pippin in Moria, etc. In one case an NPC accidentally splashed random alchemical components on himself. The resulting magical burst brain swapped him with a nearby rat for an hour.

PCs and BAMF NPCs are potentially subject to the same kind of thing, but they have an extra defense for such gaffs. They roll the offending d20 again, 6 or above and they just fail the initial roll, 5 or below and something amusing to me happens, with the severity of schadenfreude depending on how low the second roll went. So PCs only have a 1/80 chance of fumbling compared to the 1/20 of the standard mooks they face.

Also, in response to people complaining about players killing themselves with such, neither PCs nor NPCs are subject to dying as a direct result of fumbles as I handle them. They might hasten their own demise, but fumbles are primarily a matter of comedic relief in a campaign that is otherwise quite serious.

3. As with many other things, no there is not a "best" way to handle such. Every group's needs, desires, and overall playstyle is different. Find what is fun for both you and your group and roll with it.

[D.U.P.A.]

Also this ironically makes Halflings best fighters, because their reroll that fumble.

[JumboWheat01]

Halflings make the best anything. It's just how awesome they are.

[CursedRhubarb]

Current game has 1 a crit fail and 20 a crit success on anything that has a roll. Results from it tend to vary. Attack rolls are crits on a 20 but on 1's there are differences. Melee give an AoO to an enemy, ranged make a second roll against teammate's AC to see if they shoot said teammate instead. Casters either roll against a teammate or themselves. For the rolls against friendlies and themselves, numbers are flipped and a 1 becomes a crit (double fail penalty) and a 20 is a miss...casters tend to blow themselves up a lot and I swear our Wizard has about six 1s on his d20 for the number of times he's blown himself up. (Double 1s on a witchbolt was nasty and on round 1 of a fight. Left him with 1hp 🤕)

On the other side, crits/fails out of combat has been hilarious. Gotten a few 20s on stealth checks so seeing the tin can cleric squeak by the baddies with no problem was great...then the Wizard got a 1 and aparently found the only stick in the sewer when he stepped on it. Good times.

Wizard got a 20 on a diception check which got us past a guard capitan and later saved our baccon when we got caught by lesser guards...because he rolled a 1 and instead of telling them "they went that way" he essentially called their mothers infected hairs on a trolls rump. He swears it was an honest mistake.

[HolyDraconus]

You're a bit of a statistical outlier in that regard. Assuming as few as 7 attacks a week (unless you're playing a non-combat game, extremely unlikely) per player, and an average of 4 players, you're looking at about 3328 attacks over that period. That gives us a 0.00000569% odds that no one died. In short, I don't believe you. And the reason why I'm objecting to it on these grounds is that I don't want a prospective DM reading this kind of thread and seeing you winning this lottery jackpot, deciding that it means critical fumble rules that can lead to death are a good idea.

To be statistically correct, the first attempt is the last. Throwing more die at something with a low chance is still a low chance. Each. Time. It's not accumulative. Regardless, calling me a liar when you haven't sat at my table and played in one of our games, when you don't even know me, makes you a troll.

[JAL_1138]

Each roll is still a 1/200 chance. However, the chance of having zero failures over the course of 3000 rolls is 0.0000295%.

If you flip a fair coin with a fair flip a mere twenty times, and each has come up heads, the chance the next roll will be heads is 50%. That next flip is unaffected by previous flips. However, the chance of making twenty-one flips without getting tails even once is 0.000048%.

If you're wagering on that flip it's 50/50. If you're wagering on 21 flips all coming up heads, the chances are astronomically low.

So when you're looking at the chance nobody died over 3000 rolls, it is cumulative. When you're looking at the 3001st roll in isolation, it isn't.

[HolyDraconus]

Each roll is still a 1/200 chance. However, the chance of having zero failures over the course of 3000 rolls is 0.0000295%.

If you flip a fair coin with a fair flip a mere twenty times, and each has come up heads, the chance the next roll will be heads is 50%. That next flip is unaffected by previous flips. However, the chance of making twenty-one flips without getting tails even once is 0.000048%.

If you're wagering on that flip it's 50/50. If you're wagering on 21 flips all coming up heads, the chances are astronomically low.

So when you're looking at the chance nobody died over 3000 rolls, it is cumulative. When you're looking at the 3001st roll in isolation, it isn't.0 failures. And I stated before, the times that it was POSSIBLE ( as in it would of happened) it DID NOT. Inspiration. Rerolled that. Lucky Feat at our table ALSO rerolls that. So again, before saying " HD is lying and wrong" understand what other factors exist. Fun fact, I never won the lottery.

[JAL_1138]

0 failures. And I stated before, the times that it was POSSIBLE ( as in it would of happened) it DID NOT. Inspiration. Rerolled that. Lucky Feat at our table ALSO rerolls that. So again, before saying " HD is lying and wrong" understand what other factors exist. Fun fact, I never won the lottery.


I was responding solely to this assertion about probability:


To be statistically correct, the first attempt is the last. Throwing more die at something with a low chance is still a low chance. Each. Time. It's not accumulative.

Which is both accurate and not accurate depending on what you're looking at. The next roll, it's not cumulative. The series as a whole, however, it is.

I'm not disputing that reroll feat-taxes or inspiration have stopped it from killing anybody; that's another argument entirely.

[HolyDraconus]

I was responding solely to this assertion about probability:



Which is both accurate and not accurate depending on what you're looking at. The next roll, it's not cumulative. The series as a whole, however, it is.

I'm not disputing that reroll feat-taxes or inspiration have stopped it from killing anybody; that's another argument entirely.

THanks. All I'm trying to say is that, while its extremely lethal, no one died at our table. I'm glad you get me:smallsmile:

[georgie_leech]

THanks. All I'm trying to say is that, while its extremely lethal, no one died at our table. I'm glad you get me:smallsmile:

And what I'm saying is that as presented, that's not the expected outcome of that rule. It's great that it wasn't too lethal for your games, but that is not what is going to happen in the vast majority of cases.

[JumboWheat01]

Why are we assuming Critical Fails are even damaging to one-self? It could be as simple as "your weapon flies from your hands" or "you shattered it on the rock near the enemy." Adventurers should always carry more than one weapon anyways, that's just Adventuring 101.

[georgie_leech]

Why are we assuming Critical Fails are even damaging to one-self? It could be as simple as "your weapon flies from your hands" or "you shattered it on the rock near the enemy." Adventurers should always carry more than one weapon anyways, that's just Adventuring 101.

Discussing this house rule:


On a crit, we reroll all damage die and readd any + bonuses. Its more or less another hit. On a crit fail, a 1, well that's bad. You roll a d20. IF that d20 is anything other than a 1 or 20, then you fumbled. Missed epically, dropped weapon, enspelled the wrong person. Hit a team mate. That sort of thing. But if the gods of Luck gave you a 1 or 20 well damn. You rerolling. Your entire character. Cause for some reason she killed herself. Seriously. Critting on a crit fail is supposed to be epically bad.

[HolyDraconus]

And what I'm saying is that as presented, that's not the expected outcome of that rule. It's great that it wasn't too lethal for your games, but that is not what is going to happen in the vast majority of cases.

The expected outcome is already obscured by feats, system mechanics and class abilities preventing or cushioning, if you will, such a thing happening. And considering on the inverse we have instant kill mechanics ( natural 20, to confirm is a natural 20, and to confirm the instant kill roll to hit) you are, quite literally, assuming the sky is blue without taking into account that there is no light.

[georgie_leech]

The expected outcome is already obscured by feats, system mechanics and class abilities preventing or cushioning, if you will, such a thing happening. And considering on the inverse we have instant kill mechanics ( natural 20, to confirm is a natural 20, and to confirm the instant kill roll to hit) you are, quite literally, assuming the sky is blue without taking into account that there is no light.

FYI, adding extra swinginess doesn't actually address the concern of 'it can be too swingy or is too likely to end in character death.' Again, good on you guys for finding away to have fun, my concern remains that people don't misunderstand how lethal that sort of rule can be.

[Pex]

Why are we assuming Critical Fails are even damaging to one-self? It could be as simple as "your weapon flies from your hands" or "you shattered it on the rock near the enemy." Adventurers should always carry more than one weapon anyways, that's just Adventuring 101.

Critical fail = possible character death was just one person's house rule, but what you suggest is no better. 20th level fighters should not so incompetent to have dropped their weapon or have it smashed. Not counting Action Surge they are 4 times as likely to do so than 1st level fighters. Dual wielders are twice as likely more than that. The spellcaster can easily avoid not casting spells that require an attack roll. Meanwhile, what happens to monks and moon druids? Do they break an arm or something? At least land druids would see more play among the druid player character population.

[JumboWheat01]

Clearly wild shape druids break a nail.

[Mith]

I remember reading an article online that got rid of flat critical success or failure (1 or 20), and used percentiles and the difference between the attack and the AC. So if you beat the AC by 8, you had an 8% chance of a critical hit. If you missed by 8, you had the same chance to critically fail.

I like the idea, but wonder if it would be too strong with adv./dis. As for dealing with increased crit range, would just adding 5% to the percent eange work?

[HolyDraconus]

FYI, adding extra swinginess doesn't actually address the concern of 'it can be too swingy or is too likely to end in character death.' Again, good on you guys for finding away to have fun, my concern remains that people don't misunderstand how lethal that sort of rule can be.

Oh! Oh yea, its hella lethal! I'm not disagreeing with that. The DM that came up with it said it was his solution to stop players from rollplaying and force them to roleplay. It worked for him, and its been working for us. Granted, it changed how we built our characters a bit, but we all are having fun. Thanks for your input!

[MeeposFire]

I remember reading an article online that got rid of flat critical success or failure (1 or 20), and used percentiles and the difference between the attack and the AC. So if you beat the AC by 8, you had an 8% chance of a critical hit. If you missed by 8, you had the same chance to critically fail.

I like the idea, but wonder if it would be too strong with adv./dis. As for dealing with increased crit range, would just adding 5% to the percent eange work?

That is something that works much better using a compute game than a table top game. Calculating that stuff and then rolling for all the time no thanks. At least to me that is the sort of an idea that is cooler in my mind than in actual practice.

[Daishain]

That is something that works much better using a compute game than a table top game. Calculating that stuff and then rolling for all the time no thanks. At least to me that is the sort of an idea that is cooler in my mind than in actual practice.
That and it requires the DM to reveal right from the outset what AC the enemy is packing. Granted, that info often comes out anyways as hits/misses are verified, but still, being able to keep that sort of info quiet is an important tool for a DM

[Malifice]

The problem with critical fumbles on a 1 is the more attacks you get, the more often you fumble.

This.

In other words it penalises Fighters the most, who at high level are more of a danger to themselves than the monsters they fight.

[Malifice]

I mostly do crits per the book; double all damage dice. I will occasionally allow an instant kill for a particularly epic and unlikely crit, going by rule of cool rather than any particular formula. E.g., you're down to 1HP, you have Disadvantage, and you crit (nat 20 on both dice)?

What do you mean 'on both dice'?

Confirmation rolls arent a thing in 5E. You only roll once.

[Sabeta]

What do you mean 'on both dice'?

Confirmation rolls arent a thing in 5E. You only roll once.

Bold the word Disadvantage and it makes sense.

[Malifice]

On a crit fail, a 1, well that's bad. You roll a d20. IF that d20 is anything other than a 1 or 20, then you fumbled. Missed epically, dropped weapon, enspelled the wrong person. Hit a team mate. That sort of thing. But if the gods of Luck gave you a 1 or 20 well damn. You rerolling. Your entire character. Cause for some reason she killed herself. Seriously. Critting on a crit fail is supposed to be epically bad.

Thats... an awful house rule.

Assuming even just a single attack per round, and only 5 rounds per encounter (30 second encounters), with around 10 x CR appropriate encounters to advance a level, thats 1000 attack rolls over your career.

Odds are well and truly against you that you'll be dead well before then on account of randomly poking yourself in the eye with your knife and skewering your brain.

5 minutes of fighting per level, or around an hour and a half total over the journey.

God help you if you're a Fighter. At 5th level, your odds of killing yourself increase 200 percent. At 11th level they triple. Your capstone is a death sentence.

[Malifice]

Bold the word Disadvantage and it makes sense.

Ah, I see.

[HolyDraconus]

Thats... an awful house rule.

Assuming even just a single attack per round, and only 5 rounds per encounter (30 second encounters), with around 10 x CR appropriate encounters to advance a level, thats 1000 attack rolls over your career.

Odds are well and truly against you that you'll be dead well before then on account of randomly poking yourself in the eye with your knife and skewering your brain.

5 minutes of fighting per level, or around an hour and a half total over the journey.

God help you if you're a Fighter. At 5th level, your odds of killing yourself increase 200 percent. At 11th level they triple. Your capstone is a death sentence.

-facepalm-

Read the rest of the thread. Seriously. Read it. Sit back. Drink a nice cold beverage of choice. Pick up the paper, read the sports. Then think about your comment in a vacuum. Then realize its not IN a vacuum. Realize that there was other posts in the thread, posts that, once read, makes some sense. Then top that all off with the knowledge that its a personal house rule. Finish your drink.

[Malifice]

-facepalm-

Read the rest of the thread. Seriously. Read it. Sit back. Drink a nice cold beverage of choice. Pick up the paper, read the sports. Then think about your comment in a vacuum. Then realize its not IN a vacuum. Realize that there was other posts in the thread, posts that, once read, makes some sense. Then top that all off with the knowledge that its a personal house rule. Finish your drink.

Bro, I have read it. I'm allowed to disagree.

Your DM claims to be attempting to discourage 'roll-playing' in favor of 'role-playing' with this rule. Yet the rule does nothing of the sort. All it does is overly punish fighters (who not only are exposed to more attack rolls, but are also dishing the most out).

Like you said, all this does is create a situation where the players at the table are spending build resources (like the Lucky feat etc) to mitigate the rule (to the extent that you claim to have never seen it come up in over a decade of play and literally thousands of rolls).

If he wants to encourage 'roleplaying' over 'roll-playing' he's better off awarding XP exclusively (or even primarily) for roleplaying, and not for killing stuff (the default).

If he wants to encourage lethality there are other methods to do so rather than this method.

For what its worth, I agree with the sentiments expressed above. Assuming weekly play, 5 PCs (discounting attack rolls made by the DM entirely) and a ver low figure of around 30 x D20 rolls per PC per session, adds up to 150 x D20 rolls per week. Playing like this for even a year adds up to close to 10,000 rolls. Playing like this since 3E adds up to hundreds of thousands of D20 rolls. With a 1/400 chance of a 1 backed up by a 20 happening on each roll, the probability of it not happening are incredibly tiny indeed.

[Pex]

Oh! Oh yea, its hella lethal! I'm not disagreeing with that. The DM that came up with it said it was his solution to stop players from rollplaying and force them to roleplay. It worked for him, and its been working for us. Granted, it changed how we built our characters a bit, but we all are having fun. Thanks for your input!

I find the fact that you had to change how you built your characters is proof enough that it failed the DM's Stormwind goal. You're still badwrongfun optimizing but now just doing it to avoid the deaths and injuries the house rule is causing.

[HolyDraconus]

Bro, I have read it. I'm allowed to disagree.

Your DM claims to be attempting to discourage 'roll-playing' in favor of 'role-playing' with this rule. Yet the rule does nothing of the sort. All it does is overly punish fighters (who not only are exposed to more attack rolls, but are also dishing the most out).

Like you said, all this does is create a situation where the players at the table are spending build resources (like the Lucky feat etc) to mitigate the rule (to the extent that you claim to have never seen it come up in over a decade of play and literally thousands of rolls).

If he wants to encourage 'roleplaying' over 'roll-playing' he's better off awarding XP exclusively (or even primarily) for roleplaying, and not for killing stuff (the default).

If he wants to encourage lethality there are other methods to do so rather than this method.

For what its worth, I agree with the sentiments expressed above. Assuming weekly play, 5 PCs (discounting attack rolls made by the DM entirely) and a ver low figure of around 30 x D20 rolls per PC per session, adds up to 150 x D20 rolls per week. Playing like this for even a year adds up to close to 10,000 rolls. Playing like this since 3E adds up to hundreds of thousands of D20 rolls. With a 1/400 chance of a 1 backed up by a 20 happening on each roll, the probability of it not happening are incredibly tiny indeed.
Yet no one has died at my table from this rule. Your point?

I find the fact that you had to change how you built your characters is proof enough that it failed the DM's Stormwind goal. You're still badwrongfun optimizing but now just doing it to avoid the deaths and injuries the house rule is causing.

adding in the Luck or 5e's Lucky feat is hardly a huge change. Add in that we have monks who attack more than fighters due that hasn't died and I still don't see what the problem is. It works. For us. If you don't like it, then don't. It doesn't affect you in the slightest.

[Malifice]

Yet no one has died at my table from this rule. Your point?


So if it never comes up in a decade of playing over 3 different systems, why bother with the rule? Is it stopping (as you put it) 'roll-playing'and is it encouraging 'roleplaying'?

Or is it just another hurdle to be overcome by taking feats and abilities to mitigate it, and avoiding attacks with rolls attached (i.e playing a Wizard and avoiding the Fighter like the plague).


adding in the Luck or 5e's Lucky feat is hardly a huge change. Add in that we have monks who attack more than fighters due that hasn't died and I still don't see what the problem is. It works.


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

[HolyDraconus]

So if it never comes up in a decade of playing over 3 different systems, why bother with the rule? Is it stopping (as you put it) 'roll-playing'and is it encouraging 'roleplaying'?



Considering that there's a player when he first joined only payed attention when the DM said roll initiative, and now actually roleplays in other areas and isn't so completely detached from everything but combat: yes, it works. YMMV.
The rest of your post I didn't understand. Seemed unimportant.

[Malifice]

Considering that there's a player when he first joined only payed attention when the DM said roll initiative, and now actually roleplays in other areas and isn't so completely detached from everything but combat: yes, it works.

Spurious argument. I'm unsure how a rule which (in your own words) has never come up in decades of play is contributing to this guy roleplaying.

There are other ways of doing this that dont involve punitive measures that overly punish fighters (who both roll and recieve several attack rolls per round) and reward mages (who do neither).

How about awarding XP for roleplaying? Rewarding rolelplaying instead of punishing people who the rules dictate require rolling D20s repeatedly just to do their jobs.

If every attack roll carries with it the chance of death for the dice roller, bear in mind a Fighter rolls 2-3 attack rolls per round (on average) and is usually exposed to just as many in return. A Rogue rolls 1 and is exposed less often. A wizard rarely rolls any, and is even less often exposed to attack rolls.

If every class only required or averaged a single d20 roll per round, then it would be a bit fairer (but still a terrible idea).

[HolyDraconus]

Spurious argument. I'm unsure how a rule which (in your own words) has never come up in decades of play is contributing to this guy roleplaying.

There are other ways of doing this that dont involve punitive measures that overly punish fighters (who both roll and recieve several attack rolls per round) and reward mages (who do neither).

How about awarding XP for roleplaying? Rewarding rolelplaying instead of punishing people who the rules dictate require rolling D20s repeatedly just to do their jobs.

If every attack roll carries with it the chance of death for the dice roller, bear in mind a Fighter rolls 2-3 attack rolls per round (on average) and is usually exposed to just as many in return. A Rogue rolls 1 and is exposed less often. A wizard rarely rolls any, and is even less often exposed to attack rolls.

If every class only required or averaged a single d20 roll per round, then it would be a bit fairer (but still a terrible idea).
The thing is, there are other factors that you just outright can't consider, since you don't know them all. Inspiration, is one. Class abilities and spell based precog, is another. The rules we added works for us. Crit fail on a crit fail is death. Rolling a new char is 0 starting exp and 1 level lower than the char its replacing, meaning yes, that char needs to get enough exp to level back up to its current level before it starts to mean anything. And other things besides. Why are you so focused on what you think is unfair when those that actually ARE playing under that same system using fighters, swordsages, monks and more, don't agree with you? We have fun. It works for us. That's all that matters when it comes to house rules.

[Malifice]

Why are you so focused on what you think is unfair when those that actually ARE playing under that same system using fighters, swordsages, monks and more, don't agree with you? We have fun. It works for us. That's all that matters when it comes to house rules.

If it works for you thats great. I still think its a terrible house rule, is counter productive, and one I would never implement as a DM or want hoisted on me. The two are not related.

Having a PC die whenever a 4 is rolled on any dice could work for you. Again, its a terrible rule for mine.

I played in a game recently where the DM had us rolling on ye olde olde Dragon mag crit fumble % charts whenever we rolled a natural 1. I left the campaign after one session, following the Rogue sneak attacking the Fighter, and the fighter constantly tripping over himself.

And this is coming from a former Rolemaster player. At least in that system, you only ever roll once to determine an action, and all actions require a roll - skills, spells and attacks (meaning all characters were equally likely or unlikely to crit or fumble). At least that takes away one problem with crit fumble/ win. The secondary problem remains that it adds swingyness to the game. For everything swingynes adds, it takes far more away. There will always be more monsters.

As a final note, I couldnt think of anything worse than your campaign. Spending time crafting a character, developing a backstory, roleplaying and tying it into the DMs campaign world and engaging with his world, only to be snuffed out by the vagaries of rolling a '1' followed by a '20' and then being forced to come back with 0xp would be awful.

YMMV of course.

[CaptainSarathai]

As a final note, I couldnt think of anything worse than your campaign. Spending time crafting a character, developing a backstory, roleplaying and tying it into the DMs campaign world and engaging with his world, only to be snuffed out by the vagaries of rolling a '1' followed by a '20' and then being forced to come back with 0xp would be awful.
Now, that's a bit harsh. I've played in plenty of "super lethal" campaigns, and I quite enjoyed them. L5R is often considered one of the most lethal RPGs ever produced, and I love it. Granted, we play with fewer levels in such a campaign, but letting character level fluctuate is perfectly alright. It definitely makes death more of a concern, and honestly, I think that more tables could use that.

As for the Fumble^2 rules, I think they're alright. Remember - it sounds like the DM is handing out plenty of Inspiration to help prevent it. He says it helps to solve "roll vs role" and I think that it could. Go a whole session without doing something to earn Inspiration? Better hope you don't Fumble there, Sir 733+ McMinMax. 1/200 isn't that bad, really. A 10-round fight is about 64 attacks tops, for a Polearm Fighter making Reactions every turn.

Yeah, risk compounds, but I'm not sure how you guys are doing the math; I've always used binomials to figure stuff like this whenever I'm wargaming. Basically:
Odds it happens the first time
+
Odds it didn't happen yet x Odds it happens on this attack
+
Odds it didn't happen 1st and 2nd time x Odds it happens this time

And on and on...

Anyway, you can't account for any affects which might alter dice rolls, so that math is pretty worthless. If the guy says the DM has kept it from killing anyone, then I trust him.

[Tanarii]

1/200 isn't that bad, really. A 10-round fight is about 64 attacks tops, for a Polearm Fighter making Reactions every turn.

Yeah, risk compounds, but I'm not sure how you guys are doing the math;
1-(399/400)^64 ~= 15% chance of death due to a fumble.

Anyone claiming to use this rule for years of frequent play is lying if they say it has never actually happened in game. They clearly didn't consider that basic math would call them out instantly.

[JumboWheat01]

1-(399/400)^64 ~= 15% chance of death due to a fumble.

Anyone claiming to use this rule for years of frequent play is lying if they say it has never actually happened in game. They clearly didn't consider that basic math would call them out instantly.

Or they're blessed by the RNG gods. Statistical math may say one thing, but practice may say something all together different. That's just the weird world we live in.

[Tanarii]

Or they're blessed by the RNG gods. Statistical math may say one thing, but practice may say something all together different. That's just the weird world we live in.
4 characters. 5 attack rolls per encounter. 5 encounters per session. 1 session per week. 10 years of play, or 520 weeks.

(399/400)^(4*5*5*520) ~= 3x10^-57
1 minus that is 100% chance of at least one character dying.

3 characters. 5 attack rolls per encounter. 2 encounters per session. 1 session per month. 2 years of play, or 24 sessions. This is for just d&d 5e games, not going back to 3e/pathfinder, and incredibly slow gaming with a tiny group.

1-(399/400)^(3*5*2*24) ~= 84% chance of at least one character death. If that was the case, 'RNG gods' may have been involved.

(Edit: 1 session per week is very few by my standards, as are such small groups as 4 people, but I know that's not global.)

[Saggo]

Anyone claiming to use this rule for years of frequent play is lying if they say it has never actually happened in game. They clearly didn't consider that basic math would call them out instantly.

I'd believe that it never killed anyone, but that's because (as Malifice alluded) insta-kill crit fails encourage you to hoard resources like Inspiration and Lucky rather than actively using them in encounters, exactly like he mentioned happened. Especially when probability is already against you.

I'm not sure a rule that actively discourages the use of resources is useful, unless you're playing a high-lethality campaign just to see how far you can survive, similar to perma-death video games.

[HolyDraconus]

For those that are still claiming that I am lying about no one dying at our table from our critical rules: shame on you. Your math is in a vacuum. Factor in Inspiration (from role playing, which is intended), Lucky feat (which is always given out for free, since we are heroes), at least 4 class abilities that prevent it, a race that prevents it, multiple spells, and items, all of which can change your math dramatically.
The sky isn't blue without light people.

[Pex]

Yet no one has died at my table from this rule. Your point?


adding in the Luck or 5e's Lucky feat is hardly a huge change. Add in that we have monks who attack more than fighters due that hasn't died and I still don't see what the problem is. It works. For us. If you don't like it, then don't. It doesn't affect you in the slightest.

The house rule has elevated Lucky to practically a must have feat so of course it's going to be taken via optimization, and the feat is arguably one of the strongest in the game even by normal rules. The house rule did not stop "rollplaying"; it just shifted where the rolls are.

[Vogonjeltz]

Off the top of my head, I don't think this is right. Both ranged weapons and ranged attack rolls can critical hit.

Indeed. Attack rolls can crit, while non attack rolls cannot. You can critical hit with a Firebolt, but not with a Fireball. And you can critically hit just as well with a shot from a heavy crossbow as you can with a good ol' longsword, or with a fist to the face.

I was using melee as a synonym for combat. I do appreciate that you guys are on your A game for parsing though :^)


I've never really mind crit fails, how else would "Bill, the one armed swordsman" come to be?

Someone else critically hit them, reduced them to 0 hit points (but didn't kill them), or they failed a death saving throw by 5 or more. DMG pg 272, Lingering Injuries: On a d20 roll of a 2 for the Injury table: "Lose an Arm of a Hand. You can no longer hold anything with two hands, and you can hold only a single object at a time. Magic such as the regenerate spell can restore the lost appendage."

[Laurefindel]

The way I like to play, a "20" (regardless if it is an attack, save or check) is always a success with brio, regardless of AC/DC (eheh). In the case of an attack, it is a critical hit as RAW. Critical skill check may mean extra information, extra movement, advantage on successive checks etc. As for saves, it may mean knowing the source of the spell (if unclear), a newly found cover, possibly auto-success on saves against the same spell from the same spellcaster, or some other narrative advantage.

A "1" is simply a failure. That's the result of your fumble; you failed in your attempt. The way I see it, if there is no chance of failure there is no need to roll in the first place. Sometimes a check is not about success/failure but about "how well you did" in a task that would otherwise automatically succeed. In that case, a "1" is a failure to do good, not a failure to succeed in the first place.

[MeeposFire]

For those that are still claiming that I am lying about no one dying at our table from our critical rules: shame on you. Your math is in a vacuum. Factor in Inspiration (from role playing, which is intended), Lucky feat (which is always given out for free, since we are heroes), at least 4 class abilities that prevent it, a race that prevents it, multiple spells, and items, all of which can change your math dramatically.
The sky isn't blue without light people.

This makes absolutely no sense. You have all sorts of things you are hoarding (and apparently getting for free) to prevent a rule from being used (maybe other things but it sounds like you save a lot of it just in case this comes up) and so it has not come up in years of playing? That rule is useless. It has never come up and what you are trying to actually get from it does not even follow from it. How does death from rolling 2 1s lead to role play? If you actually want to get role playing out of it don't put that kind of final mechanical consequence out of it. Put something like

"on a double one on a d20 the player gets to make up a scene where something crazy happens that the player has to deal with. This scene does not have to be any more detrimental to the character than the failure of the action but it may not be the same as what any other player (including the player them self) has done in that encounter (or better yet that entire gaming session). The scene described is subject to DM approval".

This rule actually gives the player an excuse and an outlet to be creative and have fun with it while at the same time not screwing them over. For some now the fighter's ability to do this more often is now a benefit if they like making up creative scenes. If you decide it could be silly, epic, or even lethal if that is really what you want. Then you can actually use lucky and inspiration for their intended purpose rather than trying to prevent random double one rolled death. Heck if the scene is fun enough maybe you can get inspiration out of it which will further encourage other players to role play more. Rewards are usually more effective than punishments and random punishments are among the worst things you can do.

That being said since your group likes it go ahead and keep it but I would not say that your experience is indicative of how this rule would play out in most groups and I do think there are other ways that might be more efficient at getting people to role play more.

[Malifice]

Now, that's a bit harsh. I've played in plenty of "super lethal" campaigns, and I quite enjoyed them. L5R is often considered one of the most lethal RPGs ever produced, and I love it.

I've also played in heaps lethal games - Rolemaster and WHFRP to name two. Of course both those systems have mitigating factors to that lethality - Rolemaster has healing Herbs (turning death and dismemberment into an economic question) and WHFRP has Fate points which let you mitigate insta-death.

I'd loathe playing in a game where the DM rolling a 20 followed by another 20, or me rolling a 1 followed by another 1 just kills me, no save, no hope, start again.

Its only a matter of time. Odds are you should be dead before 5th level. Earlier if you're a fighter, and even earlier if you rely on TWF.


As for the Fumble^2 rules, I think they're alright. Remember - it sounds like the DM is handing out plenty of Inspiration to help prevent it.

How does inspiration prevent you from copping two 20's in a row from some random faceless monster?


He says it helps to solve "roll vs role" and I think that it could. Go a whole session without doing something to earn Inspiration? Better hope you don't Fumble there, Sir 733+ McMinMax. 1/200 isn't that bad, really. A 10-round fight is about 64 attacks tops, for a Polearm Fighter making Reactions every turn.

It doesnt do anything to adress issues of 'min-maxing' - it just forces players to min-max in other areas to keep themselves alive. If you want to encourage roleplaying, there are infinitely better methods than this.


Yeah, risk compounds, but I'm not sure how you guys are doing the math; I've always used binomials to figure stuff like this whenever I'm wargaming. Basically:
Odds it happens the first time
+
Odds it didn't happen yet x Odds it happens on this attack
+
Odds it didn't happen 1st and 2nd time x Odds it happens this time

And on and on...

Exactly. And there are always more monsters.

[georgie_leech]

This makes absolutely no sense. You have all sorts of things you are hoarding (and apparently getting for free) to prevent a rule from being used (maybe other things but it sounds like you save a lot of it just in case this comes up) and so it has not come up in years of playing? That rule is useless. It has never come up and what you are trying to actually get from it does not even follow from it. How does death from rolling 2 1s lead to role play? If you actually want to get role playing out of it don't put that kind of final mechanical consequence out of it. Put something like

"on a double one on a d20 the player gets to make up a scene where something crazy happens that the player has to deal with. This scene does not have to be any more detrimental to the character than the failure of the action but it may not be the same as what any other player (including the player them self) has done in that encounter (or better yet that entire gaming session). The scene described is subject to DM approval".

This rule actually gives the player an excuse and an outlet to be creative and have fun with it while at the same time not screwing them over. For some now the fighter's ability to do this more often is now a benefit if they like making up creative scenes. If you decide it could be silly, epic, or even lethal if that is really what you want. Then you can actually use lucky and inspiration for their intended purpose rather than trying to prevent random double one rolled death. Heck if the scene is fun enough maybe you can get inspiration out of it which will further encourage other players to role play more. Rewards are usually more effective than punishments and random punishments are among the worst things you can do.

That being said since your group likes it go ahead and keep it but I would not say that your experience is indicative of how this rule would play out in most groups and I do think there are other ways that might be more efficient at getting people to role play more.

It definitely seems to have some unintended side effects. That said, if the primary source of mitigation for the rule is Inspiration, which is awarded for role playing, then it acts as one heck of a stick. 'Role play, or risk random character death.' Which is both rather draconian and IMO not a good rule on account of good role players still potentially dying, but I can see how it acts as an incentive for role-playing; it increases the cost of not doing so.

[MeeposFire]

It definitely seems to have some unintended side effects. That said, if the primary source of mitigation for the rule is Inspiration, which is awarded for role playing, then it acts as one heck of a stick. 'Role play, or risk random character death.' Which is both rather draconian and IMO not a good rule on account of good role players still potentially dying, but I can see how it acts as an incentive for role-playing; it increases the cost of not doing so.

Except inspiration already promotes role playing and you can only have one at a time. There is no real reason to horde it in regular games already. For instance if they are really big in optimization they will do it because advantage is a nice bonus.

[Mith]

That is something that works much better using a compute game than a table top game. Calculating that stuff and then rolling for all the time no thanks. At least to me that is the sort of an idea that is cooler in my mind than in actual practice.

On mobile, so this quote will sit in for both.

I do see your point there, and a way around that is to construct an attack matrix like what was done with THAC0. Instead it shows what you need to hit an armour class. So it does become a bit more work for the DM if you want to keep AC secret, but if AC is known, then the players can do the math, which isn't that hard I think.

[Malifice]

It definitely seems to have some unintended side effects. That said, if the primary source of mitigation for the rule is Inspiration, which is awarded for role playing, then it acts as one heck of a stick. 'Role play, or risk random character death.' Which is both rather draconian and IMO not a good rule on account of good role players still potentially dying, but I can see how it acts as an incentive for role-playing; it increases the cost of not doing so.

Instead of 'roleplay or die' (and if you're a fighter, you better roleplay your damn ass off!) I much prefer 'if you roleplay and contribute to the session outside of combat, you get rewarded'.

Simple methods like halving session XP and awarding that equally, and then after this awarding the other half to players in proportion to that players roleplaying, contributing to the mission outside of combat.

[georgie_leech]

Except inspiration already promotes role playing and you can only have one at a time. There is no real reason to horde it in regular games already. For instance if they are really big in optimization they will do it because advantage is a nice bonus.

Agreed. All I was saying is I can see why it promotes role play. It just promotes a bunch of other things as well. :smallamused:

[MeeposFire]

Agreed. All I was saying is I can see why it promotes role play. It just promotes a bunch of other things as well. :smallamused:

I would say how much is hard to prove considering if they were going to by being rewarded with inspiration in the first place then how much more are they doing due to this and how do you tell the difference?

If they would role play just as much just by using inspiration as written then this would have mostly no effect.

[Malifice]

Agreed. All I was saying is I can see why it promotes role play. It just promotes a bunch of other things as well. :smallamused:

The DM creates a houserule to make the game more deadly.

He then implements a second houserule granting everyone the Lucky feat for free, and hands out inspiration like candy to mitigate against this rule, to the point that the rule has never come into play even the once.

My argument is then 'why bother'? Instead of implementing a draconian and unbalanced houserule, that is all but negated by a series of additional houserules, and has a dubious effect on what the rules were intended to do in the first place (improve roleplaying at the table), why not do about it in a more elegant manner?

'At the end of each session, all XP earnt via combat is halved and distributed equally. The remaing XP is pooled and then doubled. Characters may be awarded bonus XP from this pool based on roleplaying, creativity, participation, teamwork and contribution to the success of the adventure outside of combat performance, as determined by the DM.'

[Pex]

'At the end of each session, all XP earnt via combat is halved and distributed equally. The remaing XP is pooled and then doubled. Characters may be awarded bonus XP from this pool based on roleplaying, creativity, participation, teamwork and contribution to the success of the adventure outside of combat performance, as determined by the DM.'

I have doubts about this method. The extrovert players will have an inherent advantage over the introvert players and getting more XP. I agree introvert players should make some effort of initiative in doing stuff, but they'll still do less than the extroverts. It also puts players in competition with each other to win the DM's favor. XP for roleplaying is good, but it should be for everyone equally in addition to combat. To teach introvert players to roleplay more the DM could take the initiative and have NPCs initiate engagement of their characters.

[Malifice]

I have doubts about this method. The extrovert players will have an inherent advantage over the introvert players and getting more XP.

You dont award it based on an objective standard or ranking your players against each other, but on the players subjective roleplaying ranked against themselves.

Its not 'who roleplayed the best'; its 'how engaged were you with roleplaying, mission success, teamwork and contribution overall'.

'Bob the introvert' doesnt have to be the best contribuer at the table to get top marks. If he contributes as best as he can, tries his guts out, and sticks to character, he gets top marks.

[HolyDraconus]

Whew boy. Before I start. Seriously. Why does it offend you all that a group of players are having fun with these particular house rules? Do you personally fly to Iraq and tell every man that kisses another man on the lips that he's a homosexual (news flash, doing that, even in this politically correct world, would generally either get you beat up, or killed)
This makes absolutely no sense. You have all sorts of things you are hoarding (and apparently getting for free) -snip-

That being said since your group likes it go ahead and keep it but I would not say that your experience is indicative of how this rule would play out in most groups and I do think there are other ways that might be more efficient at getting people to role play more.
I do believe I said once before your mileage may vary. Granted, I haven't bother outlining all the house rules either, so there's more you don't know but it doesn't matter in this context. It has been working for us. It will continue working for us. And, for us, that's all that matters.

I've also played in heaps lethal games - Rolemaster and WHFRP to name two. Of course both those systems have mitigating factors to that lethality - Rolemaster has healing Herbs (turning death and dismemberment into an economic question) and WHFRP has Fate points which let you mitigate insta-death.

I'd loathe playing in a game where the DM rolling a 20 followed by another 20, or me rolling a 1 followed by another 1 just kills me, no save, no hope, start again.

Its only a matter of time. Odds are you should be dead before 5th level. Earlier if you're a fighter, and even earlier if you rely on TWF.



How does inspiration prevent you from copping two 20's in a row from some random faceless monster?
Monsters don't do Instant Death. Never said it was a monster feature. Its just for players. And two 20s aren't enough anyway: you still have to land the actual hit. Or to put it another way. If John has an AC of 40, and your to hit is +5, you will NEVER Instant Kill John by yourself. And if you crit failed twice on an attack and didn't bother to use the myriad of options available to negate the second roll, then sucks to be you. Some people are just unlucky. I suggest next time taking levels in Champion, since they been houseruled, as an example to be unable to suffer the double crit fail as part of their expanding crit class ability.
But again, YMMV.

Except inspiration already promotes role playing and you can only have one at a time. There is no real reason to horde it in regular games already. For instance if they are really big in optimization they will do it because advantage is a nice bonus.We had a guy that roleplays an ecchi rabbit, a vulgar brooding drow princess and a pirate of a ranger in our last campaign. 1 Inspiration per player was never going to be enough, but that was discovered way back in Ebberon. So we upped it. Transfer of it to another player is still a super free thing to do though, not an action. Its like talking. Doing it. done...


I would say how much is hard to prove considering if they were going to by being rewarded with inspiration in the first place then how much more are they doing due to this and how do you tell the difference?

If they would role play just as much just by using inspiration as written then this would have mostly no effect.Inspiration is used for other things. Not just a "crap, I crit failed a crit fail". But hey, whatever.


The DM creates a houserule to make the game more deadly.

He then implements a second houserule granting everyone the Lucky feat for free, and hands out inspiration like candy -snip-
Just.. no. If it was being done like you said then we would have people gaming the system... like Rich's Belkar. Insp is handed out for roleplaying. In some situations your character can shine. Others it doesn't. A rogue is great with traps. Roleplay your cockiness in disarming them! A fighter is a walking arsenal. Show off that weapon knowledge! Not every session is tailored made to the character. So in that situation you try to make something happen. Or don't. No one says you have to Roleplay. Between Lucky, items, race and class choices you can be as bland as you want, and not worry too much about crit failing a crit fail. Just don't complain about the lack of Insp.
Again though, this has worked for us soooo.....


You dont award it based on an objective standard or ranking your players against each other, but on the players subjective roleplaying ranked against themselves.

Its not 'who roleplayed the best'; its 'how engaged were you with roleplaying, mission success, teamwork and contribution overall'.

'Bob the introvert' doesnt have to be the best contribuer at the table to get top marks. If he contributes as best as he can, tries his guts out, and sticks to character, he gets top marks.
We had a guy play a silent wizard back in 3.5. The race wasn't allowed to talk.. started with a b.. bumom? something like that. So the actual player passed notes around for communication irl when his char did it in game. He always had plenty of Insp.

[Malifice]

Why does it offend you all that a group of players are having fun with these particular house rules?

It doesnt bother me in the slightest. I just hold the opinion that the rule is stupid, counterproductive, and I wouldnt want to play in a game which featured it.

An opinion I'm allowed to hold.


And if you crit failed twice on an attack and didn't bother to use the myriad of options available to negate the second roll, then sucks to be you.

This is my exact point. Rather than stop gaming the system, and abrogate the need for system mastery, all this houserule does is encourage it.

In this game you now need to know how to mitigate something that can occur for no other reason than the vagaries of the dice. If you dont possess the system mastery to do so, you die.


We had a guy that roleplays an ecchi rabbit, a vulgar brooding drow princess and a pirate of a ranger in our last campaign. 1 Inspiration per player was never going to be enough, but that was discovered way back in Ebberon. So we upped it. Transfer of it to another player is still a super free thing to do though, not an action. Its like talking. Doing it. done...

Its not an action in RAW. Unsure what you're on about here.

[HolyDraconus]

Its not an action in RAW. Unsure what you're on about here.

Still is a word that was in there as well. It was reminder text, if you will.

[Malifice]

Still is a word that was in there as well. It was reminder text, if you will.

Dont take it personally bro either. Im just highly critical of the rule.

Like, what do you think would happen if the rule was removed? If I (for example) took over your game and ran it RAW from the DMG?

What would be different?

[HolyDraconus]

Dont take it personally bro either. Im just highly critical of the rule.

Like, what do you think would happen if the rule was removed? If I (for example) took over your game and ran it RAW from the DMG?

What would be different?

Several players would stop playing cause they would feel detached and not care about their characters anymore. Running RAW can work, but swingy things like this house rule just adds an extra element that we find fun.

[Malifice]

Several players would stop playing cause they would feel detached and not care about their characters anymore.

Why?

Why would the removal of a random chance of death every time you make an attack roll of any kind result in players no longer caring about their characters?

I dont see any corellation between the two. In fact, for mine a random chance of death every time I made an attack roll would cause me to not care about my character at all (as he could die at any point through no fault of my own, and the simple vagaries of the dice).

Why invest in a character when I could die cutting off my own head each time I was forced to defend myself from (infinite waves of) monster attacks? Its only a matter of time before I died on account of the dice indicating I commit suicide.

I could mirror the same phenomenon with a simple dice roll every time a PC takes an action of any sort (takes the attack action, the cast a spell action or the use a skill action). If the dice come up with a 20 twice in a row, the character dies a horrible and gruesome death (trips over his shoelaces, stabs himself in the eye with a sharp stick, internalises the spell, falls to his death or whatever).

Roleplaying should go through the roof and players should feel totally at one with their characters right?

Rather than encouraging players to explore and interact with the world around them, they would never actually do anything for fear of accidentally committing suicide.

[Tanarii]

Why?

Why would the removal of a random chance of death every time you make an attack roll of any kind result in players no longer caring about their characters?

I dont see any corellation between the two. In fact, for mine a random chance of death every time I made an attack roll would cause me to not care about my character at all (as he could die at any point through no fault of my own, and the simple vagaries of the dice).

Why invest in a character when I could die cutting off my own head each time I was forced to defend myself from (infinite waves of) monster attacks? Its only a matter of time before I died on account of the dice indicating I commit suicide.

Maybe the DM's goal was to make the players avoid combat at all costs. Kinda like the GP = XP rule, except punishment instead of reward. Because that's the only reasonable response of a player when such a rule is in play. And only reasonable way to ensure survival. Normally fighting carries risk, but you can try to run away or fight back. With this rule, you can only reasonably try to run away. Fighting back is a ludicrous decision.

[MeeposFire]

Maybe the DM's goal was to make the players avoid combat at all costs. Kinda like the GP = XP rule, except punishment instead of reward. Because that's the only reasonable response of a player when such a rule is in play. And only reasonable way to ensure survival. Normally fighting carries risk, but you can try to run away or fight back. With this rule, you can only reasonably try to run away. Fighting back is a ludicrous decision.

If you really want to do that though I would say it is better to make what you fight more dangerous rather than make you die from being inept.

[Malifice]

If you really want to do that though I would say it is better to make what you fight more dangerous rather than make you die from being inept.

Exactly. There are better ways of doing it.

Something as simple as halving every PCs HP across the board, and maybe a rule that 1 failed death save kills you, but you still need 3 to stabilise.

Done. Even handed, affects all players and characters and classes the same. Increases lethality through the roof.

[JumboWheat01]

Exactly. There are better ways of doing it.

Something as simple as halving every PCs HP across the board, and maybe a rule that 1 failed death save kills you, but you still need 3 to stabilise.

Done. Even handed, affects all players and characters and classes the same. Increases lethality through the roof.

I don't see how having a back-line character going from a d6 to a d3 is the same as, say, a front line character going from a d12 to a d6. -3 =/= -6.

[HolyDraconus]

Why?

Why would the removal of a random chance of death every time you make an attack roll of any kind result in players no longer caring about their characters?

I dont see any corellation between the two. -snip-
That is an example of a straw man argument. So I cut the rest of your bogus setup argument that's built on it and instead will answer just your question. Why not? Its our choice, and our opinion is that it works wonders. Last I checked, saying someone was wrong for having their own opinion is a bit dangerous.

Maybe the DM's goal was to make the players avoid combat at all costs. Kinda like the GP = XP rule, except punishment instead of reward. Because that's the only reasonable response of a player when such a rule is in play. And only reasonable way to ensure survival. Normally fighting carries risk, but you can try to run away or fight back. With this rule, you can only reasonably try to run away. Fighting back is a ludicrous decision.
That statement is born from one that does not know everything that's happening, why its happening, and why it continues to happen. No one at the table shies from a fight. We don't need to. But I can understand you would think such if the only house rule available was crit failing crit fails and nothing else prevents it. I gave earlier in this thread examples of the mitigation: but not why its there. You can reread this thread to see some of those examples, and can glean just from that why we don't run from fights ( and usually instead start them). More information than what was already provided, though, you will need to sit at our table. Keep an open mind if you do; you may end up having more fun than you intended.

If you really want to do that though I would say it is better to make what you fight more dangerous rather than make you die from being inept.
Ineptitude reflects a form of surrealism. Only the gods are perfect.

[Malifice]

That is an example of a straw man argument.

No, it really wasnt. It was directly on point.

Look bro, your back is up and I dont really care arguing this with you.

I think your 'Two fumbles in a row = you commit Seppuku, lol' rule is stupid and hate it. You dont, and you love it.

Nothing more to add. Agree to disagree.

[HolyDraconus]

No, it really wasnt. It was directly on point.

Look bro, your back is up and I dont really care arguing this with you.

I think your 'Two fumbles in a row = you commit Seppuku, lol' rule is stupid and hate it. You dont, and you love it.

Nothing more to add. Agree to disagree.

You asked a question that you didn't want an answer to. That was indeed a strawman argument. There was no point. At all. You didn't want to hear any reasoning. At all. You still refuse to even acknowledge that others are enjoying themselves and instead believe that belittling a group of players choice of house rules is some sort of civic service. I'm not your "bro". From where we are standing, you came into this refusing to seek some kind of understanding, and instead wanted to pass off YOUR opinion on how OTHERS should have fun is the correct way. Go get your kicks on someone else.

[Malifice]

You asked a question that you didn't want an answer to. That was indeed a strawman argument.

No I didnt, and thats not what a Strawman argument is in any event.


There was no point. At all. You didn't want to hear any reasoning.

No, I listened to your reasoning. I just think your reasoning is wrong. To be even more specific, I think that your reasoning was specious.

To be even more specific than that, I posit that while [two fumbles = auto kill yourself] and [improved roleplaying] may be corellated, there is no causation between the two. I also posit that you reasoning that improved roleplaying flows in any way from your 'two fumbles and you die' rule is specious, and your current argument in support of it is subject to very high levels of perception bias.

Like I said; Its not that I wasnt listening to your points. I was. I was just rejecting them.


You still refuse to even acknowledge that others are enjoying themselves

I never said anything of the sort Bro. I said if it works for you and your group enjoy it then have fun.

My point was that I personally hate the rule, think it is terrible, think it doesnt do what you think it does (assist roleplaying) and would never play in a game that featured it (other than on a laugh as a one off). I attempted to explain why I feel that way.

You like the rule that means Fighters become a greater danger to themselves as they gain more experience. I hate it; I hate the mechanics of it, I hate the imbalance it creates, I hate that you've had to implement other rules (giving everyone lucky as a free feat) simply to counter the rule in the first place (making the rule itself rather pointless to the extent it's never actually been used). I hate that it adds an extra layer of complexity for no actual net gain. It doesnt make the game more fun, just more annyoying and is needlessly punitve. It ticks pretty much all the boxes on what not to do with a houserule.

I could go on, but the point is I hate the rule and think its terrible. You dont, and nothing I say is going to change your opinion.

We can agree to disagree without you getting all upset. Did you invent the rule or something?

[Gwiz]

It's funny this topic has resulted in such a long discussion, it's very clearly laid out in the rules how this functions.

[Laurefindel]

It's funny this topic has resulted in such a long discussion, it's very clearly laid out in the rules how this functions.

The RAW is clear. The OP asked how you do it at your table, i.e. what's your houserule.

[BiPolar]

My table does critical fumbles as well. When fumbling, we then roll percentage dice. If it's 90%+, you're pretty screwed. Things that require greater restoration, etc. or worse. 99 or 100? Each player writes what happens and then a random roll to decide which happens.

Yes, it sucks. But it's also fun and can be funny. In the end, crap happens, and the percentage dice make it less likely for something horrific to happen, but it still can. Life sucks sometimes.

[Arial Black]

My idea of 'fun' does not include my lovingly-nurtured 18th level PC having his head fall off at an awkward moment.

[Maxilian]

My table does critical fumbles as well. When fumbling, we then roll percentage dice. If it's 90%+, you're pretty screwed. Things that require greater restoration, etc. or worse. 99 or 100? Each player writes what happens and then a random roll to decide which happens.

Yes, it sucks. But it's also fun and can be funny. In the end, crap happens, and the percentage dice make it less likely for something horrific to happen, but it still can. Life sucks sometimes.

I agree, but my problem with this, is that this doesn't affect everyone equally, a Wizard may not even be bothered by this at high lvl if he evade using Hit based spells, but with this, a lvl 13 Fighter is most likely to make a fail while fighting with the weapons he is supposed to be a master with, than a lvl 3 Fighter...

Note: Is not a balanced rule, that's my problem, it favor some people more than others.

[BiPolar]

I agree, but my problem with this, is that this doesn't affect everyone equally, a Wizard may not even be bothered by this at high lvl if he evade using Hit based spells, but with this, a lvl 13 Fighter is most likely to make a fail while fighting with the weapons he is supposed to be a master with, than a lvl 3 Fighter...

Note: Is not a balanced rule, that's my problem, it favor some people more than others.

It absolutely does favor players who don't make attack rolls, but we're all okay with it. You still need to roll the fumble, and then roll a very high percentage for something horrible to happen.Low percentile rolls are minor issues.

[TorsteinTheRed]

I use a variant on the old West End Games random complication system. If you roll a 1, the roll is resolved as normal, but then I also roll a d%. High is a good complication ("Your shot glanced off your target's armor...and into the enemy behind him!"), low is a bad one ("Your shot glanced off your target's armor...and right back at you!")

[Daishain]

I agree, but my problem with this, is that this doesn't affect everyone equally, a Wizard may not even be bothered by this at high lvl if he evade using Hit based spells, but with this, a lvl 13 Fighter is most likely to make a fail while fighting with the weapons he is supposed to be a master with, than a lvl 3 Fighter...

Note: Is not a balanced rule, that's my problem, it favor some people more than others.
Hmm, I strongly disagree with instarandomdeath (at minimum as a function of out of the blue junk the player can't do a damn thing about) just on general principle, but this issue is prevalent even for the way I handle such rolls. I wonder if a slight addendum might be in order.

"If the roll is made as part of a multiple attack sequence, the initial crit fail is only valid if all other dice rolled yielded a 10 or less." Might need to shift that number around for the sake of balance, but that caveat would make it less likely for the master swordsman to crit fail than the novice.

[Tanarii]

It absolutely does favor players who don't make attack rolls, but we're all okay with it. You still need to roll the fumble, and then roll a very high percentage for something horrible to happen.Low percentile rolls are minor issues.Level 11+ Fighter makes 3 attacks per round. 1/200 chance (ie 1 on d20, followed by 10% chance of something bad happening) means in that in 5 rounds of combat (a fairly average D&D 5e fight IMX) she has a 7% chance of having something horrible happen. In a typical adventuring day (lets say 5 encounter), there's a 30% chance of self-inflicting a wound that requires Greater Restoration or worse.

Personally, I don't consider that low percentage at all.

[tsotate]

The various (terrible) instant death fumble rules mentioned make me imagine a setting entirely ruled by halflings, the only race which can ever make it to level 20 alive.

[BiPolar]

Level 11+ Fighter makes 3 attacks per round. 1/200 chance (ie 1 on d20, followed by 10% chance of something bad happening) means in that in 5 rounds of combat (a fairly average D&D 5e fight IMX) she has a 7% chance of having something horrible happen. In a typical adventuring day (lets say 5 encounter), there's a 30% chance of self-inflicting a wound that requires Greater Restoration or worse.

Personally, I don't consider that low percentage at all.

By low percentage, I was saying that you first have to roll the fumble, then you have to roll in the high 90s on a percentile. Yes, it's not the greatest, but we like it. Have had a 99 and 100 and the table wrote the effects with a random die roll deciding which one. Crappy way for a PC to die, but still fun. Roll up!

[Maxilian]

The various (terrible) instant death fumble rules mentioned make me imagine a setting entirely ruled by halflings, the only race which can ever make it to level 20 alive.

This is fun and sad, mainly cause if i actually played in a table with this rule, i would totally be a Halfling

[Maxilian]

By low percentage, I was saying that you first have to roll the fumble, then you have to roll in the high 90s on a percentile. Yes, it's not the greatest, but we like it. Have had a 99 and 100 and the table wrote the effects with a random die roll deciding which one. Crappy way for a PC to die, but still fun. Roll up!

In your case, that's totally ok, everyone on the table is ok with it and actually enjoy it.