Critical Miss

[retaliation08]

How do you guys deal with a natural 1 on an attack roll in your 5e game?

Last time I DMed 5e, I gave the defending creature an OA vs the attacking creature on a nat 1. It seemed to work out ok, although it only applied at melee range. What do you all think about that? What rules do you have for a crit miss?

[SaintRidley]

It misses. And gets a spectacular description of the miss.

[Deleted]

How do you guys deal with a natural 1 on an attack roll in your 5e game?

Last time I DMed 5e, I gave the defending creature an OA vs the attacking creature on a nat 1. It seemed to work out ok, although it only applied at melee range. What do you all think about that? What rules do you have for a crit miss?

For attack rolls with a spell or proficient weapon...

Add modifier, proficiency bonus, and any misc bonus and compare it to the AC of the target. If if fails to hit the target's AC, the attack misses. If it meets or passes the target's AC, the target is hit.

This critical failure bull crap is crazy. If you flat out failed 5% of the time you would be dead long ago. That is too high of a number to be an auto fail.

[Malifice]

How do you guys deal with a natural 1 on an attack roll in your 5e game?


I dont. It misses.

Critial failures are a bad idea. High level Fighters are far more likely to impale themselves on their weapons than a high level Paladin, Barbarian, Ranger or Rogue.

If you absolutely must implement them, I strongly suggest that only the first attack made on your turn can be a critical failure. This way they affect all warriors equally, and dont make unfairly target Fighters turning them into slapstick comedy machines at mid to high levels.

If I did it I would also introduce 'reverse saving throws' where spells that target saves are an attack roll of (proficiency + casting stat) vs a fixed DC of 12 + ability + (proficiency if applicable). That way spellcasters are equally affected by the rules (save spells are now attack rolls).

[Thrudd]

Nothing. Critical failure rules are not needed, and can hurt the game. There is enough randomness as-is.

[retaliation08]

Fair enough haha. My group comes from a tradition of crit hit/miss charts. I can't say that I love it.

[toapat]

Fair enough haha. My group comes from a tradition of crit hit/miss charts. I can't say that I love it.

Outside of the One time a Paladin Honor-Dueled the Orc Chieftain and Critical Failed so hard, they killed themselves And 1 adjacent creature (Oh, look how exactly 1 creature is adjacent to him), that they won the campaign By accident, theres Rarely a time or place in a game of a D20 system for critical failure tables.

This is not Shadowrun, where you can impose Glitch thresholds, maximum inhibitors to your abilities (Cybernetics eat a spellcaster's soul, thus making them weaker)

[Hrugner]

We do auto fail and AoO. There are many people on these forum who hate the idea, but it honestly doesn't come up all that often and more often than not benefits the players. I don't think it would change much if we stopped doing it, but it's a tradition at our table so it sticks around.

[sir_argo]

Our group plays that 1's are auto-fail and give you disadvantage on your next attack/save/ability roll. We haven't noticed it break anything.

[Jerrykhor]

My DM uses the fumble table for critical misses in our LMoP campaign. Some of the effects are pretty nasty, but it very rarely comes up. Most of the time, its just a normal miss.

[Bahamut7]

My groups have always played crits so we get the good and the bad. None of my DMs have ever ruled that a player would kill themselves, but occasionally damaging themselves have come up. They typically ruled weapon malfunction or something that can be fixed.

[Decstarr]

We play with a 1 being a failure, no modifiers applied. If it happens to a PC, I come up with a "reasonable" explanation why their endeavor fails (enemy nimbly dodges your attack, lose grip on sword hilt coz hands are sweaty from all the fighting etc etc). This was specifically requested by the players because else wise they feel "dumb" when they roll a 1. That applies only to combat, though. If the PCs try to do something ridiculous like backflipping down a ladder e.g. and then roll a 1, I make them look stupid for sure.

If it happens to any NPC (especially if its enemies), they might impale/damage themselves.

While I agree that the chance for total failure is too high and could be a severe hindrance in reality, the way we have been doing it is fine imho, since it only applies a normal miss and no other negative consequences (like a crit just applies an automatic hit and some extra damage, because it was such a good hit, but doesn't have any further effect for future turns/rounds).

[Cespenar]

If you want to run critical misses but nerf them, here are some variants:

1) If the majority of your attacks in a round are natural 1s, then you critically miss. So with 1 attack it's easier to critically miss. With 2 or 3 attacks you need two natural 1s, which is pretty rare. So newbie warriors have a much greater chance to do critical misses than experienced fighters.

2) Natural 1s only count as critical failures on nonproficient rolls, be they skill checks or attack rolls.

3) Confirm critical miss, like 3.5. Make another roll, if you still miss, then it's a critical miss.

4) Natural 1s are critical misses, but the effects are pretty tame: you do 1d4 (or even 1?) damage to yourself/your ally, or fall prone, or give disadvantage to your next roll, or give advantage to the next roll against you, etc.

5) A more hefty effect occurs, but if you roleplay it good, you can earn back one inspiration point.

[xanderh]

My group plays it like the rules say it's supposed to be played. Natural 1 on an attack roll is an automatic miss. No further penalties. Hurting yourself with your own sword isn't something that actually happens in something even resembling real sword-fighting. If you know even the basics, you won't ever hurt yourself.

[Knaight]

Standard miss. I don't have anything against critical miss mechanics in principle, but they don't fit well with a d20 and they definitely don't fit well with a system that has iterative attacks. Something like a bunch of 1s in a dicepool system? There it can work just fine. D&D? No way, no how.

[Squibsallotl]

If an ally is in range of the critical failed attack i have the attacker roll again, compare it against the ally's AC and see if it hits. If it does, the attack hits them instead. If no allies are in range or if the reroll also misses their weapon is dropped or wedged into a nearby obstacle, requiring an action to retrieve.

I'm a harsh DM, i know. To be fair, their critical hits also often one shot enemies in spectacular fashion (regardless of whether the attack should kill the enemy normally) or allow them to use abilities beyond their normal scope.

[Lombra]

There are plenty of spreadsheets on the internet that suggest what to do, many will have you roll a d100 and choose a random consecuence among those proposed in the spreadsheet. In my group we use one of these (it applies to monsters too) and it doesn't hurt the game at all, it adds that little bit of realistic goofyness that any character should have.

[Deleted]

If an ally is in range of the critical failed attack i have the attacker roll again, compare it against the ally's AC and see if it hits. If it does, the attack hits them instead. If no allies are in range or if the reroll also misses their weapon is dropped or wedged into a nearby obstacle, requiring an action to retrieve.

I'm a harsh DM, i know. To be fair, their critical hits also often one shot enemies in spectacular fashion (regardless of whether the attack should kill the enemy normally) or allow them to use abilities beyond their normal scope.

I would leave your game laughing all the way.

That isn't harsh, that's absolutely ridiculous.

[Cl0001]

I've seen a bunch of different ways critical failures have been done. I've seen people attack themselves, which makes no sense. Hit a friend, which can make sense if an ally is nearby your shot or strike. I've also seen simple slips where your character falls prone. One my DM always did with my ranger who used archer was have his bowstring break. I'm not always a fan of these and it doesn't really make sense all the time. A level 20 fighter should not have a 1/20 chance of making a fool of themselves.

[Thrudd]

It's only appropriate if the game is meant to be goofy slapstick, imo. Or the challenges are always easy. If you have difficult challenges that actually threaten the characters, adding extra disadvantages 5% of the time seems unnecessary. Giving crit fail conditions to enemies only makes the game too easy, using them on all parties is fair but makes the game extra random, using them only on the PCs makes it too hard.

People who always use crit fail house rules may be used to it, so you think it's normal and "balanced". If you just can't live without the random, at the very least, require two 1s in a row- if you get a natural 1, roll again. If it's 1 again, then something extra bad happens. Otherwise, normal miss. This changes the occurence of such to a much more manageable 0.25% instead of 5%.

[Demonslayer666]

For attack rolls with a spell or proficient weapon...

Add modifier, proficiency bonus, and any misc bonus and compare it to the AC of the target. If if fails to hit the target's AC, the attack misses. If it meets or passes the target's AC, the target is hit.

This critical failure bull crap is crazy. If you flat out failed 5% of the time you would be dead long ago. That is too high of a number to be an auto fail.

Do you feel the same way about Critical Hits as you do critical misses?

[Specter]

When an attacker rolls a 1, I have them roll a d10. 1 means critical failure (disaster), 2 is a bad failure (nuisance), and 3 is a fumble (minor inconvenience). It adds some unpredictability without screwing martials over.

But I also give some bad stuff happening to casters when their targets roll a natural 20 on the save, just to keep things fair.

[retaliation08]

So our main DM does 3.5 . It is a harsh game. Have to confirm crit hits and roll on a table. Roll a 1, and roll on the table. Players have been paralyzed, turned to stone, gone unconscious, pulled muscles, gotten sick, etc...

In that game my last character is in a coma, because got crit hit by a creature, crit missed an OA, then got crit again by the creature I missed all on the same round. I was dazed by the crit miss and took from the second crit hit.9 INT, WIS,CHA damage. He never tells us the outcome of the crit tables unless it is crucial to the action/narrative (You all see Jenna fall to the ground, eyes open, but no movement or speech comes from her).

Anyway, when I began DMing 5e for the group, the previous DM was so bummed when he rolled a natural 1 and nothing terrible happened. I implemented the OA rule on a nat 1 specifically for him and no one has complained, though I am not a fan.

[Contrast]

Do you feel the same way about Critical Hits as you do critical misses?


Players have been paralyzed, turned to stone, gone unconscious, pulled muscles, gotten sick, etc...

The problem with critical misses is that the rules for crits are well defined in the rules (a bit of extra damage), whereas the rules of misses usually are in the hands of the DM (who sometimes forget this is something that happens quite often) or some table with spectacularly bad results on it. The 'typical' crit miss seems to be dropping your weapon or accidentally hitting a companion. Speaking as someone who has spent entire combats dropping my weapon, picking it up again, only to immediately have it slip out of my grasp once more (though admittedly this was in a system where moving and picking my weapon back up took up my entire turn) - critical misses happen more often than you'd think and it does nothing to improve the game to make a players character feel incompetent. Keep in mind - in a group of 4 people you've got about a 20% chance of a critical miss every turn (more if you're rolling multiple attacks as well).

No-one should ever accidentally turn themselves to stone :smalltongue:

I ran a session of 5e for the first time the other day. I ran it per the rulebook for PCs. For NPCs a nat 1 resulted in something bad happening depending on the situation (shield splintered, blade snapped, stumbled). Sometimes that resulted in a mechnical bonus but mostly I was just using it to liven up the descriptions.

[solidork]

We get to narrate our own critical failures, so its only as bad as we want it to be. Consequences I have picked in the past for my War Cleric: lose the AC bonus from my shield until my next turn, can't use my reaction to attack until my next turn, have to make a DC 10 concentration check.

[Fishyninja]

I had a critical miss in my last game....

DM disarmed me, knocked be back 20ft (and was prone) destroyed my magical shield which I had jsut got enchanted and allowed to autohits from the giant spider at full damage and autofailed the con save......

I don't like Critical misses.

[Knaight]

Do you feel the same way about Critical Hits as you do critical misses?

Putting aside the extent to which there isn't a parallel here - which is to say that the effect of a critical hit is generally less than twice that above a hit, and as such any fumble condition worse than losing about one follow up attack (the "about" comes from the particulars of hit chances and the like) is more punitive than the crit is beneficial - I can say that I personally don't particularly like the crit mechanic. Things like beating defense rolls by margins that increase damage and the like fit my design preferences fine, but the whole situation where a 20 is a crit on something that you only hit on a 17+ anyways tends to feel iffy. The crit confirmation roll actually helps a bit here, but then it runs into the problem of how many rolls one attack needs, particularly in systems with multiple attacks per round - I'd much rather scrap the natural 20 mechanic and add in a Critical AC or something that's above the normal AC. How much above the normal AC also sets up a fun way to differentiate monsters, with things that have glaring but tricky to use weaknesses (Zombies, Vampires) likely to have a fairly large gap* and then a weakness to critical hits.

*Though this would still leave the zombie as pretty mediocre, which fits perfectly.

[Theodoxus]

I only play halflings in games with critical fumbles. Greatly hedges against a double 1 on a hit...

I hate the idea, because every game I've ever played with a DM that uses them, they're completely arbitrary and tend to be harsher when the DM is miffed at a player. At one table, a guy rolled a 1 on a swing and stabbed himself in the foot, dealing weapon damage to himself. The next round, another guy rolled a 1 and simply dropped his mace, incurring no damage. That kind of crap makes me very wary of starting a new game with an unknown DM.

Funnily enough, one game I'm currently playing, we all started as halflings as a lark. One guy wasn't a fan of halflings (I think he's kender scarred) but the last two sessions, he was rolling a lot of 1's on the first attack... he's grown to love halfling luck. This last week, I backed up two 1's with two 20's on attack rolls... that's the best feeling ever!

[JNAProductions]

It misses. And, if there's an enemy in melee range, you overextend yourself, provoking an AoO.

[Specter]

Those who automatically make critical misses provoke AoA's should be careful: any character at full health surrounded by 2 or more powerful enemies may die right away. No player will want to be the frontliner in that scenario.


I had a critical miss in my last game....

DM disarmed me, knocked be back 20ft (and was prone) destroyed my magical shield which I had jsut got enchanted and allowed to autohits from the giant spider at full damage and autofailed the con save......

I don't like Critical misses.

Or maybe it's just your DM who's a dense player-torturer and makes no sense whatsoever? Just proning you would be enough to create some tension.

[JNAProductions]

That's probably a deadly challenge anyway-4 attacks (2 on your turn, provoking the AoO, and 2 on theirs, when they attack normally) to kill a character from full health?

[Specter]

That's probably a deadly challenge anyway-4 attacks (2 on your turn, provoking the AoO, and 2 on theirs, when they attack normally) to kill a character from full health?

The example was maybe too broad, but hordes and creatures with many reactions (like Mariliths) are suddenly much more threatening if 1s give AoO.

[Fishyninja]

Or maybe it's just your DM who's a dense player-torturer and makes no sense whatsoever? Just proning you would be enough to create some tension.

Yeah literally the first Game I didn't enjoy in one game I had the following happen to me:


Lost a weapon (a 1d6 shortsword, no biggie)
Had my scale mail destroyed because I did not pass a dex save taking my S+B Battle master down about 4 AC points, annoying but ok still have my magical shield (allows flight) and my morning star with bleed damage.
Wasn't allowed to loot some armour off a corpse as it was too old and wouldnt be effective (starting to feel picked on now).
The above, crit fail disarmed, destroyed my magic shield (which I had paid about 500gp to be enchanted {only last session}) knocked prone and then auto crit two attacks near killing me.


So yeah 1 crit fail really put me off D&D for that day. Taking a 17 AC character and reducing them to 11 in a single session just feels really overkill.

[JNAProductions]

The example was maybe too broad, but hordes and creatures with many reactions (like Mariliths) are suddenly much more threatening if 1s give AoO.

Hordes are true-that's up to 8 AoO in a turn.

Mariliths aren't really that scary-the odds of rolling two 1s in a turn are 1/400, with two attacks. Even with five attacks, the odds are barely over 5%. (Four attacks, under 3.5%.) And, for the vast majority of playtime, you're looking at around 3 attacks max.

[Hrugner]

I'm not sure how others do the AoO provoke, but at our table only the creature you crit missed gets the AoO, and it of course uses their reaction as would any other AoO. Facing down 1 or 8 wouldn't matter unless you were attacking more than one target without downing any. Five with staggered crit misses and kills (crit miss, kill, crit miss, kill, crit miss) could get you three. You could attack each target once, but you're already making some more choices, so it's hard to blame the rule there. Your player is also quite likely to be making one AoO per round for the 8 people attacking him as well.

Permanently damaging weapons and armor seems much more punishing. It would make monks much more appealing I guess, but it would be endlessly frustrating with no way for the PCs to leverage the mechanic in their favor.

[Ursus the Grim]

Fair enough haha. My group comes from a tradition of crit hit/miss charts. I can't say that I love it.

Tradition is a terrible reason to do something.

I play it RAW. Though with a particularly humorous description. Your PCs are supposed to be heroic and already quite competent at what they do. No skilled, fantasy swordsman should stab himself once for every 20 times he swings a sword.

[KorvinStarmast]

Having been around when crit tables came out in the Dragon Magazine ... 1970's ... we messed with them for a while, and then let them go. I don't miss them at all. (Someone mentioned the slap stick potential, which is what most of it went for in our groups.
I dont. It misses. Critial failures are a bad idea. High level Fighters are far more likely to impale themselves on their weapons than a high level Paladin, Barbarian, Ranger or Rogue. This is the core reason to NOT use crit misses. Pointless penalties on high level martial characters.

Nothing. Critical failure rules are not needed, and can hurt the game. There is enough randomness as-is. This too, combat is swingy enough.

My group plays it like the rules say it's supposed to be played. Natural 1 on an attack roll is an automatic miss. No further penalties. Good.

I play it RAW. Though with a particularly humorous description. Your PCs are supposed to be heroic and already quite competent at what they do. No skilled, fantasy swordsman should stab himself once for every 20 times he swings a sword. To underscore what Malifice pointed out.
Critical misses penalize martial classes for no good reason.

[Deleted]

Do you feel the same way about Critical Hits as you do critical misses?

Yup.

I actually don't like critical hits.

I'm all for saying the higher you roll, the better you do, however to auto-hit is just... Meh.

There should be a point where no matter how well you do, you just aren't good enough.

Damage resistance and immunity is vastly one sided and doesn't do the job of "you aren't good enough".

You could keep the small damage boost when you roll a 20, but get rid of the auto hit.

[Ursus the Grim]

Yup.

I actually don't like critical hits.

I'm all for saying the higher you roll, the better you do, however to auto-hit is just... Meh.

There should be a point where no matter how well you do, you just aren't good enough.


I think saying "you aren't good enough" is fine sometimes. But I don't think you need to deprive them of an auto-hit to do it. If the creature is scary enough that a 20+Bonus doesn't hit it, the party's probably going to get the message when whatever it is hits them back.

[nilshai]

If you change the rules, you should have a good reason why. I don't see one.

[Coffee_Dragon]

On a natural 4 you auto-miss.

On a natural 3 you auto-miss and roll on the critical miss table, which includes results such as "trip over invisible turtle", "turn into a goblin", and "accidentally your whole shield arm".

On a natural 2 you just die.

On a natural 1 you score a double crit against every ally in visual range, then fall screaming into hell.

[Deleted]

I think saying "you aren't good enough" is fine sometimes. But I don't think you need to deprive them of an auto-hit to do it. If the creature is scary enough that a 20+Bonus doesn't hit it, the party's probably going to get the message when whatever it is hits them back.

It isn't really the players that get hurt by this. A nat 20 will typically always be a hit against something you can or should be fighting.

[Asmotherion]

I have them roll an attack roll against the nearest party member with disadvantage, with no bonuses to attack applied. If they meet his AC, they hit him instead. Keeps things more realistic. If it was a Melee attack, I have the weapon slip from their hand and thrown towards the character in question. Depending on the nature of the weapon, it may or may not reach the target though.

It does not happen often, but when it does, it reminds the players that Friendly Fire is possible.

[JNAProductions]

I have them roll an attack roll against the nearest party member with disadvantage, with no bonuses to attack applied. If they meet his AC, they hit him instead. Keeps things more realistic. If it was a Melee attack, I have the weapon slip from their hand and thrown towards the character in question. Depending on the nature of the weapon, it may or may not reach the target though.

It does not happen often, but when it does, it reminds the players that Friendly Fire is possible.

That's a little ridiculous.

[Thrudd]

I have them roll an attack roll against the nearest party member with disadvantage, with no bonuses to attack applied. If they meet his AC, they hit him instead. Keeps things more realistic. If it was a Melee attack, I have the weapon slip from their hand and thrown towards the character in question. Depending on the nature of the weapon, it may or may not reach the target though.

It does not happen often, but when it does, it reminds the players that Friendly Fire is possible.

Accidentally hitting an ally isn't realistic at all, not when you're talking about a six second combat round. A miss doesn't mean you swing your sword in a wild arc five feet away from your enemy. It means you couldn't get through their defenses as you exchanged a couple back-and-forths. Your ally would need to be right on top of you and the enemy in a closet-like space to accidentally hit them.

[Zalabim]

Permanently damaging weapons and armor seems much more punishing. It would make monks much more appealing I guess,
Or much less appealing.
DM: The table says disarmed.
Monk: But I'm a monk. I'm already unarmed.
DM: DIS-ARMED.
Monk: :smalleek:

I have them roll an attack roll against the nearest party member with disadvantage, with no bonuses to attack applied. If they meet his AC, they hit him instead. Keeps things more realistic. If it was a Melee attack, I have the weapon slip from their hand and thrown towards the character in question. Depending on the nature of the weapon, it may or may not reach the target though.

It does not happen often, but when it does, it reminds the players that Friendly Fire is possible.

Couldn't you at least roll a scatter die? It's not like every miss is going to be magnetically drawn to some other creature. This isn't XCOM.

[RedMage125]

I just want to say that I agree with some of the posters who feel that "nat 1 always equals horrible things" is a bad thing.

But I also think Critical Misses can be entertaining and fun, even for the players, either because they're hilarious, or because they challenge them.

So what I do, what I have always done (even in 4e and 5e), is do a "confirmation roll".

That is, you roll a natural 1, you then do a second roll with the same modifiers. If that second roll would have been a hit, your natural 1 is only a regular miss. If the confirmation roll is also a miss, then not only do you miss, but something actually bad happens. As an aside, if the confirmation roll is ALSO a nat 1, then it is something SPECTACULARLY bad.

This allows for a critical miss system, but also softens the chances, so it's less than 1 in 20.

As an aside, I recently ran a 3.5 game, where my players voted to not have confirmation rolls for critical hits (i.e. a threat=crit). I still did confirmation rolls for critical failures.

Consequences vary from, overextend and provoke an AoO, to fall prone, throw weapon, bowstring breaks (I make magic bows immune to this one, but I DID once have a player use a magic bow in a beholder's Antimagic Cone and got a crit fail...snap)...basically I determine as the case is appropriate and decide based on that.

Last weekend in my 3.5e game, though, party Rogue was shooting at a dragon, which was in melee with barbarian, got nat 1, confirmed failure...I decided he hit his friend, rolls to hit barbarian...nat 20...confirmed crit...good times. Party has enough hp that the hit wasn't debilitating...everyone got a good laugh about it actually.

The most important thing to remember is that as a DM, part of your job is making sure people are having fun. If your players aren't the type to take crit fails in stride, maybe don't do them.

[Mellack]

Having done a little SCA in my younger days, I cannot really remember hitting allies by accident much if at all. Certainly not every 20-40 swings or so. I don't think having that happen would count as realistic.

[BigONotation]

This disproportionately punishes those with more attacks who are already at disadvantage to full casters. I have to question the motive of critical misses.

[Hrugner]

Or much less appealing.
DM: The table says disarmed.
Monk: But I'm a monk. I'm already unarmed.
DM: DIS-ARMED.
Monk: :smalleek:


Next time he'll remember to limber up before a fight.

[Laurefindel]

Most of the times, auto-fail is enough of a "punishment" for me (I know the point is not to "punish" but to "entertain").

In some situations however, I could see how a natural 1 could become the trigger for some environmental effect. Fighting while balancing on a 4" beam; natural 1 = DEX save to avoid fall. Fighting on the slippery deck of a ship during a storm; natural 1 = test to keep your footing. Fighting in a chaotic large-scale melee (in some abstract theatre of the mind way); natural 1 = shove from a random opponent.

In every case, I'd probably trigger natural 1 on the first attack only.

[Foxolicious]

It misses. And gets a spectacular description of the miss.

I usually add in minor disadvantages one of my players was fighting in some barracks and he CRIT failed so I made his axe get stuck in a bunk bed later that night he CRIT failed again and threw it into a forest but at the end of the day as long as it's balanced and your players are happy who cares

As for myself rolling 1's I ambushed the players rolled a 1 throwing a dagger, that dagger hit an obelisk and flew back at him and gave away his position and damaged him

[veti]

"Critical Miss" is a great roleplaying webzine, from the days when "webzine" seemed to be a thing.

It's still going, sort of (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue11/index.html). You should totally go and read it now.

[Asmotherion]

Accidentally hitting an ally isn't realistic at all, not when you're talking about a six second combat round. A miss doesn't mean you swing your sword in a wild arc five feet away from your enemy. It means you couldn't get through their defenses as you exchanged a couple back-and-forths. Your ally would need to be right on top of you and the enemy in a closet-like space to accidentally hit them.

It's on a Critical Miss, and it adds flavor to the Game. My players like it.

And yes, it is realistic, when you play with swords, and something goes terribly wrong (as apparent with the natural one on the d20), it oppens up a chance to hit your ally. Sword may bounce on enemy armor, or it may slip from your hands as you make the slashing action. Most offten than not, you don't hit anyone (as apparent by the lack of any modifier, making the attack a simple d20 roll), and you still have a chance not to let your sword slip (if melee) by succeeding a Str/Dex save. However, accidents do happen.

[JNAProductions]

It would happen once every two minutes, at one attack per round.

Once a minute, at two.

Once every 42 seconds, at three.

Once every 30 seconds, at four.

And once every 24 seconds, at five.

[Pex]

I had a critical miss in my last game....

DM disarmed me, knocked be back 20ft (and was prone) destroyed my magical shield which I had jsut got enchanted and allowed to autohits from the giant spider at full damage and autofailed the con save......

I don't like Critical misses.

I would say "You just rolled a Critical Miss on your DM check", pack up my things, and leave the table.

[Asmotherion]

It would happen once every two minutes, at one attack per round.

Once a minute, at two.

Once every 42 seconds, at three.

Once every 30 seconds, at four.

And once every 24 seconds, at five.

Provided they fail a DC 10 relevant Ability Save. And attack with no bonus and disadvantage. It's a lot less probable than you give it credit for.

[Thrudd]

It's on a Critical Miss, and it adds flavor to the Game. My players like it.

And yes, it is realistic, when you play with swords, and something goes terribly wrong (as apparent with the natural one on the d20), it oppens up a chance to hit your ally. Sword may bounce on enemy armor, or it may slip from your hands as you make the slashing action. Most offten than not, you don't hit anyone (as apparent by the lack of any modifier, making the attack a simple d20 roll), and you still have a chance not to let your sword slip (if melee) by succeeding a Str/Dex save. However, accidents do happen.

I meant it's not realistic for people who are experts in fighting with weapons, as the characters are presumed to be. It's fine if your players like it, it makes silly stuff happen and that can be fun. But it is not realistic (unless it's the Three Stooges).

[Deleted]

I meant it's not realistic for people who are experts in fighting with weapons, as the characters are presumed to be. It's fine if your players like it, it makes silly stuff happen and that can be fun. But it is not realistic (unless it's the Three Stooges).

This.

Plus maybe if you need to add flavor to the game then you need to find a new system that has flavor.

I'm slightly working on making martial combat interesting.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rJvuN1uKl

[Potato_Priest]

Provided they fail a DC 10 relevant Ability Save. And attack with no bonus and disadvantage. It's a lot less probable than you give it credit for.

The numbers JNAProductions gave didn't have disadvantage.

[Squibsallotl]

Lots of hate for DMs who treat a critical miss as a "fumble", it seems.


I would leave your game laughing all the way.

That isn't harsh, that's absolutely ridiculous.


I would say "You just rolled a Critical Miss on your DM check", pack up my things, and leave the table.

Like Asmotherion, my players enjoy the cinematic aspect. A second roll to "confirm" the fumble reduces the chances of something disastrous, but when it does happen, friendly fire results.

Likewise with a critical hit, you do the standard X amount of extra damage, and then something spectacular happens. A limb gets lopped off, or you blind an eyestalk of the beholder and reduce the number of ray attacks it can make.

Part of this is playing into the "evil DM" appearance. I want my players to think I'm out to get them. I play my enemies aggressively and and (where appropriate) intelligently. I make an appearance of being put out when they circumvent or survive a trap, only to shrug and say "oh well, the next one is more lethal anyway". All the while I want them to succeed, and design challenges to be survivable, while giving the impression of a player-killer maniac to make them unite to "defeat" me. The formula seems to work, I've never had a shortage of players in 5+ years DMing.

But hey, to each their own. If players like Pex and Deleted think this sort of thing is a game-quitting offense, you may prefer a different style of game or a DM who strictly adheres to the rules.

[Quickblade]

I had a critical miss in my last game....

DM disarmed me, knocked be back 20ft (and was prone) destroyed my magical shield which I had jsut got enchanted and allowed to autohits from the giant spider at full damage and autofailed the con save......

I don't like Critical misses.

This DM sounds terrible. How did the 20' knockback occur?

[Spellbreaker26]

The way we play it, sometimes it has an extra-effect if it makes narrative effect, usually it doesn't. Critical failing a dex-save, for example, might result in getting more than the normal damage from an attack.

But the main effect we have critical misses is our homebrew stealth rules, where one member of the party can "lead" the stealth. This means that the others can choose to use his score, but must still roll stealth (at disadvantage if they're heavily armoured, as per usual). If a 1 is rolled, then the whole stealth fails.

[Deleted]

Lots of hate for DMs who treat a critical miss as a "fumble", it seems.





Like Asmotherion, my players enjoy the cinematic aspect. A second roll to "confirm" the fumble reduces the chances of something disastrous, but when it does happen, friendly fire results.

Likewise with a critical hit, you do the standard X amount of extra damage, and then something spectacular happens. A limb gets lopped off, or you blind an eyestalk of the beholder and reduce the number of ray attacks it can make.

Part of this is playing into the "evil DM" appearance. I want my players to think I'm out to get them. I play my enemies aggressively and and (where appropriate) intelligently. I make an appearance of being put out when they circumvent or survive a trap, only to shrug and say "oh well, the next one is more lethal anyway". All the while I want them to succeed, and design challenges to be survivable, while giving the impression of a player-killer maniac to make them unite to "defeat" me. The formula seems to work, I've never had a shortage of players in 5+ years DMing.

But hey, to each their own. If players like Pex and Deleted think this sort of thing is a game-quitting offense, you may prefer a different style of game or a DM who strictly adheres to the rules.

There is a difference between cenimatic aspect of the game, which you can totally have without critical misses, and a bad DM that is punishing players who use attacks. This ounishment comes out about 5% of the time because you happen to be using an attack instead of magic.

It is a punishment because... The game is boring and you need a way to spice it up, I guess. Well, find a way to spice it up that doesn't punish players who are playing the characters who are already at a disadvantage.

[Corsair14]

If a critical hit does something great, a critical miss does the opposite. We have a critical miss chart in my group for the current DM which at the low end you twist your ankle and suffer movement penalties or drop the weapon or at the high end crit yourself or an ally or break your weapon. When I DM typically you throw your weapon ten feet away and picking it up while engaged grants attacks of opportunity and a crit fumble overrides advantage.

I have played in games with very elaborate d100 fumble charts, my most notorious fumble was a dual wielding minotaur who rolled fumble on both attacks then rolled 00 on the d100 which was "Devastating act of God" which is DM fiat for something really bad and catastrophic which in my case turned each of my magically enchanted blades into lightning rods for two lightning bolts from the sky, melting both blades and hitting my character for the base damage of each. I survived barely but lost the blades obviously. In other games it has been everything from trees falling to cave ins and avalanches.

[Ursus the Grim]

Lots of hate for DMs who treat a critical miss as a "fumble", it seems.

Like Asmotherion, my players enjoy the cinematic aspect. A second roll to "confirm" the fumble reduces the chances of something disastrous, but when it does happen, friendly fire results.


I don't hate the DM for using the rule. I hate the rule. (The only two DMs I ever hated, coincidentally, were also DMs who used this rule.)

I'm curious about the cinematic spin. What movies do you have in mind where the heroes commit friendly fire (roughly once in every 20-40 attacks)? I missed the part in Conan where Conan stabbed Subotai by accident. I missed the part in LotR where Legolas gave Boromir the Sean Bean treatment. Or in Star Wars, where Luke 'fumbled' his lightsaber.

I appreciate some gritty realism in a game from time to time, but fumbles are anti-climactic, fickle, and unrealistic. If you're going to consider them cinematic, you should let your players know they're characters in The Three Stooges, not Ben-Hur.

[Garret Dorigan]

I've always ignored most Critical Miss tables. Because of the traditionalism of the idea most of my players still like the idea of them, but I agree that most responses are overzealous to say the least.

If I'm running a game for people who like them I just describe it as "You over-extended on your attack, thus slowing your attack routine for this round." or somesuch and leave it at that, letting the numbers decide if they hit or not. Then, if they have multiple attacks per action, one attack in their routine is lost if still applicable. I've also run it that if you hit on a natural 1 you just do weapon die damage.

If they want CM's I also mess with Critical Hits though, making it not an auto hit. If it hits with the numbers then you do normal Critical Hit effects, if it misses you only do attack modifier damage.

That said, personally, I don't like them... but if the players like the "specialness" of the act, who am I to disappoint?

[mgshamster]

I have two memorable stories from using critical miss tables. The first was pretty funny, the second was horrible. Both were due to complete randomness.

1) In the first story, I was playing a bard in 2e. My bard was an actor first and foremost, and as such he always carried around a handful of rapiers so he could quickly discard the weapons as needed to dramatically draw a new one. Sometimes he'd even toss one to an enemy and declare a duel (which was a favored stage technique of his, especially when the "enemy" was planted by himself so he could act out the hero of the story).

This table had around 8-10 players at the time of this story, and we were in a massive battle with lots of bad guys. They probably outnumbered us by 2-3x.

Over the course of that battle, I rolled a critical miss 4, maybe 5 times. Each time we got a NAT 1, we had to roll on the DMs Homebrewer critical miss table, which listed various effects that could happen on a d100. Each and every crit miss, I rolled the same category: throw your weapon, hitting a random combatant. We would then roll to see which combatant (friend or foe) it hit. Each time, I just happened to throw my weapon and hit an enemy on the one ally who happened to need the help the most right at that moment, and did a killing blow.

My bard gained the fame of being a Master Rapier Thrower after that. It was all good and fun, and it all happened completely by random due to critical miss tables.

But hey, it could have gone completely differently - I just as easily could have hit an ally, killing them instead.

2) In the second story, I was playing a halfling fighter/thief (again, 2e), and we were in a campaign that fought demons as the primary enemy. Back in 2e, demons were literally immune to non-magical weapons. This was also a "low magic" campaign, which - like most low magic games - meant low magic for the PCs but not for anyone else.

By this point in the campaign (around level 7-8 and a year and a half of gaming real time), each of us had managed to acquire a single magic item. My halfling fighter/thief had a magic short sword. During one battle, fighting a tyrant-king in his own court, literally the round before enemy reinforcements came, I rolled a critical miss. Again, I rolled on the critical miss chart the DM made up.

I rolled, "Throw your weapon straight up, and it's lodged in the ceiling."

Since we were in a court room, it had vaulted ceilings, which meant that even if I wasn't a halfling, I'd never be able to reach it. As mentioned, this was also the round before reinforcements came, so after killing the king, we had to flee, abandoning my magic weapon.

Since this was a low magic game, that meant I didn't get a new magic weapon* until around 15-20 sessions later (about 4-5 months real time, playing everyone weekend).

Since the primary enemy of this game were demons who could only be hurt by magical weapons, it meant I was effectively out of combat unless there was an enemy who wasn't immune to my non-magical short swords.

*Technically, I got two magic weapons prior to that, one was a cursed dagger, the other was a greatsword that I couldn't use because I was a halfling. The number of sessions that passed was the time it took for us to find someone who could convert the magic greatsword into a magic short sword.

All in all, critical miss tables can be fun sometimes, but most of the time they suck. (And anyone using a critical miss table better not be someone who also nerfs martial Characters due to "realism").

[Laurefindel]

If a critical hit does something great, a critical miss does the opposite. We have a critical miss chart in my group for the current DM which at the low end you twist your ankle and suffer movement penalties or drop the weapon or at the high end crit yourself or an ally or break your weapon. When I DM typically you throw your weapon ten feet away and picking it up while engaged grants attacks of opportunity and a crit fumble overrides advantage.

Hum, while I don't have a problem with fumble houserule per se, I find that those fumbles are disproportionate from their critical counterpart. A critical hit does something great, but it only add some damage (or in some cases with sneak and smite, a lot of damage), but they don't boost your movement, heal you, grant extra attacks etc. If fumbles were the opposite of critical, shouldn't they just lower your DPR?

[Deleted]

If a critical hit does something great

That's hilarious based on thr mechanical impacts of a critical hit.

Also, I prefer players and DMs to create awesome things, not random luck.

Don't be lazy and only have cool stuff happen when someone rolls a crit.

[Grimjudgment]

What I like to do is just give them some small negative depending on the enemy.

If you're a fighter and you're clashing swords with an enemy and you roll a nat 1, I'll say something along the lines of "Your swords clash together and you catch a glancing blow, knocking you off balance, your AC is reduced by 1 the next time an enemy attacks.

If it's something like a large beast I'd say something like

You swing your mace at the raging bull, but it strikes at you as you swing, causing you to fall to the ground with your mace on the floor next to your hand (taking the weapon would be a free action)

Casters tend to have a minor backfire depending on the spell. If you throw a spell and screw up, then you likely just fizzle out your spell.

Of course, I make Crit success spectacular to compensate for this, and enemy NPCs also crit fail in similar ways, but do not get the same advantages from crits that players can.
(On my crit table I use, there's a chance for a player to instakill. The fighter always loved hearing about the brutal kills they make.)

[Roderick_BR]

My old 3.x group used a base rule, if you use a weapon, you drop it. Ranged/magic attack will hit an unintended target in front of the shooter (DM usually asks a new attack roll), and if unarmed/natural attack, you fall prone. Also, a natural 1 is a critical miss threat. We re-roll to confirm it was a critical miss (if the confirmation attack suceeds, the miss was "normal").

I've been convincing my group in 5e to avoid adding anything new for the reason people mentioned. Attacking with weapons already have a fail chance, and adding a punishment for something you're likely doing all day long, and much more than NPCs (since players will be in all the fights) will just harm the player characters in the long run AND slow down gameplay.
I do support the description of a fumble without mechanical game effects.

[Douche]

Fair enough haha. My group comes from a tradition of crit hit/miss charts. I can't say that I love it.

I personally think that the whole critical fail thing is in the same vein as DM sadism where things "conveniently" happen to screw over your plans. AKA destined for failure. I personally don't like celebrating failure, laughing at people for the result of a random dice roll as if it makes them less of a person somehow. I think it's somewhere down the line of not rewarding people on their merit, but on chance.

If I gave a rousing 5 minute monologue on why the reluctant king should muster his troops to save the alliance from demon invaders, and it bought everyone in the room to tears (exaggerating)... Well, it shouldn't come down to a dice roll that can be automatically failed on a 1, when the guy sitting next to me could just go "I persuade the king to send some troops to defend the alliance." and have the same chance.

Attack rolls are different, but the point is, there's no need to add more punishment for failure. It may give someone an idiotic snicker to say "heh the fighter missed & cut off his own foot hehe" but it's neither realistic, nor does it make people feel empowered - which is arguably one of the goals in the game.

[MrStabby]

The OP suggestion is actually probably the best suggestion I have seen on this.

I am not sure why people respond to it about the problems of people hurting themselves - they don't stab themselves just get an attack of opportunity. Experienced warriors with 3+ attacks per round don't suffer any more from this than newbie warriors - in fact they suffer less simply because that enemy only has one reaction to use. So the first attack you make may have the consequence of a counter-attack the second and third are safe. A much lower proportion of your attacks are risky.

As it is, I still would be careful as it does shift the balance a bit. Those that make attacks lose out relative to those making saves. A means of generating advantage becomes even more useful. Defence in combat takes a slight boost vs having more HP. Furthermore the game already favours focusing down one enemy at a time then moving on. If |I were to make a change it might be to reverse this rather than reinforce it.

[LordVonDerp]

It's on a Critical Miss, and it adds flavor to the Game. My players like it.
What's on a critical miss?



And yes, it is realistic, when you play with swords, and something goes terribly wrong (as apparent with the natural one on the d20), it oppens up a chance to hit your ally.
Not if you're proficient with the weapon.



Sword may bounce on enemy armor, or it may slip from your hands as you make the slashing action.

Either of these would cause all of the force of the blow to be lost.



However, accidents do happen.
Not the kind you find on critical miss tables.

[Demonslayer666]

For those of you in the "no critical fumbles" boat, why do you feel that only good stuff can happen when wielding a double edged sword? Haven't you ever heard the expression? :smallsmile:

Watching MMA fighters in UFC miss and fall prone is not uncommon, or they overextend and get clocked.
It's really not a stretch to see this happen in game. I love critical hits and misses, and describing them adds flavor to the game.

A critical miss should be appropriate to the situation, not for every attack, and be pretty minor - at least that's how I run mine. I think the sour milk is from DMs that think 1s are their gift to humiliate the player. Too many people think 20s are a miracle, and 1s are catastrophic failures.

Casting a spell doesn't require a die roll, so there is no chance of a failure unless additional situations apply (casting on a storm tossed ship). It simply isn't as demanding or as dangerous as swinging a sword, so there doesn't need to be equality since they are not equivalent tasks.

[JNAProductions]

So let me get this straight-swinging a sword, something I, a slightly out of shape 20 year old, can do (if not well) is harder than forcing reality to change to your whims?

...

Huh?

[Ursus the Grim]

For those of you in the "no critical fumbles" boat, why do you feel that only good stuff can happen when wielding a double edged sword? Haven't you ever heard the expression? :smallsmile:

Watching MMA fighters in UFC miss and fall prone is not uncommon, or they overextend and get clocked.
It's really not a stretch to see this happen in game. I love critical hits and misses, and describing them adds flavor to the game.

In game turns, you're watching two Level 0 Humans muck about. Maybe Level 1. As good as MMA fighters are, they're not D&D characters. They're not Level 1 Monks. You can't put four of them in a cage with a Brown Bear and expect it to turn out well for them. You're making false equivalences.



A critical miss should be appropriate to the situation, not for every attack, and be pretty minor - at least that's how I run mine. I think the sour milk is from DMs that think 1s are their gift to humiliate the player. Too many people think 20s are a miracle, and 1s are catastrophic failures.

Casting a spell doesn't require a die roll, so there is no chance of a failure unless additional situations apply (casting on a storm tossed ship). It simply isn't as demanding or as dangerous as swinging a sword, so there doesn't need to be equality since they are not equivalent tasks.

Plenty of spells require attack rolls.

[Corsair14]

I forgot to mention on that more extreme fumble chart, we also had a more extreme crit chart where you could decapitate an opponent or worse on a high d100 roll so it balanced out. I heard no complaints from fellow players in the group. The current group simply does the double damage thing and the majority of fumble rolls are relatively mundane like I said, sprained ankle, falling down or losing your weapon.

[Garret Dorigan]

So let me get this straight-swinging a sword, something I, a slightly out of shape 20 year old, can do (if not well) is harder than forcing reality to change to your whims?

...

Huh?

Issue with conception. The better comparison is a Wizard trying to force reality to change to their whim and being actively opposed with a Counterspell by another caster of near or equal renown/power.

In other words; you, a slightly out of shape 20 year old, are swinging a sword at another living being who is actively trying for you to not hit them with said sword... and in the confines of D&D, are probably much more adept at hand to hand combat than you are.

Devil's advocate here. Again, I don't like the confines of the CM... just providing perspective. The above is the crux of why, when playing with CMs, I do what I do. Your opponent sees a small opening, not enough to fit in an attack but enough to "knock you out of your stride" so to speak.

[Ursus the Grim]

Issue with conception. The better comparison is a Wizard trying to force reality to change to their whim and being actively opposed with a Counterspell by another caster of near or equal renown/power.

In other words; you, a slightly out of shape 20 year old, are swinging a sword at another living being who is actively trying for you to not hit them with said sword... and in the confines of D&D, are probably much more adept at hand to hand combat than you are.

Devil's advocate here. Again, I don't like the confines of the CM... just providing perspective. The above is the crux of why, when playing with CMs, I do what I do. Your opponent sees a small opening, not enough to fit in an attack but enough to "knock you out of your stride" so to speak.

I appreciate the Devil's Advocate.

That being said, if we're using the 'slightly-out-of-shape 20 year old' as an example, uh, I've never seen an SCA fighter manage to meaningfully hit themselves with their own weapon, even when they're swinging it at another living being. I've seen them drop weapons, I suppose, but its because of something their opponent did - parry or block in a certain way, or make a deliberate attempt at disarming - not just because of their utter incompetence or bad luck.

[Douche]

Casting a spell doesn't require a die roll, so there is no chance of a failure unless additional situations apply (casting on a storm tossed ship). It simply isn't as demanding or as dangerous as swinging a sword, so there doesn't need to be equality since they are not equivalent tasks.

Yes, manipulating the arcane fabric of reality isn't demanding as swinging a sword. I mean, a fighter could conceivably swing his sword for 16 hours out of the day without stopping, while a wizard can only cast like 22 spells in a day. But yeah that's much less taxing than an infinite resource (melee attacks)

[Dr. Cliché]

If you're doing something risky like shooting past an ally, then a natural 1 might have a special negative effect (e.g. a chance to hit said ally instead).

Otherwise, I'll probably just treat it as a miss.

[MeeposFire]

Yes, manipulating the arcane fabric of reality isn't demanding as swinging a sword. I mean, a fighter could conceivably swing his sword for 16 hours out of the day without stopping, while a wizard can only cast like 22 spells in a day. But yeah that's much less taxing than an infinite resource (melee attacks)

Lol depending on the critical fumble table you use the fighter would not likely survive 16 hours of attacking.

[Garret Dorigan]

I appreciate the Devil's Advocate.

That being said, if we're using the 'slightly-out-of-shape 20 year old' as an example, uh, I've never seen an SCA fighter manage to meaningfully hit themselves with their own weapon, even when they're swinging it at another living being. I've seen them drop weapons, I suppose, but its because of something their opponent did - parry or block in a certain way, or make a deliberate attempt at disarming - not just because of their utter incompetence or bad luck.

Emphasis mine. To continue Devil's Advocate, I totally grant you that, but that isn't looking at the abstraction of what the attack roll represents.

The attack roll is meant to represent the exchange between your opponent and yourself, not just you swinging a sword. If you miss, it's because they dodged, or parried, or were able to get their shield up... basically they actively opposed your attempt to kill them. If you hit, it's because you were able to get inside their guard or get ahold of them outside of their defenses, and a Critical Hit signifies that you were able to cause significant harm due to striking at the most opportune target at the most opportune time.

Conceptually, a Critical Miss is the balance point of that aforementioned Critical Hit abstraction. You were wrong footed in your swing, you locked your wrist during it, you fell for a bait or feint, etc. As such, they are able to knock your weapon wide, or push you on your back foot, something to that effect. That's why, given my conception of what a CM represents, since you represent a Big Damn Hero you are able to recover from this setback, it just slows you down making you not as effective in the time that your advantage is being pressed (mechanically, the aforementioned loss of a single additional attack in your Attack Action routine).

But this is just my thought of the abstraction when factoring for Critical Misses. Beating a dead horse here, but factoring them as just an attack that you didn't have a lot of "oomph" behind in getting past the opponent's guard (AC) is my preferred.

[MeeposFire]

So what happens when to a caster when they roll a one on an attack roll especially with a spell? Even if you make it so that they "lose an attack" that does not mean much to them since they do not have to necessarily make an attack after that by using saving throw spells (and if you don't making them lose an entire turn is ridiculous). Even with the ideas for granting opportunity attacks has lots of consequences (also how is that ever not a big deal especially if you are surrounded by enemies?) and if I played in a game with that sort of rule I would refuse to play anybody that makes melee attack rolls. Why would I take the risk clearly the rules are now designed to dissuade you from making melee attacks (ranged weapon users would rarely be in range of most opportunity attacks).

[Knaight]

Having done a little SCA in my younger days, I cannot really remember hitting allies by accident much if at all. Certainly not every 20-40 swings or so. I don't think having that happen would count as realistic.
Also even if you did manage to hit them, the odds of said blow having any force behind it are slim. Shooting into melee is one thing (although even there 1/20 seems pretty high in my experience), but


Like Asmotherion, my players enjoy the cinematic aspect. A second roll to "confirm" the fumble reduces the chances of something disastrous, but when it does happen, friendly fire results.

Likewise with a critical hit, you do the standard X amount of extra damage, and then something spectacular happens. A limb gets lopped off, or you blind an eyestalk of the beholder and reduce the number of ray attacks it can make.
There's cinematic and then there's cartoonish. Given that one of these two things will happen 10% of the time per attack (and way more than 10% of the time per combat) this is getting into cartoonish territory. Were I running TOON, I'd be fine having this sort of thing happen.


Part of this is playing into the "evil DM" appearance. I want my players to think I'm out to get them. I play my enemies aggressively and and (where appropriate) intelligently. I make an appearance of being put out when they circumvent or survive a trap, only to shrug and say "oh well, the next one is more lethal anyway". All the while I want them to succeed, and design challenges to be survivable, while giving the impression of a player-killer maniac to make them unite to "defeat" me. The formula seems to work, I've never had a shortage of players in 5+ years DMing.

But hey, to each their own. If players like Pex and Deleted think this sort of thing is a game-quitting offense, you may prefer a different style of game or a DM who strictly adheres to the rules.
Nobody has said that all rules should be strictly adhered to. What's been said is that this particular rule doesn't work well.


Emphasis mine. To continue Devil's Advocate, I totally grant you that, but that isn't looking at the abstraction of what the attack roll represents.

The attack roll is meant to represent the exchange between your opponent and yourself, not just you swinging a sword. If you miss, it's because they dodged, or parried, or were able to get their shield up... basically they actively opposed your attempt to kill them. If you hit, it's because you were able to get inside their guard or get ahold of them outside of their defenses, and a Critical Hit signifies that you were able to cause significant harm due to striking at the most opportune target at the most opportune time.

Conceptually, a Critical Miss is the balance point of that aforementioned Critical Hit abstraction. You were wrong footed in your swing, you locked your wrist during it, you fell for a bait or feint, etc. As such, they are able to knock your weapon wide, or push you on your back foot, something to that effect. That's why, given my conception of what a CM represents, since you represent a Big Damn Hero you are able to recover from this setback, it just slows you down making you not as effective in the time that your advantage is being pressed (mechanically, the aforementioned loss of a single additional attack in your Attack Action routine).
Loss of a single additional attack makes sense here, but for just about any other type of miss (such as the dropping a weapon that got this started), this runs into the issue where apparently better combatants are easier to effectively defend against with certain techniques that cause them to fail horribly. It makes no sense. Something like getting an OA against someone who misses your AC by a big enough margin (with a melee attack), that makes sense, though it doesn't square well with the multiple attack mechanic either.

[Fishyninja]

This is fine but it has to be balanced in someway, for example if you were attacking something like an acidic ooze and crit failed, then fine your weapon is damaged and has a negative modifier or you lose 1 AC point but when a crit fail causes multiple instances of this (See my previous example below)

[QUOTE=Fishyninja;21730608]

Lost a weapon (a 1d6 shortsword, no biggie)
Had my scale mail destroyed because I did not pass a dex save taking my S+B Battle master down about 4 AC points, annoying but ok still have my magical shield (allows flight) and my morning star with bleed damage.
The above, crit fail disarmed, destroyed my magic shield (which I had paid about 500gp to be enchanted {only last session}) knocked prone and then auto crit two attacks near killing me.

Now note this was not 1 critical miss but 1 Crit dex fail (causing the loss in armour) then everything else was from the critical miss.


I would say "You just rolled a Critical Miss on your DM check", pack up my things, and leave the table.
I was so tempted. I did speak to the DM about it, and mentioned how I felt it was a little unfair. Now it was pre agreed before the campaign that it would be difficult which is fine, however I told the DM that I felt he as 'overreaching' he conceded that may a loss of all my armour and 1 weapon was a little overkill however we are still in the middle of the dungeon for the next 3 or 4 sessions so I feel like I might as well right my eulogy now.


This DM sounds terrible. How did the 20' knockback occur?
Fighting a giant spider, because I crit missed it's two front legs auto hit me for full damage and knocked me back 20ft.


For those of you in the "no critical fumbles" boat, why do you feel that only good stuff can happen when wielding a double edged sword? Haven't you ever heard the expression? :smallsmile:

A critical miss should be appropriate to the situation, not for every attack, and be pretty minor.
Agreed, Someone else mentioned that instead of directly affecting the payer it could affect the environment in someway. I mean the classic "you swing and miss, and let go of your weapon", something like that is fine as is "You miss and are knocked prone" or "Your spell backfires and you take 1d4 damage".
Like I said these are all minor and I feel that it makes the character realise something bad has happened but without making them feel worthless.
But when you hear stories (like mine or similar) it does seem like the DM just want's to take the fun out of it.

[Ursus the Grim]

Emphasis mine. To continue Devil's Advocate, I totally grant you that, but that isn't looking at the abstraction of what the attack roll represents.

The attack roll is meant to represent the exchange between your opponent and yourself, not just you swinging a sword. If you miss, it's because they dodged, or parried, or were able to get their shield up... basically they actively opposed your attempt to kill them. If you hit, it's because you were able to get inside their guard or get ahold of them outside of their defenses, and a Critical Hit signifies that you were able to cause significant harm due to striking at the most opportune target at the most opportune time.

Conceptually, a Critical Miss is the balance point of that aforementioned Critical Hit abstraction. You were wrong footed in your swing, you locked your wrist during it, you fell for a bait or feint, etc. As such, they are able to knock your weapon wide, or push you on your back foot, something to that effect. That's why, given my conception of what a CM represents, since you represent a Big Damn Hero you are able to recover from this setback, it just slows you down making you not as effective in the time that your advantage is being pressed (mechanically, the aforementioned loss of a single additional attack in your Attack Action routine).

But this is just my thought of the abstraction when factoring for Critical Misses. Beating a dead horse here, but factoring them as just an attack that you didn't have a lot of "oomph" behind in getting past the opponent's guard (AC) is my preferred.

Here's the thing, though. The opponent's agency is reflected in their bonus to Armor Class. A more nimble opponent is anywhere from 5-50% harder to hit than one with an AC 10. If we're talking abstractions, a Dex 30 creature doesn't cause any more auto-fail self-harm than a Dex 8 does.

You can fumble when attacking something that isn't fighting back or actively resisting. Though there aren't as many rules for breaking objects in 5e, they still exist.

Take, for instance, the Wall of Ice.

It has an AC 12. Seeing as its an inanimate object and not actively resisting, any Natural 1s are a result of the character's incompetency. I think we can safely assume that its AC and HP are abstractions of how hard and thick it is, not its ability to parry and trip up the Fighter.

Joe the 8 Str Wizard 1 with a longsword can hit the wall 40% of the time. At an average of 4 damage, he will chop the wall open in approximately 9-10 turns.

Bob the 20 Str Fighter 20 with the same longsword should be able to hit the wall 95% of the time. At an average of 10 damage, he should have the wall down in one attack routine (barring fumbles).

Both of these characters have the same chance to critically miss (fumble) per attack. By the nature of action economy, though, the Fighter is going to Fumble roughly once every 30 seconds, wheras the Wizard will probably fumble only once every two minutes.

So, stripping away enemy reactions in combat and putting the question solely on 'character competency', we see that the Hyper-Competent Fighter makes mistakes quicker in combat than Dunce Wizard when it comes to Fumbles. Using 'lose your attack routine' rules, the Wizard isn't punished for these mistakes, but the Fighter is (and again, will lose his extra attacks roughly once every fourth or fifth round).

I don't mind Natural 1s missing (that's RAW, isn't it?). But adding extra riders onto it turns it from heroic/cinematic into slapstick. Except it may not be as funny as the DM finds it.

[Theodoxus]

For those of you in the "no critical fumbles" boat, why do you feel that only good stuff can happen when wielding a double edged sword? Haven't you ever heard the expression? :smallsmile:

Watching MMA fighters in UFC miss and fall prone is not uncommon, or they overextend and get clocked.
It's really not a stretch to see this happen in game. I love critical hits and misses, and describing them adds flavor to the game.

A critical miss should be appropriate to the situation, not for every attack, and be pretty minor - at least that's how I run mine. I think the sour milk is from DMs that think 1s are their gift to humiliate the player. Too many people think 20s are a miracle, and 1s are catastrophic failures.

Casting a spell doesn't require a die roll, so there is no chance of a failure unless additional situations apply (casting on a storm tossed ship). It simply isn't as demanding or as dangerous as swinging a sword, so there doesn't need to be equality since they are not equivalent tasks.

One word: RAW. There's nothing in the PHB regarding critical misses. It's unbalanced BS that if your lucky enough to have a DM with a fumble table, can run from the improbable to the completely destructive (you're telling me my dual wield master just sliced off his arm, and now I've lost a fighting style, a feat and a weapon until I can find some schmuck to cast Regenerate on me?)

If you're not so fortunate, if you have a DM who just comes up with rulings on the fly - which as I mentioned, from my experience, has been colored by their current feelings towards the player/character; If you've been a wrecking crew against his baddies, and all of a sudden you roll a 1 - well, you'll probably get a pretty harsh ruling - your weapon breaks, your stab yourself in the eye or you sever your buddies spine... but if you've been ineffective, you'll probably drop your weapon on the ground at worst...

But it really just boils down to there's no rules for it. It's not fun.

If you wanted to mirror the effects of Critical Hits, in reverse, a Critical Miss, at most, should negate a second attack. A 5th level fighter, CM on first attack, doesn't get a second. CM on second, you don't get one attack the next round. Same for classes with only one attack. CM, you can't attack the next round... Sure, flavor it as dropping your weapon if it helps. But that's literally the only thing that mirrors the extra damage from a Critical Hit.

[veti]

Agreed, Someone else mentioned that instead of directly affecting the payer it could affect the environment in someway. I mean the classic "you swing and miss, and let go of your weapon", something like that is fine as is "You miss and are knocked prone" or "Your spell backfires and you take 1d4 damage".
Like I said these are all minor and I feel that it makes the character realise something bad has happened but without making them feel worthless.
But when you hear stories (like mine or similar) it does seem like the DM just want's to take the fun out of it.

Stories like yours are precisely the argument for having the results formalised in a table. That way the player doesn't get the perception that the DM is picking on them, it's all down to the dice.

I'm accustomed to playing with criticals (that do way more than "2x damage" - at least at the higher end of the results, there are plenty of insta-kills in the table) and fumbles that, in the worst case, do way more than merely crit an ally. The worst result to roll is probably '82', which means "accidentally invent an arcane gesture that immediately gates your character to a completely different campaign", because that's really hard to recover from. I remember the time the whole party suddenly found itself in Anglo-Saxon England in 1066 - with no magic. Fun times indeed.

[Fishyninja]

The worst result to roll is probably '82', which means "accidentally invent an arcane gesture that immediately gates your character to a completely different campaign", because that's really hard to recover from. I remember the time the whole party suddenly found itself in Anglo-Saxon England in 1066 - with no magic. Fun times indeed.
Oooh they could see 5000 Normans Invade Britain, after the worlds most confusing roll-all ever.

In seriousness though that actually sounds kinda fun.
Going back to your point of the system not being formalised I am for this however I feel in some ways in homebrews, this wouldn't work.

Again (to start sounding like a broken record) it has to be in proportion to the roll.

[Contrast]

If a critical hit does something great, a critical miss does the opposite. We have a critical miss chart in my group for the current DM which at the low end you twist your ankle and suffer movement penalties or drop the weapon or at the high end crit yourself or an ally or break your weapon. When I DM typically you throw your weapon ten feet away and picking it up while engaged grants attacks of opportunity and a crit fumble overrides advantage.

I have played in games with very elaborate d100 fumble charts, my most notorious fumble was a dual wielding minotaur who rolled fumble on both attacks then rolled 00 on the d100 which was "Devastating act of God" which is DM fiat for something really bad and catastrophic which in my case turned each of my magically enchanted blades into lightning rods for two lightning bolts from the sky, melting both blades and hitting my character for the base damage of each. I survived barely but lost the blades obviously. In other games it has been everything from trees falling to cave ins and avalanches.

This is exactly my problem with most critical miss tables. Well you rolled the super unlikely super bad result, better make it really terrible!

Assuming my math is right it only takes 35 rounds of combat with 4 characters (2 of whom are attacking twice a round) for someone to have a 10% chance of rolling that result. Still seem rare enough to justify?

[Garret Dorigan]

I'm going to preface these things with a seemingly needed (maybe not?) proclamation: I think Critical Misses are silly. If I have the choice I don't use them, but as I said before most of my players like them... mostly from Tradition, and since they do I have enacted my version at the table to sate them... I am fully aware it isn't perfect.


Loss of a single additional attack makes sense here, but for just about any other type of miss (such as the dropping a weapon that got this started), this runs into the issue where apparently better combatants are easier to effectively defend against with certain techniques that cause them to fail horribly. It makes no sense. Something like getting an OA against someone who misses your AC by a big enough margin (with a melee attack), that makes sense, though it doesn't square well with the multiple attack mechanic either.

My apologies, in the section I put emphasis on it seemed as if I were referring to the loss of a weapon, looking back on it. My emphasis from Ursus' post was more on the idea of an exchange of blows and the opponent's agency to those blows. Also note, that this is only a reaction to actual combat that I have presented from myself. Spells with attack rolls miss and they have to make a Concentration check, in my other case, if applicable. Since I find CMs silly, I've tried to make them something that is quaint, but not that damaging or obtrusive.

Anyway, to the point. Disarming in an Action, so melding the idea of this being a portion of a Critical Miss is too grand. Loss of an attack because the attacker did something wrong in their approximation of how to engage the opponent, considering the speed of combat in the abstraction of combat rounds, seems to fit within the abstraction in my head. It isn't too damaging for those that move slower (less attacks in their Attack Action) because they don't have as much of a general "flow" to disrupt. The opposite is true for those with more attacks in their Attack Action. Getting past someone's someone's guard 4 times in 6 seconds is pretty flipping difficult. If you screw something up pretty badly on how you should attack them it's going to ruin that flow, even for a Big Damn Hero... and if that attack was the last attack in their routine it does nothing other than get a pretty description and act as a miss.


Here's the thing, though. The opponent's agency is reflected in their bonus to Armor Class. A more nimble opponent is anywhere from 5-50% harder to hit than one with an AC 10. If we're talking abstractions, a Dex 30 creature doesn't cause any more auto-fail self-harm than a Dex 8 does.

You can fumble when attacking something that isn't fighting back or actively resisting. Though there aren't as many rules for breaking objects in 5e, they still exist.

Take, for instance, the Wall of Ice.

It has an AC 12. Seeing as its an inanimate object and not actively resisting, any Natural 1s are a result of the character's incompetency. I think we can safely assume that its AC and HP are abstractions of how hard and thick it is, not its ability to parry and trip up the Fighter.

Joe the 8 Str Wizard 1 with a longsword can hit the wall 40% of the time. At an average of 4 damage, he will chop the wall open in approximately 9-10 turns.

Bob the 20 Str Fighter 20 with the same longsword should be able to hit the wall 95% of the time. At an average of 10 damage, he should have the wall down in one attack routine (barring fumbles).

Both of these characters have the same chance to critically miss (fumble) per attack. By the nature of action economy, though, the Fighter is going to Fumble roughly once every 30 seconds, wheras the Wizard will probably fumble only once every two minutes.

So, stripping away enemy reactions in combat and putting the question solely on 'character competency', we see that the Hyper-Competent Fighter makes mistakes quicker in combat than Dunce Wizard when it comes to Fumbles. Using 'lose your attack routine' rules, the Wizard isn't punished for these mistakes, but the Fighter is (and again, will lose his extra attacks roughly once every fourth or fifth round).

I don't mind Natural 1s missing (that's RAW, isn't it?). But adding extra riders onto it turns it from heroic/cinematic into slapstick. Except it may not be as funny as the DM finds it.

EDIT: As for "agency=AC", as I touched on in my response above to Knaight, the abstraction of the die roll for an attack (little 'a') is the opponent's agency versus the attacker's attempt against that agency. An analogy: A fly is in your face, and his agency is to not be swatted away. You half-heartedly swing at it for whatever reason (you're sleepy, you can't see it that well due to it being so close, whatever) and you miss it and have to refocus in order to actually hit it. That kind of idea.

In terms of the wall, I agree. In that case (if they like it or not) I'd ignore my player's wants for CMs. The wall has no agency of survival, so it's a miss if they can't hit it with a 1, "your weapon bounces off and rings in your hand", and if they can hit then they hit. I'm still the DM, so when something is way too silly in a mechanical form that doesn't fall within the saner side of Rule of Cool, I'll say nope.

(Also, no annoyance or anything was meant in any of my above, just in case anyone is reading that from it. Had my favorite game of Devil's Advocate pulled 180 on me, so I just responded to them rationally and matter-of-factly. :smallbiggrin: )

[Demonslayer666]

So let me get this straight-swinging a sword, something I, a slightly out of shape 20 year old, can do (if not well) is harder than forcing reality to change to your whims?...
Huh?

I'm curious what it takes to cast a spell in your mind, because I see it as nothing more than drawing symbols or making gestures and reciting ancient chants. The Altering reality and forcing it to your whim is the result of casting the spell (e.g. a fireball).


In game turns, you're watching two Level 0 Humans muck about. Maybe Level 1. As good as MMA fighters are, they're not D&D characters. They're not Level 1 Monks. You can't put four of them in a cage with a Brown Bear and expect it to turn out well for them. You're making false equivalences.
Plenty of spells require attack rolls.

I completely disagree. Not all these fighters are black belts, but they go through a hell of a lot of training before getting in the ring and have a background in wresting, boxing, or marital arts. My point is, experts in their fields mess up, nobody is perfect (even you elves).

Don't get me started on the stats of a grizzly...they are way too low, but grizzlies were historically defeated by humans hunting them with spears.

Casting the spell with an attack roll still has no roll to cast the spell (save concentration), the roll is only to hit with it, after you successfully cast it. Critical fumbles can happen on spell attack rolls in my game.


Yes, manipulating the arcane fabric of reality isn't demanding as swinging a sword. I mean, a fighter could conceivably swing his sword for 16 hours out of the day without stopping, while a wizard can only cast like 22 spells in a day. But yeah that's much less taxing than an infinite resource (melee attacks)

That doesn't make any point other than casters are limited to spells per day, and the game doesn't limit swinging a sword. It doesn't mean casting is as difficult, or more so, than swinging a sword.


One word: RAW. There's nothing in the PHB regarding critical misses. It's unbalanced BS that if your lucky enough to have a DM with a fumble table, can run from the improbable to the completely destructive (you're telling me my dual wield master just sliced off his arm, and now I've lost a fighting style, a feat and a weapon until I can find some schmuck to cast Regenerate on me?)

If you're not so fortunate, if you have a DM who just comes up with rulings on the fly - which as I mentioned, from my experience, has been colored by their current feelings towards the player/character; If you've been a wrecking crew against his baddies, and all of a sudden you roll a 1 - well, you'll probably get a pretty harsh ruling - your weapon breaks, your stab yourself in the eye or you sever your buddies spine... but if you've been ineffective, you'll probably drop your weapon on the ground at worst...

But it really just boils down to there's no rules for it. It's not fun.

If you wanted to mirror the effects of Critical Hits, in reverse, a Critical Miss, at most, should negate a second attack. A 5th level fighter, CM on first attack, doesn't get a second. CM on second, you don't get one attack the next round. Same for classes with only one attack. CM, you can't attack the next round... Sure, flavor it as dropping your weapon if it helps. But that's literally the only thing that mirrors the extra damage from a Critical Hit.

I never claimed it was part of the rules...but I did specifically say it was a minor effect in my game. Losing your next attack is one of the results. It's usually not that serious though, and likely just a penalty to your next attack.

It's not fun for you. And that's fine. Don't use em. :smallsmile: It is fun for me and my friends.

[MeeposFire]

You still have not answered what happens when the wizard rolls a 1 with a fire bolt for instance. How is the caster getting penalized as fairly as a weapon user?

[Ursus the Grim]

Garret, we're mostly in agreement. We'd be quibbling over the minutiae at this point. Its been fun.



I completely disagree. Not all these fighters are black belts, but they go through a hell of a lot of training before getting in the ring and have a background in wresting, boxing, or marital arts. My point is, experts in their fields mess up, nobody is perfect (even you elves).

Congratulations. They took Grappler or Tavern Brawler as their Variant Human Feat.

In a life-or-death fight, would they scorn a weapon? Would they, if their lives depended on it, be as effective with their bare hands as they would with a blade or truncheon? If you can honestly say a Conor McGregor with a medieval dagger or club is less effective than a Conor McGregor without any weapons, then you have a case for them being level 1 Monks.

Obviously Level 2 is right out.

Experts do mess up. That's what an automatic miss is. But your point relies on pretending RL 'experts' are the same as Heroes. And they aren't.


Don't get me started on the stats of a grizzly...they are way too low, but grizzlies were historically defeated by humans hunting them with spears.

The stats of a grizzly are just fine when comparing them to a regular Human. And yes. Humans hunting with Bear spears can kill a grizzly. Sure. Do you think 4 unarmed MMA fighters can kill a bear? After all, they're the experts you used as an example.

[JackPhoenix]

If you take 100 commoners, have them swing at 100 static practice targets every round, and after 10 minutes, at least one of them is dead, your critical miss table should be set on fire.

[Laurefindel]

If you take 100 commoners, have them swing at 100 static practice targets every round, and after 10 minutes, at least one of them is dead, your critical miss table should be set on fire.

Bad example, hacking at static target don't require attack roll. A better example would be having 100 commoners fighting for their life. After 10 minutes at least one of them is dead by its own fault.

I'm not saying this is ok or desirable in a RPG, but stress must be factored in, and lots of people die of stupid reasons due to stress.

[Lance Tankmen]

If you take 100 commoners, have them swing at 100 static practice targets every round, and after 10 minutes, at least one of them is dead, your critical miss table should be set on fire.

seen a lot of people hate on critical failures, which from examples i understand. If the nat 1 is on the whim of a DM, then its drawn by emotion, does the DM have it out for you secretly ? The above quote is why when i made a crit fumble chart for melee i made sure to not add kill yourself or ally or harm yourself in anyway, its a simple D12 roll after the 1 with 7-12 minor or helpful sort of, 6 and below may harm the weapon slightly or significantly . i have different charts for each type, only with ranged and what not does it have hit ally possible. my spell crit fumble may need some tweaks..and i like the idea for dex save spells to balance out need to roll a D20 before hand but ill see. i have a Crit success chart too for each type of attack, but i didnt want a goblin hitting a PC and taking an eye when the characters level 10 etc. So i do to get the crit bonus you roll a D20 + damage vs 20 + CR/Lvl +con mod. oh well they aren't for ever one and honestly I'm not in the Super hero players who kill who ever they want and can not be killed boat. Because i constantly see the whole they are super heroes they shouldn't miss 5% of the time as a lame mentality. PCs in my game are strong but they aren't the gods gift to the world, i grandfather or what ever past parties, and message the players later how the previous party loved the "NPC" and wanted em to join, but if they try to murder guards or kill shop keeps they will be a bit upset with the results.

[Theodoxus]

Like lots of characters die before seeing the light of day in Hackmaster... doesn't make that a fun process either...

[Deleted]

Bad example, hacking at static target don't require attack roll. A better example would be having 100 commoners fighting for their life. After 10 minutes at least one of them is dead by its own fault.

I'm not saying this is ok or desirable in a RPG, but stress must be factored in, and lots of people die of stupid reasons due to stress.

Critical miss tables would be like watching LeBron dunk and 5% of the time he got seriously injured.

That would be so much fun to watch!

Anyone that uses a critical miss table (or critical hit table) beeds to reevaluate why they are playing D&D.

[JackPhoenix]

Bad example, hacking at static target don't require attack roll. A better example would be having 100 commoners fighting for their life. After 10 minutes at least one of them is dead by its own fault.

I'm not saying this is ok or desirable in a RPG, but stress must be factored in, and lots of people die of stupid reasons due to stress.

Well, how do you overcome object's AC if you don't require attack roll? I think you should re-read the section about attacking objects in DMG

[Asmotherion]

I meant it's not realistic for people who are experts in fighting with weapons, as the characters are presumed to be. It's fine if your players like it, it makes silly stuff happen and that can be fun. But it is not realistic (unless it's the Three Stooges).

Not all characters are experts in handling weapons though. Those that do, have the relative Save Proficiency to make this a race phenomenon. :P

[furby076]

How do you guys deal with a natural 1 on an attack roll in your 5e game?

Last time I DMed 5e, I gave the defending creature an OA vs the attacking creature on a nat 1. It seemed to work out ok, although it only applied at melee range. What do you all think about that? What rules do you have for a crit miss?

I don't like creating additional special effects to 1's or 20's for one specific reason: They apply to players more than NPCs and are particularly deadly for players.

As others said - a funny description may apply, but that's it.

[Corsair14]

@Contrast- Your odds a bit high. there is only a 1% chance of getting the super-catastrophic fumble. I think I only saw it 3 times with the group and twice were that one time really oddball chance I mentioned. But also like I said it was counterbalanced by the crit chart where you could lop a guys head off(not even the highest result) or cut off their arm. Plus the fumble chart wasn't as bad as it sounds. 1-50 miss next attack. 51-65 throw weapon. 66-75 Sprained ankle(reduced movement and -2 dex bonus for a week) and then more increasingly lethal as it went up both to the character and nearby friendlies. 00 was act of god.

Crit chart was similarly statted 1-50 double damage as normal, 51-65 double damage and disarm, 66-75 triple damage, 97-99 was decapitation. 00 was decap and crit on another opponent next to him.

I think it adds greatly to combat and makes it more than just I swing and hit or nat 20, roll double damage.

[RedMage125]

*Wall of Ice example*
Both of these characters have the same chance to critically miss (fumble) per attack. By the nature of action economy, though, the Fighter is going to Fumble roughly once every 30 seconds, wheras the Wizard will probably fumble only once every two minutes.

So, stripping away enemy reactions in combat and putting the question solely on 'character competency', we see that the Hyper-Competent Fighter makes mistakes quicker in combat than Dunce Wizard when it comes to Fumbles. Using 'lose your attack routine' rules, the Wizard isn't punished for these mistakes, but the Fighter is (and again, will lose his extra attacks roughly once every fourth or fifth round).

I don't mind Natural 1s missing (that's RAW, isn't it?). But adding extra riders onto it turns it from heroic/cinematic into slapstick. Except it may not be as funny as the DM finds it.


I don't like creating additional special effects to 1's or 20's for one specific reason: They apply to players more than NPCs and are particularly deadly for players.

As others said - a funny description may apply, but that's it.
This is why I proposed my method of using a "confirmation roll" to determine a Critical Miss/Fumble. Both of your concerns are addressed. In Ursus the Grim's example, the confirmation roll solves the problem about the Fighter being subjected to more Fumbles. Since the warrior will more likely than not hit on the confirmation roll, he won't get a fumble. He'd literally need to roll 2 "natural 1s" in a row. And that's just the way the dice fall sometimes. As a DM, I'd have the fumble either be that the ice he'd chipped away from the wall made the ground slippery and now he is prone, or maybe his sword gets stuck in the ice, and he needs to make a STR check to get it out before he can resume chipping away.

Furby076's concern is also answered. Players on average have good enough to-hit rolls and AC that the "confirmation roll" serves as a buffer. Back in 3.5e the confirmation roll served exactly that purpose, as players (having much higher ACs than monsters on average) would be subjected to more crits otherwise. Since 5e does not do confirmation rolls for critical hits anymore, having critical misses require a confirmation roll softens the chance that those will happen to players.


You still have not answered what happens when the wizard rolls a 1 with a fire bolt for instance. How is the caster getting penalized as fairly as a weapon user?

Same principles apply. A spellcaster who rolls a 1 with a spell requiring an attack roll (and fails the subsequent confirmation roll) has something bad happen. Either hitting an ally close to the line of fire, losing his footing and falling prone, provoking an AoO (if relevant) or something similar along those lines.

This is one of the things that made 4e more balanced mechanically, btw. Since ALL spells required attack rolls on the caster's part, there was no disparity between classes whose attacks forced saves and those that made attack rolls. So "fumble rolls" (I used confirmation rolls when running 4e as well) were applied equally to all classes and class roles.

I should make a note here that I also believe that "fumbles" should never be completely debilitating. Common effects I use are:

fall prone
provoke an AoO from enemies that threaten PC OR grant advantage to next single attack against you
drop weapon
string of bow/crossbow snaps (can be repaired out of combat easily)
hit unintended target (make new attack roll)

I chose whatever is most cinematic-ally appropriate. Rarely do I ever have anything more severe than those things. And when I do, it's because a "nat 1" was rolled on the confirmation roll. Example: 3.5e game, party was level 6, half-elf paladin in full plate, on his heavy warhorse, charging a group of kobolds who are on foot. Rolls a 1. Confirmation roll...another 1. So I ruled that his lance dipped into the ground, his horse skidded to a stop, and he was vaulted from his saddle, and landed prone in the square behind the creature he was attacking. Mind you...that square was also occupied by a kobold, which promptly has a creature twice its size, wearing full plate, dropped onto it at high velocity. The kobold was crushed, but the pally was now surrounded by 8 little monsters with spears.

While that was funny (that player tells that story a lot, even), it was not debilitating. It was inconvenient for a few rounds, and everyone, player included, got a good laugh.

There's nothing wrong with crit fail rules, but players should be made aware at first session how they are going to be handled. And they should never be a complete "you're screwed now" for the player. Fishyninja's example of getting knocked back, have a magic item shattered, autohits from an enemy with autofail saves for poison was more than excessive. That's just adversarial DMing, which there is no excuse for.

[Laurefindel]

Critical miss tables would be like watching LeBron dunk and 5% of the time he got seriously injured.

That would be so much fun to watch!

Anyone that uses a critical miss table (or critical hit table) beeds to reevaluate why they are playing D&D.

No, according to the fumble table in question, he would fumble a dunk 5% of time, and would get seriously injured 0.25% of time. Still silly IMO, but i don't think that some kind of effect happening 5% of the time (falling prone, slapping someone on the way down, breaking the hoop etc) is that unrealistic. Whether you want to incorporate that in D&D is another story.

Yet again, injuries in sports do happen frequently (many of which are happening during training). D&D is not about realism, but crit fumbles are not that unrealistic.

[Thrudd]

Not all characters are experts in handling weapons though. Those that do, have the relative Save Proficiency to make this a race phenomenon. :P

If you have proficiency with a weapon, you are trained in it's use and know how to fight with it. You aren't playing around with it like a side hobby- you aren't making obvious and stupid mistakes, like holding it improperly so you can get disarmed easily or leaving yourself open for counters. In this edition, a wizard is equally proficient with their weapons as a fighter is. The difference is how many weapons they are proficient with, their physical conditioning (Str, Dex, Con), and specialized combat training. All adventurers are "proficient"- fighters are uncommonly awesome. A lvl 1 wizard, even without bonuses from ability scores, is better fighting with their weapon than most conscripts in an army.

My real problem with critical misses, beyond tables with effects that are unrealistically harsh, is that they add a level of random challenge that is unnecessary when the game is designed to already be tactically and strategically challenging. More unpredictable disruptions than already exist with the rolling of dice are very frustrating for planning.

In addition, while critical hits help speed up combats by dropping HP more quickly, critical misses can make it drag out longer (presuming it isn't a bad enough effect to simply kill the PCs). This is the opposite of what is normally desired, in the interest of an exciting game.

It is completely a matter if preference, yes. If players like the game to be full if random wackiness, even more than it already is, that's fine. If you want to make combat extra hard for the players, because they are just too good and need some extra disadvantages, alright. Just be aware of what your rule changes are doing to the game, game and challenge-wise, in addition to "flavor" (whatever that means).

[Garret Dorigan]

You still have not answered what happens when the wizard rolls a 1 with a fire bolt for instance. How is the caster getting penalized as fairly as a weapon user?

Crap, sorry Meepos, was this for me? If so...

I touched on it very lightly earlier, but considering the complexity of casting the response is a bit more complex and situational.

If it's a multi-roll spell, such as Scorching Ray or Eldritch Blast, then one of the other rays fizzle.

If it's a Sorcerer trying to Twin or Quicken and it's the first cast of the round, it ends any further planned casting in that round.

Anything else (that I can think of right now) is basically that they can't cast additional spells in that round (Druid wants to hit with Produce Flame then cast Shillelagh. Nat 1 on Produce Flame means no casting Shillelagh) like the Sorcerer example above and, if applicable, they have to make a Concentration check or chance losing their spell. If they aren't concentrating on a spell, I'm not that concerned because they aren't using all their available power at that point any way.

[BillyBobShorton]

1d4 dmg-players &NPC's alike. If it's something wimpy like a skeleton or kobold, I usually just say they lose a finger in their bowstring or something applicable, kobold types scampering off.

Funny thing happened last week. Big zombie fight. Someone decides to nut shot a zombie. I explain the futility, lack of a nervous system and whatnot, and say if you really want, roll at disatvantage. Well, it got funny and gross, pretty soon everyone's doing it. Paladin rolls an 18 and a 1. Crit fail-1d4 dmg, and hit himself in the nards. Rolls at disadvamtage next 2 rounds to simulate lingering ball-tap pain.

Critical misses can be fun, and should have a penalty of some kind IMO, but shouldn't ruin a PC's night.

[LastCenturion]

Not a fix, but a cautionary tale of why you should listen to your allies.

My old DM (I've since left the group for other reasons) had the rule that if you roll a nat 1 on an attack, you instead hit an ally within range. No chance for the ally to avoid, either. I played a human with a hodgepodge of classes that I built to have the greatest armor class. Thanks to neither of us reading Sage Advice or caring much about it, I had a 26 AC whenever I was conscious, with a Shield spell on standby. I got hit more times by my friends than by my enemies. Anyways, in one fight we were against... I think it was a prison break, so some dwarves? But the paladin, who had no reason to do it, kept moving next to me while we fought. Being wary of getting hit, I kept moving away, only for him to follow me again. I kept telling him "no, you're going to crit miss and hit me" and he kept responding "no I won't stop being paranoid". He crit missed twice in a row, and knocked me down to 1 hit point. Dammit, Ben, I told you.

[Contrast]

@Contrast- Your odds a bit high. there is only a 1% chance of getting the super-catastrophic fumble. I think I only saw it 3 times with the group and twice were that one time really oddball chance I mentioned. But also like I said it was counterbalanced by the crit chart where you could lop a guys head off(not even the highest result) or cut off their arm. Plus the fumble chart wasn't as bad as it sounds. 1-50 miss next attack. 51-65 throw weapon. 66-75 Sprained ankle(reduced movement and -2 dex bonus for a week) and then more increasingly lethal as it went up both to the character and nearby friendlies. 00 was act of god.

Crit chart was similarly statted 1-50 double damage as normal, 51-65 double damage and disarm, 66-75 triple damage, 97-99 was decapitation. 00 was decap and crit on another opponent next to him.

I think it adds greatly to combat and makes it more than just I swing and hit or nat 20, roll double damage.

1/20*1/100 = 1/2000

35 rounds with 6 attacks per round. 35*6= 210 attacks. So 210 tries for 1/2000. Simplifies to 10.5 goes at 1/100.

Or the more mathy way which I originally went with: (1-(((19/20)+((1/20)*(99/100)))^6))*35=10.5%

And thats just the chance for the act of god result. Assuming the 97-00 range were as bad as the crits were good - that range has a 10% chance of coming up every 9 rounds. 42 rounds gives you 50/50.

[TurboGhast]

The only effect of rolling a 1 to attack in games that I run is automatic miss. I've never bothered with anything more because critical misses take time to adjudicate, and lead to weaker gameplay for reasons others have stated.

[Corsair14]

00 was act of god on either table. Only a 1 in 100 chance for this to happen. So one attack in twenty gets a fumble/crit, one fumble in a 100 gets a super crit/fumble. Thats a very tiny chance of it ever happening. In the year and a half we played, usually once a week, it came up exactly three times on the fumbles, I only recall one crit. Fumbles were far more entertaining to roll for. So the percentiles you did, not checking them, I admit to sucking at math, do not match up to actual practice.

[LastCenturion]

00 was act of god on either table. Only a 1 in 100 chance for this to happen. So one attack in twenty gets a fumble/crit, one fumble in a 100 gets a super crit/fumble. Thats a very tiny chance of it ever happening. In the year and a half we played, usually once a week, it came up exactly three times on the fumbles, I only recall one crit. Fumbles were far more entertaining to roll for. So the percentiles you did, not checking them, I admit to sucking at math, do not match up to actual practice.

That's a 2 out of 2000 chance, so one in 1000. In a year and a half of playing once a week, so about 80 sessions, I'd be surprised if you didn't roll somewhere near 3000 attack rolls. Not sure what edition you're in though, or how often you fought, but from my (limited) experience, making 40 attack rolls per session is entirely reasonable, if you're counting PCs, NPCs, and monsters both.

[mgshamster]

00 was act of god on either table. Only a 1 in 100 chance for this to happen. So one attack in twenty gets a fumble/crit, one fumble in a 100 gets a super crit/fumble. Thats a very tiny chance of it ever happening. In the year and a half we played, usually once a week, it came up exactly three times on the fumbles, I only recall one crit. Fumbles were far more entertaining to roll for. So the percentiles you did, not checking them, I admit to sucking at math, do not match up to actual practice.

His math is accurate, but his interpretation of the stats is a bit off.

To determine the probability of a single attack having an act of God, multiply .05 (the 1 in 20) by 0.01 (the 1 in 100). That's a 0.0005 probability for each attack.

If you take 210 attacks (which is 35 rounds at 6 attacks each) and multiply that by the probability, you get 0.105. Change that to a percent, and you get 10.5%.

Where the interpretation is off is he's claiming that you should have a 10.5 percent chance within 210 attacks. But actually that means that each set of 210 attacks has a 10.5% chance of getting that act of God fumble.

Edit: There's also a chance I'm misinterpreting him. If he's saying that 10% of your attacks should be act of God fumbles in 210 attacks - that's wrong. If that's not what he's saying, then he's actually saying the same thing I am.

[JNAProductions]

It's actually a 9.5% chance every 200 attacks. 1-(1-.0005)^200

[mgshamster]

It's actually a 9.5% chance every 200 attacks. 1-(1-.0005)^200

Yeah. That's more accurate.

[Mellack]

By my quick back-of-the-envolope math, I think a fighter would be expected to get that act of god roll to happen to him by 9th level. I was figuring number of encounter per level using the chart here (http://oldguygaming.com/5e-encounters-per-level), with two attacks per round levels 1-4 and 3 per round levels 5-9, so either PAM, two-weapon or other such. I also assumed each fight lasted 4 rounds. I calculated that would be about the point they made 1000 attack rolls, so should have a reasonable chance to get that result to have come up.

[mgshamster]

By my quick back-of-the-envolope math, I think a fighter would be expected to get that act of god roll to happen to him by 9th level. I was figuring number of encounter per level using the chart here (http://oldguygaming.com/5e-encounters-per-level), with two attacks per round levels 1-4 and 3 per round levels 5-9, so either PAM, two-weapon or other such. I also assumed each fight lasted 4 rounds. I calculated that would be about the point they made 1000 attack rolls, so should have a reasonable chance to get that result to have come up.

For 1000 attacks rolls, you'd have about a 40% chance of getting an act of God. That's a pretty good chance. You'd need 6000 attack rolls to have a 95% chance of getting an act of God.

[Contrast]

His math is accurate, but his interpretation of the stats is a bit off.

To determine the probability of a single attack having an act of God, multiply .05 (the 1 in 20) by 0.01 (the 1 in 100). That's a 0.0005 probability for each attack.

If you take 210 attacks (which is 35 rounds at 6 attacks each) and multiply that by the probability, you get 0.105. Change that to a percent, and you get 10.5%.

Where the interpretation is off is he's claiming that you should have a 10.5 percent chance within 210 attacks. But actually that means that each set of 210 attacks has a 10.5% chance of getting that act of God fumble.

Edit: There's also a chance I'm misinterpreting him. If he's saying that 10% of your attacks should be act of God fumbles in 210 attacks - that's wrong. If that's not what he's saying, then he's actually saying the same thing I am.

For clarity, I was not trying to say 10% of your attacks would be acts of god (dear lord! :smalleek:). I was indeed trying to say that there was a 10% chance of at least one bad act of god in that many attacks :smalltongue:


00 was act of god on either table. Only a 1 in 100 chance for this to happen. So one attack in twenty gets a fumble/crit, one fumble in a 100 gets a super crit/fumble. Thats a very tiny chance of it ever happening. In the year and a half we played, usually once a week, it came up exactly three times on the fumbles, I only recall one crit. Fumbles were far more entertaining to roll for. So the percentiles you did, not checking them, I admit to sucking at math, do not match up to actual practice.

If you're happy having an event such as dual lighting strike a PC, melting multiple magic items, happen every 6 months for literally no reason whatsoever then knock yourself out I guess (you literally will, because of the crit misses :smallwink:).

[mgshamster]

For clarity, I was not trying to say 10% of your attacks would be acts of god (dear lord! :smalleek:). I was indeed trying to say that there was a 10% chance of at least one bad act of god in that many attacks :smalltongue:

Oh good. Glad to know I was misinterpreting what you wrote.

[KorvinStarmast]

If you're doing something risky like shooting past an ally, then a natural 1 might have a special negative effect (e.g. a chance to hit said ally instead). Otherwise, I'll probably just treat it as a miss. Yes, shooting into melee is one of those things that's raised more than a few questions over the years.

Someone decides to nut shot a zombie. I explain the futility, lack of a nervous system and whatnot, and say if you really want, roll at disatvantage. Well, it got funny and gross, pretty soon everyone's doing it. Paladin rolls an 18 and a 1. Crit fail-1d4 dmg, and hit himself in the nards. Rolls at disadvamtage next 2 rounds to simulate lingering ball-tap pain. The *theater of the absurd* is a way to play D&D. Been there, done that, I prefer a different style now. (I think that will all of the different RPG's on the market now, a far better game could be used for that style of game play).
The only effect of rolling a 1 to attack in games that I run is automatic miss. I've never bothered with anything more because critical misses take time to adjudicate, and lead to weaker gameplay for reasons others have stated. In a nutshell.

[Theodoxus]

I don't want to be in a world where gods are so 'active'. Why do the gods really care if you roll a 1 on your d20? That's so petty and capricious... yeah, I'd port myself out of that world so fast - pack my gear and drive straight home to have a beer while writing a scathing blogpost about your petty and capricious gods.

[D.U.P.A.]

Dunno for DMs, but as a player I would just choose Halfling, 1/400 chance to get a fumble. Get that, DM!

[mgshamster]

I don't want to be in a world where gods are so 'active'. Why do the gods really care if you roll a 1 on your d20? That's so petty and capricious... yeah, I'd port myself out of that world so fast - pack my gear and drive straight home to have a beer while writing a scathing blogpost about your petty and capricious gods.

Story time!

I was once in a game where every time a god's name was spoken aloud, there was a 1% chance they would notice you. Now, the vast majority of the time that meant nothing. After all, the gods get prayers all the time. But occasionally, when they notice you, something piques their interest.

Like the time we were transporting the Eye of Gruumsh (we were level 5, I think, so way underclass for this kind of mission).

We got ambushed by a bunch of drow over the artifact. Someone yelled out, "Aw Hell!" DM rolled a double aught, and Hel took notice of us - decided we were interesting enough for her to take a visit, and appeared on the battle field.

I cried out for Corellon Larethian*, DM rolled a double aught again! He showed up! We had a showdown of the gods right in front of us. Of course, we had to flee as soon as Hel showed up, as she does damage to everyone in her presence every round.

*Our mission was to get the Eye to the elven lands so Corellon could take it from us and keep it safe.

It was a fun game.

[Mikal]

I don't want to be in a world where gods are so 'active'. Why do the gods really care if you roll a 1 on your d20? That's so petty and capricious... yeah, I'd port myself out of that world so fast - pack my gear and drive straight home to have a beer while writing a scathing blogpost about your petty and capricious gods.

Indeed. A flat 5% chance during most actions that the Gods themselves come down and take a metaphysical piss on you is not exactly a fun world to live in.

[Corsair14]

It was called act of god as a name, whether that meant an actual god took interest or just a freak catastrophic act of nature or the physical geology in that area was conducive in that particular instant for something crazy to happen is up for whatever you believe it was. It was just a name for a roll on the chart for something catastrophic.

This was in 2nd Edition I think, mid 90s if memory serves. I have had variations of it in later editions though.

That said Gods do take an active interest in my worlds. I allow god calls when a PC dies equal to 1% for most classes or 1%+level for clerics, pallies, and druids that a(not necessarily his or her) god to take notice and RP a situation where the PC can try and stay alive and come back. Pure RP after that point. God can also change the PCs class or race and inflict a gnease (sp?) on them to accomplish a quest for them.

[Arial Black]

So, in an hour of TWF practice against a wooden dummy then various gods would appear around four times?

[The MunchKING]

So, in an hour of TWF practice against a wooden dummy then various gods would appear around four times?

Man, they must be CRAZY bored, if they show up for that.

[Misterwhisper]

I will be behind the critical fail for attacks chart as soon as casters have to make an arcana check to cast a spell and when they roll a 1 they cast their spell wrong in spectacular ways.

In the 20 years I have been playing d&d there have been FAR more people to be killed by a crit fail than by enemies.

I accidently TPKed, a game that had run from level 1 to 13 at the time thanks to rolling a 1 on my swing and then rolling another 1 on the see how bad the fail was roll our dm was using.