Everyone's lying about Crit FAILS!
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
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Many DM's especially those that started before 5th edition, rule that any time you roll a nat 1 (meaning a 1 on the d20) not only would you fail regardless of bonuses, you would fail in spectacular fashion. 
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I like the idea nat 1, with enough bonuses to meet the DC, being a success but something fun happens. For example, you got the noble to agree to the deal but you now have to do an act at his children’s birthday party.
That's a really fun way to do it!
This is how I rule it, failing upwards.
Yes, and meets yes, but.
Precisely! DnD is a game, and so you should make it fun for the players! Successful nat 1s can add such tension relieving silliness. This can extend to low AC ooze enemies in attacks too! You hit the ooze, but its slime causes you to slip and fall cartoon-style
That’s how I run them. 1s and 20s are treated as a modifier. The roll ends up better or worse than normal whether you succeed or not.
Remember comment section, there's a difference between "I dont like crit fails as a mechanic", and "my dm makes us roll to blink and causes catastrophic long term damage every time we roll a 1"
Scp-173 in D&D
Honestly would be fun as a monster ability. Don’t blink or something bad happens. Sorta the weeping angels from Doctor who.
Just for a special encounter though, nothing regular
You sneezed, roll for constitution
I had a DM that had a deck of extra effects if you crit failed, and they would include some debilitating shit like losing an arm.
We would have to roll on this deck for ANY crit fail. I tried to get something out of someone's pocket and ended up losing my left hand...
“Does it hurt characters with multi attack? Yes. How do I balance that? I don’t.”
Just the way that’s delivered without missing a beat is phenomenal.
thats the sign of DM who has made a hard ruling against his players just because he's tired of arguing with everyone
@shojwiebelhaus1391 I think it could also depend on the game being played. If the game is something more like Strahd then having crit fail moments that bring horror and make it so your characters could die could be important. Just so long as thats what everyone signed up for and making a new character isnt too punishing.
@@water2770I mean, "how do I balance that, I don't" in this case translates to "play a melee, get killed. Mages only in this house of horror."
@@LibertyMonk It's him playing rules as written, because balancing the game was the devs responsibility, and they failed.
@@mrbigglezworth42 That's not RAW in 5E tho
I personally handle crit fails as the enemy doing something really cool. The fighter doesn't fling the spear into the sun or his ally's chest cavity, instead the orc he was aiming at catches the spear, does a cool spin, plants the spear into the ground and stares down the fighter. Two monks throwing nothing but nat 1s at each other suddenly looks less like a wet noodle fight and more like something out of the matrix. I also let the player describe something just as cool when they get a nat 20. Basically PCs are never lame, the enemy was just cooler in that moment.
all of a sudden, I like the idea of crit fails again
Yo, why haven't I thought of this?? I'm yoinking this for later.
Love this
This is excellent!
Wow, this is some next level "I don't need to put down something to praise something else". I don't like it, the enemy doing something really cool sounds like them getting a critical success. Two monks throwing nothing but nat 1s at each other should look like nervous children playing pretend Larping Tiger Cringe Dragon , miscalculating their movement and falling prone with every kick they throw, sometimes managing to hurt themselves if they roll a 1 in a d3 after the failure. Getting a nat 1 and making it look as if it wasn't your incompetence, more like the extreme competence of your enemy is like a Trump move, even more pathetic than failing in on itself. Is failing AND making up an excuse. No Johns man. If you're not gonna let them critical fail might as well not throw any dice at all, that way you can always tell them their characters are looking cool, and being cool, and acting cool, and man... they're so cool they're giving me chills
Seeing Zee offer up the Polterdie at the end with "you need the right dice" is quite a cool piece of story telling.
If you used tongs or gloves to slip the polterdie into someone else's dice bag, what would happen?
@@EtherealAuthor will id guess weird looks and the passing of the curse
All my dice are cursed. Except the one set that I use as DM dice, and only as DM dice. Every other set rolls average to low.
@@erikkennedy8725 my D6 rolls extremely high for all of the stats except one, which ends up being a 5 or 6. So my rogue ends up with an 18 Dex baseline (+another 2 as an elf gets to max) while their strength is 5. They were made for but one thing.
Its like my dice are forcing me ton minmax 😂
Interestingly, the Curse of Strahd module for 5e recommends that you play with crit fails on skill checks in order to relieve tension with comically spectacular failures.
So does LMoP
I love Larry Moore and everything around this character and how Zee portrays the relationship. Cracks me up everytime.
he's the best
There is a friend of mine who is very much like Larry. And I mean not just occasional similarities but totally resembles him.
@@variancytphul There are many Larries in the ttrpg world, the portrayal is uncannily accurate
@@posadistpossum
Or maybe y'all just know the same guy?
I am not Larry. But I am Larry lite.
I recall a crit fail Diplomacy check that the DM made them reroll for Intimidation. Who knew if the lizardfolk trying to copy elves with a smile would be frightening.
“Babe, wake up, everyone’s lying about my nat 1 last night.”
I like how it's now August and he still has the new episodes every Thursday through June message at the end
Lol there is a flash of text that said “September 4th”
I love this because for some reason that minotaur speaking is incredibly satisfying to me.
He's got 30 something episodes planned for us kappa
@@jongameaddict that’s insane
I like the idea of rolling a 1 and succeeding via bonuses being a successful fumble. Something like: "As you step towards the door to pick the lock you trip and fall headfirst into the lock. With a loud clunk the lock breaks and the door flies open."
So, you still succeed, just in a stupider way than expected?
I'm okay with a 1 always being a fail. Though it usually would be anyway, because unlike 3.5, bonuses just don't get nearly as huge in 5e.
What I'm not okay with, is the massive consequence of doing so that some people put on it.
For example: A lot of people have "Stab yourself" as one of the potential consequences. Seems reasonable... Except when you realize that a level 0 peasant who barely knows which end of the sword to hold has the exact same chance of stabbing themselves as a level 20 fighter that's been training with that sword specifically since they could walk. It's bad and people who do it should feel bad.
Now, if you have a table that changes based on proficiency, and the worst stuff falls off as you get better, then it might be acceptable.
My favorite "stab yourself" moment has to be from the battle of the hot dog cart from season 2 of the unsleeping city. Basically, rolling a nat 1 on a dex save to turn with a massive amount of weight from your bs anime sword that obeys the laws of physics causes you to, indeed, stab yourself
We often only used Crit Fail if it was something you probably shouldn't be trying in the first place.
AKA Foul-Mouth Frankie Fighter trying to negotiate a roll in the hay with a Female Paladin of Purity.
Yeah, if you roll a 1 on that?
You probably deserved to get choke-slammed.
(Joke's on her, I'm into that)
Yeah but don't give up your players' laughter when the goblin they're fighting happens to fire his crossbow at just the right angle to ricochet the bolt off of some nearby trees and shoot himself in the shoulder.
That is to say, the game is often a lot more fun when the enemies are punished more than the players. Slapstick isn't as fun when you're the one getting slapped.
Aye the way I like to do it is less "you did something idiotic" and moreso "the opposition did something incredible".
So like say a Fighter is up against a knight from a rival house, instead of 1 being "durr you hit yourself!" it's more "as you make your swing for Sir Gerold's head, your swing comes to an unexpected halt as the knight carefully grabbed your blade with his gauntlet and pushed it aside as his other gauntlet makes contact with your face, you take [1d8] bludgeoning damage." And visa versa, if an enemy rolls a crit fail the player they're targeting is narrated to evade/block/etc. in some spectacular fashion (might even get inspiration, advantage on their next roll, whatever).
@@DuskEalainthat's... better, but still only diminishes the "you should be better than this" angle. The level 11 Fighter is skilled enough to hit most enemies 3 times in a single Action, but somehow still slow enough that the opponent can disarm them, close the distance, and punch them in the face, just because he did something that should happen more than once in every minute of combat.
The enemy dodging or deflecting or blocking is already part of their AC, their ability to retaliate is already in their Reaction, and their own actions on their turn. The idea that rolling a 1, even as an expert, is worse than not seeing an opening is double-dipping or worse.
It's worth noting that even in 3.5, _skill checks_ did not automatically fail on a 1, nor automatically succeed on a 20. In fact, the only thing that did autofail/autosucceed on 1/20 in 3.5 that doesn't in 5e are saving throws.
I usually still had the 1's give some drawback even if it succeeded. Like one time a character made a move silently roll and rolled a 1 since they couldn't take a 10 at the time. They did still succeed, (halfling shadow dancer/rogue), but stepped onto leaves, so the next time they moved, they knew they would make sound. They used that to their advantage, moving into cover and the sound drew the enemy to check it out. So then they ambushed them, doing sneak attack and dropping them, before dragging the body behind cover and continuing their recon.
Honestly, not a bad idea for 5e since saves are a little gimped in 5e.
I actually really liked that about 3.5. To me, skills defined characters, so when a rogue invested the points into a skill he/she would inevitably get to a point where they almost couldn't fail which seemed like a nice reward for their effort. I also don't like the idea of a wizard critically succeeding on a task they have never trained to do just because they got lucky and had a 5% chance of doing so. A player's skill choices are as character defining as core class abilities. imagine if a barbarian could chuck a fireball so long as they rolled a nat 20. The barbarian never trained to do that in the first place so why should they be given a 5% chance to succeed on an impossible task?
I think Nat 20s should still autosucceed on saves in 5e. The idea that there's an ability or spell that goes off and there's just nothing you can do, you're fucked, rankles me. There should always be the chance for one heroic effort.
@@chowdaire7343 That actually sounds pretty awesome.
I like narrating a nat 1 that makes the DC with bonuses as failing upward. "You trip over the item you're looking for."
Okay that sounds really fun not gonna lie
Task failed successfully?
Huh, I do the exact opposite. I make it seem like everything goes wrong and the character salvages it through skill alone.
"You don't notice that you are about to step on a pressure plate until your foot is just about to land on it. Thinking fast, you throw your weight back onto your other foot, silently stumble back, and reposition yourself."
I like using failing upward when someone with an awful bonus narrowly passes with a 19 or 20. Sometimes the guy getting stolen from just has to let out the biggest sneeze of his life and couldn't see straight for several seconds. Sometimes that's the only way a heavily armored knight that sounds like a walking silverware closet manages to steal something.
@@liger04 This seems like the more appropriate approach. Definitely stealing.
Aces are high
When I was pretty new to D&D I had a cool dm that generally had fun with crit success/fails. But things got ridiculous when my character accidentally cursed himself to be "lucky" seemed neat at first but what it actually did was guarantee an "unlikely scenario" so essentially if I were to for example, roll an 11 or higher on a d20, it'd be treated as a 20... but if I rolled a 10 or lower it was always treated as a one. My character was a walking disturbance. We'd have a fail turn a situation on its head only for a success to turn things in our favor or vice versa. I didn't get to always play with the group so whenever my character got back in the party everyone was pretty set to see some fireworks. Could have been a disaster but our DM understood how to handle it in a balanced manner.
So it was just 50/50? Two-Face would be proud lol
On the risk of sound like a Boomer, Crits and the (optional) Fumbles did work better in 3E with the confirmation roll.
Rolling a 20 has a 5% chance every time you roll the die. As is the chance of rolling a 1. It does not mater how skilled you are. It does not mater what the enemy AC is or how many penalties you had to the roll.
In 3E, you needed to confirm the crit. with a second roll to beat the AC, same modifiers. So the difficulty of the original attack does matter. Same with 3E optional Fumbles. NAT 1 is a miss, but you need to fail the confirmation roll to make it a proper Fumble. While even that still technically penalized you for having many attacks (due to the Attack Score going down with extra attacks), it was nowhere near as bad.
TBF, it was trivially easy to get auto confirm or a +12~ish bonus to crit confirms on almost any martial and gish. The only slightly buffed to 5e case was with what were ray attacks, but then again no SwS so no risk of going even more whack on full caster power.
If you want it a bit more spicy, you could make the confirmation roll without modifiers. In 5E with this obnoxiously high modifiers, this can bring a lot of spice & danger to the game.
I remember my first 5e game somebody got a Crit success on an enemy and everyone was excited and I was like "Wait, confirm it." And the table looked at me like I was crazy. Not confirming crits feels wrong to me but it makes the game more exciting I guess, whatever makes it fun for you.
Man I remember that rule from when I first played pathfinder. Got a 20 and then was told to confirm it. Nothing more annoying than that!
@@eclipserepeater2466 Why annoying?
Threat range could go 18-20 before increasers and you still get the guaranteed hit - but at the enemy AC matered for Crits.
"Does it hurt people with multi attack? Yes. How do I balance it? I don't."
In my mind rolls are for resolving situations where the outcome is in doubt.
You don’t need to roll to walk down the stairs because there isn’t even a 5% chance of failing at that task, likewise you can’t roll to grow wings and fly away because there isn’t a 5% chance of that happening. If there is no question about the outcome I don’t let you roll.
A thief with +10 for lockpicking a door will never fail at opening a simple lock (with a DC of 10) so they don’t roll to try. I just say they succeed and move on. A bard with -3 to athletics can’t jump over a river with a DC of 20 if they try they fall into the water no roll required.
Because I only ask for rolls when outcomes are in doubt, a 1 on an ability check is always a failure and a 20 is always a success.
In the first game I played in, the DM had my cleric break both his wrists rolling to open an unlocked door because I rolled a one both times. I still hate that guy and hope he died in a fire.
i agree , except you underestimate my ability to fall both up and down stairs frequently. XD
I don't exactly agree with the idea of not asking for rolls on guaranteed outcomes.
Sometimes, it's worth letting the players sweat, as it builds tension, which can give cathartic release when they succeed. They don't need to know that they can't fail the roll, all they do need to know is that they might fail it.
@@OzixiThrill I agree that it can be nice to make players roll even if they don't have a chance of failure, especially if they happen to roll badly and they get a really tangible moment where having invested in a skill pays off for them and saves them from the dice
A bard, even with a minus 3 will still at higher levels have a +5 or something crazy
I like to do a rule I call “hope from despair,” which ties into the inspiration mechanic. Instead of having inspiration points, I have a bowl in the center of the table. Any time a player rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll or saving throw, events happen that make the game more interesting, leaning towards making the story more interesting and fun, but also, I throw a coin into the bowl.
Any player can remove a coin from the bowl at any time (provided there are coins in the bowl) and get the benefits of spending a point of inspiration. The bowl is emptied at the end of each game session, encouraging a “use it or lose it” playstyle.
That's fun! Including catastrophic crit fails into the system of inspiration is a good idea!
Like maybe when players crit fail, they get inspiration for next time! It helps lighten the load of having a catastrophic result, but they still wanna use it!
I kind of like that because, if I did run crit fails, I'd run them in combat too. It's a great time to chip or damage or even break a weapon! Or hit a teammate nearby their target!
@@monsieurdorgat6864 I actually used a Critical Hit and Critical Fumble table. The fumble table included things such as you are stunned, you drop your weapon, your weapon breaks or bowstring snaps, and if they managed a nat 100, they still screwed up. Everyone can see they screwed up, but the attack still goes through and they manage to somehow hit their opponent. It was a good result, and one that players always hoped for when they rolled on the table.
The crit/fumble tables were pretty well done, imo, and since I used them for both the players and monsters, it was equal opportunity, meaning players laughed at the monsters screwing up just as often as the laughed at each other (a lot of 1s have been rolled in my games).
@@jesternario That sounds fun! I've found that my players have been of multiple minds of crit fails. Some would rather their characters be more reliable, while others find them funny. I'm also VERY specific about d20 rolls representing variability of circumstance (and thus I roll them only when I require circumstantial input), and not competence, so I'd be somewhat inclined to alter some.
The table would definitely be my approach, though. I like having something that I can show to players, see if they have objections to the options, and then we all know what we're dealing with and I can open roll on that table.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 Always be open with your players for any house rule. They are all here to have fun. And that's the most important part of the game.
@@jesternario One all too frequently forgotten, sadly. I know my players very much appreciate that I open roll and don't fudge dice unless it's obvious I fucked up balance pretty majorly.
Some specific save mechanics actually have a baked in 'crit fail' where you suffer additional effects for failing by a certain margin or more, like pseudodragon's poison sting which inflicts the poisoned condition for an hour if you fail, but outright puts you to sleep if you fail by 5 or more
There's something threatening about the vagueness of "Do you like these ideas? Do you subscribe to these sorts of notions?" Like... Zee, I don't know what to say. I mean, yes? But I also feel like there will be consequences if I answer wrongly.
Great vid btw! Love the interjections from the grognard customer.
Welcome back!
I offer one area in 5e that is affected by the scope of crit fails - character development.
At certain levels, rogues and bards and certain subclasses get the no less than 10 on proficient skills if less than a 10 is rolled. The deliberate build choices ensure that the skill monkeys in the party can never catastrophically fail their proficient skill checks, which is very handy in complicated situations like heists, confidence scams, or survival mode games.
Plus it makes Halflings feel better, adds fun to the Lucky feat, Diviner Wizards and more.
@@BioroidPilot I don't thing those need to be better when their already the best on slot like luck is broken sorry but turning disadvantage into super advantage and div is very good on dms that are long rest happy and halflongs have always been good so no we don't need the already good and broken stuff better
@@domicci4460 Who crapped in your salad holy fuck.
Dms are not vs the players we facilitate and have fun. None of those things are broken in any way that a competent Dm cannot easily handle.
Just cause a species is mechanically good enough doesn't make them fun, the risk of bad luck crit failing makes Halflings feel cooler for players to be able to avoid such things.
Diviners are good whether the Dm is stingy on long rests or not, cause for one thing if a Dm is hyper stingy on long rests at a certain point the wizard will literally refuse to progress since you know, they get their spells by and large back on long rests.
And Lucky is just literally a fine and balanced feat, It does not change their bonuses so their odds are left alone, it just lets them mitigate a bit of bad luck on rolling.
All of these things can make the game more fun (Which is the whole point) And are easy as fuck to balance having in your game without even needing dang near any adjustment.
I had a DM that ruled it a crit fail even for a rogue with reliable talent if the original roll was a 1.
Pretty sad.
And also very boring 😴
How Zee pumps out this much animation is beyond me. Good strategy too, of break periods followed by consistent uploads. I hope that helps swing the algorithm in the favor of shortform creative content like this.
Efficient reuse of animation assets and tweening.
Gotta love that this was released right about the time One DND was announced with baked in crit fails and successes.
I like how Savage Worlds deals with this. Basically, a 1 on both your rolled die means something weird / bad happened. You CAN re-roll those dice with the equivalent of Inspiration, but the bad thing STILL happens, even though you might pass the check. So, it's something like... you roll a crit fail, and the DM says you'll drop your weapon. You use the inspiration resource (bennies), and re-roll for a hit (maybe even a high roll!). So, you swing your sword, it slips your grasp, but still hits the zombie right in the face.
You explicitly cannot re-roll snake eyes. You are stuck with the negative effect and the failure. You can re-roll single 1s however.
Play tested SWADE and ran SW for over 6 years now. Older editions let you do as you say, but that's like trying to use 3e rules in 5e.
@@Michael-bn1oi As someone interested in SWADE, do you have any suggestions for variant rules for magic to make magic feel... well.. fantastical? The base rules make magic so very bland.
In some earlier editions and retroclones, fumbles have to be confirmed with a second roll (a Dex check, or some kind of save). In some others, such as B/X, where everybody only attacks once per turn anyway, they don't have those considerations, and leave to the GM to adjudicate how to interpret a nat 1 in a given scenario if there is additional risk involved in the fight. I think, if you have classes that increase in power increasing the number of attacks per round, it is advisable to use a second roll to confirm the fumble, a fumble table with most of the results not being detrimental (such as in Hyperborea 3e), etc.
Or in games like Mordheim you'd have tables determining the effect of the nat 1 for you, like a misfire table for gunpowder weapons. on a 6 the gun fires anyway, on a 1 the gun explodes in the character's hands, and the other numbers are various in-betweens (round was a dud, the hammer jammed and have to spend a turn fixing, etc.).
Confirming isn't too bad of a way to deal with Critical Failures, or Critical Successes for that matter.
It allows all those bonuses and penalties to mean something, not just disappear 10% of the time (1 and 20).
Good to see you're back, man. Your explainers and spellbook skits are simultaneously some of the funniest and most informative DnD videos out there. You know I'll be here for the next one! 👍
_"How do I balance that? I don't."_ Sounds about right for a lot of DMs, me included lol...
Personally, I like the way Pathfinder 2e approaches it. That system uses a critical failure. Failure, success, crit success model. So if you roll above or below the DC it's a success or failure as normal. If you meet or beat the DC by 10 or higher, it's a critical success and conversely if you fail by 10 or more it's a fumble or critical failure. A Nat 1, or a Nat 20 downgrades, or upgrades your result by one. So if the DC is 25, your modifier is +2 and you roll a Nat 20, you succeed, but not critically so.
There's always at least one wanderer from PF2E in these videos preaching about wonders of the system. Know this brave traveler, one day people will listen to the words we say and our job will be finally done.
Here I was on my way to write the obligatory PF2e comment, but you've already done it for me. Good work, comrade.
Wait if nat 20 upgrades your result by one doesn't it means that nat 20= 21, so +2 is still only 23, how does it beat dc 25? Did I miss something?
@@fabiovarra3698 it upgrades your result by one not the actual number. So it would go from a failure for example to a success.
@@JustFollowingOrdersYT ok now I understand, thanks
Personally, I've always loved crits. Unless something is SO difficult that it's impossible (like climbing a perfectly flat surface without spider climb), so easy failure is IMPOSSIBLE (in which case, why even roll?). I've been trying to make them more interesting than "you miss and shoot yourself in the foot". I've been trying a new method where I give the players a chance to decide what negative/positive effects happen as a result of the crit.
I don't have anything to give at this exact moment for ability checks and saves (I'm still in the phase of finding options that are mechanically sound for most situations) but I've done that with attacks. On top of giving creatures extra damage dice, or automatic misses, I give them three options. On a crit the boiled down options are automatically do the maximum damage on the additional dice, impose disadvantage for 1 action and reduced speed on an enemy, inspire and give advantage to 1 ally. For fumbles, the options are the next attack has advantage on you, your next attack has disadvantage, and you drop/lose/damage an item that you have in your inventory. For the fumbles I've also ruled that it only imposes these additional effects once per round to prevent death spirals on fumbles. The options are limited enough that players don't take too much extra time, and the effects make sure that crits and fumbles always feel impactful (2 damage crits anyone?) while keeping it in the players hands to prevent them from getting frustrated from losing control due to bad rolls.
"Unless something is SO difficult that it's impossible"
What about even if, provided that even attempting it could still have a significant effect? For example, to use the infamous "bard attempts to seduce the door" example, a crit success would mean that it turns out that someone was on the other side and was so impressed they decided to let you in, while a crit failure means that the NPC you're escorting home decides you're a bunch of loonies and your reputations are now on the line, or alternatively is turned on by it and now the bard has a potentially unwanted suitor.
"...give the players a chance to decide..."
I love these types of systems. In Outbreak: Undead, you score successes and failures on actions and have to work with the DM to narrative resolve them
Basically if the DC is lower than your bonuses the only reason to roll is to see if you crit or botch.
Something I learned only this year about Nat 1s in 3.5: if you roll a Nat 1 on a save against a damaging spell, your gear takes damage. They even have a chart on what takes damage first. Suddenly your shields HP comes into play for something other than sunder attempts. And a lightning bolt or breath weapon can end your career. Even if you can take the damage it can destroy 2 of your treasured armors or items. So much math.
i love how pathfinder 2e makes it so that you get a critical success if you roll 10 or more above the dc, or a crit fail on a 10 or more below it. for one, more crits is fun, but it also means that since they're more common, way more stuff can have effects for if you crit succeed or crit fail
That +16 in your favourite skill is about to get all the more exciting.
Having woken up in hospital with a beard I don't remember growing, I can tell you crit fails exist in real life. …
holy shit, you ok?
@@theRealSlimGordon I am now, I got into a argument about physics with the Planet, while on my motorbike … _and the Planet won_ - but only cause it's bigger than me.
@@casbot71 gravity is always keeping you down.
I say this with the wisdom that cursing your players with natural 1 critical fumbles doesn't encourage your players to roll, in fact it makes them not want to roll anymore. And when they don't want to roll for anything then you're not really playing the game anymore.
Nat 1 crit failures do not exist in the _basic_ ruleset.
The way it's written is more akin to custom additions, like gritty realism/hard mode recovery times. The DM _can_ rule a natural 1 as slighty to somewhat more punishing than expected, but it is neither the expected outcome nor is it encouraged(or discouraged).
But yes, most people are tired of their level 12 character getting demolished for the day because of a nat 1 check.
Nah sounds like you just had whiny little losers as players.
Someone called our red headed homie here an old man for suggesting a nat 1 was a crit fail and he took that so personally he made this video. Respect.
Aged like sushi at the beach. 😂😂😂😂😂
Zee, I’d love to see a “Session Zero” episode from you, just talking about how to go into a Session 0, and what things your group typically discusses.
I'm not opposed to crit fails, as long as it actually adds something to the game. If the game just comes to a dead stop because the rouge can't suddenly pick a simple pad lock, then it sucks. Instead, always remember to "fail up". Basically, keep the story moving by adding a complication to the matter. The Rouge picks the lock on a Crit Fail, but it causes a loud ring to echo in the halls, alerting the guards.
Now this is good advice
@@drchicken2477 I'm not the first person to talk about this, but it's helped in my games a lot.
...when I remember it and don't fall back on old habits.
In a game with multiple attacks, I've found that a good way to balance out the critical fumble is to use a sort of alternate attack/crit rules.
Basically, no matter how many attacks a creature has, it can choose to roll 1 attack die to determine if one or all of them hit. If a creature with 3 attacks from the same weapon, for example, rolls once & hits, they can choose to roll damage up to 3 times. Assuring damage at the potential cost of critting, yet avoiding a fumble. But if they wanna fish for crits, they can, balanced out by risking a miss or fumble. If they want to hit multiple targets, they roll attack for each target as per usual.
In such a system, I've found that crits are best handled both crunchy & chain-explosive to make them worth the catastrophic BS of a fumble. Get 10 on a critical d10, roll two more d10s, & if one of those explodes you keep going. No arbitrary HP thresholds for instant death, you just might hit the dragon so effectively that you might wind up cutting its head off. And vice versa...
This promotes CC, debuffs, & bullying the wizard into doing more than casting Fireball. Since explosive damage only applies to multi attack. Why? Because I'm the DM.
Edit: And if this sounds unfair/insane, so are critical fumbles. Randomness needs a payoff, & I like having numbers blow up across my table. Both ways. So a hydra is potentially a TPK on the first round? Don't care. It's roughly the same (to me).
Damn, that shot of the sword cutting “crit” was clean af!!
I really really love watching these videos. Ive tried to get into dnd, they usually end after like 2-3 meets cause dms vanish. on top of it not usually making sense to me how it all works. However every time i watch a video of yours i either really enjoy the story and/or learn a bit OR the things i wouldn't understand become a lot clearer how they work. Keep up the good work and comedy!
I like to keep things simple. Nat 1s are fails, but something mildly funny but inconsequential happens. Something like: "your aim was so bad the the goblin in question just stops for a second to look at you with disbelief", or "your persuasion was so bad that the innkeeper looks at you dead in the eye, makes a concerned face, and says: ... are you having a stroke?"
I remember my old group using critical fumble rules while I was playing a monk with flurry of blows.
It was not fun injuring myself more often than my enemies.
It's me. I'm the whole table going "AHHHH!"
Hooray! Special Friday content! Welcome back sir!
From my first games in 5e I've learned to abhor crit fails on attacks. Little has ever made me not want to make attacks as having a malignant DM force you damage your allies or yourself in lower levels where every hp counts as that table back then. And every time I hear about crit fails I instinctively think of that horrendous DM, so I'm gonna pass on that at any given chance.
First game I ever played of D&D was a 3.5 game where I was playing a Knight, a class that basically tanked damage and kept the enemies on them instead of on the squishies.
First attack roll I made was a nat 1. DM made me roll on the fumble table. I got "Knocked unconscious."
My character was unable to do shit, and the squishies got attacked anyway.
I have played both approaches, and to me, no crit fails makes things way more boring. Ofc you do need a halfway decent GM to regulate the level of fails and whatnot.
For example, a character that has multiple attacks and gets a crit fail on one, often only leads to another of the attack that got a success to fail, or if you got a crit, got that down to just a normal hit (but the player gets to choose which so usually they just lose one attack).
There are a lot of variations and sometimes something else can occur if it is a critical moment or if the villain himself crit fails. But the GMs in my group are usually good with stuff like that.
Then there are skill checks. Sure, some want there to be no crit fails there, but I beg to differ. It is hilarious when the absent minded know it all does a crit fail and almost burns the important macguffin book, having to, in his panic, pat on it vigorously to get the now slightly singed and slightly less readable tome out of danger.
The tome isn't destroyed, but it is slightly damaged, making it slightly harder to use, but not too detrimental whilst opening a great opportunity for a role play moment.
Or when someone decided to attempt to perform, rolled a crit fail but has so high performance the score was still in the upper 20s. That lead to a moment where the player quite literally fell on his head as he came out behind the theater tent, broke his nose and had to continue the play slightly concussed and his way of speaking slightly slurry. The audience just thought this was a comedic approach to the act and laughed their guts out.
Crit fails are rarely done as "Hah, now I can punish the player" by any GM worth their salt but more often either a moment of amusement or critical moment of a mistake that could lead to the party having to work harder to save the day, making them work together with even greater ferocity.
Not to mention when Big Bosses or their henchmen/random villain get a crit fail. those moments tend to often invigorate the group or even go so far as making the folk just lower their weapons as they look at the villain with pity in their eyes.
Crit fails on attacks have always been a terrible idea, because they mean that for one type of class, and that one only (martial attackers) the better they get at doing their thing the more likely they are to critically fail at it, because the mechanism for making them better is that they get to throw more dice at it.
Because basically no other axis of improvement works like this, other classes who don't revolve around their ability to bash enemies for big numbers, don't suffer from it.
So if your GM insists on crit fails for attack rolls, play a Wizard every time, because then you don't need to roll a dice to see if your class feature gets to happen or blows up in your face.
@@Elmithian See, the problem with crit fails in combat is that it punishes something outside of the players' control. At all times, the player has a 5% chance of losing half their turn (in the case of most martials with Extra Attack), just because of pure chance. Why?
And, as mentioned in the video, this only becomes worse when characters reach even higher levels and can make more attacks. A 5th wizard can throw a fireball dealing 8d6 damage (or half) to each enemy affected with no risk to himself, yet a 5th level monk, that can deal a maximum of 4d6+20 damage, which can be 0, if all attacks miss, has a 5% chance per attack to fall flat on their ass.
The examples you presented regarding skill nat 1s is perfectly valid and I agree with completely.
@@tomm35 I can see your point but I do want to point out another critical thing. We often tend to overfocus on singular part of a system and forget to take associated things into account.
You mentioned spellcasters yes? Well, in Pathfinder if a spellcaster is hit while casting, the spellcraft DC the spellcaster has to succeed is effectively 10+Damage taken.
Which in most cases is almost always automatic failure unless you have specific feats or roll a nat 20 (or the enemy somehow did very little damage to your spellcaster).
It is the risk associated with trying to do something inherently complex while on the battlefield.
This is the counterbalance versus normal attacks. Normal attacks tend to be a lot more numerous, but slight failure rate whilst spells are usually just one per turn (2 at best) with no failure rate but extreme risks if a combatant has decided to focus on the caster.
If we remove failures from melee, we also should remove the roll casters need to do if attacked whilst casting.
In actual combat, failures happen all the time, slight mistep here and too little force in a swing there, so at least personally, I do not see the low failure chance being a bad thing.
You are rolling a game of dices. You are already entrusting your fights to chances, the crit fails and crit success only increase the intensity of the pot.
I have a luck die rule, when you get a critical roll you role "THE LUCK DIE" I have a big d6 for that, based on your number it changes how bad/good it is
A nat 1 and a 6 can be you deal 2x damage but your weapon gets suck, or a 20 and a 1 can be the same but 3x damage
It's really just fun improv and makes every 20 and 1 EXPONENTIALLY more hype
2:21 Aaaggh, get out of my earholes!
I love your animation style so much!! And I learn alot!!! Please never stop doing these ❤️
Right after I subbed to you this comes out, nice.
"I'm not gonna go full dice salesman"
*Immediately goes full dice salesman*
I don't know what foul eldritch being possessed the audio at 2:20 - 2:40, but your voice moving between my ears and behind me initiated my fight or flight and made my hairs stand on end.
I feel like the big question with crit fails for skill checks is basically how much Mr. Bean you want there to be in your campaign. The game is swingy enough with skills (particularly at low to mid levels) that I personally don't care for characters to be THAT incompetent that often. Of course that also brings in the question as to how often you are having characters make skill rolls - some folks really overdo that as well and that leads to the same Mr. Bean/Three Stooges factor.
I actually really like that idea of crit hits and doing more than half health. Makes crits seem a lot more epic.
LOVE these little animation/ exercises/ tutorials!!! MOREMOREMOREMORE!!!!
I really like the way crit fails are done in Cypher System.
When you roll a nat 1 you get 2 XP milestones/inspiration tokens. 1 to keep, and 1 to give to another player. Then the DM throws a complication at you.
The DC for doing a thing without being noticed goes up, or just for doing it at all.
A pair of patrolling guards is coming down the hall.
Another wave of minion enemies joins the fight.
One of the DM's clocks advances/tics down.
An NPC draws a card from the deck of many things or a similar random table magic effect goes off nearby.
The boss gets a cooldown/recharge ability reset.
The nemesis NPC from your backstory shows up with a group of minions.
If you really don't want to deal with the complication then you can give the 2 XP back to the DM, but nat 1s are the main source of XP in base Cypher System.
Last I played, the DM had his own way of handling Nat 1's. It was make things interesting. If a failed check leads to a bunch of NPC's wondering how we got into their midst undetected, that is interesting. Maybe an unknown magic item triggers a check from the Wild Magic table. Most of the time if an attack fails spectacularly, something akin to the three stooges might happen. You never know what could happen on a Nat 1, but we loved dealing with the consequences when it happened.
Also he sometimes would play the long game, where a Nat 1 might not have immediate consequences. Enemies(including BBEG's) were not immune. If it nothing interesting would happen, it would be treated like any other roll. Kept us on our toes and engaged.
As someone who's lost around 6-7 characters to crit fails on death saves I was a little surprised to see them omitted.
I even switched to playing a Halfling in one campaign after losing 3 characters to Nat 1's in the space of 5 sessions so that I would have a better chance of not dying to appalling die rolls.
Change your play style, holy crap. 3 characters in 5 sessions?!
Do you mean that you died instantly on a 1, regardless of number of failures?
@@techbeef From what was said, this isn't a matter of playstyle. It was a matter of luck.
Crits always give me the vibe of "my character didn't do that, my dice did"
in our last dnd session our barbarian rolled a nat 1 for initiative, the same fight he was disintegrated by a beholder that had been summoned by our possesed party member. the beholder was 1 turn away from disappearing from concentration break.
For crits, I use brutal criticals
Max out the dice you would roll for damage, then roll them additionally, then add your modifiers
But, as fun as it is for my players, my creatures also get access 😈
Ive run 2 campaigns with that, and learned they make rogues and paladins in particular super nasty. Many small dice are less likely to get those massive damage numbers normally, which is part of why they get said dice so consistently, so you're basically ensuring the 1/1000 every time they crit with that. So they end up doing way more damage than expected when looking at the dice distributions rather than just means, and it leads to them feeling insanely powerful and its a bit harder to balance encounters when they can crit for 50 dmg at like level 3 or 4. I still give the option at session 0 (along with a modified RAW, where you roll but have a minimum crit damage) but make sure everyone knows how it impacts the game.
Some like it, some don't
Falls apart with things like gunslingers and pallies. Although I'm sure you'va some amazing anecdote about how you solved a fundamental flaw with it.
I use a variant of this that I actually pilfered from the Wendy's tabletop rpg of all things. If you crit you do max of your normal damage, and then roll another d20 to confirm, and if you do then you get to roll all your damage dice again. This does let rogues and paladins nova pretty hard, but that's mostly because they can choose to dump resources after the crit. If this is a problem for your table you can just have the crit only max the base attack's damage and roll the extra dice anyway. Worth noting that this is still gonna come in over average for damage numbers, but in my opinion the hype is worth it.
The problem with brutal critical hits is that there's less dice to roll so when the paladin/rogue crits they roll the same amount of dice instead of having to go on a journey to acquire a sufficient quantity of d4s.
@@zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba0 have a death Knight paladin in my current campaign
Another home brew rule I threw in for fun for this campaign was that if any of the PCs get the same initiative, I’ll let them decide if they want to combo their actions, like who goes first and how they help each other, if they both hit and pull something off they get double damage
At level 3 the paladin Crit on a combo against a roper dealing nearly 90 damage! 😆
Not fun for the roper, but fun all round at the table
The GM absolutely *needs to show good judgement* here. I've never trusted crit fails, mostly because they never felt right for the game. Having a 1 in 20 chance of catastrophic failure on every roll, no matter our preparations, competence, etc ripped all the tension away from the game. You're rolling enough dice that a normal session just turns into a clown college of weapons flying out of the hands of trained combatants, people tripping and fumbling over each other left and right, and characters the players have invested heavily into spontaneously beheaded. For no reason other than having a 5% chance of cartoonishly unwarranted bad things happening every time you attempted something more complex than walking forward on level ground.
This is where nested RollTables can really shine. If you've got a knack for spreadsheets or use a VTT, some initial setup before the campaign starts can get away from that 1/20 chance to fail *every* time issue, as well as the issue of having an equal chance (1/20) of two negative outcomes on a critical fumble table with radically different severities. i.e. a 5% chance of dropping your sword and a 5% chance of wounding yourself with it. So one first step to reduce the clown college effect is to confirm the fumble with another d20 roll. If the result is the PC's level or *lower,* it's just a regular miss; no other consequence. If it's higher, they roll on the critical fumble table. This means that as the party levels up, their odds of actually fumbling go steadily down, to reflect their new experience. This also helps offset the bias against characters with multiattack in the later game. (Side note: another way to even things out between martials and casters is to treat nat 20s on saving throws against spells as if the caster had fumbled it). Anyways, when you do have to roll on the fumble table, try using 1d12+1d8 instead of 1d20 or 1d100. A d12 and a d8 roughly approximate the normal distribution, so you can put milder outcomes towards the center and more severe punishments out at the fringes. It significantly reduces the number of catastrophic fails without getting rid of them entirely, especially when combined with the first thing I mentioned about confirmation rolls. I play online using Foundry and there's a pretty good system for automating tables and even letting them make rolls on one another, so I actually have 4 tables set up for my mild/moderate/bad/severe outcomes. The 1d12+1d8 table just picks one of those buckets and funnels a new roll onto a given severity table in the background. That way I can go in and add to or delete specific results from the system as a whole withou having to reweight the whole table (if my players really don't like one that pops up for instance). That's probably too much to worry about if you're playing in person with physical dice, but the confirmation roll and a 1d12+1d8 table should fix a lot of the mathematical problems with fumbles by themselves.
You see, this is the ages old problem of the people at your table being bad at role playing, problably your DM most of all. Generally the idea of a crit fail is something like "crit fail makes you look dumb in universe" or "crit puts you out if position and like, gives an enemy advantage on you next turn or something". A crit fail shouldn't cause you to fall face first onto a guillotine, and if it does, that's a people you're playing with problem, not a crit fail problem.
*This message brought to you by D100 association.
I think that’s why it’s really important for the DM to be fair to the player and still make the catastrophic success fun- it shouldn’t just be bullying, just adds new challenges to overcome or means that the story takes a hard right turn or something
Crit fails need to be reasonable, and logical within the game. The main issue with crit-fail tables is that a lot of DMs make the outcomes as extreme or moreso than the worst Wild Magic outcomes which is just dumb. Good crit-fail options are things like:
1) The enemy you attacked has advantage to attack you.
2) You have disadvantage on your next attack before the end of your turn.
3) Make a STR / DEX save or fall prone
4) Make a new attack roll against another creature within 5ft of your original target (if there is one).
5) If making a ranged attack with a weapon the projectile is lost forever.
6) Your movement speed is reduced by 1/2 until the end of your turn.
This video came at the perfect time. Just yesterday I was wondering when you'd upload another video. I makes me excited that you're uploading weekly. Can't wait to watch what you make next.
Hey, amazing video! Small note, Larry has a small white pixel on the right of his head and since it looks like you use rigs, I figured I'd let you know so it doesn't carry forward into future episodes. It's super minuscule. It's such a minor detail that does not blemish what is a spectacular video and insight in gameplay. Just thought I'd give you a heads-up.
One of my first experiences with true tabletop RPGs was a homebrew Pathfinder game set in Skyrim that a friend of mine was running. He was a bit social awkward and weirdly intense when it came to nerd stuff, which is to say... looks like Crit Fails are back on the menu, boys.
I think it was in session 1 (after having a session 0, mind you) that we went through Bleak Falls Barrow, and had the boss fight with the draugr that you get the dragonstone from. I, being the overconfident and horrible party member that I was while metagaming the FUCK out of this session, ran straight up to the crypt the boss was in while everyone else was slowly entering the room and checking for traps and such. They were all a good 60+ ft away from me, so for anyone to get even close to me they'd have to spend at least a full turn of movement in order to do some NEXT turn. I decided this was a great time to wake up the boss.
The fight started, I was by myself, and everyone else had to helplessly watch as I tried to 1v1 a boss that I had no right fighting on my own. His first turn was spent knocking me prone. This left me with the decision on my turn to either stay there and accept my +2 to AC (because prone, or whatever) and hope he didn't murdelate me before the party could catch up, or try to stand up to fight back. However standing up would provoke an AoE. I decided to take my chances and get up.
As I start to rise the draugr lord threw a mighty swing in my direction, and on his roll to hit me and blast me into the paveme.... Nat 1. Crit fail, and by my GM's rules that meant he then had to make an attack against HIMSELF. On his roll to hit himself, Nat 20. I think he may have even rolled maximum damage on that crit attack, but whatever the case the way it was ruled was the draugr swung at me, missed, and lopped off his own leg. So whatever damage was rolled was enough to one-shot himself, because he immediately went down and was dead.
So I once killed a boss just by standing up because of Crit Fails. And even with that wonderful story I now have to share, I am immensely grateful I've never had to play with Crit Fails ever again. Screw that noise. Auto Fails on 1, sure, but not Critical Failure.
Crits make so much sense to me. After all every once in a while when I'm walking I will just trip and break my legs. Also every once and a while when I punch things everything I touch just explodes for no reason.
Me, a 3.5e dm: Hehe u spontaneously combust.
He flashed that dice and I immediately opened an new tab and started looking at dice
Crit fails, or "Your martial character who is literally skilled enough to fight gods should drop his sword 15% of the time he tries to attack something." Brought to you by mathematically incompetent DMs.
it's still 5% of the time, even with three attacks, it's five percent of the time that character makes an attack, but if you really want to do the thing where it's measured per round its closer to 14% but that's assuming that the critfail is not using the DMG rules, which simply make it a failed attack, or that the more common policy that you simply lose the rest of your multi attacks in addition to the failure. seems like you are making a very uncharitable interpretation. but mostly I just wanted to remind you that it's 5% of the time an attack is made or 14.2% of rounds of attacking. since you're so heartset on mathematics.
@@anthonybonacci6618 Yes, I know how the attack action works, thank you. My point still stands as written.
I was just implying that you suck at math.
Your crit solution doesn’t really compensate multi attack though. It rewards making fewer, bigger swings.
The solutiom is really just to be a good dm and give the multi attacker friendlier or no crit fails
"You can only crit fail on your first attack on a turn," seems like the best solution.
@@torvus249 I think you just nailed it.
@@LB-yg2br Arguably. It's a system that still punishes everyone making an attack roll instead of playing a caster using saving throw spells.
@@torvus249 that is a decent trade off for limited spell slots vs unlimited swinging of a sword, imho
I just realized the hand puppet and voice was Zee imitating Gator from Pack Tactics, lol.
Ah, the bottomless pit of bizarre design choices that is the DMG's "things you might do" category
The PHB says (only for attack rolls) that "If The D20 roll for an Attack is a 20, the Attack hits regardless of any Modifiers or the target’s AC. This is called a critical hit. If The D20 roll for an Attack is a 1, the Attack misses regardless of any Modifiers or the target’s AC." However (like you mentioned), the DMG does mention an optional extension of that rule for ability checks/saving throws: "Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw doesn't normally have any special effect. However, you can choose to take such an exceptional roll into account when adjudicating the outcome. It's up to you to determine how this manifests in the game. An easy approach is to increase the impact of the success or failure. For example, rolling a 1 on a failed attempt to pick a lock might break the thieves' tools being used, and rolling a 20 on a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check might reveal an extra clue."
I did a crit fail for one of my players in my first ever campaign I dm'd (and I barely read any of the dms books tbh, I went in blind), but due to the nature of what happened a random kid on the street was decapitated in broad daylight.. It was hilarious cause the party ended up reviving the kid, stealing him from his family, and turning him into a backup character for later down the line.
Classic Adventuring shit
Your animation technique continues to improve. Thank you for putting in so much effort to communicate.
How my group does it is 1 no matter the roll you fail, but a crit is given a whole bunch of gravitas and will lead to some swanky bonus. Like if the enemy didn't die his armor is now chipped or brocken and his AC is lowered and other fun stuff like that
Personally I like attacks as is, 1 always misses 20 always hits (crit). But as for ability scores I consider the rolls to be a scale of how well the character performed relative to the best they can do. So 1 is not an automatic failure and a 20 is not a success. Like a bear totem barbarian with 20 strength doesn't need to roll a strength check to pick up a crate. They can literally lift like a 1000lbs from their features and strength. And if a crate is heavy enough, no matter what they roll a hafling wizard with 9 strength just can't lift it. Unless, there is a way they might get lucky trying.
I use carrying capacity when theyre lifting objects. It's very consistent.
@Mehnbuhn Kneckbeerd Sometimes you might not realize a character's minimum is a 12 before asking for a roll.
I heard this once: "If you have crit fail consequence tables I need 10 spearmen attacking 10 wooden dummies for 10 minutes and at the end if any are seriously wounded or dead, you need to redo your tables."
In 100 turns, what are the chances of 10 people rolling even 1 crit fail I wonder.
If they are my players, seems like 100% Seriously last week someone had advantage and rolled double 1's.
@@SenhorAlien The chance of rolling a nat 1 on a 20 sided dice is 1/20 which is a 5% chance.
If you had 10 spearmen each making one attack per round over 100 rounds, that is 1000 attacks, or 1000 dice rolls.
The chance of at least one of those rolls being a natural 1 can be calculated by doing (1−((19÷20)^1000))x100 which gives you 99.999999999% chance of somebody rolling a one.
On average you would expect 50 natural 1s show up, and also 50 natural 20s on 1000 d20 rolls.
@@SenhorAlien Incredibly high.
love this one! at a few tables I've played at nat 1's got what was called the "tom and jerry effect" where the fail can be harmful and comical to the rolling character
That Zoro style carving of “Crit” into flesh was CRISPY
I got kind of on the fence with this one, my main issue is ability checks. I don't like the idea of an automatic success when someone is trying something completely ridiculous. It can be managed if you have an extremely creative DM, but that's not the norm.
As far as I'm concerned if a task is so difficult that only a critical success could justify it then - no. There's no roll for that attempt, because it simply can't be done. Lower the bar and try something else.
I mean this is all just fixed by a DM saying no.
I have never heard of this argument, we just just always used the crit system for the sake of tension, because it is indeed more engaging when a character nearly kills themselves in a few rolls when there are no enemies around and they almost die falling off the first few rungs of a ladder that broke, but the opposite is also awesome as in one short test campaign I was in I got a nat 20 on a saving throw, a crit, and was right next to the boss who had previously beat down my bitch ass for trying to run, so the dm allows me to get up on 1 hp and shoot at the boss, killing it.
My table has been playing a heavily homebrewed format of DnD that involves a special Weapons Crafting system. You can pick Bonuses and Banes on that weapon so long as the total value of each one leads to a total of Zero or Greater. These include such wonderful features as an Increased Crit Threshold... and an increased Crit FAIL threshold... and catastrophic results of crit failing while on an attack roll such as your weapon detonating in your hands.
Fun times!
Both D&D 5e campaigns I'm in, both as DM and a player, we use crit fails and crit successes to spice things up, using d100 critical hit chart (multiple damage types) and d100 fumble chart. Failure becomes critical only if you roll a nat1, followed up by a confirmation roll of 5 or less on d20. There is a bit more nuance to it, like crit fail save becoming a critical hit from a damage based spell and such, but that covers most of it.
Always love more zee bashew especially after midway through June
I generally reserve 'spectacular fail' for when it's interesting, or funny. rather than 'oh your run's over now game over you slipped on a banana peel and broke your neck.'
Also. Zee. No. I am not taking your cursed Dice. Get that stink away from me.
Proficiencies working towards saving crit fails on Ability checks is so good to prevent the annoying swing dice nature of things your character is literally built around being good at.
Amazing video! Shared with my group!
I always preferred the old way, I think in 3.5, where if you roll a crit fail or a crit success you have to confirm it by matching or failing the DC on a second roll. Mostly because I got to watch as a poor newbie player didn't even change which die she rolled as she desperately tried not to kill her character but rolled a triple crit fail instead. I think it was a house rule that crit fails saw you make a normal damage roll on yourself when they were attack rolls. Her character...did not have the health to survive even a low double-crit roll from her weapon, but by grace of the DM she was merely knocked unconscious and 'unusually difficult' to revive once the battle was over.
This is my preference, too. Kept as the "Critical Threat" in Pathfinder, it gives a justification for attacks to be fantastic or catastrophic (or both) because of your roll.
Crit fail but don't confirm, you miss & maybe get your weapon stuck until next turn. Crit fail & confirm, you accidentally commit harakiri. Crit fail followed by crit success & confirm, you lose grip on your sword which flies out and chops the enemy's head off.
@@Bigfoot42 Never saw that last one happen at a table. Most of what I remember is that while I was grateful I'd rolled a 20, I was disappointed that my confirmation roll failed so I wasn't actually critting.
Recently I started a new campaign of D&D as a wizard, and a few sessions in I rolled a nat 1 on a firebolt. After a few more unlucky roles to determine the effect, my firebolt spell immediately blew up in my character’s face. And since I was a low level squishy wizard who had already taken some hits, I was immediately knocked down and started making death saves. It was a bit frustrating at first, but it ended up turning into one of the most hilarious moments so far. I also took the opportunity to work it into the RP element of the game. My character was a pompous, overconfident nobleman who looked down on others. And this moment became very humbling for him. It challenged his hubris and forced him to consult with the party’s Druid for advice on spellcasting.
Thanks for bringing back flashbacks of when I rolled 3 consecutive 1's on a save from a monster 10x my size. I am pretty sure our mage was wiping my nards off of his face when he finally blew it up.
I have a rule at my table where, during combat, every crit (fail or save) has a secondary effect based off a second d20 roll made behind the screen. The effects are based off the number rolled and can effect multiple characters if applicable. Crit failed an attack? Guess your axe is stuck in the ground, use half movement to remove. Crit success on attack? Double damage and the enemy is blinded for 1-2 rounds. It adds that extra oomph in combat knowing a single action could change the tide of battle.
A thing that I encountered that should be addressed in session 1 or earlier: Whether or not the Cavalier is allowed to mount anything other than a Horse.
Oh, so we're kink-shaming now?
@@wrongtown Okay.. It took me a minute😅
Doesn't cavalier have almost nothing mechanically to help with only mounts because all of its things just say like "an ally within 5 feet" or something and never specifies that it must be a mount. I could easily look this up to be sure before I write this, but I'm too lazy.
@@theclassypineapple Yes, it is true that a Cavalier doesn't NEED a mount, but I had an idea in mind. I wanted to tame a wild animal or something but the DM told me way too late that I'll only be allowed to use horses.
@@DemonicEngineer huh that is weird, although the in game rules on what counts as like reasonable to be able to mount are vague and also i think this would mean its a "untrained mount" and I think there's just like specific rules there and that the DM probably just didn't want to bother with figuring anything out, because I've heard mounted combat rules in general can be a bit tricky to begin with, although that's scummy to not let the player know that before starting the campaign. Also, at first glance with reading your comment I misunderstood its meaning as "being allowed to ride *anything*" and it being a like halfing trying to get a piggyback ride on their barbarian or whatever in order to gain benefits as counting as riding a mount, but that makes a lot more sense.
There is a web dm video, which one I can’t say, where Jim made a point I have come to really agree with. If there is a 5% chance that a roided out 20th barbarian can fail to athletics check through a rotted wooded door on rusted through hinges. While also a 1st level wizard with 3 strength has a 5% chance to break down a door made of solid tungsten, that’s a problem.
I think the idea that you could hyper specialize a character, and fail even at max level, is a shitty thing. It kinda makes the whole idea of building a character to be good at skill checks pointless. Why play a class for Jack of all trades or reliable talent when 10% of the time my bonuses mean nothing. Or use abilities like bardic inspiration or guidance if they don’t matter either.
I admit this rule was unknown to me, which is a great reason why we should all read our books more thoroughly, and I like the idea of a crit fail being a thing that can happen but only happening some of the time and also being something that can be avoided. It avoids the above listed flaw.
An important thing to keep in mind, I think, is another oft-forgotten bit from that section of the DMG: when should you roll? The rule of thumb they give is that you should only roll when both failure and success are reasonable outcomes for an action. You don’t need to make a dexterity check to walk forward 10 feet across stable ground (because there’s no reasonable chance of failure) and you don’t make an attack roll to hit the moon with an arrow (because there’s no reasonable chance of success).
A lot of this is determined by the tone of the table; some tables like being totally at the mercy of Lady Luck, some prefer to reward preparation and character building to the exclusion of chance, and some like a balance of both.
I've always done crit fails with percentiles after to determine the severity of a failure. A crit fail with a percentile of 75+ will be relatively inconsequential. 25 or below will most likely harm you or damage your equipment to a significant degree depending on the plausibility. A good example I use to explain my system is trying to sneak attack someone at point blank with a hand crossbow.
75+: You didn't set the bowstring properly, so the crossbow does not fire. Luckily your target didn't hear the sound due to the background noise in the area
50-74: You somehow manage to miss, causing your target to be alerted to you
25-49: Your bowstring snaps audibly, revealing yourself and disabling your weapon until it can be repaired
01-24: while pulling back the crossbow, you accidentally tug the trigger and shoot yourself in the foot. Make an attack roll against yourself without proficiency. You scream in pain and alert your target.
Not only does this system alleviate some bias or excessive silliness, but it also allows me to add more mechanics, such as a luck charm that can be applied to a tool or weapon to give it advantage on the percentile roll if it crit fails. Similarly, I could allow the BBEG to hex a player, causing them to semi-permanently roll disadvantage on their crit fails as well.
My best memories in dnd were those of losing a character to a crit failure in the wrong place and time when the DM making any other call wouldn't make sense.
Had a character roll a 1 on a jump attack, where the DM had me roll for jump (nat 20), then as another possible way out strength check on the jump (nat 20). Leading to jumping accurately on target but incredibly high enough for the opponent to have time to line up their sword with where I was going to land.
For multi-attack characters, we just homebrewed that you can only have a "catastrophic" crit fail once per turn. Of course you can still roll a one 1, but only the first time in a turn when you roll a 1 does something crazy happen
That is a band aid, but it doesn't solve the problem. A fighter with 3+ attacks at higher levels (6+ on the turn that they action surge) has a significantly higher chance to proc it than say, a wizard who is only ever going to be rolling one die unless they're casting scorching ray (and why would you cast scorching ray ever?)
"Everyone's lying about Crit FAILS!"
Oh, did I miss something? I know it's an optional rule, but maybe there's something else?
"It's an optional rule in the DMG."
Oh... so... they're not lying?
The lie is, people say that the rule doesn't *exist* in 5e. Full stop. It does, but it's an optional modifier to the game by the DM.
The optional rule doesn't even say you automatically fail on a nat 1 or 20. It just states that something extra can happen if you do.
I love crit fails, some of the best moments in my campains have been crit fails!
That time our fighter crit failed and lost grip of his sword when he was enlarged was priceless, that giant sword flying into the tower, the dwarf who had jumped on it with a athletics check, the poor semi boss that got hit by it, and the paladin that just barely dodged it.
It was a great part of that fight, i could not run my games with out crit fails, those are great fun, and having people think up ways to deal with the failure is always a riot...
reminds me of the glitch/critical glitch system of shadowrun sr5. A glitch is like rolling a 1 but still passing, and it says that if that happens you still succeed but something else may go wrong in a minor way. Like you successfully vault the fence but in the process trip over it and fall prone. A critical glitch is a glitch but with no success, and something terrible happens, potentially life threatening.