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[D&D 5E] Xanathar's Guide to Striking a Nerve

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  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    There's always a chance, even for an experienced swordsman, for him or her to lose their grip on their sword during a fight. Or get their blade stuck in a tree trunk. Or any number of mishaps that could occur in a fight.

    I'm OK with that being a % chance per roll of a D20. In 3.5e my group had to confirm a critical fumble the same way we confirmed a critical hit.

    But a level 20 fighter takes four of rose chances in any given round, while the farm boy only takes one. So the man literally defined by his expertise with weapons has for times the likelihood of poking his own eye out than does the guy who is holding a sword for the first time in his life.

    *shrug*

    If you accept 4 more chances to stab someone else in the eye, then you gotta accept 4 more chances to fuck it up too.

    No, you don't.

    That's like saying that if you play D&D you just gotta accept it comes with a pocket protector. It's stupid traditional thought that can't stand up to any actual examination.


    I can't really argue that, except for maybe the slightly dismissive tone. :)

    My group and I like that 20's always hit and 1's always miss. We (used to) play that we had to confirm both a critical hit and a critical failure alike. Does the math work out? Probably not, I haven't bothered to crunch the probabilities. Does the logic hold up? If one is going to hammer on it with the force of a thesis paper, then no probably not.

    But, in our group in the 3.5 era days, there was always a slim chance for glory and an equally slim chance for humiliation. The way we played that humiliation was usually hilarious too. And that was OK with us.

    Yea, well I hate that argument. Sorry if I was a bit curt.

    I will point out, your second part, "Hey my group did this and we like it" is actually a perfectly cromulent answer. Though "Game as we play it" and "Game as designed" are two very different standards for me.

    Using a word like "cromulent" doesn't make it any better, dude.

    Ok, I think I am doing a bad job of communicating here. "That argument" was the first one in the previous post of basically "It's always been this way, accept it for no reason but that it is this way". I hate that argument specifically whether applied to make believe or legal codes or whatever.

    I am sincerely saying what works for your group works for you group and doing things for that reason is completely fine/acceptable/double plus good. The cromulent thing was just a bit of levity and acknowledging that I would be rather silly to set myself up as some sort of arbiter of acceptable fun.

    From a design standpoint I think fumbles are a horrible idea for a number of reasons but like many horrible ideas in a general context in a given group and situation they can be perfectly fine.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    What's the difference then between a Despair and a Critical Fumble then? The player rolls poorly, bad stuff happens...

    (Again...in my opinion a 1 is automatically a miss, but not automatically a fumble, but the chance for a fumble.)

    Easy answer: Despair is in the rules of the game, fumbles on nat 1s is not.

    Longer answer: Despair is part of a multi-axis resolution system where the chance for despair only exists on checks that are meant to be particularly tough and high stakes. And despair on weapon attacks is rarely going to be you throw your weapon across the room. It could be that your gun jams and is not useable the rest of the encounter unless you're carrying extra power packs, or it could be that the floor beneath you explodes and falls away and you're about to fall down a level and have to figure out how to get back into the fight.

    Another thing that makes nat 1s = fumbles on attacks to me not make sense is how asymmetric it is. Spell casters in 5E often trigger saves instead of attack rolls, so they're immune to fumbles on those spells.

    But I do understand what makes some groups enjoy using fumbles on nat 1s. Like I said before, I think it comes from the same place that makes me as a player and GM enjoy seeing what happens on that 6- in PbtA or despair in Star Wars. The difference is I think it works and makes sense in those games, where I don't think it works or makes sense(for me that is) in f20 games.

    I think we're past debating whether a Fumble is in the game or not. This discussion has been going on the assumption that that is how some people are playing. So with that mind, how one gets to a Despair in FFG and how one gets to a Fumble in D&D, I think, is moot. Whether you roll a handful of dice in one rule system vs. 1 die in another system...roll extremely poorly, receive a significant consequence. So then why is rolling and getting a Despair OK as a player, but rolling a getting a Fumble not OK?

    Spell Casters do get an advantage is that respect, yes. Another reason why wizards are king in some editions of D&D, and I won't defend that. Although there are ray attacks and touch attacks that I would rule as subject to a Fumble.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    I already explained my opinion on this. There's 0 chance for a despair in Star Wars unless you're rolling an opposed roll against a particularly trained opponent's skill, you're against a particularly powerful enemy that has adversary talents, or the GM flips a dark side point to upgrade your check. So when I am shooting my blaster at a stormtrooper, there is 0 chance of me fumbling.

    The point I was trying to get across is that Star Wars and PbtA games are explicitly designed so that rolling despairs or 6- introduces bad narrative consequences to the game. D&D is designed so that rolling a 1 is an automatic miss.

    In Star Wars or PbtA, advancement never results in a higher chance of having that failure happen to you, whereas in f20 games it does. A level 5 Fighter in D&D who has the polearm master feat and is making 3 attacks per round has a drastically higher chance to "fumble" just by attacking normally than a child who picks up the fighter's glaive and swings it.

    It makes no sense. Using nat 1s = auto misses no matter the target is whatever, it reflects that it's possible to miss no matter what. But every table I've seen that uses crit fumbles uses tables that have everything from throwing your weapon across the room to killing yourself with your own attack. That stuff is just stupid as hell to me.

    For me it's the difference in an f20 combat game vs. narrative games. It's also key to remember that despairs and 6- in those other games are rarely going to be anything about how your attack was so shitty that you did a silly thing that no trained fighter would do. They're more often things like the alarm is sounding and you gotta get out of dodge, the vehicle you're driving just had a spontaneous malfunction or got nailed by a stray blaster from the people chasing you and is now damaged, etc.

    I've never seen anybody use fumbles on nat 1s that didn't keep the narrow scope of "your attack was super shitty lol" and have the consequences be limited to that.

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Swinging more frequently necessarily means more chances to fail.


    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    There's always a chance, even for an experienced swordsman, for him or her to lose their grip on their sword during a fight. Or get their blade stuck in a tree trunk. Or any number of mishaps that could occur in a fight.

    I'm OK with that being a % chance per roll of a D20. In 3.5e my group had to confirm a critical fumble the same way we confirmed a critical hit.

    But a level 20 fighter takes four of rose chances in any given round, while the farm boy only takes one. So the man literally defined by his expertise with weapons has for times the likelihood of poking his own eye out than does the guy who is holding a sword for the first time in his life.

    *shrug*

    If you accept 4 more chances to stab someone else in the eye, then you gotta accept 4 more chances to fuck it up too.

    No, you don't.

    That's like saying that if you play D&D you just gotta accept it comes with a pocket protector. It's stupid traditional thought that can't stand up to any actual examination.

    Swinging more frequently necessarily means more chances to fail.

    Not when you're swinging more frequently because that's the way the system expresses the fact that you are more skilled at using weapons than the guy who can only swing a regular number of times (and particularly not when an attack roll is intended to correspond to a series of slashes, stabs, feints, and parries over the course of several seconds, rather than a single discrete 'swing'.) More skill should not be yielding a higher fail rate.

    Consider that a combat round is roughly six seconds of combat, whether you make one attack roll or five, and that even someone who makes only one attack roll is clearly not spending that six seconds swinging their weapon one time and then standing still for the remaining five and a half seconds. A fighter should not be three times as likely as a rogue to drop his sword in a given six-second period of combat simply because he is also so skilled with his sword that he is more effective at finding openings to wound his opponent with it.


    I agree with both of these posts and I completely accept that there is no logic in that.

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    My group and I like that 20's always hit and 1's always miss. We (used to) play that we had to confirm both a critical hit and a critical failure alike. Does the math work out? Probably not, I haven't bothered to crunch the probabilities.

    Well, let's do it, then!

    The important text is, I think:
    5E SRD wrote:
    Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. The number of attacks increases to three when you reach 11th level in this class and to four when you reach 20th level in this class.

    So, we'll look at each of those break points, under two scenarios - you autofumble on a Nat1, and you need to "confirm" the fumble on a Nat1 by missing again. The proficiency bonuses to attack at each level are:
    • 1st: +2
    • 5th: +3
    • 11th: +4
    • 20th: +6

    ... and we'll assume 18 Strength (+4) at 1st level and 20 Strength (+5) otherwise for simplicity's sake. Everyone is just going to be wailing on an AC 10 practice dummy for a minute - 10 rounds of combat - with their practice sword.

    Each round, the 1st-level Rookie has the following chance to fumble:
    • Nat1: 1 / 20
    • Confirm the Fumble: 2 /20
    • Total: (1 / 20) * (2 / 20) = (2 / 400) = 0.5% of the time

    Obviously, without confirmation rolls, the chance per attack is (1 / 20), or 5%.

    Everyone else will only confirm their fumble on a second nat 1, so that's 0.25% chance to fumble per attack under the must-confirm regime.

    The Rookie is going to make 10 attacks in that period, so the chances he fumbles at least once are ...
    • 100% - Chance He Never Fumbles =
    • NoConfirm: 100% - (95%) ^ 10 = 1 - 59.9% = ~40.1%
    • Confirm: 100% - (99.5%) ^ 10 = 1 - 95.1% = ~4.9%

    We'll do the same analysis for the others:
    • 100% - Chance He Never Fumbles = Chance He Fumbles At Least Once
    • Level 5 (two attacks per round):
      • NoConfirm: 100% - (95%) ^ 20 = 1 - 35.8% = ~64.1%
      • Confirm: 100% - (99.75%) ^ 20 = 1 - 95.1% = ~4.9%
    • Level 10 (three attacks per round):
      • NoConfirm: 100% - (95%) ^ 30 = 1 - 21.5% = ~78.5%
      • Confirm: 100% - (99.75%) ^ 30 = 1 - 92.8% = ~7.2%
    • Level 20 (four attacks per round):
      • NoConfirm: 100% - (95%) ^ 40 = 1 - 12.9% = ~87.1%
      • Confirm: 100% - (99.75%) ^ 40 = 1 - 90.5% = ~9.5%

    Or, in other words, regardless of the method you pick to enforce your critical fumble rules, when standing there and whacking a trivial target for a minute, the guy who is the finest warrior on the prime material plane is twice as likely to catastrophically fuck up then the guy who just finished bootcamp.

    And that's ridiculous. And it doesn't even account for how many times, on average, each screws up - that's left as an exercise for the reader (or for me to have a moment to write up a quick simulation, because it's actually easier than calculating the math :D ).
    And the wizard just waved his hands and burned it down with a thought in the first six seconds, anyway.

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    ... and with that, Elvenshae killed the thread ...

  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Pfft. You and your math. Who needs the pocket protector now? :biggrin:

  • Vincent GraysonVincent Grayson Frederick, MDRegistered User regular
    And now for something completely different: http://planescape.com/

    I really wonder what this is. I'm hoping it's a campaign sourcebook or something robust and not just an adventure path (or worse, just an Enhanced Edition of the PC game).

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    Steelhawk wrote: »
    There's always a chance, even for an experienced swordsman, for him or her to lose their grip on their sword during a fight. Or get their blade stuck in a tree trunk. Or any number of mishaps that could occur in a fight.

    I'm OK with that being a % chance per roll of a D20. In 3.5e my group had to confirm a critical fumble the same way we confirmed a critical hit.

    But a level 20 fighter takes four of rose chances in any given round, while the farm boy only takes one. So the man literally defined by his expertise with weapons has for times the likelihood of poking his own eye out than does the guy who is holding a sword for the first time in his life.

    *shrug*

    If you accept 4 more chances to stab someone else in the eye, then you gotta accept 4 more chances to fuck it up too.

    No, you don't.

    That's like saying that if you play D&D you just gotta accept it comes with a pocket protector. It's stupid traditional thought that can't stand up to any actual examination.

    Swinging more frequently necessarily means more chances to fail.

    Not when you're swinging more frequently because that's the way the system expresses the fact that you are more skilled at using weapons than the guy who can only swing a regular number of times (and particularly not when an attack roll is intended to correspond to a series of slashes, stabs, feints, and parries over the course of several seconds, rather than a single discrete 'swing'.) More skill should not be yielding a higher fail rate.

    Consider that a combat round is roughly six seconds of combat, whether you make one attack roll or five, and that even someone who makes only one attack roll is clearly not spending that six seconds swinging their weapon one time and then standing still for the remaining five and a half seconds. A fighter should not be three times as likely as a rogue to drop his sword in a given six-second period of combat simply because he is also so skilled with his sword that he is more effective at finding openings to wound his opponent with it.

    He's literally swinging his sword more times.

    That is more opportunity for things to go wrong.

    Like the rogue swings once, super effectively, the fighter swings less effectively, but more frequently.

    The rogue is 1 shot 1 kill. The fighter is persistent fire. If the rogue misses, they are shit out of luck, all their damage is gone, if the fighter misses they get more chances to hit. They could still definitely miss all of their shots. While they necessarily have more chances at failure they also necessarily have greater chance for lesser success.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited March 2017
    It's not fighter vs. rogue. It's level 20 Fighter who is powerful enough to fight gods vs. level 1 peasant.

    If you think a level 20 Fighter should have twice as much chance to stab himself in the leg as a completely untrained peasant in any given 6 seconds of combat, then I don't know what to say to you.

    Even using your class vs. class comparison, what you're saying is that if you put a longsword in the hands of the party wizard who is level 20 then it makes sense that in a 6 second period he will throw his sword across the room half as frequently as the level 20 Fighter who would be like Jaime Lannister times 10 in terms of how godly of a swordsman he is.

    It's nonsense.

    Joshmvii on
  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Loved the Planescape setting. Never really played in it back in the 2e days but the sourcebooks were a wonderful read.

    The Great Wheel Cosmology. The Factions. Sigil.

    Planescape is awesome.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    It's not fighter vs. rogue. It's level 20 Fighter who is powerful enough to fight gods vs. level 1 peasant.

    If you think a level 20 Fighter should have twice as much chance to stab himself in the leg as a completely untrained peasant in any given 6 seconds of combat, then I don't know what to say to you.

    Ignoring total abstraction (where rolls don't discreetly map to swings)

    Literally swinging more frequently.

    Being good doesn't mean you aren't taking greater risks.

    The level 1 guy's taking way less risks in his fighting style than the level 20 guy is, and in return is far less likely to actually do damage on their turn, and yes far less likely to have something go catastrophically wrong.

    If I swing a bat at a guy once, they only get one chance to grab it, steal it, and swing it back at me.

    If I swing a bat at a guy 4 times they get 4 chances.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    It's not fighter vs. rogue. It's level 20 Fighter who is powerful enough to fight gods vs. level 1 peasant.

    If you think a level 20 Fighter should have twice as much chance to stab himself in the leg as a completely untrained peasant in any given 6 seconds of combat, then I don't know what to say to you.

    Even using your class vs. class comparison, what you're saying is that if you put a longsword in the hands of the party wizard who is level 20 then it makes sense that in a 6 second period he will throw his sword across the room half as frequently as the level 20 Fighter who would be like Jaime Lannister times 10 in terms of how godly of a swordsman he is.

    It's nonsense.

    That wizard would have disadvantage on his attacks which messes with your math there.

  • iguanacusiguanacus Desert PlanetRegistered User regular
    edited March 2017
    Sleep wrote: »
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    It's not fighter vs. rogue. It's level 20 Fighter who is powerful enough to fight gods vs. level 1 peasant.

    If you think a level 20 Fighter should have twice as much chance to stab himself in the leg as a completely untrained peasant in any given 6 seconds of combat, then I don't know what to say to you.

    Even using your class vs. class comparison, what you're saying is that if you put a longsword in the hands of the party wizard who is level 20 then it makes sense that in a 6 second period he will throw his sword across the room half as frequently as the level 20 Fighter who would be like Jaime Lannister times 10 in terms of how godly of a swordsman he is.

    It's nonsense.

    That wizard would have disadvantage on his attacks which messes with your math there.

    Not if they're an elf.

    But more importantly, the wizard doesn't need to worry about this at all because he just cast a fireball from 100ft away and since he only rolls damage guess what, no critical fumble for the elf in the robe.

    iguanacus on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    iguanacus wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    It's not fighter vs. rogue. It's level 20 Fighter who is powerful enough to fight gods vs. level 1 peasant.

    If you think a level 20 Fighter should have twice as much chance to stab himself in the leg as a completely untrained peasant in any given 6 seconds of combat, then I don't know what to say to you.

    Even using your class vs. class comparison, what you're saying is that if you put a longsword in the hands of the party wizard who is level 20 then it makes sense that in a 6 second period he will throw his sword across the room half as frequently as the level 20 Fighter who would be like Jaime Lannister times 10 in terms of how godly of a swordsman he is.

    It's nonsense.

    That wizard would have disadvantage on his attacks which messes with your math there.

    Not if they're an elf.

    Which makes sense given they ostensibly trained with the weapon for like 30 to 50
    years when they were a kid, hence the racial proficiency.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    It's not fighter vs. rogue. It's level 20 Fighter who is powerful enough to fight gods vs. level 1 peasant.

    If you think a level 20 Fighter should have twice as much chance to stab himself in the leg as a completely untrained peasant in any given 6 seconds of combat, then I don't know what to say to you.

    Ignoring total abstraction (where rolls don't discreetly map to swings)

    Literally swinging more frequently.

    Being good doesn't mean you aren't taking greater risks.

    The level 1 guy's taking way less risks in his fighting style than the level 20 guy is, and in return is far less likely to actually do damage on their turn, and yes far less likely to have something go catastrophically wrong.

    If I swing a bat at a guy once, they only get one chance to grab it, steal it, and swing it back at me.

    If I swing a bat at a guy 4 times they get 4 chances.

    This doesn't make any sense at all. Not in the rules or the fiction they represent. Not even in actual reality.

    Also you ignored abstraction and then abstracted.

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    It's not fighter vs. rogue. It's level 20 Fighter who is powerful enough to fight gods vs. level 1 peasant.

    If you think a level 20 Fighter should have twice as much chance to stab himself in the leg as a completely untrained peasant in any given 6 seconds of combat, then I don't know what to say to you.

    Even using your class vs. class comparison, what you're saying is that if you put a longsword in the hands of the party wizard who is level 20 then it makes sense that in a 6 second period he will throw his sword across the room half as frequently as the level 20 Fighter who would be like Jaime Lannister times 10 in terms of how godly of a swordsman he is.

    It's nonsense.

    That wizard would have disadvantage on his attacks which messes with your math there.

    No. He would not.

    1) Being non-proficient does not produce disadvantage. It simply removes the proficiency bonus
    2) The wizard could be an elf and be proficient in longsword usage.
    3) If the wizard is level 20 he could have foresight, giving him advantage on errything.

    Also worth noting that level 20 fighters do not swing their sword more often. The number of attacks is an abstraction based on the ability of the character to generate openings not their ability to rotate an object faster.

    wbBv3fj.png
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    It's not fighter vs. rogue. It's level 20 Fighter who is powerful enough to fight gods vs. level 1 peasant.

    If you think a level 20 Fighter should have twice as much chance to stab himself in the leg as a completely untrained peasant in any given 6 seconds of combat, then I don't know what to say to you.

    Even using your class vs. class comparison, what you're saying is that if you put a longsword in the hands of the party wizard who is level 20 then it makes sense that in a 6 second period he will throw his sword across the room half as frequently as the level 20 Fighter who would be like Jaime Lannister times 10 in terms of how godly of a swordsman he is.

    It's nonsense.

    That wizard would have disadvantage on his attacks which messes with your math there.

    No. He would not.

    1) Being non-proficient does not produce disadvantage. It simply removes the proficiency bonus
    2) The wizard could be an elf and be proficient in longsword usage.
    3) If the wizard is level 20 he could have foresight, giving him advantage on errything.

    Also worth noting that level 20 fighters do not swing their sword more often. The number of attacks is an abstraction based on the ability of the character to generate openings not their ability to rotate an object faster.

    Correct I always slide back to older rules for non proficiency, my bad.

    Abstraction, meaning all 4 rolls ostensibly stands for any number of swings (even if all 4 attacks are against seperate targets) makes it a completely useless discussion though as it could just be labeled a quirk of taking openings in combat others wouldn't.

    Yes the higher level fighter finds openings in combat others either wouldn't see, or couldn't capitalize on, but by attempting to capitalize on these openings they take greater risks.

    "You see that moment they dropped their sword from their main defense line that any other would miss, but the opening was momentary and attempting to capitalize on it proved a tragic mistake. you hit with 2 attack rolls and you're attack has taxed them but your third was a critical failure, they close the opening sweeping your sword from your hands."

    You cant say it makes no sense, while insisting upon an interpretation that relies on not totally making sense and requiring some loose WTFage to explain what's going on. Because I can always come up with some more WTFage to layer on top to have it remain consistent. I'm the DM, coming up with bullshit is literally my job.

    Also let's talk about crossbows with the loading feature and how they totally cornhole abstraction. On a crossbow your multiple
    attacks necessarily correspond to multiple shots taken and multiple bolts expended.

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited March 2017
    Okay, so, the math on the multiple attacks thing isn't actually as bad as I thought it was, because D&D 5E helpfully made it so that all of your attacks are at the same bonus (unlike, say, PF or 3.5E, where iterative attacks had a decreasing bonus). That means you can actually model each case as just a gigantic block of the same attack, like I did above.

    I'll work out the math for the Rookie, and then you'll just have to trust that I did everything right for the other attackers.

    First off, how many possible results are there in the entire universe of attacks? Well, each attack has a binary outcome (it either was a critical failure or it wasn't) and there are X attacks - 10 for the Rookie - so at the end of the day there are 2 ^ X = 2 ^ 10 ways to traverse the tree. There is exactly 1 path in which there are no fumbles, and exactly 1 path in which every attack is a fumble. All the ones between them are where the magic happens. So, how many ways are there to have exactly 1 fumble? Well, 10 - you could fumble the first, or the second, or the third, etc. Similarly, there are 10 ways to fumble 9 times - you could fail to fumble the first, or the second, or the third, etc. And the thing is, we don't care which attack it is; we just care if 1 or 2 or 3 total attacks were fumbles. There's an (easy) mathematical function for that, called "Choose" - e.g., "3 choose 2" is "How many ways, regardless of order, can I pick 2 items out of 3?" With a set of apple, orange, and pear, you could pick ...
    • [Apple, orange]
    • [Apple, pear]
    • [Orange, pear]

    ... and that's it. [Pear, apple] ends up in the same place as [apple, pear], so it doesn't matter which one we picked first. Similarly, our random fumble generator doesn't change if we pick attacks 9 and 2 to fumble vs. attacks 2 and 9 - they end up at the same place at the end of the day. So that tells us that ways in which we can fumble are:
    • 0 Fumbles = 10 choose 0 = 1
    • 1 Fumble = 10 choose 1 = 10
    • 2 Fumbles = 10 choose 2 = 45
    • 3 Fumbles = 10 choose 3 = 120
    • 4 Fumbles = 10 choose 4 = 210
    • 5 Fumbles = 10 choose 5 = 252
    • 6 Fumbles = 10 choose 6 = 210
    • 7 Fumbles = 10 choose 7 = 120
    • 8 Fumbles = 10 choose 8 = 45
    • 9 Fumbles = 10 choose 9 = 10
    • 10 Fumbles = 10 choose 10 = 1

    Notice that the results are symmetrical across 5. This makes sense, because picking 7 Fumbles (10 Choose 7) is the exact same thing as picking 3 Nonfumbles (10 Choose 3), just coming from the other direction. And, of course, the sum of those combinations - 1 + 10 + 45 + ... + 10 + 1 = 1024 = 2 ^ 10, so we've exhausted all the possibilities and haven't fucked up the math somewhere.

    Now, we just need to figure out how likely each of those cases are to happen. Luckily, we know that from earlier. The chances of the only first roll fumbling and then every other roll succeeding is:
    • (Chance of Fumble) * (Chance of Nonfumble) * (Chance of Nonfumble) * ... * (Chance of Nonfumble)

    And the chances of only the second roll fumbling and then every other roll succeeding is:
    • (Chance of Nonfumble) * (Chance of Fumble) * (Chance of Nonfumble) * ... * (Chance of Nonfumble)

    Anyone who remembers algebra can see where this is going - since it's all multiplication, we can do it in any order we want, so, more generally, the chance of X rolls not fumbling and Y rolls fumbling is:
    • (Chance of Nonfumble) ^ (X) * (Chance of Fumble) ^ (Y)

    Or, in other words, each and every 1-fumble path through the tree is equally as likely to happen as any other 1-fumble path through the tree, and that probability is ...
    • NoConfirm: (95%) ^ (9) * (5%) ^ (1) = 3.2%
    • Confirm: (99.5%) ^ (9) * (0.5%) ^ (1) = 0.5%

    Then we just multiple by the number of paths to give us the total percentage, so the chance of fumbling exactly once in 10 rolls is:
    • NoConfirm: 3.2% * 10 = 31.5%
    • Confirm: 0.5% * 10 = 4.8%

    We do that across every possible combination, and that tells us that the chances of the level 1 fighter fumbling is:
    • NoConfirm:
      • 0 Fumbles = 59.9%
      • 1 Fumble = 31.5%
      • 2 Fumbles = 7.5%
      • 3 Fumbles = 1.0%
      • 4 Fumbles = 0.1%
      • 5 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 6 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 7 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 8 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 9 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 10 Fumbles = ~0.0%
    • Confirm:
      • 0 Fumbles = 95.1%
      • 1 Fumble = 4.8%
      • 2 Fumbles = 0.1%
      • 3 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 4 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 5 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 6 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 7 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 8 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 9 Fumbles = ~0.0%
      • 10 Fumbles = ~0.0%

    With those figures, you can properly weight the number of fumbles (Number of Fumbles * Chance of Exactly That Many Happening), and you end up with the average number of fumbles that'll happen in 10 rounds of attacking:
    • NoConfirm: 0 * 59.9% + 1 * 31.5% + ... + ~0.0% * 10 = 0.5
    • Confirm: 0 * 95.1% + 1 * 4.8% + ... + ~0.0% * 10 = 0.05

    We can do the same math, but with more attacks, for the higher-level fighters.
    • Level 1 (one attack per round):
      • NoConfirm: 0.5
      • Confirm: 0.05
    • Level 5 (two attacks per round):
      • NoConfirm: 1.0
      • Confirm: 0.05
    • Level 10 (three attacks per round):
      • NoConfirm: 1.5
      • Confirm: 0.08
    • Level 20 (four attacks per round):
      • NoConfirm: 2
      • Confirm: 0.1

    So, there you go.

    Fumble rules mathematically suck.

    Elvenshae on
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Correct I always slide back to older rules for non proficiency, my bad.

    Older rules for nonproficiency didn't have disadvantage, either. ;)

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    I totally get people who want to ignore the lack of logic and the mathematical issues with stuff like crit fumbles.

    What I don't understand is trying to argue how it actually makes sense "My table just likes hijinks where people throw their swords once in a while and we don't care that it doesn't make sense" is an okay thing to say. I don't get the need to try to defend it in terms of fiction/versimilitude/math, because you just can't. All you can do is like it and move on.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited March 2017
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Correct I always slide back to older rules for non proficiency, my bad.

    Older rules for nonproficiency didn't have disadvantage, either. ;)

    I'll have to look back at the pdfs but I think they tried it in one of the play test iterations.

    But I'll fully accept that was never a thing

    Sleep on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    edited March 2017
    Sleep wrote: »

    You cant say it makes no sense, while insisting upon an interpretation that relies on not totally making sense and requiring some loose WTFage to explain what's going on. Because I can always come up with some more WTFage to layer on top to have it remain consistent. I'm the DM, coming up with bullshit is literally my job.

    Yea sure. You can add bad houserules all you want. No one can stop you. You can make rolling a 20 a critical miss. You can make rolling a 15 and only a 15 a critical hit, while rolling anything else is a critical miss regardless of AC or attack bonus. You can add confirmation for critical hits.

    But all those rules are dumb. And we are telling you why your fumble rule is dumb from a mechanical, thematic, and enjoyment perspective.

    And no. "A high level fighter should not critically fail more often than a high level wizard or rogue" is not something that makes no sense. Its actually something that makes the most sense. "The guy who has trained with weapons his entire life is less likely to fuck up than the guy who hasn't". Its near axiomatic in its sense making. We have merely rewritten "the person who is better with weapons is better with weapons" by taking the definition of "better with weapons" and replacing "better with weapons" with it.

    Goumindong on
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  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »

    You cant say it makes no sense, while insisting upon an interpretation that relies on not totally making sense and requiring some loose WTFage to explain what's going on. Because I can always come up with some more WTFage to layer on top to have it remain consistent. I'm the DM, coming up with bullshit is literally my job.

    Yea sure. You can add bad houserules all you want. No one can stop you. You can make rolling a 20 a critical miss. You can make rolling a 15 and only a 15 a critical hit, while rolling anything else is a critical miss regardless of AC or attack bonus. You can add confirmation for critical hits.

    But all those rules are dumb. And we are telling you why your fumble rule is dumb from a mechanical, thematic, and enjoyment perspective.

    And no. "A high level fighter should not critically fail more often than a high level wizard or rogue" is not something that makes no sense. Its actually something that makes the most sense. "The guy who has trained with weapons his entire life is less likely to fuck up than the guy who hasn't". Its near axiomatic in its sense making. We have merely rewritten "the person who is better with weapons is better with weapons" by taking the definition of "better with weapons" and replacing "better with weapons" with it.

    There's that badwrongfun I'm looking for.

    For real though.

    Is it shakey mathematically, yeah. Straight up undeniable you have a greater chance of whatever the fumble may result in (in my case you just miss regardless of bonuses so like maybe chill). Arguably you also have a greater chance of a critical hit than literally everyone else in the game (especially if you are the champion fighter).

    Thematic? I can make it fit no problem. Even if you are Lan Mandragoran sometimes you miss or get blocked. No one's perfect, and statistical math doesn't 100% accurately model in play rolling.

    Sure a wizard could pick up a sword and hit a nat 1 less times, but they also swing less, and can't ever hit the damage height a fighter can. By every measurement the fighter is still going to look better in melee combat than the wizard.

    Enjoyment? My players are fine with it and enforce this rule more than I do. They announce their 1 roll and/or their miss, oh well, next in line, I'll get em next round!

    It's an imagination game we use as an excuse for a weekly meeting of friends. 2 outright failures in 40 attacks that mostly hit isn't life ruining.

  • FryFry Registered User regular
    edited March 2017
    Sleep wrote: »
    Straight up undeniable you have a greater chance of whatever the fumble may result in (in my case you just miss regardless of bonuses so like maybe chill).

    You just moved the goalposts. The thing under discussion was "it doesn't make sense that superior swordmasters are more likely to throw away their swords/hurt themselves in a given interval of time than beginners" and you just changed to "yes you are going to miss more frequently if you take more attacks" which is a different topic.

    Also, you brought in "the superior swordmaster is taking more risks," which isn't really the default assumption. There are a variety of mechanics for "taking more risks," but the ability of a higher-level fighter to take more attacks isn't (supposed to be) one of them.

    Fry on
  • Dronus86Dronus86 Now with cheese!Registered User regular
    Speaking of crit houserules, our group houserules a crit to be max damage instead of 2[w]+mod. We know that, mathematically, it's different. But both sides have been FRUSTRATED by "yay! crit! aw shit I rolled a 1 and a 2."

    Anyone else feel similar?

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  • tinwhiskerstinwhiskers Registered User regular
    A barbarian using Reckless Attack is less likely to fumble(0.25% no confirm 0.025% with confirm) than a barbarian who isn't(5%, .25%).

    6ylyzxlir2dz.png
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Fry wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Straight up undeniable you have a greater chance of whatever the fumble may result in (in my case you just miss regardless of bonuses so like maybe chill).

    You just moved the goalposts. The thing under discussion was "it's dumb that superior swordmasters are more likely to throw away their swords/hurt themselves in a given interval of time than beginners" and you just changed to "yes you are going to miss more frequently if you take more attacks" which is a different topic.

    Also, you brought in "the superior swordmaster is taking more risks," which isn't really the default assumption. There are a variety of mechanics for "taking more risks," but the ability of a higher-level fighter to take more attacks isn't (supposed to be)

    Not really

    I said this at first
    Sleep wrote: »
    Denada wrote: »
    Personally I don't even make 1s automatically miss. Missing sucks enough as it is.

    I still rock the 1's always fail rule.

    I'm also using the alternative proficiency rules from the DMG which have you rolling dice rather than getting a flat bonus so at our current level players rolling a 2 on the d20 often still succeed because they are also rolling a d8 next to that d20 (the rogue is a halfling so basically can't fail rolls that he has expertise on).

    1's always failing is in some cases the only way a player can fail a roll.

    Also my players are very good about setting themselves up for advantage in a lot of instances so they rarely hit 1s.

    I don't do critical fumbles, except in rare cases.

    Every so often I'll have a 1 result in some bad stuff, but only if it fits the situation.

  • Dronus86Dronus86 Now with cheese!Registered User regular
    The 5e crit rules are odd to me in general. It almost seems like they were trying to solve a weird problem, because RAW and probably RAI, you don't actually double the modifier. But you do double extra dice (such as sneak attack). Iirc, back in 3.5 you never doubled extra dice. It just seems like a bizarre change to double dice but not modifiers, since +damage modifiers seem CONSIDERABLY more rare in 5e than other additions.

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  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Dronus86 wrote: »
    The 5e crit rules are odd to me in general. It almost seems like they were trying to solve a weird problem, because RAW and probably RAI, you don't actually double the modifier. But you do double extra dice (such as sneak attack). Iirc, back in 3.5 you never doubled extra dice. It just seems like a bizarre change to double dice but not modifiers, since +damage modifiers seem CONSIDERABLY more rare in 5e than other additions.

    It's there to make rogues not suck. Also to make crit fishing fun and valuable.

    wbBv3fj.png
  • Dronus86Dronus86 Now with cheese!Registered User regular
    Right, I mean, I get that doubling dice is good for rogues and other multidice hitters (like rangers I think can get extra dice for some attacks?). But if you're already doubling dice, why not include damage modifiers? It's not going to make nearly as big a difference as dice do in 5e, and it simplifies the crit significantly.

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  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Dronus86 wrote: »
    Speaking of crit houserules, our group houserules a crit to be max damage instead of 2[w]+mod. We know that, mathematically, it's different. But both sides have been FRUSTRATED by "yay! crit! aw shit I rolled a 1 and a 2."

    Anyone else feel similar?

    Yea I'm way down for this too. I also dislike rolling for healing. 5th does give the option I believe of using the average of the dice instead of rolling, the same way when you go up a level and gain HP and I much prefer that. Healing in combat is already non-optimal as far as action economy, then rolling like shit for the heal itself is just a punch to the nuts.

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  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Dronus86 wrote: »
    Right, I mean, I get that doubling dice is good for rogues and other multidice hitters (like rangers I think can get extra dice for some attacks?). But if you're already doubling dice, why not include damage modifiers? It's not going to make nearly as big a difference as dice do in 5e, and it simplifies the crit significantly.

    While +damage modifiers are rare the most common one is from 1 of 2 feats which adds 10 damage. So a level 11 rogue with a 20 dex would be swinging something like 14d6+30 if not more from a magic weapon. So that's like 79 damage on average for a crit...or like half a lich's hp

  • Vincent GraysonVincent Grayson Frederick, MDRegistered User regular
    Dronus86 wrote: »
    Speaking of crit houserules, our group houserules a crit to be max damage instead of 2[w]+mod. We know that, mathematically, it's different. But both sides have been FRUSTRATED by "yay! crit! aw shit I rolled a 1 and a 2."

    Anyone else feel similar?

    Yeah, we run crits as max damage in my game and everyone seems to like it that way.

  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    edited March 2017
    Dronus86 wrote: »
    Speaking of crit houserules, our group houserules a crit to be max damage instead of 2[w]+mod. We know that, mathematically, it's different. But both sides have been FRUSTRATED by "yay! crit! aw shit I rolled a 1 and a 2."

    Anyone else feel similar?

    5E crits are a very commonly houseruled thing for this very reason. It always feels lame to roll a crit that does less damage than an above average normal damage roll.

    I'm a big fan of 13th Age's crit rules, which are:

    On a critical, roll up your damage exactly as you would for a normal attack, then double it.

    It means your +4 STR mod and the +1 from your magic sword are doubled on top of all the regular damage dice, and because of that on average leads to a pretty low chance that your crit will end up really low.

    It's also supremely simple, because you don't have to roll extra dice or anything, just do your attack as normal and then double it.

    Joshmvii on
  • Destrokk9Destrokk9 Registered User regular
    So I know I haven't been active lately, but BOY DO I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU!

    So last Sunday session, our party was heading up to fight in orc country to get a banner that meant tons of stuff to a GM PC (Half-orc Fighter) that everyone really likes. We snuck into this colosseum-like arena and then fight a mouth of Grolantor. We then make quick work out of that despite it eating our druids brown bears that he summoned. We then fight 2 Tanarukks and an orc blade of Ilneval. After THAT, we then fight a champion of their choice in a duel to the death (Our bard help set that up). We chose our Warlock who had equipped a belt of fire giants strength (his strength has a +7 mod now) and the orcs then fight....the GM PC...to the death.

    After a huge moment of hesitation, our Warlock kills the GM PC and we are just sad as hell about it...BUT NOT BEFORE WE GO BACK TO A TOWN AND RAISE DEAD HIS BUTT! Yeah! We then took 3 days to rush to the nearby town to bring him back to life. We are all happy due to not losing a great friend and close ally.

    We decide to inform some higher ups that we are assisting on where we are on our progress and the decided to go back to Caer Westphal. We head into town and decide to tackle 2 objectives at once (because splitting the party is always the best of options!). Our Bard and Paladin decide to go see about this giant metal boat that is terrorizing the seas and some people while me(Monk), the Warlock, Druid, and 2 GM PC's join us in sneaking into the castle. This is where things GOT SCARY!

    The Warlock then decides to go invisible and climb up this tower that we are supposed to use keys that are supposed to help us out somehow. Little did we know that inside this tower would be 2 people: a man and a woman, both looking like humans. We then plan to go back at night to try and free them from this tower. Our Warlock casts Invisible, I cast Pass Without a Trace, and our Druid turns into a tiny spider that is barely noticeable. The Druid then casts Spider Climb on me and I drop him into the room, now with an additional person inside, staring at the wall.

    The Druid then decides to cast Silence on the inside of the room, to which he forgot that Spider Climb REQUIRES CONCENTRATION! I then fail to hold onto the barred windows of this tower and then silently fall back to the ground taking no damage (Thank god for Feather Falling as a Monk skill!). Our Druid then fights the 3rd person (A flesh golem, always fun) and beats it by the power of wolves. He then frees both the man and woman. The woman is freaking the hell out and just cries in a corner, while the man shouts in Draconic (Druid and I are the only 2 who can speak it) and then the man proceeds to rip the metal bars off. the. window... with his bare hands. He then jumps out of the window and slams into the ground with tons of guards surrounding him, only to TURN INTO A FREAKING BRONZE DRAGON!!! He then flies off into the distance.

    While all this is going on, our table is freaking out, we are loud, shouting and almost on the verge of tears thinking that this might not work...but it did and we had ALL of it work in our favor!

    As for the woman, the Druid tries to get her out of the room and down the window (he failed to grab her twice before succeeding with his -1 modded strength). He then casts Spider Climb and runs down to the bottom of the tower only to turn into a brown bear and book it, with the woman in her arms. I decide to cast Darkness using my ki (to which our GM got confused about what spells were going on for a bit). Our Druid then makes it out carrying this screaming woman out of the castle and the Warlock and I make our way out as well. The worst part was that when I was making my stealth check, I rolled a 2 (8 total with a mod of 6) and so one of the guards then decided to look for me to which he did not catch me (he needed a 16...he got 15)! So we are all out safe and sound. The Druid then tries to help get this woman to the nearest edge of the city to try and calm her down, to which our other GM PC (Tiefling Sorcerer) helps to calm her down. The woman stops screaming and simply says, "Sister?"

    End Session


    To give a bit of clarification on this last bit, our Tiefling Sorcerer has a second soul inside her. When this soul is active, she has human eyes that are blue. When she is normal, she has normal Tiefling eyes (black). We know that this second soul is needed, because in a previous session, that soul said, "Hope needs me (Hope is the name of the Tiefling), I need Hope, and you all need both of us." From what this can tell us, we are in for some serious stuff next session.


    TL;DR: We killed a GM PC that we liked, but brought him back. We freed a bronze dragon and we found this woman who has only said one word.

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Some addendums:
    The duel that was fought was a huge dick move (I spent a whole week work shopping it in my head :hydra: ), since the party had gone their to recover a banner for the NPC fighter and The warlock would win it if he could beat the champion that the Formorian twins chose... which turned out to be the same fighter. Also, if he won then the matter of the belt that the warlock had on (which had been looted from a shrine dedicated to yutrus) would be finally decided; effectively no matter who won that fight the winner would be giving up the thing they wanted.

    Second, while the party was scouting the tower, they were ostensibly working as stable hands and the warlock (with his noble background) kept pissing off the stable master because it looked like he was shirking work; this led to him being forced to clean out one of the horse stalls without a shovel :snap:

    Third: the party is effectively split at this point, with one group likely having to flee a rather irate red wizard and the garrison Amn has set up in the city while the other group (ignorant of all this) is going to be going off on a boat adventure.

    Man I love it when things go wildly off the rails :)

  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    Joshmvii wrote: »
    I already explained my opinion on this. There's 0 chance for a despair in Star Wars unless you're rolling an opposed roll against a particularly trained opponent's skill, you're against a particularly powerful enemy that has adversary talents, or the GM flips a dark side point to upgrade your check. So when I am shooting my blaster at a stormtrooper, there is 0 chance of me fumbling.

    The point I was trying to get across is that Star Wars and PbtA games are explicitly designed so that rolling despairs or 6- introduces bad narrative consequences to the game. D&D is designed so that rolling a 1 is an automatic miss.

    In Star Wars or PbtA, advancement never results in a higher chance of having that failure happen to you, whereas in f20 games it does. A level 5 Fighter in D&D who has the polearm master feat and is making 3 attacks per round has a drastically higher chance to "fumble" just by attacking normally than a child who picks up the fighter's glaive and swings it.

    It makes no sense. Using nat 1s = auto misses no matter the target is whatever, it reflects that it's possible to miss no matter what. But every table I've seen that uses crit fumbles uses tables that have everything from throwing your weapon across the room to killing yourself with your own attack. That stuff is just stupid as hell to me.

    For me it's the difference in an f20 combat game vs. narrative games. It's also key to remember that despairs and 6- in those other games are rarely going to be anything about how your attack was so shitty that you did a silly thing that no trained fighter would do. They're more often things like the alarm is sounding and you gotta get out of dodge, the vehicle you're driving just had a spontaneous malfunction or got nailed by a stray blaster from the people chasing you and is now damaged, etc.

    I've never seen anybody use fumbles on nat 1s that didn't keep the narrow scope of "your attack was super shitty lol" and have the consequences be limited to that.

    Hmm, that's how I usually do it, i think...? Tonight the mage 1'd a firebolt spell and set a pile of books on fire that they had to deal with.

    Sometimes I will take an unmodified attack roll for ranged 1's and then randomly pick a person in range to see if it hits.

    Melee 1s are often "you overextended and your opponents have advantage next round.

  • tinwhiskerstinwhiskers Registered User regular
    edited March 2017
    Okay so here's something that's been annoying me for a bit. A Few months back I got a wipeable hex-grid for running combat on, which generally made combat positioning and stuff much easier and clearer for everyone.

    Except then after a couple of sessions I printed out spell-hex grid templates for the various AOE effects. Which now has the wizard using fireball and such to deal damage to baddies who are in melee with his party members, since it's pretty easy to move the printout around and use the 'corners' of the template to maximal advantage.

    It's not really game breaking or anything, but I just don't like the feel of it. Big AOE effect spells should be dangerous if you're near them, not just cleverly positioned to burn the bad-guys on their backsides and leave the person an arms-length away untouched. I feel like that is part of the trade-off between loading up on AOE spells vs single target.

    Has anyone used any house rules to deal with this before?

    tinwhiskers on
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  • SteelhawkSteelhawk Registered User regular
    Fireball placement is an art and a feature of the system...not a bug.

    As a DM it grates at me too when the party wizard blows up the empty half of the room to only to catch 2 bad guys from behind.

    But it's also fair play, and the next time you have a opposing wizard with henchmen, do the exact same thing to them.

This discussion has been closed.