grappled case

[soppathekeitto]

Hello yesterday played oneshot story that i made.

And I wonder that I made the right judgment in this case.

Ok Fighter got CMB +5 and CMD 18
and he grappled an Orc CMB +4; CMD 14

Fighter toss d20+5 and got 16+5=21 so he grappled the orc

and then Rogue was shooting with crossbow at Orc
Attackroll d20+4 he got 1 so insta fail.

then i try to find my fumble software I could not find it.

so i decided to that the arrow ricochet orcs armor to the fighters arm

so we rolled again 20+4 against Fighters AC 15 (base+armorbonus) roll was 16

so the arrow hitted Fighters arm dmg roll 1d8 but i halfed it to 1d4 = rollwas 3

so the fighter take 3 dmg from the arrow.

was it correct to roll again to the fighters AC or ?

and then it was orc turn so he tryed to free him self from the grapple

CMB +4 vs Fighters CMD 18 he got free because he rolled d20+4= 16+4=20

was that correct too ?

[Rynjin]

All this random stuff happening on a 1 is your own houserule, so not sure why you're asking us if it's right.

[soppathekeitto]

sorry about that. I just whant to know a) was my ruling ok or too absurd and b) and did the orc free him self correctly.

even thought the adventure was fun and Fighter nagged about that arrow :)

[Create Mr. Pitt]

To cut this off at the pass here is what you're about to hear:

Critical failures are bad. They disparately impact martial characters with iterative attacks; and martials already have enough of a disadvantage.

Presuming you would go forward with the house rule, a ricochet is not going to be super accurate, so I would likely give the fighter a +2 AC cover bonus, but I would use the initial roll, not a reroll as there is no new shot.

That said critical failures are kind of boring. Who wants automatic disadvantages 5% of the time.

[Iker]

You´re the DM your decision is final, just try to make the game go smoother (faster), the only thing I see wrong here is the number of dice rolls involved.

Happy rolls

[soppathekeitto]

thanx for the answers and notes. When we continued i decided that if i use the ricochet the rules is if Fail1 = then you roll dice again d20 only and dmg is half of the dmg.

and btw our rogue failed 11 times.. and our fighter yelled hole game NO MORE ARROWS.

but fun game night

[DarkPhoenixx]

While i dont like fumbles i think this ruling is quite interesting and in tact with situation (not "you drop your weapon") as well as it required second "confirmation roll" (against fighters AC, so it is kinda reverse - you want to roll lower. Works for me anyway).

As for questions, fighter was grappled and had -2 AC (due to -4 DEX penalty for being grappled). As for second one, fighter had -2 to CMD as well (from same dex penalty) so orc was supposed to get free. Both seems right to me.

I dont use fumbles myself tho (or only rarely, in situations when it may lead to interesting result) because, as said before, they are more detrimental to martial characters with iterative attacks.