Worst Fumble Experience

[Suzaku]

For those with an unfortunate experience of playing with fumbles, what was your worst experience with fumbles?

It was a level one campaign and it was my first time playing D&D. I was playing a lvl 1 half-orc barbarian and for stats I rolled 3 18s and no stats under 16 oO. In the second encounter I raged and charged a goblin, rolled a fumble to attack myself. However I just happened to roll a critical on myself and then rolled for max damage with a great axe. The rogue laughed at me and then charged only to attack himself incapping himself also.

Although a bit off topic the cleric rushed forward to heal the rogue, but the Kobold we both charged attacked the cleric and critical hit the cleric.

[crazedloon]

well didnt happen to me but my friend was playing a monk/drunken master and in full drunken stuper he fumbled and then critted. our dm decided the monk had punched himself in the groin and was incapasitated for a few rounds

[vanyell]

hm... fumbles... kobolds... fumbles... goblins...
two comics.
ultimate fumble
the first one
and either click next comic or click here

the other comic I read

[Dairun Cates]

Roll a 1. Roll to see if I hit myself. Roll a 1. Roll to see if I instant kill myself with a third 1. Roll a 20 I believe. GM rules that the axe my dwarf was swinging just got thrown 300 feet forward without hitting anyone. That's REALLY annoying for a fully armored dwarf, but at least I wasn't dead.

[Brauron]

My first game of D&D...I was a fairly combat-oriented druid. I fumbled an attempt to hit a goblin with my sickle, slashing off my own toe. Then the Goblin, who was armed with a slightly-pointy stick, scored a Critical Hit. Ow.

[Behold_the_Void]

We never use fumble rules because we find them to be stupid, but I have gotten a string of 3's before in a D20 Modern Game which was definitely not fun.

[Woot Spitum]

Worst fumble? Rolling a natural one on two fairly plot-crucial knowledge:religion checks with my mid-to high level cleric with max skill ranks and an extremely high wisdom score (over 20). If our DM hadn't allowed our bard to use bardic knowledge to get the same information, we might never have made it out of Acheron.

[Matthew]

Never really suffered at the hands of a fumble before, though I have often seen characters shooting into melee hit their companions (though 3.5 seems to have erased that mechanic).

[The_Losar]

Not exactly a fumble (I don't deal with that), but one of my players was fighting a monstrous scorpion and got grappled and ended up in the scorpion's claw. A few rounds later, they each make a grapple attempt (the PC being at a rather severe disadvantage due to size and strength) and both roll 1s.

I wasn't certain how I was to describe what happened, but the player did a good job of it. Basically, he figured that the scorpion released him accidentally, so he grabbed onto the claw for fear of falling. Sort of "Oh wait, don't drop me!"

[Fax Celestis]

I started Gehenna with a botched roll in a V:tM game.

[ampcptlogic]

Fax: How did you manage that? Please elaborate.

[starwoof]

The party was confronted with an anthropomorphic tyrannosaurus with a greathammer and adamantine full plate. The dwarven fighter charges!

He rolls a one. I roll on the fumble table. I roll a 100. Then the dwarf proceeds to crit himself 3 times with his waraxe, lose his weapon, and entangle the axe with the dinosaur. The level 11 fighter did 110 damage to himself, more than he had done to anything in the entire campaign. And then the dwarf who had like 5 hp left was eaten by the unharmed T-Rex.

Good times...

[Gamebird]

I fumbled my first serious combat roll of the new tabletop campaign I'm in. However, I had prepared for this by making an 18 CON Barbarian with Diehard. I charged, raged, and fumbled, doing normal damage to myself. The DM was astonished that I survived the battle. I figure I'll knock around until a new character will start at 2nd or 3rd level, then I'll die (assuming it doesn't happen anyway) and make a new one.

Normally I'm not so fatalistic, but in this campaign, you have to be.

[OzymandiasVolt]

Punching a party member in the arm and rolling three 20s on the attack roll.

[Thomas]

At least two characters in our Rolemaster campaign have died from fumbling with weapons. (The odds are something like 5 in 100 to do that even if you do fumble).

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

In our game; if you are threatening a square and you roll a 1, you get AoO'ed. I was playing a 13th lvl (ECL17) Soulknife. He Storm Trooper'ed (Directed Bull Rush) into combat, and on the attack roll, he got a 1. ARRRGH! It sucked because he was going to Direct Bull Rush the Troll hunter leader (ECL 20 himself) into a threatened square of the group's tank. So... I got critted twice by each one that I threatened, and dropped down to 3 HP, from a full 200+. Dodge, Mobility and Combat expertise did not help that much.

[Matthew]

That's really harsh.

[Fax Celestis]

Fax: How did you manage that? Please elaborate.

Playing a Giovanni. I summoned the spirit of the founder of the city we were in, who happened to be (a) the most powerful spirit in existence; and (b) the trigger for Gehenna.

Of course, if you botch the roll, you get the spirit's Shadow instead of the Wraith itself.

And of course I botch.

So Mr. Johnathan Stoneridge busts out of nowhere, flings some Numina around, and the net result is that the entire cotierie is either dead (me) or unconscious (everyone else). Everyone, that is, but for the Gangrel in the party who made his soak roll.

Good times.

[Cobra]

I ran a game where a player brought in a new character that was a dwarven spiked chain wielder. In his very first fight, the party engaged a blackgaurd. The dwarf, runs up and whirls his spiffy masterwork chain around his head and releases it at the blackguard... only to roll a 1. Which he promptly confirmed.

I ruled that he accidently released the chain. The handy direction die indicated that it flew to the left... which was off the edge of the wharf and into the harbor.

The dwarf didn't want to look like a wuss in front of his new group, so he closed ranged with his spiked gauntlets and promptly got eviscerated. Not a good day for that player.

[Maelstrom]

Worst fumble? Rolling a natural one on two fairly plot-crucial knowledge:religion checks with my mid-to high level cleric with max skill ranks and an extremely high wisdom score (over 20)...

You *do* know that skill checks do not autofail on a 1, right? (just like they do not auto succeed)... Also, is there a reason you could not take 10 or 20?

[Woot Spitum]

You *do* know that skill checks do not autofail on a 1, right? (just like they do not auto succeed)... Also, is there a reason you could not take 10 or 20?

They do if the gamemaster says they do.

[daggaz]

So even if you failed it adding the one to your skill ranks, how did you/your DM call the failure? I would say something like, 'you're character is at a total loss for words, the information, which should be there, has completely slipped your mind. You have forgotten, and without serious study, you are unlikely to ever remember again.' Cuz it just sounds weird that a high level cleric would be *completely* wrong about something religious in nature, especially something which he should have been thinking/studying a lot about, as it has so much to do with his present situation. BUt yeah, I guess it could happen..

[Marius]

We were playing Rolemaster in MERP and our noble knight was dueling with a dark knight. Both of them fumble hitting themselves, with their greatswords, exactly in the same place, the same awful place were no man wants to be ever hit by anything (unless he works at Jackass). Both of them ended up on the floor screaming with pain while everyone else laugh their ass off. I think the probability of making the same fumble on rolemaster is like one in a million.

You *do* know that skill checks do not autofail on a 1, right? (just like they do not auto succeed)... Also, is there a reason you could not take 10 or 20?

You can't take 10 or 20 on a Knowledge check.

[Suzaku]

You can't take 10 or 20 on a Knowledge check.

Ummm yes you can, skills you can't take 10 have it listed under special such as Use Magic Device. No where in the knowledge skill does it say you can't take 10.

[Matthew]

Indeed, you just cannot take 20.

[SpiderBrigade]

Right. You can't take 20 on Knowledge, because you can't retry a check. But taking 10 is fine.

In fact, while some might consider it metagaming, I would actively encourage players to take 10 on checks for basic knowledge. Otherwise you could run into things like a 1st-level wizard not knowing what a spellbook is, for example.

[Joran]

Nothing from d20, but here's mine.

I was playing a game of Battletech and was moving a mech through a river.

To move through water requires a piloting skill check, but this should be easy.
Nope, so my mech falls over and takes some damage.

Now I need a piloting skill check to avoid my character smashing his head into the cockpit and taking damage.
Nope, failed that one.

Okay, my pilot took some damage, so he needs to roll a consciousness check to see if he stays conscious.
Nope, good night.

To whit, my mech had taken no damage, my pilot took no damage, but thanks to rolling sub 4 three straight times on 2d6, my mech was on the bottom of a river with an unconscious pilot. Fun times.

[Matthew]

In fact, while some might consider it metagaming, I would actively encourage players to take 10 on checks for basic knowledge. Otherwise you could run into things like a 1st-level wizard not knowing what a spellbook is, for example.

I quite agree. One way of ensuring this is to cap Knowledge Checks at [Ability Modifier + Ranks + Feats + Synergy + 10], so that rolled results cannot exceed 'taking ten' and are only made when under duress.

[lordhed]

Hmmm... We've always ruled that a natural 1 is treated as a -10 and a natural 20 is treated as a 30 (in addition to critical hits etc.).

[MusScribe]

Not a bad idea...


But it was either a level one or level four game... we used crit and fumble tables (pulling from 2nd edition games) - allowing instant deaths. But a few were hitting the wrong target, etc. (with a small chance of getting a critical on the target on a fumble - allowing for a really strange chance of instant accidental death of the creature you attack).

Anyway, I was a bard (trying to show they weren't useless) with a crossbow. Shoot it at a wolf (I think) that was fighting the party tank (we didn't have penalties for shooting into combat). I roll a 1, so I roll percentile for the result. Hit closest ally, and get nearly max damage, and the tank ends up almost getting incapacitated at the start of the fight.