So for arguments sake let's pretend yakman had str of 20. I have Athletics proficiency, putting me at +6 Athletics. I would add the 6, and the yakman a 5?
So for arguments sake let's pretend yakman had str of 20. I have Athletics proficiency, putting me at +6 Athletics. I would add the 6, and the yakman a 5?
Yes. If you were level 5 you would add +7 as your proficiency bonus would go to +3.
Edit: if you rolled a 1 and it rolled a 2 it would win... I think that tie goes to the defender for skill contests. But not sure. Edit2: if you both roll 1 then you would win.
Edit3: from the 5e srd
Using the Attack action, you can make a Special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Instead of making an attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you
I was using Shield Mastery feat, so it was a bonus action.
I had picked up the feat first time we could get ability improvement, and then next session got a 2h they does bonus to giants, and it's been nothing but Giants since. The yakman village was the first time in months i had my shield equipped, and Gorm dammit, i was going to use my feat!
Plan was to prone him, then use both my attacks with advantage. I was last on initiative so he would just get up anyway after i went.
We fought 2 yakmen and a Chimera in combat, this guy was one of the 2, the other ate a hypnotic pattern and was coup de graced by the rogue. 2 more yakmen went down with me getting a turn once, and getting outrolled on that shove. Another 10 or so yakmen died in their sleep to the rogue. The chieftain and one of his priest wives ate another hypnotic pattern, while we alpha striked the other priestess wife with silence on the room. Coup de grace on the hypnotized wife. Tie up chieftain in chains, interrogate him about the Giants while he is on zone of Truth, and let the slaves decide his fate (next session).
Barely a scratch on us, i think I'm the only one that took real (non temp hp) damage whole night to a yakman swing.
Coup-de-grace is no longer a 5e mechanic. Though it's reasonable to allow it for creature when you're not in combat. (As a stealth roll to not wake more).
But in combat you can auto crit a helpless opponent and nothing else.
Personally I don't even make 1s automatically miss. Missing sucks enough as it is.
Last night my paladin tried to shove prone a yakman and we had a contest of my atletics skill vs his str. Both dm and i rolled a 1, so even though my + was more, i failed to shove.
1 -> miss only applies to attack rolls and (iirc) saving throws.
It does not apply to skill checks, skill contests, or ability checks. A shove is a skill contest and not an attack roll (even though it takes the place of an attack)
That is, you should have shoved him even if he had rolled a 2 due to your higher athletics check.
It's only for attack rolls in 5E. There's a pretty low chance you're going to succeed on any saving throw even if you're proficient when you roll a 1, but on the off chance that your proficiency+ability score mod is high enough to meet a save DC on a 1 you still pass the save.
We choose to play with 20s as automatic successes and 1s as automatic fails. It basically means a 20 always means something cool happens, while a 1 can suddenly and drastically warp what's going on and throw everything in a new directions. That being said, our DM is very good about what the fail does and how spectacular it is based on circumstances. It also means that a singular 1 mixed in with a bunch of good roles will mean a hilarious pratfall, while the third 1 mixed in with generally shitty rolls will have no consequences whatsoever beyond the failure at whatever you're doing.
The occasional spectacular failure is generally funny and can create some great, unexpected moments around the table and having a set-up for such things can be good, depending on the group around the table. Repeated failures is rarely, if ever, fun and so the seriousness of them should gradually be toned down to avoid too much player frustration.
I don't have players roll skill checks unless success and failure will be interesting and consequential, so I've never seen a reason to use critical success/failure on them. A nat 20 on an attack roll is exciting because you do double damage. A nat 1 sucks because it's an automatic miss(and in the game I play you don't deal miss damage, which is sometimes a decent chunk of damage you miss out on)
If the stakes of a skill check are succeeding means you convince the NPC to aid you in the way you're asking for, a nat 20 doesn't mean double convince. You got what you wanted. Conversely, a nat 1 or a nat 5 are no different because you already aren't getting what you want.
If the stakes of a skill check are finding your way in a bad environment, passing means getting where you want to go. Failing means exhaustion, lost recoveries, etc. I'm not going to double down and make a nat 1 make you more exhausted, etc., and I'm not going to make a nat 20 make you navigate properly and find a pot of gold waiting for you.
Critical fumbles and crit successes on stuff like skill checks is one of the most popular house rules people use, so much so that there's always confusion by people who think it's actually part of the game as written, so I get it. Some people like that stuff in their game.
It makes sense too, because what it really is is people wanting failures to be more narratively interesting than just not getting what you want. The way most tables use crit failures on skill checks is them basically emulating what PbtA games do on 6-.
I don't really GM any more, but back when I did it was on the back of a lot of horror influences. As such, I'd semi-frequently make players roll dice for little things or nothings. Sometimes they'd have their face bitten off, other times it was just to keep them on their toes.
From a simulation point of view, auto-failure for skills makes zero sense. Do you fail one in 20 attempts to tie your shoes?
Although I agree with not making a 1 an auto-fail, this is an example of a situation where you absolutely would not call for a skill check. Skill checks are only supposed to be called for when there is an actual chance of failure.
From a simulation point of view, auto-failure for skills makes zero sense. Do you fail one in 20 attempts to tie your shoes?
Although I agree with not making a 1 an auto-fail, this is an example of a situation where you absolutely would not call for a skill check. Skill checks are only supposed to be called for when there is an actual chance of failure.
Which is another reason "1s auto-fail" is unnecessary - if you ever need a rule to make a roll of 1 fail because players would succeed on a 1 without that rule, it almost certainly means you shouldn't have called for the check in the first place because the task was trivial.
Similarly, a combat mishap on a 1 makes even less sense. The renowned swordsman, veteran of the Goblin Wars and slayer of a thousand orcs, has a better chance to stab himself in the foot than a green recruit fresh off the hay wagon? How's that work?
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.
Similarly, a combat mishap on a 1 makes even less sense. The renowned swordsman, veteran of the Goblin Wars and slayer of a thousand orcs, has a better chance to stab himself in the foot than a green recruit fresh off the hay wagon? How's that work?
How does our Veteran stand an better chance of self stabbery than the green recruit? Both have a 1 in 20 chance of rolling a 1.
Sure, that they both have the same chance of stumbling and winding up with their own sword in their chest is odd, but they should both have the chance.
Yeah, if you're talking D&D, it means the fighter at level 20 is 4 times more likely to throw his sword across the room in any given 6 seconds of attacking than a peasant.
Critical fumbles are silly.
I'm not even averse to the idea of bad stuff happening, quite the opposite. I love rolling despairs in Star Wars, or 6- in PbtA games and seeing what crazy outcomes happen. I just don't like doing it on nat 1s in f20 games like D&D.
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.)
That's a complicated answer but a big one is that you will never ever roll a despair tying your shoelaces. It is literally impossible to get one unless you are facing an opponent or circumstances of heightened danger where it should be narratively appropriate for some horrible thing to happen.
A second is that a despair doesn't wipe out the rest of a roll. It is entirely possible to be completely successful, generate a really positive situation with unintended secondary bonuses, and in the process trigger a despair. I'm not a 100% but I'm pretty sure it's actually possible to get both a triumph and a despair on the same roll.
Wait, no I am 100% because that literally happened to one of my characters and directly lead to a fun little side thing that really showed off some of what was unique about that character.
Personally I don't even make 1s automatically miss. Missing sucks enough as it is.
I have players roll again - roll another 1 and bad things.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Yea I mean, at least for D&D, this really comes down to what you and your table find fun. If you all dig fumbles? Fucking go for it. If not, well then don't. I do love hearing about all the different variations though. One thing that makes D&D interesting is it has been around for so long there are all kinds of ways people play it.
One thing I'm super glad 5th ed didn't bring back was confirming the crit. I rolled a 20, thats good enough!
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.
Yea I mean, at least for D&D, this really comes down to what you and your table find fun. If you all dig fumbles? Fucking go for it. If not, well then don't. I do love hearing about all the different variations though. One thing that makes D&D interesting is it has been around for so long there are all kinds of ways people play it.
One thing I'm super glad 5th ed didn't bring back was confirming the crit. I rolled a 20, thats good enough!
Yeah, two things I can't stand in Pathfinder are crit confirm and SR/high saves combo. There's just something about "you have to make/they fail two rolls to get the exciting thing" that bugs me.
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.
Our table did play a "roll a 1; then confirm the fumble by rolling again. If you roll underneath your level you are fine." system.
That seems to get around this problem.
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.
Our table did play a "roll a 1; then confirm the fumble by rolling again. If you roll underneath your level you are fine." system.
That seems to get around this problem.
It doesn't, though. Making fumbles rarer per attack doesn't do anything to change the fact that someone making more attacks will fumble more often even though the ability to make more attacks is supposed to be a mechanical expression of having greater skill with weapons.
Making the fumble confirm a function of level is weird and seems like it's intended to address the entirely hypothetical 'level 20 fighter fumbles sword attacks more than a level 1 wizard' example without actually doing anything to address the actual in-play problem the example is trying to highlight, which is more along the lines of 'level 11 fighter fumbles weapon swings more than a level 11 rogue'
Personally I think the various 'if you roll a 1 you roll again to confirm a fumble' systems are silly, because they're implicitly acknowledging that having 1 in 20 attempts to do something randomly result in negative consequences (beyond the simple failure of the attempt) is needlessly frustrating, and then 'solving' that problem by making the random pratfalls happen more rarely without ever stopping to think about why it's necessary to have them happen at all if they're so frustrating that you're trying to mitigate them.
It's like the tables that insist on rolling stats, won't allow point-buy, but their roll system is something absurd like "roll 5d6, reroll any 1s, drop the lowest and the highest, no stats can be below 8 and your highest stat becomes 16 if it's not already at least that high" because they don't want people to get hosed by bad stat rolls. At some point, you're just choosing a complicated way to functionally eliminate your own houserule.
I would must rather have enemies cause a fumble (opposed check to negate) when they rolled a 20. Or something similar, if fumbles had to be in the game. It's functionally similar but would actually feel better for players because instead of "my character randomly throws their weapon on a 1" it's "everyone and a while my character is disarmed by the enemy" or something.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I opted in to fumbles on my spellcaster in 5E by choosing to be a wild mage. :X
Agree that fumbles are generally not something I enjoy. Drives me crazy that one of the players in my group announces "oh, I shot myself in the foot" every time her d20 comes up less than about an 8. If you were actually so accident-prone that 35% of your shots ended up in your own body, why did you not quit adventuring a long time ago?
Also agree that it doesn't make sense to me that someone who's so good at fighting that we represent it mechanically by giving that character the potential for double, triple, or quadruple damage via multiple attacks has a massively increased chance of throwing away their weapon or hitting themselves. 18.5% chance of at least one natural 1 on four rolls!
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.
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Yes. If you were level 5 you would add +7 as your proficiency bonus would go to +3.
Edit: if you rolled a 1 and it rolled a 2 it would win... I think that tie goes to the defender for skill contests. But not sure. Edit2: if you both roll 1 then you would win.
Edit3: from the 5e srd
The target must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Instead of making an attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you
I had picked up the feat first time we could get ability improvement, and then next session got a 2h they does bonus to giants, and it's been nothing but Giants since. The yakman village was the first time in months i had my shield equipped, and Gorm dammit, i was going to use my feat!
Plan was to prone him, then use both my attacks with advantage. I was last on initiative so he would just get up anyway after i went.
We fought 2 yakmen and a Chimera in combat, this guy was one of the 2, the other ate a hypnotic pattern and was coup de graced by the rogue. 2 more yakmen went down with me getting a turn once, and getting outrolled on that shove. Another 10 or so yakmen died in their sleep to the rogue. The chieftain and one of his priest wives ate another hypnotic pattern, while we alpha striked the other priestess wife with silence on the room. Coup de grace on the hypnotized wife. Tie up chieftain in chains, interrogate him about the Giants while he is on zone of Truth, and let the slaves decide his fate (next session).
Barely a scratch on us, i think I'm the only one that took real (non temp hp) damage whole night to a yakman swing.
But in combat you can auto crit a helpless opponent and nothing else.
It's only for attack rolls in 5E. There's a pretty low chance you're going to succeed on any saving throw even if you're proficient when you roll a 1, but on the off chance that your proficiency+ability score mod is high enough to meet a save DC on a 1 you still pass the save.
The occasional spectacular failure is generally funny and can create some great, unexpected moments around the table and having a set-up for such things can be good, depending on the group around the table. Repeated failures is rarely, if ever, fun and so the seriousness of them should gradually be toned down to avoid too much player frustration.
If the stakes of a skill check are succeeding means you convince the NPC to aid you in the way you're asking for, a nat 20 doesn't mean double convince. You got what you wanted. Conversely, a nat 1 or a nat 5 are no different because you already aren't getting what you want.
If the stakes of a skill check are finding your way in a bad environment, passing means getting where you want to go. Failing means exhaustion, lost recoveries, etc. I'm not going to double down and make a nat 1 make you more exhausted, etc., and I'm not going to make a nat 20 make you navigate properly and find a pot of gold waiting for you.
Critical fumbles and crit successes on stuff like skill checks is one of the most popular house rules people use, so much so that there's always confusion by people who think it's actually part of the game as written, so I get it. Some people like that stuff in their game.
It makes sense too, because what it really is is people wanting failures to be more narratively interesting than just not getting what you want. The way most tables use crit failures on skill checks is them basically emulating what PbtA games do on 6-.
On a good day, yeah, about 1 in 20.
Edit: Of course, on occasion I'll crit and my shoes will cough out an adorable tiny kitten because I tied my shoe laces so well.
Although I agree with not making a 1 an auto-fail, this is an example of a situation where you absolutely would not call for a skill check. Skill checks are only supposed to be called for when there is an actual chance of failure.
Nah, I just Take 10.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Which is another reason "1s auto-fail" is unnecessary - if you ever need a rule to make a roll of 1 fail because players would succeed on a 1 without that rule, it almost certainly means you shouldn't have called for the check in the first place because the task was trivial.
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.
How does our Veteran stand an better chance of self stabbery than the green recruit? Both have a 1 in 20 chance of rolling a 1.
Sure, that they both have the same chance of stumbling and winding up with their own sword in their chest is odd, but they should both have the chance.
Critical fumbles are silly.
I'm not even averse to the idea of bad stuff happening, quite the opposite. I love rolling despairs in Star Wars, or 6- in PbtA games and seeing what crazy outcomes happen. I just don't like doing it on nat 1s in f20 games like D&D.
(Again...in my opinion a 1 is automatically a miss, but not automatically a fumble, but the chance for a fumble.)
That's a complicated answer but a big one is that you will never ever roll a despair tying your shoelaces. It is literally impossible to get one unless you are facing an opponent or circumstances of heightened danger where it should be narratively appropriate for some horrible thing to happen.
A second is that a despair doesn't wipe out the rest of a roll. It is entirely possible to be completely successful, generate a really positive situation with unintended secondary bonuses, and in the process trigger a despair. I'm not a 100% but I'm pretty sure it's actually possible to get both a triumph and a despair on the same roll.
Wait, no I am 100% because that literally happened to one of my characters and directly lead to a fun little side thing that really showed off some of what was unique about that character.
I have players roll again - roll another 1 and bad things.
One thing I'm super glad 5th ed didn't bring back was confirming the crit. I rolled a 20, thats good enough!
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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.
Yeah, two things I can't stand in Pathfinder are crit confirm and SR/high saves combo. There's just something about "you have to make/they fail two rolls to get the exciting thing" that bugs me.
Our table did play a "roll a 1; then confirm the fumble by rolling again. If you roll underneath your level you are fine." system.
That seems to get around this problem.
It doesn't, though. Making fumbles rarer per attack doesn't do anything to change the fact that someone making more attacks will fumble more often even though the ability to make more attacks is supposed to be a mechanical expression of having greater skill with weapons.
Making the fumble confirm a function of level is weird and seems like it's intended to address the entirely hypothetical 'level 20 fighter fumbles sword attacks more than a level 1 wizard' example without actually doing anything to address the actual in-play problem the example is trying to highlight, which is more along the lines of 'level 11 fighter fumbles weapon swings more than a level 11 rogue'
Personally I think the various 'if you roll a 1 you roll again to confirm a fumble' systems are silly, because they're implicitly acknowledging that having 1 in 20 attempts to do something randomly result in negative consequences (beyond the simple failure of the attempt) is needlessly frustrating, and then 'solving' that problem by making the random pratfalls happen more rarely without ever stopping to think about why it's necessary to have them happen at all if they're so frustrating that you're trying to mitigate them.
It's like the tables that insist on rolling stats, won't allow point-buy, but their roll system is something absurd like "roll 5d6, reroll any 1s, drop the lowest and the highest, no stats can be below 8 and your highest stat becomes 16 if it's not already at least that high" because they don't want people to get hosed by bad stat rolls. At some point, you're just choosing a complicated way to functionally eliminate your own houserule.
*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.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
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.
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.
Swinging more frequently necessarily means more chances to fail.
Using a word like "cromulent" doesn't make it any better, dude.
Agree that fumbles are generally not something I enjoy. Drives me crazy that one of the players in my group announces "oh, I shot myself in the foot" every time her d20 comes up less than about an 8. If you were actually so accident-prone that 35% of your shots ended up in your own body, why did you not quit adventuring a long time ago?
Also agree that it doesn't make sense to me that someone who's so good at fighting that we represent it mechanically by giving that character the potential for double, triple, or quadruple damage via multiple attacks has a massively increased chance of throwing away their weapon or hitting themselves. 18.5% chance of at least one natural 1 on four rolls!
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.