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@@thomascookson2426 Main statistic to keep in mind is the fact that about 100% of fumble rules, beyond "you auto-fail," are homebrew. Also, the more times you roll to attack, the more likely you are to roll a Nat 1 on the attack. As a bit of an exaggerated example, let's say you multiclass Hunter Ranger with Fighter. By doing so, you can probably Hoard Breaker/Volley out dozens of attacks, in the right "White Room" situations. This is especially true, if you use Action Surge and picked up CBE. Now, imagine if I said "The next time you roll a Nat 1, the string on your crossbow breaks." While a 5% chance (1/20) of a crit fail wouldn't matter on a _single_ attack, the odds of you landing a crit fail go up exponentially, should you keep rolling over and over again. As such, if you're attacking a dozen times per turn, you're almost _guaranteed_ to have a broken string by turn 2. After all, by that point, you'll have rolled at _least_ 20 times, if not more, in the case of this hypothetical setup. Now, this will _keep_ happening to you over and over again per-combat, throughout an entire campaign, so long as this homebrew rule is in place. Meanwhile, the Wizard just has to cast Fireball, and force the _enemy_ to roll instead.
@@thomascookson2426 if he disagrees with the math I recommend finishing the mandatory school program or whatever is called in your country because this is basic probability stuff. Maybe read a book called "Probability for Dummies". TabletopBuilds also has two articles about math called "A Primer on Quantitative Evaluation in D&D".
Flavour is free! There's no harm in describing a Nat 1 as getting awkwardly close to the enemy and staring into each other's eyes as your blades get caught in a bind as long as there is no mechanical penalty for just getting unlucky. You can still have the roleplay stuff without adding the chaos of combat.
I remember a series of fumbles that lead to the awkward outcome of something like: Fighter attempts to swing his sword at an orc, misses and flings his sword, orc attempts to hit the fighter with it's mace, flings it's mace, fighter attempts to grapple the orc, fumbles and is now just holding the orc, orc attempts to punch the fighter, fumbles and holds the fighter. Both the orc and the fighter are now holding each other close and looking into each other eyes awkwardly due to a series of fumbles
It’s fine to describe funny misses with no mechanical disadvantage. But then, that’s not really a critical fumble. That’s just a miss with free flavour. Critical fumbles generally describe something that IS mechanical. Whether it’s throwing a weapon, dropping a weapon, falling prone, stabbing self, giving advantage to enemy etc…
I think one of the reasons for critical fumbles is as a counter to the critical hit. We all say “YES! NATURAL 20!” When we get that 20, and are rewarded by double damage dice. While natural 1 may be an automatic miss, in reality, if you have a +8 to attack against an AC 16, Nat 1 is not different to rolling a 2 to 7. Some DMs want to elicit the dread of rolling a Nat 1 that is equal to the joy of rolling a Nat 20. I don’t like it, but I understand it. Some DMs and tables work on “failing is funny”.
@@Grygus_Triss It's funny, right up until the point where one of the players gets killed because a teammate got a nat 1 and hit them instead of the enemy.
Ragnar, the level 20 barbarian, hero of the realm, destroyer of armies, killer of demigods. But he is really most known to slip and fall mid-combat every 10 attacks.
accidents happen thats why the 1 is available, never heard someone complain about a crit failure but winning is not a part of our dnd games usually more talking we avoid combat.
Lee Han, one of the greatest monks the world has ever seen. He has mastered his own body to the point that age no longer weakens him and can kill a dragon with a single touch. Roughly every 30 seconds of intense combat he punches an ally instead. No one believes his assurances that it was an accident.
I remember playing a monk and using both of my arms for one unarmed strike. I rolled a natural 1, and the result the DM rolled was my "weapon breaks", therefore, the DM ruled that both of my arms broke. Clearly the optimal play here, was to make an unarmed strike with my head, so I could just kill off my character and not play a tiefling monk, and instead play a halfling or something. Or play in a different table, which is what I also did.
@@masmurdermonkey9233 Or, meet in the middle, but give a much less harsh penalty. For example, I would have said maybe sprained one of, but not both, wrists, rather than full on breaking both. That's a bit harsh for a crit fumble.
Bro thats a bit extreme lol. Weapon breaking is fine in my opinion, as weapons break, but idk if it's even realistic for a monk to break both of his arms doing an unarmed strike... Or.... Maybe you punched the mf so hard you broke both of your hands, but adrenaline has kicked in so you wont feel it until out of initiative and it will take either a month in game to heal or a simple healing potion/spell can fix it. Idk, thats what would I would say.
"So, here's another fine weapon I just finished smithing. It'll run you 50 gold pieces, but the edge retention is fantastic, especially considering the double edged nature. It flexes, but always returns to true. As long as you sharpen it once every couple hundred strikes you make with it, you will never need another. Just be aware that there's a fair chance you'll snap it in half by the 20th strike."
Tbf that checks out to real life. We have various historical accounts of basically exactly this. Brand new and used but well maintained blades snapping was not uncommon (and still happens to this day even with modern manufacturing consistency)
"For 250 gold, you can have this magic sword instead. As you can see, it does not flex and, being a magic weapon, is completely indestructible. Just be aware you can still snap it in half if you swing it and hit nothing."
@@Marhathor Flex is a good thing for most swords, it's what stops them breaking :) If steel can have invisible flaws we only find out when something breaks, why not spellcraft? This is pointless devil's advocate though, I don't use crit fumbles and don't really like them. I will say I've never seen a DM who would break a magical item from a nat 1, though I'm sure there are some out there bad enough to do it
@@hallowedfool The no flex thing was purely because it's indestructible anyway. Is it useful for a blade to flex for any reason other than they'd break if they didn't?
@@Marhathor There's some manuscripts talk about using the flex to slap someone with the flat of the blade to kind of... Flex on them, if you will. So probably only if you want to be particularly sassy at that point
I've confused so many people by pointing out how Critical Fumbles have _never_ been a core rule in _any_ edition, but is actually a house rule (originally introduced in Dragon Magazine (Issue # 39, July 1980) in an article titled "Good Hits and Bad Misses") that stuck around. I love how in 4th Edition it appears in the chapter about House Rules as a cautionary example followed by an example of a good house rule. I've also blown more than a few minds by pointing out that Natural 1s and 20s _only_ apply to Attack Rolls and Death Saves. You _do not_ automatically succeed or fail any Saving Throws or Skill Checks; even the proposed variant rule on page 242 of the DMG only suggests increasing the impact of a success or failure of a Skill Check if you roll a 20 on a success or a 1 on a failure, as RAW a natural 1 can still succeed and a natural 20 can still fail. Sources: Player's Handbook page 194 "Rolling 1 or 20" Player's Handbook page 197 "Death Saving Throws" Dungeon Master's Guide page 242 "Critical Success or Failure"
Huh... that bit about nat 1s and 20s with saving throws must be new to 5e. Because back in 3e saving throws did have the same auto fail/succeed properties as attack rolls. Wouldn't be surprised if that change trips up a lot of veterans.
@@EmeralBookwise Yeah, 3rd had Crits on Saving throws. But it also _specifically_ didn't on Skill Checks, on PHB page 63, yet so many people _still_ think a Natural 20 on a Skill Check is an automatic success. In the One D&D playtest material however, they're streamlining D20 Checks by allowing Critical Success and Failure on _everything._
@@arcticbanana66: True, but maybe _if you can't beat 'em, join 'em_ is the better part of valor here. If people are so often confusing which d20 rolls have and don't have auto success/failure, maybe it is just best to make it a universal mechanic, that way the games can at least be balanced around the inclusion.
@@arcticbanana66 The d20 Tests being auto fail/success on a nat 1/20 was in the first playtest, but no longer present in the second, so no, they are not streamlining it.
I play in a game with crit fumbles, but they only happen at the DM's discretion. Most of the time it actually ends up affecting the casters more than the martials. For example, I'm playing a ranger in that game and once I rolled a nat 1 to attack a tree and my weapon got stuck, but that was an out of combat scenario and it was just fun. In contrast, our sorcerer rolled a nat 1 on a firebolt attack mid combat and the DM had it go wide and hit a farmer's thatch roof, setting it on fire. We had quite a bit of apologizing to do after the combat was over, and I thought it was pretty fun. Importantly, though, the crit fumbles never caused mechanical detriments. They always just created an interesting roleplay scenario instead. This is what I think crit fumbles should be.
That’s great! Stuff like that should be encouraged. Your characters can always make some mistakes, but those are situations that aren’t harmful to your gameplay or to the combat. Critical fumbles (within reason) in role play can be a lot of fun sometimes
My old DM used these religiously and even had a table that increased your chances of crit fumbling by how many items your character had, and relished in the misery they caused the table. No, the monsters did not ever crit fumble due to their lack of items.
I've also noticed that the penalties on tables tend to vary wildly. So there's an equal chance that you'll hit an ally as there is for completely ruining your weapon.
There is exactly one type of fumbles that can work: You fumble on a natural 1 only if you aren't proficient with the weapon or tool. It would make complete sense for someone to fumble with something he isn't trained in and hurt himself or others, or destroy the tool or weapon by accident, but that is the only exception where it makes sense
I would argue that it makes sense _only_ for an NPC that has literally (or near-literally) never held a weapon before. If you're proficient with at least one weapon, you're not going to fat-finger any other weapons this badly, either.
I might consider a mild fumble if a player rolled double 1s because of disadvantage. Like dropping a weapon, having a bow string snap, or losing their shield bonus to ac for a round.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 The DM already *should* avoid rewarding the party with things they aren't proficient in. What are you going to do with a magic weapon that you aren't proficient in? Be forced to take a penalty because the monster is immune to non-magic weapons? And not one caster will *ever* wear armour they aren't proficient in, because that turns off their *entire class* Shit like that is just more martial hate. If they DM isn't giving you treasure you can use, then the DM is only giving you treasure you're going to sell or trade.
@@renatocorvaro6924 I think impractical treasure is okay, it makes the world feel more lived-in, more real, if not everything is designed for you. Just give them opportunities to actually sell or trade that stuff later for something the players actually want. Just sucks if the DM _only_ gives out treasure the party can't actually use, then it feels like the world is out to get you.
I usually just say something like “The weapon has become lodged between the stones, as your target shifts away.” Nothing too detrimental, but still gives the lowest score some meaning. If it still numerically meets the armor class, though, it *will* hit. Then again, last night’s session saw a flame skull roll a double nat one, and then a third natural one to confirm. It just freaking exploded.
@@WhydTheyChangeOurNames yes. I also don’t let a natural 20 hit if it numerically can’t. I feel like it makes the use of armor classes more strategic. There shouldn’t be a 1/20 chance that a knife somehow gets past a tank’s steel and ceramic plating, ya know?
@@WarChallenger well even at Level 1 it's nearly impossible for a 20 not to hit a monster. Reasonably you should have AT LEAST a 4-5 to hit and even Tiamat has a 25 AC. I'd also fully disagree about not being able to hit. Its the luck factor. Hitting the gap in Smaug's scales type deal. Also in real life its just the law of averages, I actually COULD go out to a tank with a knife blindfolded and stab at it and at some point I will hit something that will damage it. It's both realistic and fits in the fantasy. Ngl I've considered that before too but even then I decided I'd still honor it as an auto hit but not a crit if it doesn't meet AC, somehow. Also about Nat 1's I've made characters to level 10 with a +17 to hit with only a +1 weapon. So my lowest possible roll is an 18 meaning I can and will hit 100% of the time by your rules on over 90% of all official creatures in the books. That's only Level 10 by Level 20 that character would literally never miss. Wouldn't even need to roll except to try and crit
@@WhydTheyChangeOurNames That part is fair, although I don’t view the latter point as an issue. Leveling up is like honing in your skills. If you get to a point where you literally cannot miss, that’s like becoming a trained professional. That also helps speed up combat! Have everyone roll their D20s at the start of the round if that’s the attack dice, and then just calculate damages as a group. A well-oiled machine. I get what you’re saying about potential weak points too, but since we’re dealing with fast-paced combat, it just doesn’t make sense to me personally that someone would be able to hit those precise points. I’ve used this type of ruling for months, and my players are enjoying the slight increase in combat speed and the sense of security it brings. If I ever need, I can always change around enemies in the modules I run specifically to have higher roll caps. Scaling threats with the players!
@@WarChallenger if anything calculating Nat 1s and 20s to see if they hit or not is objectively slower but hey if your players are liking it, kudos. I'd also just refer back to my stabbing a tank analogy about "it doesn't make sense in these fast paced combats to find the weak spot" you're not TRYING to find anything, you just HAPPEN to hit it. That's why I specifically said in that example that I'd be blindfolded. If I can see I can just cut the brake line and damage the tank no problem. Being blindfolded in the example was to show off how luck isn't unrealistic or unreasonable. So on that point I just whole heartedly disagree but as said above if it works for your group that's fantastic.
I played in my first game that used crit fumbles recently at a con. It was horrible, attacking your allies, losing weapons and magic, falling prone, ect. Definitely significantly detracted from the enjoyment of the table
Don't you just hate when you're chopping carrots, the knife slips a bit, so you turn around, walk 10ft and stab your wife right in the eye socket? Damn natty 1's!!!
@@SirGambitRocks Wow im sorry to hear that DnD is game of creativity and freedom, both DM and Players are allowed to have fun regardless of what happen and how they want to approach it But thats just a DM wanting to ruin the players DND Experience and actually really dumb
This was literally the reason I almost quit d&d before I started. My first DM used this rule, and I assumed it was in the handbook. My character killed himself on his first turn.
I tend to call excessive crits the "Gold coin or stab the brain" rule. Pick your nose 20 times, at least 1 time you'll pull out a gold coin and one time you'll stab yourself in the brain. Just imagine how bad the bathrooms are if 5% of people do a 'critical fumble.' Every chef poisons 5% of their customers, every blacksmith have 5% of tools be defective, etc.
Critical fumbles shouldn’t be like you start the oven and the whole house is on fire, it should be like you start the oven and it doesn’t get hot enough
I play with a house rule that we call the Jar Jar rule. Basically, if a player or monster rolls a critical miss on an attack, then the DM rolls a d20. On a 20 is a critical botch- something uncommonly bad happens (ie your examples of bad game design) but on a 1, you have botched the botch and something good happens. For example you lose the grip on your weapon but it flies across the room and knocks the bookcase down onto your enemies, or you accidentally trip the bbeg, or you miss your target, but hit two other enemies.
This houserule was most frustrating in 3rd edition where it was commonplace for any martial to throw out 4 attacks on average. But I'd also pair this with the Lingering Injuries mechanic for adding insults to unlucky players.
Games are much more fun to play and engaging to run when failures are paired with bonuses. See Monster of the Week awarding 1 Experience on a fail, it's a very widely embraced mechanic
I wouldn't say "commonplace". Excluding two-weapon fighting or other special abilities, a full base attack class (barbarian, fighters, paladins, rangers), wouldn't get to make 4 attacks until 16th level, and even getting 3 attacks wouldn't happen until 11th level.
You joke, but my old home group DM used both houserules, and he always seemed surprised whenever something really bad happened to us (ie, permablinded, dead) and always tried to run it back since it’d ruin the story. He’s been busy lately and I’ve found different groups so suffice it to say, it’s been a nice reprieve.
@@EmeralBookwise I blatantly said 3rd edition, attacks per action & bonus action worked drastically differently back then. To oversimplify it in a way it'd make sense in 5th edition, imagine your proficiency bonus going up by 1 every level. For every +5 you had to an attack roll you gained another attack with a cumulative -5 to your bonus for each extra attack as long as you still had a positive modifier, this also applied to offhand attacks though those always started with half the max bonus without feats; abusively interesting was this ruling included and worked with bonuses from spells and items. For example a fighter with a +11 to attack would get 3 attacks, first at +11, second at +6, and third at +1; now say he duel-wields, he'd get an extra 2 attacks with his offhand being the +6 & +1 rolls again, meaning a duel-weilding fighter of 11th level could attack 5 times in one turn, doubled if hasted. The counter point was that martials couldn't break up their attacks between movement without particular feats. In short 3rd edition has some wacky high numbers since they didn't have the arbitrary scaling limit 5th edition is built on, and this is most noticeable in the core numbers such as ability scores AC feats and skill bonuses, but those are another ramble.
@@infinitezeros5973 I've played a couple campaigns with both house rules as well, but they were the kinds of hardcore players that expected everyone to bring multiple backup characters, still sessions would bog down with trying to keep track of all the random effects even when he had a mat and pieces to work with. I was glad to find another group that didn't use either, and man the combat runs so much smoother, until someone plays a wild magic sorcerer lol.
Yeah, this I've gotta agree with. Failing a check or attack is bad enough, I don't need to cause myself or party members more pain on top of that. Punishing players again on top of a failed roll is just sadistic.
@@druxusthemage9806 When was that ever said? Dnd is a power fantasy ttrpg, and it’s also designed *with* crits. Crit fumbles are not something that’s official or designed around.
@@druxusthemage9806 I make them rolled d4 to confirm Crit-fail, and then roll on a consequence table(enemies too). Not really happening to martials as often as their best move is generally to grapple, prone, and beat the crap out of the enemy with Advantage or drown them.
I'm the guy who kept asking for Pathfinder content. I really love how you brought it up specifically. Using it to talk about broad TTRPG issues is really healthy for the hobby.
My DM mostly uses crit fails on skill checks and even then doesn't use them all the time. It is more akin to degrees of success (or failure). He occasionally will do them on attacks as well, but fairly minor ones like d4 damage to an ally standing next to the target (we are level 7 so that doesn't hurt much). It adds a bit of flair to it and he is good at not making them overly punishing.
I do use crit fumbles, with a party that agrees to it and enjoys it, and I think it can be good storytelling if you actually make an effort for that to be the goal. I basically never have characters just throw their weapons around. If I'm going to have them lose a weapon I'll make it something like the opponent took advantage of their imperfect strike to disarm them. There are ways to implement whatever consequence you want it to have that elevate the conflict instead of mocking it. As with basically any house rule, absolutely only do it if everyone is on board and it will actively make their play experience better. Also it hadn't occurred to me that it contributes to the caster-martial gap, so I'll have to keep that in mind going forward.
A couple solutions to the caster thing is: 1.Have casters suffer backlash (fumble) if an enemy rolls a nat 20 to save against their spell. or 2. Have a caster roll a d20 with each non-attack spell to check for fumble.
@@CatacombD ...I actually really like that first one. 20 on saves usually doesn't have any significance, which can often make people feel like they 'wasted a 20'. I think I'd addendum that it doesn't apply to attack roll spells or AoE dex save spells [Imagine getting punished because one person in your Fireball got a 20 while everyone else blew up] but for single target saving throw only spells, I kinda like the idea of getting zapped by a failed Mind Sliver or fumbling words during your Vicious Mockery.
This is so, so true. I once played in a game with Critical Fumbles and thankfully I was told that the game had them going in. The game also had critical fumbles for the enemies (because that's "fair"). They did the whole rolling on table and everything bit. So I just built my character around never doing attack rolls. I built a divine soul sorcerer more geared towards support and called it a day. In just one combat I saw (this was years ago, so this is just how I remember it, this was 12th level as I joined this campaign late): - The artificer's big gun jammed up (broke). - The barbarian hurt her leg somehow, movement speed cut in half. - The rogue shot their friend who was adjacent to their target (miss and hit an ally instead, who had even better AC than the target did btw...). - The warlock's eldritch blast blew up in their face (self-inflicted damage). - Nothing happened to me. My main spells were sacred flame and toll the dead and I also had fireball, spiritual guardians, and many more along with a good amount of support and utility options. And I slapped on magic missiles just in case I needed to guarantee take something down. I never got a critical fumble simply because not a single one of my spells had attack rolls on them. Sure this campaign didn't last long before imploding, but I remember that pretty much in every combat that if you consistently rolled attacks, something would eventually happen to you. So I chose to just not. And I didn't mention I built my character for this purpose because I then believe the DM would make me roll for "spell fumbles" or something dumb. So the fact I never fumbled just went under the radar. I never talked about it, and when a fumble occurred it became the attention magnet anyway. Thankfully no one ever said "Oh hey, the sorcerer hasn't ever fumbled" or perhaps nobody even noticed.
I've got to say, you've actually changed my mind on this. Either no critical fumbles OR we could basically introduce wild magic type effect to EVERY caster, giving them a chance to mess up any spell. It makes way more sense for the complicated Arcane or religious process to be a smidgen off, creating an unintended consequence or a diety who misunderstands your request, than it does for a general with hands of steel to regularly get butter fingers... Plus it nerfs casters.
An easy tweak to make fumbles affect casters is to make them suffer a fumble if an enemy rolls a nat 20 save against their spell. Then the only spells that fully avoid fumble rules are buffs/terrain alteration.
There's another notable problem with critical fumbles, especially on homebrew tables that include lethal results: When the DM crit fumbles, it usually means some random trash mob cuts its own head off or steps on a bear trap or whatever. At worst, a boss (that the party was ultimately meant to defeat anyway) messes up big time. Each enemy will fumble once, MAYBE twice in its on-table time. But a PC will fumble multiple times over the campaign, with the potential for the embarrassing moments to undercut the established flavor, or worse yet killing the PC through no reasonable fault of their own. If you're a GM and desperately want to use fumble rules, only apply it to low level minions. And maybe, if you're feeling really spicy, for PCs that are using weapons they aren't proficient with.
45 years in TTRPGs have shown me a lot. There are settings where critical fumbles can be appropriate, and their consequences dire. If you are running one of those settings, it should be known up front by EVERYONE. Otherwise, I prefer what I call Comical Fumbles. Their consequences are seldom worse than a blow to action economy (i.e. an action to pick up your dropped weapon, or draw another), but described in a way that adds to the narrative. They can build or break tension, and my players have always enjoyed them. Also, having something happen every time someone fumbles means it doesn't break immersion when a "that guy" gets harsher results at my table. I can ramp up the results as a warning, without interrupting the story, and take them aside at the next break to discuss things. A good DM never throws out a useful tool, but we never abuse our tools, either. 🤠👍
@@mogalixir If you have a good DM running a good fumble system, they will apply to spells as well. For the most common example, you have the perils of the warp stuff in warhammer/40k.
In our Pathfinder game, we use critical hit and fumble tables, but we also use a luck system that can nullify crits and/or fumbles! The fumbles create some of the most memorable moments, especially when a fumble turns into a boon for the character or party! 1. My AD&D 2e forest gnome spellcasting bandit fumbled(customized class from the DMG) and threw his trident behind him and avoided being buried in popcorn while fighting skeletons after our barbarian threw up a crate of popcorn and our mage fireballed it! 2.The same character fumbled on an attack and ended up jamming his trident in the doorway of a room with an invisible assailant, later that turn the enemy was coated in flower but couldn't escape sine a forest gnome was blocking the door with his trident and the party ended up killing the enemy! 3. My 5E Orc Necromancer cast a spell and fumbled on the attack and ended up transposing with the enemy archer he was targeting, making the archer an easy kill for the party while my Necromancer was able to blast them from behind!
The only long term "fumble" rule I ever implemented was in a Star Wars d20 game, and it wasn't meant to punish bad luck, but rather as an alternative to ammo tracking. There were a few other safety measures to avoid stuff like back-to-back "fumbles", but the gist was whenever it occurred while firing a blaster the character would need to reload.
Same! Given that blaster ammo is something like 100 or 50 shots per easily-attainable blaster pack, it was always a simple reach to make that the 'reload is required' moment.
Whenever my players roll a nat 1, I usually let it just be a 100% miss. There are times where, story-wise, it would be more interesting for something else to happen. For example, an enemy npc that has the Parry ability will then get advantage on it against a nat 1 (or if you feel cheeky, auto-succeed the parry). Narratively, this npc has intercepted your swing so expertly, retaliating in such a way that makes you seem like you don't know how to swing a sword. Said npc might even mock the player, giving a nice "Oh, I'm going to make you pay for that!" vibe.
Absolutely right. I enjoy using house rules that go the opposite direction. On a Nat 1, you describe what went wrong to add some flavor to the fight. But then instead of a crit fumble, you automatically miss, then get a beneficial effect, such as gaining inspiration, or maybe attacking so unpredictably that you get a +2 AC until your next turn. No tables or extra rolls, though. Just a spur of the moment DM handout. And always remember to do it when an NPC Nat saves against a spell, too. Example: NPC rolls Nat 20 against Tasha's Hideous Laughter. DM: "The gnoll was obviously unphased by your magic... because you were completely unintelligible and just screaming gibberish. You actually failed to even cast the spell. You regain a 1st level spell slot." Player is still punished by the Nat 1 by wasting their action, but you get a scene where a caster fumbles over their own words like an idiot, but ultimately doesn't feel too bad because they didn't even waste the slot.
So you prefer getting a bonus after a nat one, but NPC's get punished for critical saves? Harsh consequences and endless random tables aren't my taste either, I'd go for simple stuff like archers and Spellcasters hitting allies in the line of attack (only base weapon damage or for spells lowest possible damage) a barbarian in rage might very well get so out of control for a second that with his swing he hits a comrade.. and so on Weapons breaking would never be an option unless I have a new fancy magic weapon around the corner waiting to be found with the Combat nearly over.. martials usually all have extra weapons in worst case and magic weapons can't even break under normal circumstances But your take seem badly designed to me. For martials it might be fine, tho I'd prefer them not to profit from a fumble, but if you give your casters spell slots back when the opponent just did his best to survive is just broken and unfair. Imagine the once per day wish or a breath attack of an ancient dragon just resets automatically when one of the party crits a save.. The part with martials might be okay to only give to the players, as it is built around flavour (tho I'd still use the same mechanics for NPC's) The spell slot recovery on the other hand is just a pure mechanical advantage that isn't balanced if only the players get those features
@@PrinceMeNb1 Only the players should get those features. The NPCs aren't real. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but your take seems to be along the lines of DMs who feel that their players need to get punished when they fail instead of, well, keeping the game fun. The enjoyment of everyone at the table is always my first priority. The NPCs aren't real and can't have fun, but my players are. Thus, it's impossible to "punish" an NPC. Balance also isn't an issue due to how I presented the scenario. Like I said, no hard rules that use tables or extra rolls; the DM determines the appropriate bonus on the fly to keep the game fun. Getting a 1st level spell slot back after an NPC nat saves is just one possible example out of possibilities limited only by the DM's imagination. And again, that's why it's not a balance issue: I didn't create a new rule. I made a suggestion for DMs. The DM chooses in every instance what happens, so how can it be imbalanced? There's no rule to follow. So if you are DMing and an NPC gets a Nat 20 and you feel it's not justified in giving any bonus to the player, then don't. You don't have to, and no one's going to try and make you. But if you noticed that player has been rolling crappy and is kind of not having a good time, then absolutely feel free to use that nat 20 save as a reason to spin a story. Even if there's no mechanical benefit, it's a great opportunity to narrate something special that makes that character feel more pulled into the story. An example of doing this without a mechanical benefit could be to do something like: *NPC rolls nat 20 on spell save* "Your spell has no effect against the Lich. He turns toward you, and what's left of his lips pull back in snarled smile as he pulls back part of his robe, revealing an amulet. You can see the last remnants of your arcane energy get sucked into the amulet." Whether it's because of a nat 20, or using a legendary resistance, it's a great opportunity to do something special in that moment. There didn't ever need to originally be an amulet, or a plan for legendary resistances for the bad guy; you can create narrate it on the fly to make the nat 20 seem more special. If I chose to give the player the spell slot back, I could narrate it exactly the same way, then describe the arcane energy swirling about the amulet before returning to the PC. Note how this example is completely different from my first example. The idea is that every nat 20, rolled by players or DM for NPCs, gives an opportunity to make that 20 feel special and increase the engagement in the story. And that's the point for rewarding your players on nat 20s and nat 1s. I don't care whether it's a mechanical advantage or not. The point is that NPCs aren't capable of being punished, nor are they capable of being rewarded, because they aren't real. But the players are real, and they will always enjoy something special that they know doesn't happen very often. Theoretically, you could attempt to narrate every action this way, but that would both be very exhausting for the DM and possibly eventually boring to the players. So saving it for only 5-10% of the rolls both allows some extra bonuses or narration that the players know they can look forward to without draining the special feel of it.
I do crit 'fails' for specific scenarios that make logical sense and add to the rp of the scene. Like a player rolling a 1 to barrel through a metal door getting disoriented from the impact. Resulting in disadvantage on their next action and alerting anything nearby from the noise. Stuff like that. This works for the players and npcs both of course. It adds some diversity to combat and often opens up follow up rp driven actions from the party.
I'm in a similar fashion, where it is more a narrative issue. Like they know before rolling that shooting at the creature that is grappling your friend, could result in missing and hitting your friend. But that's mostly the only time I do it. Even then, I might make them roll again to see if they are even able to hit their friend.
There is a system, made by shadiversity, where there is something called narrative failure. Where you like you say, you still succeeded to commit to an action but at a cost.
@@gandalftheantlion I do agree with the video that adding additional systems slows things down, even if they are fun. I tend to react more to my players going, "its a tight shot through a doorway. What if i accidently hit Ted?" I feel I need to make hitting Ted in the back with an arrow an option.
@@hallopino well the system I'm referring to is the Cogent Roleplay. It was ttrpg system made by shad you can find videos of where he played it with his brother and friends.
I personally don’t like crit fumbles, but my players insist on them. I tried to talk them out of it, but they voted and they wanted to have them. Unanimously. If I don’t give them a penalty they will roll on their own table and give it to themselves. I do not understand them, but at this point I just go with it. Mainly so I could pick a less annoying table to roll on.
Making the issues less prevalent may not fix the underlying issue, but it does affect the cost/benefit analysis when weighed against the rp value. Have them roll a crit-fail confirmation roll where anything above 10 just means a failure without additional consequence and 10 or lower causes the fumble. If you want to balance or martials, let players add either their con or dex to the roll and account for balance when determining the flavor of the fumble. A critically fumbled spell attack would probably have much more dramatic consequences than a sloppy javelin throw
Thank you for this video and all the math. The next time I run into a critical fumble table I can at least try to convince them that it just isn’t fun by using math. Like a dnd player.
The way one of my DMs opts to work it is that a Nat 1 will allow a melee-capable enemy that is within range to make an opportunity attack. The enemy has to spend a reaction to do it, and they can only perform a basic attack. I am still not entirely sure how I feel about how it punishes melee attackers, but I think that it's at least better than a seasoned hero stabbing themselves in the leg, and it also allows for the players to more frequently use melee attacks on enemies that are hesitant to trigger attacks of opportunity.
I do personally run critical fumble in my game, however not every nat 1 means a fumble, and is usually based on the creature they are fighting, and only if it makes narrative sense. Instead of rolling on tables or extra dice, I take control of the fumbles, and tend to keep it to a minimum, so when it does come up, it makes sense, and has been memorable in a good way.
I played in a group with critical fail cards. Basically instead of a crit fail table we use a deck of cards. One time I was playing a paladin I rolled a nat 1 on my attack. We decided since the weapon was a sunsword that we would take the magic attack result: “You fall madly in love with you target.” It took her several session to reciprocate my affection, but that is the story of how I got a pet direwolf.
I thought it didn't make much sense for high ranking heroes to flop so heavily. I discussed it with my party and we decided that a crit fail would mean the enemy gets to make an attack. It's never described as something like harming yourself or losing your weapon or anything, it's just they get to make an attack of opportunity. But at the same time, if the enemy fails, then the player gets to make an opportunity attack. Works for my party, nobody dislikes it and it's lead to some neat moments. I know it doesn't work for everyone though. I usually just describe it as an attack that misses but leaves a gap in your defenses, which the enemy gets a chance to exploit (more specific than that but that's the most generic way I can think to explain it)
A Fumble rule I've taken to using which has so far been well received with all four of my groups is this; "Whenever a natural one is rolled for an attack roll of any kind (including spells), ONE creature that is hostile to you may use its reaction to perform a single Melee or Ranged WEAPON attack against you." I see it as creatures performing a Riposte in melee or spotting an opening in your defenses at range, which of course goes both ways. Monsters rolling natural ones and leaving themselves open to the Barbarian's great axe? Swing away buddy. I like the idea of Natural ones bringing some extra detriment, and I've found this to do just that in a fair manner. In fact I'd even say it's player-favored considering how many more dice a DM generally rolls in combat throughout a campaign.
I feel like the only time accidentally attacking your comrades is slightly okay is if youre trying to take a really tight or awkward shot thru a group of your friends. Even then it feels weird
I only make my players fumble when it is just really obvious to happen like: Rogue tried to drop from a tree and ambush an enemie -> i give him advantage cause it sounded sick -> he gets two nat 1‘s -> i describe how he falls on his face and takes a small bit of damage, that confused the enemy though
This is stuff I’ve been saying for a while and why I don’t incorporate crit fumbles into the games I run. But I’ve been playing in a campaign where the DM uses crit fumbles and I’ve been worried about how I should tell them how I feel about crit fumbles. See, I’m playing as a dual scimitar wielding fighter and so I’m disproportionately at risk of crit fumbling when compared to our cleric, druid/barbarian, and paladin. I’ve been lucky enough to have not fumbled so far but it’s only a matter of time until my fighter falls on both of their swords for the hashtag coolstorymoment and so I’ve been trying to build up the courage to tell my DM that it’s not fair that I’ve got a 14.26% chance of crit failing on my turn (18.55% when I level up to 11th level or use action surge.) But I made the choice to play fighter, so who am I to complain?
I'd recommend doing just what you've done here. Be calm but direct. It's clearly not about their game or their style as you wouldn't be playing at all then, but bring up the fact that it isn't fair for the party in general, and you in specific. This is how I approached this issue when my good friend of forever decided to have a severe attack from enemies on a 20 -> confirmed 20, (resulting in potentially lost limbs). I showed them the math, and how by about level 6 or so, each of the party members would have 0 remaining original limbs.
I also decided to run the numbers a bit further, assuming I make 3 attacks per round (and I don’t use the brace maneuver or take attacks of opportunity) and each encounter lasts 3-ish rounds, and there’s 2 combat encounters per day, the chance of rolling a crit fumble during that day alone is 60.28%. I also realized that if they’re adamant about keeping the rule in spite of the numbers, I could ask the DM to let me switch my fighting style to pack tactics and let me have a bag of tricks. That doesn’t sound like a big ask, right?
@@raz802 Severe attacks sound like a really bad idea, especially for particularly ambulatory characters like monks, fighters, barb-… Oh, oh yeah, martials. Ah…
I don't know how other people do it at their table but at mine (With me being DM), you only roll once from Extra attack, if it hits, all attacks connect but if it misses, you can roll again and just one less attack hits. It is a subtle way to boost Martials at my table and make leveling up as them even more fun, just seeing that 4 attacks flawlessly connect is great and makes Martials feel powerful Multiattack for monsters is a excpetion from that rule, it needs to be rolled every time attack is made
As a DM I use a critical fumble very rarely to make a combat interesting or to make nat1 cause interesting consequences. Example: warlock shot Eldritch Blast aiming the enemy behind the cart that party had to retrieve and he rolled attack nat1. I decided that instead of just missing, he destroyed one of cart wheel. Party had to find a way to repair a wheel or transport it with broken wheel. Don't hesitate to use it, but only if you really have idea to enhance game and give your players more fun.
It feels weird to make it a rule “whenever you feel like it”, I personally wouldn’t use crit fumbles anyway but if I was I would at least make it consistent instead of making the party occasionally reattach a cart wheel or something.
Tell them beforehand. "Due to the angle at which are you standing, if you miss this shot, you will hit the cart instead. In most cases the damage will be negligible, but on a nat 1, something bad might happen. Do you still take the shot?" That way they know, and they can reposition to make the shot safer. I probably still wouldn't incorporate it at all, though.
I play pf2e with two critical fumble rules. If you crit fail an attack you lose an action. If you crit fail a range attack against a target who's getting an ac bonus from hiding behind a creature, you don't lose an action, but deal damage to the interposing creature instead. It just helped incentives getting bonuses and repositioning.
I will admit to using them, sometimes. Specifically when I feel that there is something to be gained for the narrative. As an example, while fighting a relatively powerful enemy swordsman, my party's sword using fighter rolled a 1. I allowed the enemy to use his reaction and make an attack against the fighter's sword, destroying it as the villain's magical blade cleaved through the fighter's rather mundane one. The fighter then asked if he could use his broken sword to still stab the guy, and I agreed. The end result was that his longsword became a shortsword for the rest of the fight, and he replaced it with the nifty magical one that the bad guy had been using. He still had a weapon, and he technically cost the enemy on action economy.
I honestly though critical fumbles were at least an optional rule, I’ve had it been used at every table I’ve played at without question. Once my weapon broke when I tried to break in a door with it. I had a good laugh, but it was rough not being able to use the weapon I was hoping to use. At my current table a 1 on an attack roll will 100% hit an ally if they’re near the intended target. Which tends to be the martials. I’ve been hit by more than a few firebolts, scorching rays, and arrows.
my fumble rules are simple, nat 1 in melee the target may make an attack of opportunity against you, nat 1 at range roll a d8 to determine the new target space if someone is there roll a new attack half the damage against them, and if the target rolls a nat 20 on a save they suffer no effects from what you hit them with
I like a narrative consequence for rolling nat 1s. It does make the story more engaging. But now with "failing forward" inspirations, I'll just use that instead of critical fumbles. (Aside: I still narrate a Nat 1 that passes a check with modifiers as a "failing forward" situation. e.g., a Persuasion check wasn't persuasive but distracting enough to "achieve" the objective)
Have you ever considered building a an adventure in which there is multiple paths to the ending, and, if the players fail all of them, they just lost the adventure? Therefore, you wouldn't need to force successes from failed attempts. If you say you like critical fumbles, it's because you find that a chance of failing is interesting for the game. But, at the same time, you are removing lost as a game element with this fail forward thing. On the contrary, if you don't like fail to be a possibility, why use a game mechanic that make players fail when they roll a random number? Not because they made a bad choice, but because a plastic object said so. Not trying to pick up a fight, but I just can't understand how your character pathetic failing randomly or succeeding no matter what you did, or how well you did, make the story more engaging. If you have a bottle neck where characters can't fail or the story blows, just don't ask for a test
I'm kind of inconsistent on this rule. It all depends on the situation. One time it was raining heavily and the party was fighting outside. The Paladin attacked and rolled a 1. I asked him to make a dex save, in which he got a total of 5. I said that since it was raining, he slipped on some mud and was knocked prone. It's not something that really affected him almost at all, since he could still use his movement to get up that turn. In melee combat, I don't usually make a rule that damages the player/another player, but if it's a ranged attack and there is at least one creature within 5ft of the target, I will make the attack hit another target but do half damage.
I remember one DM who treated every fumble in combat to mean you're attacking an ally. He said it was realistic. I said if it was realistic, every army in every war would lose like half its forces to friendly fire. He said "well that's the rules." I didn't think to challenge him on that since I was new to D&D at the time, but I said that's stupid.
Based on my military experience, friendly fire is a constant threath. When fighting in a forest with camouflage on both sides, it's really hard to see, and even harder to see if the group is an ally or not. In one exercise, one of our squads got wiped out because the machine gunner failed to recognize a friendly squad and gunned them down (simulation, happily). And this was an controlled exercise during peace time. I'd hate to experience how chaotic things get in actual war. If a fire commander rolls a nat 1 and gives wrong coordinates to artillery, they can easily wipe their own platoon. This has actually been reported to happen in some wars, especially to certain disorganized armies. In medieval warfare, you had the advantage of armies wearing different colors, soldiers marching in formations and having different banners to help them in the chaos of melee. I could still easily imagine the 5% friendly fire rate in mass combat. But with adventuring party, it's a completely different story. 5% friendly fire would be absurd, because there aren't that many combatants and they aren't as tightly packed.
@@PiiskaJesusFreak I feel you. Some smart guy in the same kind of exercise gunned me and a buddy down when we were on the same team. In Iraq, we had a call for fire land way too close for comfort when it should have landed somewhere else entirely. I still don't buy that it's as prevalent as a d20 would have you believe. As Pack pointed out, only two attacks has like a 9% chance of fumbling, and if every fumble is friendly fire, then every war would see astronomical losses to friendly fire. It's just not realistic.
@@Suprentus yes, 5% per attack is just ridiculous. The only situation where I can imagine something like that making sense if you shoot into melee between your ally and opponent. The usual cases for friendly fire in real life are failed perception checks and ballistics(Int) checks, and shouldn't be tied to attack rolls at all.
That's exactly how I rule it, nat one means you attack an ally. For dex saves nat one for the enemy means they take double damage and a nat 20 means the monsters take no damage. I don't do it because it's realistic though, just to add something to the game.
PT last week: "Here's why critical hits don't come up often enough to make crit-fishing worth it!" PT this week: "Here's why critical fails come up way too often for fumble tables!" I agree with both points, btw, just thought this was funny.
Something I thought of while to help with the Martial gap is what if when a creature gets a natural 20 on a save against a spell it counts as a nat 1 for the spell caster. I know this doesn't fix all the problems in the video but I think it would help.
I played with fumbles once and it was fun. They we’re super harsh just things like droppings weapons. Accidentally cutting an ally’s coin pouch or having spell attacks blow up in your face or heal certain enemies. It worked well for a low level party and all members involved had fun with it.
Use it for the enemies of the party. One of my favorite stories involves one of my wife's characters running between a pair of stone golems who both tried to swing at her as she passed (taking an attack of opportunity). Our DM rolled a pair of D20s, and both came up as 1s. So the golems punched each other.
Once was battling a coven of witches, one of which was a massive brute of a stitched together woman with a huge scythe. She crit failed on a swing, and ended up fumbling getting her weapon stuck in the wood of her own home. I had just raised my first undead minion before the fight, and he basically saved the party by prying out the weapon and running up the stairs of the hut with it. It led to her running up the stairs after it, stopping just before making it up, all of us running up to try and stop her, and then the stairs broke under all our weight while the massive witch landed on her sister and a couple other party members. My minion hid up there for the rest of the fight, which was a huge help because damn she was chunking all of us before then. On a side note, in the games I've personally DM'd, natural ones aren't always bad. Our ranger shot a bow at a goblin who was trying to wake up his comrade, but our fighter was also right next to the goblin trying to stop it. They were in a heavily wooded area that the ranger couldnt see well through, so it was kind of a blind shot and he rolled a 1. So I decided that as a fumble, he would hit something other than his target. I made him roll without knowing what the options were, he was clearly worried he was going to hit the fighter.. but instead he hit and killed the goblin that was sleeping. I don't treat fumbles as automatically bad, but instead as "unintentional results" that can potentially become "happy accidents".
The best Fumble Table ive used is one in which whenever you roll 1, you roll for a beneficial consequence. For exemplo, you rolled 1, choose a ally to get +1 AC; You can Disengage as a Reaction this turn etc. So every fumble was exciting, giving players something active to do. Smae or enemys, if DM wish.
The problem with critical fumbles is that it ignores skill. If a player manages to do a attack and get a 1 (which requires them to have a negative modifier or zero bonuses on a NAT1) I would have no issue doing a critical fumble. This way it makes sense, creatures are more likely to fail if they are bad at something and a rogue or fighter should have very little chance of messing up - while a spellcaster who tries to make a melee attack with a inappropiate weapon is relying on luck to not have it go horribly wrong.
I know that I had a paladin in an arena doing a charge with his halberd, I rolled a one, and this grizzled old man that used to be a king and fought with his men on the front line dips the halberd and polevaults himself. Immediately took me out of the combat. He still won the fight, then the next, and then 1v1’d an allosaur at level 4
Crit fumbles are fun for non serious games and result in interesting situations. It also fuels creativity on the spot. You're a fighter and just fumbled your longsword against the ceiling. So instead of punching, you grab a nearby chair and smack the bugbear across the face. Then on the rouges turn, he shoots his crossbow at the longsword, making it drop on a nearby unsuspecting goblin, for a very creatively described sneak attack. This was a legit moment in lost mines of phandelver and I will stand by fumbles for the rest of my life if it means we can do something else on our combat encounters besides roll the same 3 attack patterns over and over. But yeah, in serious, minmax heavy groups, it sucks wyvern balls
PF2 handles crit fumbles pretty well--normally they don't mean anything and have no side effects. However, there are some traits that can take advantage of them, e.g. if a creature or player has a feature that lets them attempt an opportunity attack as a reaction if an adjacent creature crit fails an attack, or if you crit fail with a poisoned weapon, the poison is removed (and you can take a feat to avoid this). It's just a few small, situational things, that players and monsters alike have to actively spec into to take advantage of (or defend against). It also helps that martials are really strong in PF2, so these risks don't feel unfair. The worst crit fumbles I've ever faced was in a PF game, the DM ruled if you crit failed an attack, you have to re-roll it against an adjacent player. And this still kept crit confirmations in. Like it made martials a liability.
To not unfairly punish high level players with more attack rolls, fumble rules could only be triggered only on the first attack from a creature/player each round.
That still unfairly impacts martials because martials will use the attack action on more rounds. And it still makes no narrative sense and is completely unfun (and only the last part is subjective).
Was playing a game with a rogue who got a Nat 20 and rolled minimum damage, then their turn came around again in the initiative, they got a nat 1. (We had the creature that was attacked get a free opportunity attack) The sound of the players' leave their body when they had heard the enemy they got a Nat 20 on the attack roll was honestly heartbreaking to hear.
Wow I couldn't disagree more. I love nat 1 critical fail. As a house rule I use a table and The DM rolls it percentage scale with level so by level 12 the chances of a larg deficit is 1 in a 100. It adds to the game play and most of it is just flavor.
It makes sense for you to miss more as you attack more, since the time you have is the same, but youre attacking faster (try swinging a sword more than twice in 6 seconds). Fumbling isn't a problem on its own, it just shows that the rules are very against martials.
@@theuncalledfor but that's not how math works. Each roll is individual therefore each role on its own has a 5% chance of getting any number. Your odds of getting any number on a d20 do not increase or decrease via the amount of rolls you make, it stays consistent. It is theoretically possible to roll a d20 100 times and only get 20s By using the math you provided, by like the 21st attack you have a 100% chance of getting a one and that's not true at all. I could literally roll a d20 21 times on my desk right now and never get a one EDIT: I should say the math that pack tactics provided. Since he claims that on the second d20 roll your chance of getting a one increases by 4.75%. so by the 21st roll you're apparently guaranteed to get a Nat 1. Somehow?
@@Odande Yes, it is. And no, that's not what he said. Learn how probabilities _actually_ work. If you roll more than once, your chance of rolling at least one nat 1 increases, precisely _because_ each individual roll has the same 5% chance every time. It's not a linear increase. It's not +4.75% each time. It gradually approaches 100% but never quite reaches it. The formula is 1-(0.95^n), with n being the amount of rolls. At 21 rolls, this equals 65.94%.
Back when I ran Dark Sun, I had players breaking weapons way too often. (A feature of Dark Sun games) That's when I created a crit table. It reduced the chances of weapon destruction, added significant chance of repairable weapon damaged, and had 20% chance of positive outcomes (eg: weapon flew off the handle and did double damage, or wild swing that does extra damage with unintended consequences). I allowed players roll on just the (top 10%) positive outcomes (at their choice) to on nat-20s.
The one fond or funny memory I have of a critical fumble is the one time in a Roll20 game where our Paladin did a Nat 1 on a perception check: the DM ruled he thought he saw someone trying to ambush us, spun around to check, and decked himself in the face. It was fun for that one time, but in retrospect it was a bit of a red flag on how sadistic the DM could be sometimes.
This is one rule my dm uses that I've never liked, but narratively he does a good job with it not bastardizing my characters. He always flavors it as a mechanical failure, like my bow binds or my sword gets stuck in the door, that my character is a victim of but not responsible for
On my house we have this "true unluck" policy where if you roll a 1 or 20 you roll again just to see if you get the same result, if you do, then theres actually a fumble or a godlike intervention
I use Critical Fumbles if the roll is 1 or less WITH modifiers applied, so you never f*ck up something you know how to do, but if you try something you're not proficient (or have a negative modifier) you're taking a risk to f*ck up
I once had a DM who applied crit fumbles to near everything, and forced multiple rolls for basic actions. The worst was healing checks. Every other fight someone would either end up with some kind of debilitating injury, or get one when the party attempted to stabilize you. And no tables, it was full DM discretion what happened to you. First major fight of the campaign, someone flubbed a heal check and cost another player their arm. At level 1. After that I felt the mandate to have medicine trained and have it so absurdly high to counteract the issue. Didn't stop the pain. The rogue got their stomach ripped open, one-armed wizard got one-shot (before we had revival options), I got knocked out and when they tried to stabilize me broke my leg, the sorcerer got his arm broken, I was killed, but because I suffered massive damage got a concussion that rendered me stupid and insane for a few sessions on revival, also I came down with a disease that nearly killed me and kept me in the hospital for a month, that no one in the party could have rolled a save against, I had to nat 20 to survive. It was a dreary deflating drudge of a campaign.
One of my players rolled a 1 on animal handling, and they tripped up and headbutted the creauture they were trying to hug. They all seemed happy about it so I think that worked.
The DM for our grimdark campaign has a fumble mechanic but he makes it an effort to take advantage of an enemy fumbling. First he decides how the creature failed and if the opportunity will be an attack against the fumbling creature or another effect. I forget if he always uses the reaction on the creature taking advantage or not but if it’s for an attack he usually does. If you get an attack you use your reaction as if it was an opportunity attack (and sometimes as a circumstance bonus you get advantage, haven’t seen the enemies get the advantage however but since we don’t use flanking (we use a modified help bonus action) I forget how he does it fully) or you get to mess with the creatures stance or positioning. Hell ask for a strength or Dex check (usually based on the player’s build) and if you win the contest (generally acrobatics/athletics vs acrobatics/athletics) you get an effect as determined by the DM. The non-attacks generally don’t use your reaction. All-in-all it’s a better system and he doesn’t apply it to skill checks which I find fumbles as far more annoying for. And since the enemies also get tripped up it’s worked in our favor as well as hindered.
I like the NAT 1 fumbling rule a boss defeated basically himself by rolling 4 consecutive NAT 1. We had an easy job beating him up. (The house rule my DM made was you deal damage to yourself with an NAT1. Since Enemies can do that too it's 10 times more fun.)
Me and the group I play with almost always use nat 1s provoking opportunity attacks from the creature that was targeted. This makes things less “you got unlucky, feel bad” and more “you fumbled an attack and now your opponent gets to choose to attack once off their turn.” We applied this rule to everyone, which lead to really dynamic melee fights where a player rolled a nat 1, the bandit attacking them rolled a nat 1, then they attacked them back and got a nat 20. My group also doesn’t have many min maxing casters but slightly min maxing martials so the caster/martial gap isn’t very big in practice.
I feel like a lot of people assume that if you are an expert in your skill set, and have been honing your craft for decades, that you can not ever fuck up royally. It's why I also say that nat 1s still always fail on skill checks for rogues, even with Reliable Talent. Yeah, throwing your weapon is really dumb, but even at level 20 the barbarian is not immune from tripping over a tree root because he was blinded by his rage; and the Fighter, as strong as she may be, may still get her sword stuck in the wooden floorboards of the inn. She put too much force into her swing, missed, and now has to pull the sword from the wood (free action). A lot of this video just feels like Kobold is going for the "level 20 characters are basically gods" perspective, which is almost as bad as the "level 1 characters are supposed to be commoners" viewpoint. You are not infallible. Even the smartest and most well-trained individuals will make some very bad fuck ups. As for it harming martials, yes, that's right, but that's why you don't make them ridiculous and overly punishing (i.e. throwing your weapon across the room, or crippling your monk by breaking their hands).
My GM does a thing where if we roll a nat 1 or a 20 they let us describe what happens and then based on the description (and if it’s reasonably within physics and the rules) there’s a mechanical effect with the description. The group loves role playing and we enjoy playing out failures because it’s funny, a character of mine slipped on ice and skidded across the room while rolling a nat 1 on a grapple check trying to restrain someone after running to them
Interesting thing - then we played by makeshift "system" on lazy evenings we often used critical extremes (not only failures) for exactly "fun" reasons. But most of the times we collectively desided "yep this roll is defenetly should result in some spectacular failure" it was casters. Spells explodes, choose wrong targets, have unexpected effects. Only time i can remember fighter was affected by critical failure was then he charged at the enemy and we decided character is unable to stop after enemy step aside and smack the wall. Is is possible this mechanic can be used with actual positive results if you apply it to spellcasters? Like some form of traidoff for their ranged and control options? Coz this is not a coincidence group of people choises casters as target for this mechanic unconsiously so many times :) P.S. Sorry for my english.
In a game with my DM, our "Critical Fumbles" are that if you crit fail a melee, an enemy can use their reaction to attack back, this can lead to funny situations where they then ALSO roll a crit fail, and the ball is back in your court to use your own reaction. For bows, a crit fail means that your bowstring came undone, and you need to use an action to put it back on, this happens for enemies as well, for crossbows, same thing, except it destroys the bolt as it fails to release and gets caught in it
For me critical fumbles are less of a "ok you really messed up, take damage or something" and more of "you failed in such a way that things have gotten extremely weird, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse"
I recently included a fumble rule in my game but it affects weapon durability. Spell fumbles take a small amount of damage as the spell blows up in their face but weapons degrade becoming -1, -2, etc... and breaking at -5. Crit weapon attacks are armor breaks degrading the target's armor. You can also fix gear. I haven't gotten feedback as i only played 1 session with it and it didn't come up yet
Generally, when my monsters fumble, i give my players the option for an attack of oportunity. Playing as the monster having overreached and opend its stance. Other factors (fighting in mud, shoddy weapons) can also be exploited by the players (tripping the enemy, break the weapon)by using their reaction. Ranged fumbles may hit another creature, including other players, but other than that i do not use nat ones of my players against them.
Critical Fumble on attack rolls are indeed bad game design if used blindly as a written rule and it does unfairly weaken the martial classes. BUT if it is used as it should be : as a tool that the GM must consider carefully and use adequately for Rule of Fun, it can be great! Even then, some people won't like the humiliation, but it is a case of the vibe you want on your table. Here are some ideas : - Auto-harm on all nat 1attacks is the worse and most unfair from a purely gameplay point of view. It should be avoided - Fumble confirmation is actually a good idea. But the confirmation should not be a second nat 1, it should be a roll against the enemy AC. On a fail, it confirms the fumble. On a success, the fumble is just a miss. This way, on each individual attack roll, martials are less likely to fumble than non-martials. - Breaking or losing your weapon or somehow losing turns is no fun - Random tables can indeed slow the fight or produce irrelevant results. Don't do them if you can't handle them quickly. Favor improvisation - Use the "fail forward" philosophy. You fail miserably what you intended, but you discover new options. You fall on the ground, but you see a nasty root near the enemy facing you. Next turn you could do a manoeuvre to make the enemy stumble on this root. - Critical fumbles can grant advantages over time. Like a monk repetedly breaking his hand's ones a little every now and then will end up with more resistant bones. You could make it so after many critical fumble you become immune to them. Or gain a point in constitution or whatever. There's a game where the characters are the chosen ones of the goddess of bad luck, and with enough critical fumbles they are granted a small boon. - You could grant special class features for martials at certain levels that allow them to ignore some fumbles per day, or all of them. Some games like FantasyCraft do that, making any roll that is a class' speciality a minimum 10 result when the class reach a certain level.
In my current campaign, I'm running a rule that if you roll a Nat 1 on an attack roll your Weapon breaks, or runs out of Ammo if a ranged weapon. If the weapon is Silvered or Magic, this rule doesn't apply. Unarmed strikes are unaffected. You can also choose to have your shield break (if non-magical) to cancel the damage form the last attack. A broken weapon can be repaired when you take a short rest, either with the Mending cantrip or a DC 10 roll using Smithing tools. Why? Because I wanted Silver weapons and magic weapons to be better then normal weapons in a minor way, without them getting an attack bonus, and I wanted players to try and upgrade their weapons as soon as possible. I also like the idea of players having to switch to back-up weapons, maybe using improvised weapons or weapons they weren't profecient in, until they can take a short rest. Everyone eventually gets magic weapons, so in higher teirs it isn't a thing, but in the party's first few quests as new adventures they are occasionally messing up and trashing their gear.
I have a credit fumble and success table it's a little bit on the simple side and everything but it works at least for us since your opponents are supposed to be terrifying at least some of the time but also potential comic relief some of the time. To put simply 1 through 10 nothing happens you just miss 11 through 16 a minor inconvenience happens something like the strap on your pack brakes and you lose access to your potions if you leave the square, or your sword is knocked out of your hands but is still in your square so you can use your use item action to pick it back up normally for free but I usually save that one until it's your last attack for the turn, and obviously you miss. 17 through 20 a major issue happens something like your opponent disarms your character sending your weapon within 15 ft from you depending on a D4 roll, you're knocked prone, or an opponent gets an opportunity attack if they have an reaction. Similar stuff happens on a crit like getting a nat 20 could let you deal the normal crit damage but also knock them prone, or something like that. Also crit success on a save against magic like command grants an extra D4 on their next save against the spell caster, if next to the spellcaster they could get an opportunity attack, or something along those lines. Just think about it your Nat 20 is someone else's nat 1.
I was playing in a homebrewed system based around Fallout that had critical fumbles. We were using primarily d6's (I suggested using d10's and d100's, for the sake of accuracy to the games, but I wasn't the one making the system), and I'm surprised the fumbles didn't happen more often. Out of that entire 2 or 3 sessions (the game was never finished, it was also pretty unfocused) there's only one fumble that I can remember clearly, probably because it was my first (I think). The DMs character (they were also a player, everyone built their characters together so we were on roughly equal footing power-wise) got held hostage by a group of raiders and I went to kill them, rolled the d6 to hit, and fumbled (a roll of 6, it was a roll-under system) and shot the DMs character. It was at that point that my concern about the potentially high frequency of fumbles seemed to be realized, and I brought up the concern, and I'm fairly certain it got brushed off. All this to say, yeah, fumbles suck (especially if they have extra consequences).
I could see homebrewing in something like this for a campaign that was specifically about doing a "rags to riches" story. Players start out as untrained slaves or something, and work their way up to being demigods. You would have to do something that makes it affect casters as well (ex: if the enemy rolls a nat 20 on a save against your spell, you suffer spell backlash) Also, I would take steps to mitigate it as the player levels, to show that the players are becoming more competent. For example: Nat 1 (or nat 20 on an enemy's save) is a fumble at lvl 1. At level 5, after rolling a nat 1, you roll a d4, and only fumble if that is also a 1. At level 10, you switch to rolling a 1 on a d8 to confirm the fumble. At 15 it's a d12, and, finally a d20 at 20. That doesn't solve all the problems of fumbles, ofc, but that's also just an idea off the top of my head, which could easily be refined. But yeah, crit fumble rules are garbage usually, and don't fit heroic fantasy games.
Obviously critical fumbles is bad from an optimisers point of view. That said, I don’t like them either, but I fall closer to “my precious character” viewpoint. That said, I’ve played with a DM who was more into the gritty grim dark side. Where characters are in a world of monsters which can and will kill them, fights are unbalanced, you rarely get high level characters, rolling up new characters is always interesting, and death, particularly ones caused by critical fumbles, are considered hilarious and memorable and some of the best fun at the table. It’s about having a good time. I don’t really agree with this play style, but I can see why some people see the appeal. I believe it’s an attitude from older editions.
The only way to use this in my experience is to house rule the house rule. I make it clear amongst my players that if there is a critical fumble, there's a good chance nothing happens, but sometimes something will. They know there are 19/20 sides of the dice where they are totally safe from the unexpected, and 1 side where something might happen, but they could still be safe, which makes things even more unexpected. One time, our paladin critical fumbled against a much larger great knight fighter. The great knight ripped the weapon from his hand and threw it at the wizard. The wizard complained "why am I getting hit for it?" I said "you're the one shooting spells at the knight in the safety of the backlines, he's not stupid, he needs to try to deal with you somehow." Everyone was pretty happy with that since it was the first time in 5 sessions I actually acted on a critical fail, and it wasn't even to damage the paladin who would have hurt himself falling unconscious. It also helped that it was an act of desperation on the part of the knight, who, when the paladin used his remaining attack to unarmed strike the knight, fell unconscious. Made it kinda more badass for the paladin lol.
I use a fumble table, but only with unanimous agreement from my players. It's also pretty tame and results in just missing embarrassingly wide most of the time. Quite fun!
I have played with critical fumbles not only on attacks but on any role (it technically wasn't D&D, and it technically was part of the rule, but it was basically a homebrew hack on D&D). I still remember being frightened by a ghost forever after trying to remember how she looked. It was weird.
Well, I tend to think up thing that happen based on contexts. Shooting through friendlies without warning - deal full/half damage to them (if they are before the target, not after) (allies can duck on reaction if warned/planned beforehand, but if target knows, he can get +2AC on reaction as well) | If not targets in between, ammo usually breaks Melee - weapon gets stuck (if fighting with big weapons in clustered space), dulled (if not magical blade vs heavy armor), Closer to breaking (3*nat1, can repair with tools) or they roll for disarm (if they fight a mertial master, not being one) Casters - either weak wild magic/focus melfunction/contextual spell misfire (fire spells destroyed many inns till now) I try to go with logical consequences. - dont use fire indoors, cold/acid in water, necro/radiant in steath temple/demon-lair infiltration - match weapons with environment. - don't shoot through allies without warning/prior plan
I used fumbles in my DM times, but not during combat. Tripping on an athletics check or stuttering during an intimidation check is funny and won't actually be harmful to martials specifically.
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great dutch the aa in gaan (going) can have some work it is now more an dutch "a" but you were totaly understandable keep ate the good work I would rate it at 9/10
I know or atleast think prenounciation is the most difficult for learning dutch the "ch" is one of the hardest if you can say "gracht" I would say you are as good as a native dutch speaker
I love that you have taken an intrist in dutch you are doing great
But Kobold! I- _(explodes, due to Nat 1 Persuasion check.)_
I helped this friend figure it out, but a pointer toward a means to better explain it would be nice.
@@thomascookson2426 Main statistic to keep in mind is the fact that about 100% of fumble rules, beyond "you auto-fail," are homebrew. Also, the more times you roll to attack, the more likely you are to roll a Nat 1 on the attack.
As a bit of an exaggerated example, let's say you multiclass Hunter Ranger with Fighter. By doing so, you can probably Hoard Breaker/Volley out dozens of attacks, in the right "White Room" situations. This is especially true, if you use Action Surge and picked up CBE. Now, imagine if I said "The next time you roll a Nat 1, the string on your crossbow breaks." While a 5% chance (1/20) of a crit fail wouldn't matter on a _single_ attack, the odds of you landing a crit fail go up exponentially, should you keep rolling over and over again. As such, if you're attacking a dozen times per turn, you're almost _guaranteed_ to have a broken string by turn 2. After all, by that point, you'll have rolled at _least_ 20 times, if not more, in the case of this hypothetical setup. Now, this will _keep_ happening to you over and over again per-combat, throughout an entire campaign, so long as this homebrew rule is in place.
Meanwhile, the Wizard just has to cast Fireball, and force the _enemy_ to roll instead.
@@thomascookson2426 if he disagrees with the math I recommend finishing the mandatory school program or whatever is called in your country because this is basic probability stuff. Maybe read a book called "Probability for Dummies". TabletopBuilds also has two articles about math called "A Primer on Quantitative Evaluation in D&D".
Flavour is free! There's no harm in describing a Nat 1 as getting awkwardly close to the enemy and staring into each other's eyes as your blades get caught in a bind as long as there is no mechanical penalty for just getting unlucky. You can still have the roleplay stuff without adding the chaos of combat.
I remember a series of fumbles that lead to the awkward outcome of something like:
Fighter attempts to swing his sword at an orc, misses and flings his sword, orc attempts to hit the fighter with it's mace, flings it's mace, fighter attempts to grapple the orc, fumbles and is now just holding the orc, orc attempts to punch the fighter, fumbles and holds the fighter.
Both the orc and the fighter are now holding each other close and looking into each other eyes awkwardly due to a series of fumbles
@@Nyghtking “hop on dnd”
It’s fine to describe funny misses with no mechanical disadvantage. But then, that’s not really a critical fumble. That’s just a miss with free flavour. Critical fumbles generally describe something that IS mechanical. Whether it’s throwing a weapon, dropping a weapon, falling prone, stabbing self, giving advantage to enemy etc…
I think one of the reasons for critical fumbles is as a counter to the critical hit. We all say “YES! NATURAL 20!” When we get that 20, and are rewarded by double damage dice.
While natural 1 may be an automatic miss, in reality, if you have a +8 to attack against an AC 16, Nat 1 is not different to rolling a 2 to 7.
Some DMs want to elicit the dread of rolling a Nat 1 that is equal to the joy of rolling a Nat 20.
I don’t like it, but I understand it. Some DMs and tables work on “failing is funny”.
@@Grygus_Triss It's funny, right up until the point where one of the players gets killed because a teammate got a nat 1 and hit them instead of the enemy.
Ragnar, the level 20 barbarian, hero of the realm, destroyer of armies, killer of demigods. But he is really most known to slip and fall mid-combat every 10 attacks.
"Hi, I'm Ragnar. I'm a bear." -One Piece D&D
@@hannahlistento100EAT My first thought lmao
accidents happen thats why the 1 is available, never heard someone complain about a crit failure but winning is not a part of our dnd games usually more talking we avoid combat.
Lee Han, one of the greatest monks the world has ever seen. He has mastered his own body to the point that age no longer weakens him and can kill a dragon with a single touch. Roughly every 30 seconds of intense combat he punches an ally instead. No one believes his assurances that it was an accident.
@@Buster_Blader322 so satisfying
I remember playing a monk and using both of my arms for one unarmed strike.
I rolled a natural 1, and the result the DM rolled was my "weapon breaks", therefore, the DM ruled that both of my arms broke.
Clearly the optimal play here, was to make an unarmed strike with my head, so I could just kill off my character and not play a tiefling monk, and instead play a halfling or something.
Or play in a different table, which is what I also did.
Yeah that’s ridiculous.
If you absolutely HAD to do a critical fumble, just reroll the fumble.
DM's like this are morons.
@@bahamutkaiser agreed lmao, with enough worms in this can to make a D&D horror story about it
@@masmurdermonkey9233 Or, meet in the middle, but give a much less harsh penalty. For example, I would have said maybe sprained one of, but not both, wrists, rather than full on breaking both. That's a bit harsh for a crit fumble.
Bro thats a bit extreme lol. Weapon breaking is fine in my opinion, as weapons break, but idk if it's even realistic for a monk to break both of his arms doing an unarmed strike... Or.... Maybe you punched the mf so hard you broke both of your hands, but adrenaline has kicked in so you wont feel it until out of initiative and it will take either a month in game to heal or a simple healing potion/spell can fix it.
Idk, thats what would I would say.
"So, here's another fine weapon I just finished smithing. It'll run you 50 gold pieces, but the edge retention is fantastic, especially considering the double edged nature. It flexes, but always returns to true. As long as you sharpen it once every couple hundred strikes you make with it, you will never need another. Just be aware that there's a fair chance you'll snap it in half by the 20th strike."
Tbf that checks out to real life. We have various historical accounts of basically exactly this. Brand new and used but well maintained blades snapping was not uncommon (and still happens to this day even with modern manufacturing consistency)
"For 250 gold, you can have this magic sword instead. As you can see, it does not flex and, being a magic weapon, is completely indestructible. Just be aware you can still snap it in half if you swing it and hit nothing."
@@Marhathor Flex is a good thing for most swords, it's what stops them breaking :)
If steel can have invisible flaws we only find out when something breaks, why not spellcraft? This is pointless devil's advocate though, I don't use crit fumbles and don't really like them. I will say I've never seen a DM who would break a magical item from a nat 1, though I'm sure there are some out there bad enough to do it
@@hallowedfool The no flex thing was purely because it's indestructible anyway. Is it useful for a blade to flex for any reason other than they'd break if they didn't?
@@Marhathor There's some manuscripts talk about using the flex to slap someone with the flat of the blade to kind of... Flex on them, if you will. So probably only if you want to be particularly sassy at that point
I've confused so many people by pointing out how Critical Fumbles have _never_ been a core rule in _any_ edition, but is actually a house rule (originally introduced in Dragon Magazine (Issue # 39, July 1980) in an article titled "Good Hits and Bad Misses") that stuck around. I love how in 4th Edition it appears in the chapter about House Rules as a cautionary example followed by an example of a good house rule.
I've also blown more than a few minds by pointing out that Natural 1s and 20s _only_ apply to Attack Rolls and Death Saves. You _do not_ automatically succeed or fail any Saving Throws or Skill Checks; even the proposed variant rule on page 242 of the DMG only suggests increasing the impact of a success or failure of a Skill Check if you roll a 20 on a success or a 1 on a failure, as RAW a natural 1 can still succeed and a natural 20 can still fail.
Sources:
Player's Handbook page 194 "Rolling 1 or 20"
Player's Handbook page 197 "Death Saving Throws"
Dungeon Master's Guide page 242 "Critical Success or Failure"
Huh... that bit about nat 1s and 20s with saving throws must be new to 5e. Because back in 3e saving throws did have the same auto fail/succeed properties as attack rolls. Wouldn't be surprised if that change trips up a lot of veterans.
@@EmeralBookwise Yeah, 3rd had Crits on Saving throws. But it also _specifically_ didn't on Skill Checks, on PHB page 63, yet so many people _still_ think a Natural 20 on a Skill Check is an automatic success.
In the One D&D playtest material however, they're streamlining D20 Checks by allowing Critical Success and Failure on _everything._
@@arcticbanana66: True, but maybe _if you can't beat 'em, join 'em_ is the better part of valor here. If people are so often confusing which d20 rolls have and don't have auto success/failure, maybe it is just best to make it a universal mechanic, that way the games can at least be balanced around the inclusion.
@@arcticbanana66 The d20 Tests being auto fail/success on a nat 1/20 was in the first playtest, but no longer present in the second, so no, they are not streamlining it.
@@tomm35 I haven't read the new material yet. Good to know.
I play in a game with crit fumbles, but they only happen at the DM's discretion. Most of the time it actually ends up affecting the casters more than the martials. For example, I'm playing a ranger in that game and once I rolled a nat 1 to attack a tree and my weapon got stuck, but that was an out of combat scenario and it was just fun. In contrast, our sorcerer rolled a nat 1 on a firebolt attack mid combat and the DM had it go wide and hit a farmer's thatch roof, setting it on fire. We had quite a bit of apologizing to do after the combat was over, and I thought it was pretty fun. Importantly, though, the crit fumbles never caused mechanical detriments. They always just created an interesting roleplay scenario instead. This is what I think crit fumbles should be.
That’s great! Stuff like that should be encouraged. Your characters can always make some mistakes, but those are situations that aren’t harmful to your gameplay or to the combat. Critical fumbles (within reason) in role play can be a lot of fun sometimes
My old DM used these religiously and even had a table that increased your chances of crit fumbling by how many items your character had, and relished in the misery they caused the table. No, the monsters did not ever crit fumble due to their lack of items.
Thats cruel!
This is an example of a DM who plays AGAINST the players, instead of WITH them.
I've also noticed that the penalties on tables tend to vary wildly. So there's an equal chance that you'll hit an ally as there is for completely ruining your weapon.
There is exactly one type of fumbles that can work: You fumble on a natural 1 only if you aren't proficient with the weapon or tool. It would make complete sense for someone to fumble with something he isn't trained in and hurt himself or others, or destroy the tool or weapon by accident, but that is the only exception where it makes sense
I would argue that it makes sense _only_ for an NPC that has literally (or near-literally) never held a weapon before. If you're proficient with at least one weapon, you're not going to fat-finger any other weapons this badly, either.
Which would discourage variety and using anything you're not proficient with and force the DM avoid any reward the party has 0 proficiency in.
I might consider a mild fumble if a player rolled double 1s because of disadvantage. Like dropping a weapon, having a bow string snap, or losing their shield bonus to ac for a round.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 The DM already *should* avoid rewarding the party with things they aren't proficient in. What are you going to do with a magic weapon that you aren't proficient in? Be forced to take a penalty because the monster is immune to non-magic weapons? And not one caster will *ever* wear armour they aren't proficient in, because that turns off their *entire class*
Shit like that is just more martial hate. If they DM isn't giving you treasure you can use, then the DM is only giving you treasure you're going to sell or trade.
@@renatocorvaro6924
I think impractical treasure is okay, it makes the world feel more lived-in, more real, if not everything is designed for you. Just give them opportunities to actually sell or trade that stuff later for something the players actually want. Just sucks if the DM _only_ gives out treasure the party can't actually use, then it feels like the world is out to get you.
I usually just say something like “The weapon has become lodged between the stones, as your target shifts away.” Nothing too detrimental, but still gives the lowest score some meaning. If it still numerically meets the armor class, though, it *will* hit.
Then again, last night’s session saw a flame skull roll a double nat one, and then a third natural one to confirm. It just freaking exploded.
RAW a Nat 1 in combat is an automatic miss so do you just ignore that?
@@WhydTheyChangeOurNames yes. I also don’t let a natural 20 hit if it numerically can’t. I feel like it makes the use of armor classes more strategic. There shouldn’t be a 1/20 chance that a knife somehow gets past a tank’s steel and ceramic plating, ya know?
@@WarChallenger well even at Level 1 it's nearly impossible for a 20 not to hit a monster. Reasonably you should have AT LEAST a 4-5 to hit and even Tiamat has a 25 AC. I'd also fully disagree about not being able to hit. Its the luck factor. Hitting the gap in Smaug's scales type deal. Also in real life its just the law of averages, I actually COULD go out to a tank with a knife blindfolded and stab at it and at some point I will hit something that will damage it. It's both realistic and fits in the fantasy.
Ngl I've considered that before too but even then I decided I'd still honor it as an auto hit but not a crit if it doesn't meet AC, somehow.
Also about Nat 1's I've made characters to level 10 with a +17 to hit with only a +1 weapon. So my lowest possible roll is an 18 meaning I can and will hit 100% of the time by your rules on over 90% of all official creatures in the books. That's only Level 10 by Level 20 that character would literally never miss. Wouldn't even need to roll except to try and crit
@@WhydTheyChangeOurNames That part is fair, although I don’t view the latter point as an issue. Leveling up is like honing in your skills. If you get to a point where you literally cannot miss, that’s like becoming a trained professional. That also helps speed up combat! Have everyone roll their D20s at the start of the round if that’s the attack dice, and then just calculate damages as a group. A well-oiled machine.
I get what you’re saying about potential weak points too, but since we’re dealing with fast-paced combat, it just doesn’t make sense to me personally that someone would be able to hit those precise points. I’ve used this type of ruling for months, and my players are enjoying the slight increase in combat speed and the sense of security it brings. If I ever need, I can always change around enemies in the modules I run specifically to have higher roll caps. Scaling threats with the players!
@@WarChallenger if anything calculating Nat 1s and 20s to see if they hit or not is objectively slower but hey if your players are liking it, kudos. I'd also just refer back to my stabbing a tank analogy about "it doesn't make sense in these fast paced combats to find the weak spot" you're not TRYING to find anything, you just HAPPEN to hit it. That's why I specifically said in that example that I'd be blindfolded. If I can see I can just cut the brake line and damage the tank no problem. Being blindfolded in the example was to show off how luck isn't unrealistic or unreasonable. So on that point I just whole heartedly disagree but as said above if it works for your group that's fantastic.
"You drop your weapon"
"I'm a monk"
"And...?"
My fists, I've droped them down a sewer grate!
@@johngleeman8347 c'mon man, you gotta make sure you clench harder onto your fists
@lpmatthews7387
"you forgot how to hit things."
I played in my first game that used crit fumbles recently at a con. It was horrible, attacking your allies, losing weapons and magic, falling prone, ect. Definitely significantly detracted from the enjoyment of the table
The worst was when I cast scorching ray and got both a nat 20 and nat 1. The DM ruled the one made the 20 hit another PC
Don't you just hate when you're chopping carrots, the knife slips a bit, so you turn around, walk 10ft and stab your wife right in the eye socket? Damn natty 1's!!!
@@SirGambitRocks now that’s just completely messed up and shouldn’t even be possible by the rules of scorching ray.
@@SirGambitRocks Wow im sorry to hear that
DnD is game of creativity and freedom, both DM and Players are allowed to have fun regardless of what happen and how they want to approach it
But thats just a DM wanting to ruin the players DND Experience and actually really dumb
What you're talking about? It didn't ruin my enjoyment at all
This was literally the reason I almost quit d&d before I started. My first DM used this rule, and I assumed it was in the handbook. My character killed himself on his first turn.
I tend to call excessive crits the "Gold coin or stab the brain" rule. Pick your nose 20 times, at least 1 time you'll pull out a gold coin and one time you'll stab yourself in the brain. Just imagine how bad the bathrooms are if 5% of people do a 'critical fumble.' Every chef poisons 5% of their customers, every blacksmith have 5% of tools be defective, etc.
Sure, maybe at least 5% of the time you miss, but 5% of the time you don't toss your sword across the room and impale your friend
Critical fumbles shouldn’t be like you start the oven and the whole house is on fire, it should be like you start the oven and it doesn’t get hot enough
@@slippyy6742 that's just a failure tho. That's what not going above the DC is.
I play with a house rule that we call the Jar Jar rule. Basically, if a player or monster rolls a critical miss on an attack, then the DM rolls a d20. On a 20 is a critical botch- something uncommonly bad happens (ie your examples of bad game design) but on a 1, you have botched the botch and something good happens. For example you lose the grip on your weapon but it flies across the room and knocks the bookcase down onto your enemies, or you accidentally trip the bbeg, or you miss your target, but hit two other enemies.
This houserule was most frustrating in 3rd edition where it was commonplace for any martial to throw out 4 attacks on average.
But I'd also pair this with the Lingering Injuries mechanic for adding insults to unlucky players.
Games are much more fun to play and engaging to run when failures are paired with bonuses. See Monster of the Week awarding 1 Experience on a fail, it's a very widely embraced mechanic
I wouldn't say "commonplace". Excluding two-weapon fighting or other special abilities, a full base attack class (barbarian, fighters, paladins, rangers), wouldn't get to make 4 attacks until 16th level, and even getting 3 attacks wouldn't happen until 11th level.
You joke, but my old home group DM used both houserules, and he always seemed surprised whenever something really bad happened to us (ie, permablinded, dead) and always tried to run it back since it’d ruin the story.
He’s been busy lately and I’ve found different groups so suffice it to say, it’s been a nice reprieve.
@@EmeralBookwise I blatantly said 3rd edition, attacks per action & bonus action worked drastically differently back then.
To oversimplify it in a way it'd make sense in 5th edition, imagine your proficiency bonus going up by 1 every level. For every +5 you had to an attack roll you gained another attack with a cumulative -5 to your bonus for each extra attack as long as you still had a positive modifier, this also applied to offhand attacks though those always started with half the max bonus without feats; abusively interesting was this ruling included and worked with bonuses from spells and items. For example a fighter with a +11 to attack would get 3 attacks, first at +11, second at +6, and third at +1; now say he duel-wields, he'd get an extra 2 attacks with his offhand being the +6 & +1 rolls again, meaning a duel-weilding fighter of 11th level could attack 5 times in one turn, doubled if hasted. The counter point was that martials couldn't break up their attacks between movement without particular feats.
In short 3rd edition has some wacky high numbers since they didn't have the arbitrary scaling limit 5th edition is built on, and this is most noticeable in the core numbers such as ability scores AC feats and skill bonuses, but those are another ramble.
@@infinitezeros5973 I've played a couple campaigns with both house rules as well, but they were the kinds of hardcore players that expected everyone to bring multiple backup characters, still sessions would bog down with trying to keep track of all the random effects even when he had a mat and pieces to work with.
I was glad to find another group that didn't use either, and man the combat runs so much smoother, until someone plays a wild magic sorcerer lol.
Yeah, this I've gotta agree with. Failing a check or attack is bad enough, I don't need to cause myself or party members more pain on top of that.
Punishing players again on top of a failed roll is just sadistic.
So on the other hand a nat 20 should just be hit no critical no extra damage just a hit
@@druxusthemage9806 When was that ever said? Dnd is a power fantasy ttrpg, and it’s also designed *with* crits.
Crit fumbles are not something that’s official or designed around.
@@druxusthemage9806 I make them rolled d4 to confirm Crit-fail, and then roll on a consequence table(enemies too). Not really happening to martials as often as their best move is generally to grapple, prone, and beat the crap out of the enemy with Advantage or drown them.
@@sidecharacter7165 I wouldn't play at your table.
@@Identity469 I wouldn’t let you
I'm the guy who kept asking for Pathfinder content. I really love how you brought it up specifically. Using it to talk about broad TTRPG issues is really healthy for the hobby.
My DM mostly uses crit fails on skill checks and even then doesn't use them all the time. It is more akin to degrees of success (or failure). He occasionally will do them on attacks as well, but fairly minor ones like d4 damage to an ally standing next to the target (we are level 7 so that doesn't hurt much). It adds a bit of flair to it and he is good at not making them overly punishing.
I do use crit fumbles, with a party that agrees to it and enjoys it, and I think it can be good storytelling if you actually make an effort for that to be the goal. I basically never have characters just throw their weapons around. If I'm going to have them lose a weapon I'll make it something like the opponent took advantage of their imperfect strike to disarm them. There are ways to implement whatever consequence you want it to have that elevate the conflict instead of mocking it.
As with basically any house rule, absolutely only do it if everyone is on board and it will actively make their play experience better. Also it hadn't occurred to me that it contributes to the caster-martial gap, so I'll have to keep that in mind going forward.
A couple solutions to the caster thing is:
1.Have casters suffer backlash (fumble) if an enemy rolls a nat 20 to save against their spell.
or
2. Have a caster roll a d20 with each non-attack spell to check for fumble.
@@CatacombD ...I actually really like that first one. 20 on saves usually doesn't have any significance, which can often make people feel like they 'wasted a 20'. I think I'd addendum that it doesn't apply to attack roll spells or AoE dex save spells [Imagine getting punished because one person in your Fireball got a 20 while everyone else blew up] but for single target saving throw only spells, I kinda like the idea of getting zapped by a failed Mind Sliver or fumbling words during your Vicious Mockery.
This is so, so true. I once played in a game with Critical Fumbles and thankfully I was told that the game had them going in. The game also had critical fumbles for the enemies (because that's "fair"). They did the whole rolling on table and everything bit. So I just built my character around never doing attack rolls. I built a divine soul sorcerer more geared towards support and called it a day. In just one combat I saw (this was years ago, so this is just how I remember it, this was 12th level as I joined this campaign late):
- The artificer's big gun jammed up (broke).
- The barbarian hurt her leg somehow, movement speed cut in half.
- The rogue shot their friend who was adjacent to their target (miss and hit an ally instead, who had even better AC than the target did btw...).
- The warlock's eldritch blast blew up in their face (self-inflicted damage).
- Nothing happened to me.
My main spells were sacred flame and toll the dead and I also had fireball, spiritual guardians, and many more along with a good amount of support and utility options. And I slapped on magic missiles just in case I needed to guarantee take something down.
I never got a critical fumble simply because not a single one of my spells had attack rolls on them. Sure this campaign didn't last long before imploding, but I remember that pretty much in every combat that if you consistently rolled attacks, something would eventually happen to you. So I chose to just not. And I didn't mention I built my character for this purpose because I then believe the DM would make me roll for "spell fumbles" or something dumb. So the fact I never fumbled just went under the radar. I never talked about it, and when a fumble occurred it became the attention magnet anyway. Thankfully no one ever said "Oh hey, the sorcerer hasn't ever fumbled" or perhaps nobody even noticed.
I've got to say, you've actually changed my mind on this.
Either no critical fumbles OR we could basically introduce wild magic type effect to EVERY caster, giving them a chance to mess up any spell. It makes way more sense for the complicated Arcane or religious process to be a smidgen off, creating an unintended consequence or a diety who misunderstands your request, than it does for a general with hands of steel to regularly get butter fingers...
Plus it nerfs casters.
An easy tweak to make fumbles affect casters is to make them suffer a fumble if an enemy rolls a nat 20 save against their spell. Then the only spells that fully avoid fumble rules are buffs/terrain alteration.
Thats kinda how Dungeon Crawl Classics works
There's another notable problem with critical fumbles, especially on homebrew tables that include lethal results: When the DM crit fumbles, it usually means some random trash mob cuts its own head off or steps on a bear trap or whatever. At worst, a boss (that the party was ultimately meant to defeat anyway) messes up big time. Each enemy will fumble once, MAYBE twice in its on-table time. But a PC will fumble multiple times over the campaign, with the potential for the embarrassing moments to undercut the established flavor, or worse yet killing the PC through no reasonable fault of their own.
If you're a GM and desperately want to use fumble rules, only apply it to low level minions. And maybe, if you're feeling really spicy, for PCs that are using weapons they aren't proficient with.
45 years in TTRPGs have shown me a lot. There are settings where critical fumbles can be appropriate, and their consequences dire. If you are running one of those settings, it should be known up front by EVERYONE. Otherwise, I prefer what I call Comical Fumbles. Their consequences are seldom worse than a blow to action economy (i.e. an action to pick up your dropped weapon, or draw another), but described in a way that adds to the narrative. They can build or break tension, and my players have always enjoyed them. Also, having something happen every time someone fumbles means it doesn't break immersion when a "that guy" gets harsher results at my table. I can ramp up the results as a warning, without interrupting the story, and take them aside at the next break to discuss things. A good DM never throws out a useful tool, but we never abuse our tools, either. 🤠👍
@@mogalixir If you have a good DM running a good fumble system, they will apply to spells as well. For the most common example, you have the perils of the warp stuff in warhammer/40k.
In our Pathfinder game, we use critical hit and fumble tables, but we also use a luck system that can nullify crits and/or fumbles!
The fumbles create some of the most memorable moments, especially when a fumble turns into a boon for the character or party!
1. My AD&D 2e forest gnome spellcasting bandit fumbled(customized class from the DMG) and threw his trident behind him and avoided being buried in popcorn while fighting skeletons after our barbarian threw up a crate of popcorn and our mage fireballed it!
2.The same character fumbled on an attack and ended up jamming his trident in the doorway of a room with an invisible assailant, later that turn the enemy was coated in flower but couldn't escape sine a forest gnome was blocking the door with his trident and the party ended up killing the enemy!
3. My 5E Orc Necromancer cast a spell and fumbled on the attack and ended up transposing with the enemy archer he was targeting, making the archer an easy kill for the party while my Necromancer was able to blast them from behind!
The only long term "fumble" rule I ever implemented was in a Star Wars d20 game, and it wasn't meant to punish bad luck, but rather as an alternative to ammo tracking. There were a few other safety measures to avoid stuff like back-to-back "fumbles", but the gist was whenever it occurred while firing a blaster the character would need to reload.
Same! Given that blaster ammo is something like 100 or 50 shots per easily-attainable blaster pack, it was always a simple reach to make that the 'reload is required' moment.
Whenever my players roll a nat 1, I usually let it just be a 100% miss. There are times where, story-wise, it would be more interesting for something else to happen. For example, an enemy npc that has the Parry ability will then get advantage on it against a nat 1 (or if you feel cheeky, auto-succeed the parry).
Narratively, this npc has intercepted your swing so expertly, retaliating in such a way that makes you seem like you don't know how to swing a sword. Said npc might even mock the player, giving a nice "Oh, I'm going to make you pay for that!" vibe.
Absolutely right. I enjoy using house rules that go the opposite direction.
On a Nat 1, you describe what went wrong to add some flavor to the fight. But then instead of a crit fumble, you automatically miss, then get a beneficial effect, such as gaining inspiration, or maybe attacking so unpredictably that you get a +2 AC until your next turn.
No tables or extra rolls, though. Just a spur of the moment DM handout. And always remember to do it when an NPC Nat saves against a spell, too.
Example:
NPC rolls Nat 20 against Tasha's Hideous Laughter.
DM: "The gnoll was obviously unphased by your magic... because you were completely unintelligible and just screaming gibberish. You actually failed to even cast the spell. You regain a 1st level spell slot."
Player is still punished by the Nat 1 by wasting their action, but you get a scene where a caster fumbles over their own words like an idiot, but ultimately doesn't feel too bad because they didn't even waste the slot.
So you prefer getting a bonus after a nat one, but NPC's get punished for critical saves?
Harsh consequences and endless random tables aren't my taste either, I'd go for simple stuff like archers and Spellcasters hitting allies in the line of attack (only base weapon damage or for spells lowest possible damage) a barbarian in rage might very well get so out of control for a second that with his swing he hits a comrade.. and so on
Weapons breaking would never be an option unless I have a new fancy magic weapon around the corner waiting to be found with the Combat nearly over.. martials usually all have extra weapons in worst case and magic weapons can't even break under normal circumstances
But your take seem badly designed to me.
For martials it might be fine, tho I'd prefer them not to profit from a fumble, but if you give your casters spell slots back when the opponent just did his best to survive is just broken and unfair.
Imagine the once per day wish or a breath attack of an ancient dragon just resets automatically when one of the party crits a save..
The part with martials might be okay to only give to the players, as it is built around flavour (tho I'd still use the same mechanics for NPC's)
The spell slot recovery on the other hand is just a pure mechanical advantage that isn't balanced if only the players get those features
@@PrinceMeNb1 Only the players should get those features. The NPCs aren't real.
You can correct me if I'm wrong, but your take seems to be along the lines of DMs who feel that their players need to get punished when they fail instead of, well, keeping the game fun.
The enjoyment of everyone at the table is always my first priority. The NPCs aren't real and can't have fun, but my players are. Thus, it's impossible to "punish" an NPC.
Balance also isn't an issue due to how I presented the scenario. Like I said, no hard rules that use tables or extra rolls; the DM determines the appropriate bonus on the fly to keep the game fun. Getting a 1st level spell slot back after an NPC nat saves is just one possible example out of possibilities limited only by the DM's imagination.
And again, that's why it's not a balance issue: I didn't create a new rule. I made a suggestion for DMs. The DM chooses in every instance what happens, so how can it be imbalanced? There's no rule to follow.
So if you are DMing and an NPC gets a Nat 20 and you feel it's not justified in giving any bonus to the player, then don't. You don't have to, and no one's going to try and make you.
But if you noticed that player has been rolling crappy and is kind of not having a good time, then absolutely feel free to use that nat 20 save as a reason to spin a story. Even if there's no mechanical benefit, it's a great opportunity to narrate something special that makes that character feel more pulled into the story.
An example of doing this without a mechanical benefit could be to do something like:
*NPC rolls nat 20 on spell save*
"Your spell has no effect against the Lich. He turns toward you, and what's left of his lips pull back in snarled smile as he pulls back part of his robe, revealing an amulet. You can see the last remnants of your arcane energy get sucked into the amulet."
Whether it's because of a nat 20, or using a legendary resistance, it's a great opportunity to do something special in that moment. There didn't ever need to originally be an amulet, or a plan for legendary resistances for the bad guy; you can create narrate it on the fly to make the nat 20 seem more special.
If I chose to give the player the spell slot back, I could narrate it exactly the same way, then describe the arcane energy swirling about the amulet before returning to the PC.
Note how this example is completely different from my first example. The idea is that every nat 20, rolled by players or DM for NPCs, gives an opportunity to make that 20 feel special and increase the engagement in the story.
And that's the point for rewarding your players on nat 20s and nat 1s. I don't care whether it's a mechanical advantage or not. The point is that NPCs aren't capable of being punished, nor are they capable of being rewarded, because they aren't real. But the players are real, and they will always enjoy something special that they know doesn't happen very often.
Theoretically, you could attempt to narrate every action this way, but that would both be very exhausting for the DM and possibly eventually boring to the players. So saving it for only 5-10% of the rolls both allows some extra bonuses or narration that the players know they can look forward to without draining the special feel of it.
I do crit 'fails' for specific scenarios that make logical sense and add to the rp of the scene. Like a player rolling a 1 to barrel through a metal door getting disoriented from the impact. Resulting in disadvantage on their next action and alerting anything nearby from the noise. Stuff like that. This works for the players and npcs both of course. It adds some diversity to combat and often opens up follow up rp driven actions from the party.
I'm in a similar fashion, where it is more a narrative issue. Like they know before rolling that shooting at the creature that is grappling your friend, could result in missing and hitting your friend. But that's mostly the only time I do it. Even then, I might make them roll again to see if they are even able to hit their friend.
There is a system, made by shadiversity, where there is something called narrative failure. Where you like you say, you still succeeded to commit to an action but at a cost.
@@gandalftheantlion I do agree with the video that adding additional systems slows things down, even if they are fun.
I tend to react more to my players going, "its a tight shot through a doorway. What if i accidently hit Ted?" I feel I need to make hitting Ted in the back with an arrow an option.
@@hallopino well the system I'm referring to is the Cogent Roleplay. It was ttrpg system made by shad you can find videos of where he played it with his brother and friends.
I personally don’t like crit fumbles, but my players insist on them. I tried to talk them out of it, but they voted and they wanted to have them. Unanimously. If I don’t give them a penalty they will roll on their own table and give it to themselves.
I do not understand them, but at this point I just go with it. Mainly so I could pick a less annoying table to roll on.
Making the issues less prevalent may not fix the underlying issue, but it does affect the cost/benefit analysis when weighed against the rp value. Have them roll a crit-fail confirmation roll where anything above 10 just means a failure without additional consequence and 10 or lower causes the fumble. If you want to balance or martials, let players add either their con or dex to the roll and account for balance when determining the flavor of the fumble. A critically fumbled spell attack would probably have much more dramatic consequences than a sloppy javelin throw
Thank you for this video and all the math. The next time I run into a critical fumble table I can at least try to convince them that it just isn’t fun by using math. Like a dnd player.
The way one of my DMs opts to work it is that a Nat 1 will allow a melee-capable enemy that is within range to make an opportunity attack. The enemy has to spend a reaction to do it, and they can only perform a basic attack. I am still not entirely sure how I feel about how it punishes melee attackers, but I think that it's at least better than a seasoned hero stabbing themselves in the leg, and it also allows for the players to more frequently use melee attacks on enemies that are hesitant to trigger attacks of opportunity.
I do personally run critical fumble in my game, however not every nat 1 means a fumble, and is usually based on the creature they are fighting, and only if it makes narrative sense.
Instead of rolling on tables or extra dice, I take control of the fumbles, and tend to keep it to a minimum, so when it does come up, it makes sense, and has been memorable in a good way.
Lvl 20 Fighter with Polearm Master - when she uses ActionSurge (9 attacks) ~37% chance of at least one fumble on that turn.
I played in a group with critical fail cards. Basically instead of a crit fail table we use a deck of cards. One time I was playing a paladin I rolled a nat 1 on my attack. We decided since the weapon was a sunsword that we would take the magic attack result: “You fall madly in love with you target.” It took her several session to reciprocate my affection, but that is the story of how I got a pet direwolf.
Ew, beastiality
That doesn’t even make sense
I thought it didn't make much sense for high ranking heroes to flop so heavily. I discussed it with my party and we decided that a crit fail would mean the enemy gets to make an attack. It's never described as something like harming yourself or losing your weapon or anything, it's just they get to make an attack of opportunity. But at the same time, if the enemy fails, then the player gets to make an opportunity attack. Works for my party, nobody dislikes it and it's lead to some neat moments. I know it doesn't work for everyone though. I usually just describe it as an attack that misses but leaves a gap in your defenses, which the enemy gets a chance to exploit (more specific than that but that's the most generic way I can think to explain it)
A Fumble rule I've taken to using which has so far been well received with all four of my groups is this; "Whenever a natural one is rolled for an attack roll of any kind (including spells), ONE creature that is hostile to you may use its reaction to perform a single Melee or Ranged WEAPON attack against you." I see it as creatures performing a Riposte in melee or spotting an opening in your defenses at range, which of course goes both ways. Monsters rolling natural ones and leaving themselves open to the Barbarian's great axe? Swing away buddy. I like the idea of Natural ones bringing some extra detriment, and I've found this to do just that in a fair manner. In fact I'd even say it's player-favored considering how many more dice a DM generally rolls in combat throughout a campaign.
Whoa... THAT is a perfect idea for my table!
Still favors toll the dead
As a Dutchman, your dutch wasn't even actually that bad! Your G's were pretty good, which is normally a thing non-native speakers have problems with.
I feel like the only time accidentally attacking your comrades is slightly okay is if youre trying to take a really tight or awkward shot thru a group of your friends. Even then it feels weird
I only make my players fumble when it is just really obvious to happen like:
Rogue tried to drop from a tree and ambush an enemie
-> i give him advantage cause it sounded sick
-> he gets two nat 1‘s
-> i describe how he falls on his face and takes a small bit of damage, that confused the enemy though
This is stuff I’ve been saying for a while and why I don’t incorporate crit fumbles into the games I run.
But I’ve been playing in a campaign where the DM uses crit fumbles and I’ve been worried about how I should tell them how I feel about crit fumbles. See, I’m playing as a dual scimitar wielding fighter and so I’m disproportionately at risk of crit fumbling when compared to our cleric, druid/barbarian, and paladin. I’ve been lucky enough to have not fumbled so far but it’s only a matter of time until my fighter falls on both of their swords for the hashtag coolstorymoment and so I’ve been trying to build up the courage to tell my DM that it’s not fair that I’ve got a 14.26% chance of crit failing on my turn (18.55% when I level up to 11th level or use action surge.) But I made the choice to play fighter, so who am I to complain?
I'd recommend doing just what you've done here. Be calm but direct.
It's clearly not about their game or their style as you wouldn't be playing at all then, but bring up the fact that it isn't fair for the party in general, and you in specific. This is how I approached this issue when my good friend of forever decided to have a severe attack from enemies on a 20 -> confirmed 20, (resulting in potentially lost limbs). I showed them the math, and how by about level 6 or so, each of the party members would have 0 remaining original limbs.
I also decided to run the numbers a bit further, assuming I make 3 attacks per round (and I don’t use the brace maneuver or take attacks of opportunity) and each encounter lasts 3-ish rounds, and there’s 2 combat encounters per day, the chance of rolling a crit fumble during that day alone is 60.28%.
I also realized that if they’re adamant about keeping the rule in spite of the numbers, I could ask the DM to let me switch my fighting style to pack tactics and let me have a bag of tricks. That doesn’t sound like a big ask, right?
@@raz802 Severe attacks sound like a really bad idea, especially for particularly ambulatory characters like monks, fighters, barb-… Oh, oh yeah, martials. Ah…
Well, I’ve talked with my DM, looks like I’ll still have to deal with crit fumbles… but now I have pack tactics.
Stop being yellow, it's just a game.
Edit: didn't realize the updates
I don't know how other people do it at their table but at mine (With me being DM), you only roll once from Extra attack, if it hits, all attacks connect but if it misses, you can roll again and just one less attack hits. It is a subtle way to boost Martials at my table and make leveling up as them even more fun, just seeing that 4 attacks flawlessly connect is great and makes Martials feel powerful
Multiattack for monsters is a excpetion from that rule, it needs to be rolled every time attack is made
As a DM I use a critical fumble very rarely to make a combat interesting or to make nat1 cause interesting consequences.
Example: warlock shot Eldritch Blast aiming the enemy behind the cart that party had to retrieve and he rolled attack nat1. I decided that instead of just missing, he destroyed one of cart wheel. Party had to find a way to repair a wheel or transport it with broken wheel.
Don't hesitate to use it, but only if you really have idea to enhance game and give your players more fun.
It feels weird to make it a rule “whenever you feel like it”, I personally wouldn’t use crit fumbles anyway but if I was I would at least make it consistent instead of making the party occasionally reattach a cart wheel or something.
Tell them beforehand. "Due to the angle at which are you standing, if you miss this shot, you will hit the cart instead. In most cases the damage will be negligible, but on a nat 1, something bad might happen. Do you still take the shot?" That way they know, and they can reposition to make the shot safer.
I probably still wouldn't incorporate it at all, though.
I play pf2e with two critical fumble rules. If you crit fail an attack you lose an action.
If you crit fail a range attack against a target who's getting an ac bonus from hiding behind a creature, you don't lose an action, but deal damage to the interposing creature instead.
It just helped incentives getting bonuses and repositioning.
As a Dutchie myself i loved that ofcourse, love the vids! Keep them up! I'd love to see a build for paladin or some weird unheard off build!
I will admit to using them, sometimes. Specifically when I feel that there is something to be gained for the narrative. As an example, while fighting a relatively powerful enemy swordsman, my party's sword using fighter rolled a 1. I allowed the enemy to use his reaction and make an attack against the fighter's sword, destroying it as the villain's magical blade cleaved through the fighter's rather mundane one. The fighter then asked if he could use his broken sword to still stab the guy, and I agreed. The end result was that his longsword became a shortsword for the rest of the fight, and he replaced it with the nifty magical one that the bad guy had been using. He still had a weapon, and he technically cost the enemy on action economy.
I honestly though critical fumbles were at least an optional rule, I’ve had it been used at every table I’ve played at without question. Once my weapon broke when I tried to break in a door with it. I had a good laugh, but it was rough not being able to use the weapon I was hoping to use.
At my current table a 1 on an attack roll will 100% hit an ally if they’re near the intended target. Which tends to be the martials. I’ve been hit by more than a few firebolts, scorching rays, and arrows.
my fumble rules are simple, nat 1 in melee the target may make an attack of opportunity against you, nat 1 at range roll a d8 to determine the new target space if someone is there roll a new attack half the damage against them, and if the target rolls a nat 20 on a save they suffer no effects from what you hit them with
I like a narrative consequence for rolling nat 1s. It does make the story more engaging. But now with "failing forward" inspirations, I'll just use that instead of critical fumbles. (Aside: I still narrate a Nat 1 that passes a check with modifiers as a "failing forward" situation. e.g., a Persuasion check wasn't persuasive but distracting enough to "achieve" the objective)
Have you ever considered building a an adventure in which there is multiple paths to the ending, and, if the players fail all of them, they just lost the adventure? Therefore, you wouldn't need to force successes from failed attempts.
If you say you like critical fumbles, it's because you find that a chance of failing is interesting for the game. But, at the same time, you are removing lost as a game element with this fail forward thing. On the contrary, if you don't like fail to be a possibility, why use a game mechanic that make players fail when they roll a random number? Not because they made a bad choice, but because a plastic object said so.
Not trying to pick up a fight, but I just can't understand how your character pathetic failing randomly or succeeding no matter what you did, or how well you did, make the story more engaging. If you have a bottle neck where characters can't fail or the story blows, just don't ask for a test
I'm kind of inconsistent on this rule. It all depends on the situation. One time it was raining heavily and the party was fighting outside. The Paladin attacked and rolled a 1. I asked him to make a dex save, in which he got a total of 5. I said that since it was raining, he slipped on some mud and was knocked prone. It's not something that really affected him almost at all, since he could still use his movement to get up that turn. In melee combat, I don't usually make a rule that damages the player/another player, but if it's a ranged attack and there is at least one creature within 5ft of the target, I will make the attack hit another target but do half damage.
I remember one DM who treated every fumble in combat to mean you're attacking an ally. He said it was realistic. I said if it was realistic, every army in every war would lose like half its forces to friendly fire. He said "well that's the rules." I didn't think to challenge him on that since I was new to D&D at the time, but I said that's stupid.
Based on my military experience, friendly fire is a constant threath. When fighting in a forest with camouflage on both sides, it's really hard to see, and even harder to see if the group is an ally or not. In one exercise, one of our squads got wiped out because the machine gunner failed to recognize a friendly squad and gunned them down (simulation, happily). And this was an controlled exercise during peace time. I'd hate to experience how chaotic things get in actual war. If a fire commander rolls a nat 1 and gives wrong coordinates to artillery, they can easily wipe their own platoon. This has actually been reported to happen in some wars, especially to certain disorganized armies.
In medieval warfare, you had the advantage of armies wearing different colors, soldiers marching in formations and having different banners to help them in the chaos of melee. I could still easily imagine the 5% friendly fire rate in mass combat. But with adventuring party, it's a completely different story. 5% friendly fire would be absurd, because there aren't that many combatants and they aren't as tightly packed.
@@PiiskaJesusFreak I feel you. Some smart guy in the same kind of exercise gunned me and a buddy down when we were on the same team. In Iraq, we had a call for fire land way too close for comfort when it should have landed somewhere else entirely.
I still don't buy that it's as prevalent as a d20 would have you believe. As Pack pointed out, only two attacks has like a 9% chance of fumbling, and if every fumble is friendly fire, then every war would see astronomical losses to friendly fire. It's just not realistic.
@@Suprentus yes, 5% per attack is just ridiculous. The only situation where I can imagine something like that making sense if you shoot into melee between your ally and opponent. The usual cases for friendly fire in real life are failed perception checks and ballistics(Int) checks, and shouldn't be tied to attack rolls at all.
That's exactly how I rule it, nat one means you attack an ally. For dex saves nat one for the enemy means they take double damage and a nat 20 means the monsters take no damage. I don't do it because it's realistic though, just to add something to the game.
@@theeye8276 That's stupid
Man, you have amazing comedic inflection. Don’t understand a word of this conversation, but love how you said it.
PT last week: "Here's why critical hits don't come up often enough to make crit-fishing worth it!"
PT this week: "Here's why critical fails come up way too often for fumble tables!"
I agree with both points, btw, just thought this was funny.
Something I thought of while to help with the Martial gap is what if when a creature gets a natural 20 on a save against a spell it counts as a nat 1 for the spell caster. I know this doesn't fix all the problems in the video but I think it would help.
I played with fumbles once and it was fun. They we’re super harsh just things like droppings weapons. Accidentally cutting an ally’s coin pouch or having spell attacks blow up in your face or heal certain enemies. It worked well for a low level party and all members involved had fun with it.
Use it for the enemies of the party. One of my favorite stories involves one of my wife's characters running between a pair of stone golems who both tried to swing at her as she passed (taking an attack of opportunity). Our DM rolled a pair of D20s, and both came up as 1s. So the golems punched each other.
I mostly do narrative fumbles that don't affect gameplay. However, sometimes I do use crit fumbles for enemies.
Once was battling a coven of witches, one of which was a massive brute of a stitched together woman with a huge scythe. She crit failed on a swing, and ended up fumbling getting her weapon stuck in the wood of her own home. I had just raised my first undead minion before the fight, and he basically saved the party by prying out the weapon and running up the stairs of the hut with it. It led to her running up the stairs after it, stopping just before making it up, all of us running up to try and stop her, and then the stairs broke under all our weight while the massive witch landed on her sister and a couple other party members. My minion hid up there for the rest of the fight, which was a huge help because damn she was chunking all of us before then.
On a side note, in the games I've personally DM'd, natural ones aren't always bad. Our ranger shot a bow at a goblin who was trying to wake up his comrade, but our fighter was also right next to the goblin trying to stop it. They were in a heavily wooded area that the ranger couldnt see well through, so it was kind of a blind shot and he rolled a 1. So I decided that as a fumble, he would hit something other than his target. I made him roll without knowing what the options were, he was clearly worried he was going to hit the fighter.. but instead he hit and killed the goblin that was sleeping. I don't treat fumbles as automatically bad, but instead as "unintentional results" that can potentially become "happy accidents".
The best Fumble Table ive used is one in which whenever you roll 1, you roll for a beneficial consequence. For exemplo, you rolled 1, choose a ally to get +1 AC; You can Disengage as a Reaction this turn etc. So every fumble was exciting, giving players something active to do. Smae or enemys, if DM wish.
Doesn't really sound like a Fumble Table
@@matiskrawiec thats why its so good
So, use this rule in a comedy game but not in a serious game, got it.
I've been saying this for years! Definitely a video to show to a few of my tables. Thanks Kobold!
The problem with critical fumbles is that it ignores skill. If a player manages to do a attack and get a 1 (which requires them to have a negative modifier or zero bonuses on a NAT1) I would have no issue doing a critical fumble. This way it makes sense, creatures are more likely to fail if they are bad at something and a rogue or fighter should have very little chance of messing up - while a spellcaster who tries to make a melee attack with a inappropiate weapon is relying on luck to not have it go horribly wrong.
Hard agree! Every table that does this makes me want to play a halfling.
I know that I had a paladin in an arena doing a charge with his halberd, I rolled a one, and this grizzled old man that used to be a king and fought with his men on the front line dips the halberd and polevaults himself. Immediately took me out of the combat. He still won the fight, then the next, and then 1v1’d an allosaur at level 4
Crit fumbles are fun for non serious games and result in interesting situations. It also fuels creativity on the spot. You're a fighter and just fumbled your longsword against the ceiling. So instead of punching, you grab a nearby chair and smack the bugbear across the face. Then on the rouges turn, he shoots his crossbow at the longsword, making it drop on a nearby unsuspecting goblin, for a very creatively described sneak attack. This was a legit moment in lost mines of phandelver and I will stand by fumbles for the rest of my life if it means we can do something else on our combat encounters besides roll the same 3 attack patterns over and over.
But yeah, in serious, minmax heavy groups, it sucks wyvern balls
I mean flavor is free.
But take care if the fighter hits a training dummy for 2 minutes and they drop their weapon or stab themselves 4 times
PF2 handles crit fumbles pretty well--normally they don't mean anything and have no side effects. However, there are some traits that can take advantage of them, e.g. if a creature or player has a feature that lets them attempt an opportunity attack as a reaction if an adjacent creature crit fails an attack, or if you crit fail with a poisoned weapon, the poison is removed (and you can take a feat to avoid this). It's just a few small, situational things, that players and monsters alike have to actively spec into to take advantage of (or defend against). It also helps that martials are really strong in PF2, so these risks don't feel unfair.
The worst crit fumbles I've ever faced was in a PF game, the DM ruled if you crit failed an attack, you have to re-roll it against an adjacent player. And this still kept crit confirmations in. Like it made martials a liability.
To not unfairly punish high level players with more attack rolls, fumble rules could only be triggered only on the first attack from a creature/player each round.
That still unfairly impacts martials because martials will use the attack action on more rounds. And it still makes no narrative sense and is completely unfun (and only the last part is subjective).
That’s still an increased chance for martials to fumble over casters, and still contributes to bloat by forcing another die roll.
Was playing a game with a rogue who got a Nat 20 and rolled minimum damage, then their turn came around again in the initiative, they got a nat 1. (We had the creature that was attacked get a free opportunity attack) The sound of the players' leave their body when they had heard the enemy they got a Nat 20 on the attack roll was honestly heartbreaking to hear.
Wow I couldn't disagree more. I love nat 1 critical fail. As a house rule I use a table and The DM rolls it percentage scale with level so by level 12 the chances of a larg deficit is 1 in a 100. It adds to the game play and most of it is just flavor.
Yeah his math is also completely wrong. Even if you rolled 100 d20's 100 times that's still only comes out to a 5% chance of getting a 1.
@@Odande
It's a 5% chance _on every individual roll._ Not a 5% chance to have at least 1 nat 1.
It makes sense for you to miss more as you attack more, since the time you have is the same, but youre attacking faster (try swinging a sword more than twice in 6 seconds). Fumbling isn't a problem on its own, it just shows that the rules are very against martials.
@@theuncalledfor but that's not how math works. Each roll is individual therefore each role on its own has a 5% chance of getting any number. Your odds of getting any number on a d20 do not increase or decrease via the amount of rolls you make, it stays consistent. It is theoretically possible to roll a d20 100 times and only get 20s
By using the math you provided, by like the 21st attack you have a 100% chance of getting a one and that's not true at all. I could literally roll a d20 21 times on my desk right now and never get a one
EDIT: I should say the math that pack tactics provided. Since he claims that on the second d20 roll your chance of getting a one increases by 4.75%. so by the 21st roll you're apparently guaranteed to get a Nat 1. Somehow?
@@Odande
Yes, it is. And no, that's not what he said. Learn how probabilities _actually_ work. If you roll more than once, your chance of rolling at least one nat 1 increases, precisely _because_ each individual roll has the same 5% chance every time.
It's not a linear increase. It's not +4.75% each time. It gradually approaches 100% but never quite reaches it. The formula is 1-(0.95^n), with n being the amount of rolls. At 21 rolls, this equals 65.94%.
Back when I ran Dark Sun, I had players breaking weapons way too often. (A feature of Dark Sun games) That's when I created a crit table. It reduced the chances of weapon destruction, added significant chance of repairable weapon damaged, and had 20% chance of positive outcomes (eg: weapon flew off the handle and did double damage, or wild swing that does extra damage with unintended consequences). I allowed players roll on just the (top 10%) positive outcomes (at their choice) to on nat-20s.
The one fond or funny memory I have of a critical fumble is the one time in a Roll20 game where our Paladin did a Nat 1 on a perception check: the DM ruled he thought he saw someone trying to ambush us, spun around to check, and decked himself in the face. It was fun for that one time, but in retrospect it was a bit of a red flag on how sadistic the DM could be sometimes.
This is one rule my dm uses that I've never liked, but narratively he does a good job with it not bastardizing my characters. He always flavors it as a mechanical failure, like my bow binds or my sword gets stuck in the door, that my character is a victim of but not responsible for
On my house we have this "true unluck" policy where if you roll a 1 or 20 you roll again just to see if you get the same result, if you do, then theres actually a fumble or a godlike intervention
I use Critical Fumbles if the roll is 1 or less WITH modifiers applied, so you never f*ck up something you know how to do, but if you try something you're not proficient (or have a negative modifier) you're taking a risk to f*ck up
I once had a DM who applied crit fumbles to near everything, and forced multiple rolls for basic actions. The worst was healing checks. Every other fight someone would either end up with some kind of debilitating injury, or get one when the party attempted to stabilize you. And no tables, it was full DM discretion what happened to you.
First major fight of the campaign, someone flubbed a heal check and cost another player their arm. At level 1. After that I felt the mandate to have medicine trained and have it so absurdly high to counteract the issue. Didn't stop the pain.
The rogue got their stomach ripped open, one-armed wizard got one-shot (before we had revival options), I got knocked out and when they tried to stabilize me broke my leg, the sorcerer got his arm broken, I was killed, but because I suffered massive damage got a concussion that rendered me stupid and insane for a few sessions on revival, also I came down with a disease that nearly killed me and kept me in the hospital for a month, that no one in the party could have rolled a save against, I had to nat 20 to survive.
It was a dreary deflating drudge of a campaign.
One of my players rolled a 1 on animal handling, and they tripped up and headbutted the creauture they were trying to hug. They all seemed happy about it so I think that worked.
The DM for our grimdark campaign has a fumble mechanic but he makes it an effort to take advantage of an enemy fumbling.
First he decides how the creature failed and if the opportunity will be an attack against the fumbling creature or another effect. I forget if he always uses the reaction on the creature taking advantage or not but if it’s for an attack he usually does.
If you get an attack you use your reaction as if it was an opportunity attack (and sometimes as a circumstance bonus you get advantage, haven’t seen the enemies get the advantage however but since we don’t use flanking (we use a modified help bonus action) I forget how he does it fully) or you get to mess with the creatures stance or positioning. Hell ask for a strength or Dex check (usually based on the player’s build) and if you win the contest (generally acrobatics/athletics vs acrobatics/athletics) you get an effect as determined by the DM. The non-attacks generally don’t use your reaction.
All-in-all it’s a better system and he doesn’t apply it to skill checks which I find fumbles as far more annoying for. And since the enemies also get tripped up it’s worked in our favor as well as hindered.
I like the NAT 1 fumbling rule a boss defeated basically himself by rolling 4 consecutive NAT 1. We had an easy job beating him up.
(The house rule my DM made was you deal damage to yourself with an NAT1. Since Enemies can do that too it's 10 times more fun.)
Me and the group I play with almost always use nat 1s provoking opportunity attacks from the creature that was targeted. This makes things less “you got unlucky, feel bad” and more “you fumbled an attack and now your opponent gets to choose to attack once off their turn.” We applied this rule to everyone, which lead to really dynamic melee fights where a player rolled a nat 1, the bandit attacking them rolled a nat 1, then they attacked them back and got a nat 20. My group also doesn’t have many min maxing casters but slightly min maxing martials so the caster/martial gap isn’t very big in practice.
I feel like a lot of people assume that if you are an expert in your skill set, and have been honing your craft for decades, that you can not ever fuck up royally. It's why I also say that nat 1s still always fail on skill checks for rogues, even with Reliable Talent. Yeah, throwing your weapon is really dumb, but even at level 20 the barbarian is not immune from tripping over a tree root because he was blinded by his rage; and the Fighter, as strong as she may be, may still get her sword stuck in the wooden floorboards of the inn. She put too much force into her swing, missed, and now has to pull the sword from the wood (free action).
A lot of this video just feels like Kobold is going for the "level 20 characters are basically gods" perspective, which is almost as bad as the "level 1 characters are supposed to be commoners" viewpoint. You are not infallible. Even the smartest and most well-trained individuals will make some very bad fuck ups. As for it harming martials, yes, that's right, but that's why you don't make them ridiculous and overly punishing (i.e. throwing your weapon across the room, or crippling your monk by breaking their hands).
My GM does a thing where if we roll a nat 1 or a 20 they let us describe what happens and then based on the description (and if it’s reasonably within physics and the rules) there’s a mechanical effect with the description. The group loves role playing and we enjoy playing out failures because it’s funny, a character of mine slipped on ice and skidded across the room while rolling a nat 1 on a grapple check trying to restrain someone after running to them
Interesting thing - then we played by makeshift "system" on lazy evenings we often used critical extremes (not only failures) for exactly "fun" reasons. But most of the times we collectively desided "yep this roll is defenetly should result in some spectacular failure" it was casters. Spells explodes, choose wrong targets, have unexpected effects. Only time i can remember fighter was affected by critical failure was then he charged at the enemy and we decided character is unable to stop after enemy step aside and smack the wall.
Is is possible this mechanic can be used with actual positive results if you apply it to spellcasters? Like some form of traidoff for their ranged and control options? Coz this is not a coincidence group of people choises casters as target for this mechanic unconsiously so many times :)
P.S. Sorry for my english.
In a game with my DM, our "Critical Fumbles" are that if you crit fail a melee, an enemy can use their reaction to attack back, this can lead to funny situations where they then ALSO roll a crit fail, and the ball is back in your court to use your own reaction. For bows, a crit fail means that your bowstring came undone, and you need to use an action to put it back on, this happens for enemies as well, for crossbows, same thing, except it destroys the bolt as it fails to release and gets caught in it
For me critical fumbles are less of a "ok you really messed up, take damage or something" and more of "you failed in such a way that things have gotten extremely weird, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse"
I recently included a fumble rule in my game but it affects weapon durability. Spell fumbles take a small amount of damage as the spell blows up in their face but weapons degrade becoming -1, -2, etc... and breaking at -5. Crit weapon attacks are armor breaks degrading the target's armor. You can also fix gear. I haven't gotten feedback as i only played 1 session with it and it didn't come up yet
Generally, when my monsters fumble, i give my players the option for an attack of oportunity. Playing as the monster having overreached and opend its stance. Other factors (fighting in mud, shoddy weapons) can also be exploited by the players (tripping the enemy, break the weapon)by using their reaction. Ranged fumbles may hit another creature, including other players, but other than that i do not use nat ones of my players against them.
Critical Fumble on attack rolls are indeed bad game design if used blindly as a written rule and it does unfairly weaken the martial classes.
BUT if it is used as it should be : as a tool that the GM must consider carefully and use adequately for Rule of Fun, it can be great! Even then, some people won't like the humiliation, but it is a case of the vibe you want on your table. Here are some ideas :
- Auto-harm on all nat 1attacks is the worse and most unfair from a purely gameplay point of view. It should be avoided
- Fumble confirmation is actually a good idea. But the confirmation should not be a second nat 1, it should be a roll against the enemy AC. On a fail, it confirms the fumble. On a success, the fumble is just a miss. This way, on each individual attack roll, martials are less likely to fumble than non-martials.
- Breaking or losing your weapon or somehow losing turns is no fun
- Random tables can indeed slow the fight or produce irrelevant results. Don't do them if you can't handle them quickly. Favor improvisation
- Use the "fail forward" philosophy. You fail miserably what you intended, but you discover new options. You fall on the ground, but you see a nasty root near the enemy facing you. Next turn you could do a manoeuvre to make the enemy stumble on this root.
- Critical fumbles can grant advantages over time. Like a monk repetedly breaking his hand's ones a little every now and then will end up with more resistant bones. You could make it so after many critical fumble you become immune to them. Or gain a point in constitution or whatever. There's a game where the characters are the chosen ones of the goddess of bad luck, and with enough critical fumbles they are granted a small boon.
- You could grant special class features for martials at certain levels that allow them to ignore some fumbles per day, or all of them. Some games like FantasyCraft do that, making any roll that is a class' speciality a minimum 10 result when the class reach a certain level.
i use a homebrew rule where when you roll a nat 1 the creature you're trying to attack gains an opportunity of attack on you
In my current campaign, I'm running a rule that if you roll a Nat 1 on an attack roll your Weapon breaks, or runs out of Ammo if a ranged weapon. If the weapon is Silvered or Magic, this rule doesn't apply. Unarmed strikes are unaffected. You can also choose to have your shield break (if non-magical) to cancel the damage form the last attack. A broken weapon can be repaired when you take a short rest, either with the Mending cantrip or a DC 10 roll using Smithing tools. Why? Because I wanted Silver weapons and magic weapons to be better then normal weapons in a minor way, without them getting an attack bonus, and I wanted players to try and upgrade their weapons as soon as possible. I also like the idea of players having to switch to back-up weapons, maybe using improvised weapons or weapons they weren't profecient in, until they can take a short rest. Everyone eventually gets magic weapons, so in higher teirs it isn't a thing, but in the party's first few quests as new adventures they are occasionally messing up and trashing their gear.
I have a credit fumble and success table it's a little bit on the simple side and everything but it works at least for us since your opponents are supposed to be terrifying at least some of the time but also potential comic relief some of the time.
To put simply
1 through 10 nothing happens you just miss
11 through 16 a minor inconvenience happens something like the strap on your pack brakes and you lose access to your potions if you leave the square, or your sword is knocked out of your hands but is still in your square so you can use your use item action to pick it back up normally for free but I usually save that one until it's your last attack for the turn, and obviously you miss.
17 through 20 a major issue happens something like your opponent disarms your character sending your weapon within 15 ft from you depending on a D4 roll, you're knocked prone, or an opponent gets an opportunity attack if they have an reaction.
Similar stuff happens on a crit like getting a nat 20 could let you deal the normal crit damage but also knock them prone, or something like that. Also crit success on a save against magic like command grants an extra D4 on their next save against the spell caster, if next to the spellcaster they could get an opportunity attack, or something along those lines.
Just think about it your Nat 20 is someone else's nat 1.
I was playing in a homebrewed system based around Fallout that had critical fumbles. We were using primarily d6's (I suggested using d10's and d100's, for the sake of accuracy to the games, but I wasn't the one making the system), and I'm surprised the fumbles didn't happen more often. Out of that entire 2 or 3 sessions (the game was never finished, it was also pretty unfocused) there's only one fumble that I can remember clearly, probably because it was my first (I think). The DMs character (they were also a player, everyone built their characters together so we were on roughly equal footing power-wise) got held hostage by a group of raiders and I went to kill them, rolled the d6 to hit, and fumbled (a roll of 6, it was a roll-under system) and shot the DMs character. It was at that point that my concern about the potentially high frequency of fumbles seemed to be realized, and I brought up the concern, and I'm fairly certain it got brushed off.
All this to say, yeah, fumbles suck (especially if they have extra consequences).
I could see homebrewing in something like this for a campaign that was specifically about doing a "rags to riches" story. Players start out as untrained slaves or something, and work their way up to being demigods. You would have to do something that makes it affect casters as well (ex: if the enemy rolls a nat 20 on a save against your spell, you suffer spell backlash) Also, I would take steps to mitigate it as the player levels, to show that the players are becoming more competent.
For example: Nat 1 (or nat 20 on an enemy's save) is a fumble at lvl 1. At level 5, after rolling a nat 1, you roll a d4, and only fumble if that is also a 1. At level 10, you switch to rolling a 1 on a d8 to confirm the fumble. At 15 it's a d12, and, finally a d20 at 20. That doesn't solve all the problems of fumbles, ofc, but that's also just an idea off the top of my head, which could easily be refined.
But yeah, crit fumble rules are garbage usually, and don't fit heroic fantasy games.
Obviously critical fumbles is bad from an optimisers point of view.
That said, I don’t like them either, but I fall closer to “my precious character” viewpoint.
That said, I’ve played with a DM who was more into the gritty grim dark side. Where characters are in a world of monsters which can and will kill them, fights are unbalanced, you rarely get high level characters, rolling up new characters is always interesting, and death, particularly ones caused by critical fumbles, are considered hilarious and memorable and some of the best fun at the table. It’s about having a good time.
I don’t really agree with this play style, but I can see why some people see the appeal. I believe it’s an attitude from older editions.
The only way to use this in my experience is to house rule the house rule. I make it clear amongst my players that if there is a critical fumble, there's a good chance nothing happens, but sometimes something will. They know there are 19/20 sides of the dice where they are totally safe from the unexpected, and 1 side where something might happen, but they could still be safe, which makes things even more unexpected. One time, our paladin critical fumbled against a much larger great knight fighter. The great knight ripped the weapon from his hand and threw it at the wizard. The wizard complained "why am I getting hit for it?" I said "you're the one shooting spells at the knight in the safety of the backlines, he's not stupid, he needs to try to deal with you somehow." Everyone was pretty happy with that since it was the first time in 5 sessions I actually acted on a critical fail, and it wasn't even to damage the paladin who would have hurt himself falling unconscious.
It also helped that it was an act of desperation on the part of the knight, who, when the paladin used his remaining attack to unarmed strike the knight, fell unconscious. Made it kinda more badass for the paladin lol.
I use a fumble table, but only with unanimous agreement from my players. It's also pretty tame and results in just missing embarrassingly wide most of the time. Quite fun!
I have played with critical fumbles not only on attacks but on any role (it technically wasn't D&D, and it technically was part of the rule, but it was basically a homebrew hack on D&D). I still remember being frightened by a ghost forever after trying to remember how she looked. It was weird.
Well, I tend to think up thing that happen based on contexts.
Shooting through friendlies without warning - deal full/half damage to them (if they are before the target, not after)
(allies can duck on reaction if warned/planned beforehand, but if target knows, he can get +2AC on reaction as well)
|
If not targets in between, ammo usually breaks
Melee - weapon gets stuck (if fighting with big weapons in clustered space), dulled (if not magical blade vs heavy armor),
Closer to breaking (3*nat1, can repair with tools)
or they roll for disarm (if they fight a mertial master, not being one)
Casters - either weak wild magic/focus melfunction/contextual spell misfire (fire spells destroyed many inns till now)
I try to go with logical consequences.
- dont use fire indoors, cold/acid in water, necro/radiant in steath temple/demon-lair infiltration
- match weapons with environment.
- don't shoot through allies without warning/prior plan
I used fumbles in my DM times, but not during combat. Tripping on an athletics check or stuttering during an intimidation check is funny and won't actually be harmful to martials specifically.