Narrative Shennanigans / Hijinks


Advice


I've done some cursory searching through the messageboards, but not knowing what kind of keywords the topic would have it's hard to find a thread for it.

We're going through a Paizo campaign, and my DM likes to do things narratively, but blend the narrative into in-game consequences. After a particularly powerful hit, I was told that I have a hole in my magical armor despite no sunder maneuver being used. A big boss swung at an ally but rolled a 1, his weapon slipped and hits another player 30 feet away. If a player or NPC rolls a 1 on an attack, it's not merely a miss, but a chance to have a catastrophic combat failure regardless of character level, sometimes just restricted to dropping a weapon (entirely up to the DM).

At first I just rolled (pun intended) with it, but the overall effect seems to create an environment where the simplest action (an attack against a mook) can turn into disastrous consequences (falling prone, etc). Combat, in my mind, has almost developed into roadrunner and wile e. coyote complete with falling anvils (a slight exaggeration). Enemies will literally kill themselves in fights. A thrown weapon might impale a player and reapply its magical on-hit damage each turn until the player un-grapples himself from it...or it might deal normal damage.

Do other people play in an environment like this? 2/4 of the players are brand new so don't really have an opinion. Everything is up to the DM's discretion about what events occur and how. Would you object to having such randomly applied consequences, or perhaps even appreciate it? How would I even phrase such an objection?


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If you feel the need to escalate, there was a thread about how to drop anvils on people.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I've heard of critical fumbles before, but they are almost universally despised for the same reasons you mention--that and because it is unfairly skewed against the players.

Nobody cares if a monster pokes his eye out if he was meant to die anyways. A PC doing that on the other hand has to deal with lasting consequences.

Just talk to your GM. Let him know that it is making the game feel somewhat slapstick, and that you're not sure that, that is fun for you.

Search for 'critical fumbles.' You will find lots of threads.


A high level two-weapon fighting character rolls so many attacks that they're bound to get a 1 every three rounds or so. Which means that one of the world's greatest fighters can't go 20 seconds without making an idiot of himself under these rules.

There are less ridiculous versions of combat fumbles; use the Critical Fumble Deck rather than GM whim, get to make a 'fumble confirmation' roll after the natural 1 where if you make the roll high enough to hit AC on the second roll no fumble happens...

If your GM is insistent on keeping fumbles, you could ask him to tone them down like that.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I had one GM who used the fumble deck, but limited them to the bad guys only since he recognized that it was unfairly skewed against the players.


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Thank you for the well-thought replies.
I'll probably phrase it as:
1. Our iteration of the critical fumble system only affects those who make attack rolls rather than cast spells
2. It unfairly hurts a TWF character because fewer rolls = fewer chances to fail
3. The overall effect is rather slapstick
4. If we REALLY need a critical success/fumble system, there are ways to implement it other than semi-random DM discretion.

I feel our method is akin to having Smashballs as well as the trip system from Super Smash Bros Brawl turned on, where a person at a clear disadvantage can still win a fight due to sheer random rolls. It might be nice in a casual videogame (except for tripping!), but with character lives on the line less so.


There are several workable fumble/crit tables out there that work quite well. Paizo even released their own Crit apps and crit decks that are worth checking out. One might make a nice gift to your GM to replace their current system.


One of my GMs would simply have you lose any additional attacks for the round if you fumbled on one of your attacks. I think he understood how ridiculous it seems if you have a highly skilled warrior poking and slicing himself, allies, or inanimate objects 5 or 10 times a fight.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

My GM used Critical Fumbles along with a confirmation roll and I've been using it since I started playing with him. That was about 4 years ago and it hasn't been a huge issue so far.


My group uses a confirmation roll of 1-5 on a d20 (25%). As a result, most 1's are just automatic misses. (Aggravating enough, for characters with high attack bonuses.) We've all been fine with it, although as GM I'm rather squeamish about lasting effects from individual die rolls. I'd rather say you hit an adjacent friend than broke your magic weapon. But IMHO, combat should sometimes succeed despite your best efforts.

Aksess wrote:
After a particularly powerful hit, I was told that I have a hole in my magical armor despite no sunder maneuver being used.

I'd love to hear some context for this rather alarming story: How powerful a hit? Were you still standing? Did you have to make a save vs. massive damage? How often does the GM throw monsters your way who can deal out this kind of damage?


Automatic critical fumbles on a natural 1 are terrible. Two natural 1s in a row, maybe... but still.


I believe the hit was pretty hard, about 30 dmg out of my 72 hp, but we only do massive damage rolls if its over half your max hp. I believe the reasoning for the armor damage was that the weapon the enemy was using had an acid enchantment on it, which ties into the narration vs rules. Luckily a player had make whole, but he had to burn a spell. We're playing a Paizo campaign, and we've seen other things at about the same power level.

Exactly how critical fumbles are confirmed and resolved are all exclusively DM discretion. Ive seen other posts that are whinefests about a perceived DM, but this is different. I wanted to see if people run similar systems and if they have any insightful opinions on it.


To make my point a bit more clear; i love fluff and narrative and houserules that i feel improve on some of paizo's content (our group houserules pretty conservatively in comparison to other stuff i've seen on these forums). At what point is fluff/narrative becoming too intrusive on the game rules or flow of the game?

For example: I would put critical fumbles into a homebrew/fluff category. We play that if you roll a 1 three times consecutively on an attack roll you kill yourself. The inverse happens with triple 20's (resolved a boss fight really fast once) This also applies to enemies. If it were to occur, our fluff would literally have killed a player and required significant resources to restore, so the fluff is now directly impacting a player's experience rather than enhancing it.


Aksess wrote:
1. Our iteration of the critical fumble system only affects those who make attack rolls rather than cast spells

The Fumble deck has magical fumbles for people casting spells with touch attacks / ranged touch attacks; it can affect casters, depending on their spell preferences.

Aksess wrote:
2. It unfairly hurts a TWF character because fewer rolls = fewer chances to fail

The fact that it affects higher level martials more than lower level martials may be a more compelling argument.

Aksess wrote:
I wanted to see if people run similar systems and if they have any insightful opinions on it.

Since the 'system' here runs by GM fiat, it's not really a system at all. It's entirely down to your GM's mood and playstyle, which we can't really assess. Even if my GM tries to do the same thing, the effect might be entirely different. Does he go easy on you when you're at risk of dying? Does he play favorites?

Most of us prefer to run things by the rules whenever possible; otherwise you feel like success or failure is based not on your own efforts but on whether the GM decides to let you win.


Never played with the triple 20s = instant death rule, but there's a discussion of it here.


It seems that responses to crit success and fumble decks run the gamut from the forums.

The decks would prevent players from feeling singled out if their fumble is more penalized than someone else's since the results are random.

It would remove any suspicions of favoritism on the DM's part for same reasons as above.

As far as negatives, some posts describe how it creates a new system since crits are so much more powerful so all the players delve into the new metagame and exclusively use weapons with a high crit threat range. Ditto for casters; why would they risk a ranged or melee touch spell (equal chance of fumble or success) when they could continue to use spells that are roll (and therefore risk) free?


I've played on tables that do it both ways. Its honestly about dm and player preference. My favorite is where there are fumbles but very very rarely do they have significant long term events typically lasting 1 round or removable with a move action. One way to counterbalance critical fails is a critical success table. 1d100 seems to work best with only the top 5% of effects lasting long enough to maybe go hire a cleric. I find that extra effects on natural 20s and 1s adds some excitement to combat and very memorable moments. Nobody would have cared about the wolf fight at the beginning of a campaign a few years back had the ranger not shot his knee 3 times. Nobody would have cared about the goblin mooks in the next campaign if half of them hadn't killed each other. Both are examples of otherwise fairly boring fights that were made memories by RNG. As per the critical range weapon meta just bar critical successes to natural 20 rolls. Having a table that lists the effects is a good idea. You can then add flavor and make it work for the specific situation. Or you can let the players get more involved and describe their own rolls. So long as the effect is fixed the players can have some good fun describing how it happens. Just my experiences and opinion


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Matthew Downie wrote:
Never played with the triple 20s = instant death rule, but there's a discussion of it here.

That's a great way to ensure all the PCs are dead before level 20.


Rolling trp 1's or 20's is ridiculous. Just use confirmations rolls for 1/20's and everything works fine.


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Ravingdork wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
Never played with the triple 20s = instant death rule, but there's a discussion of it here.
That's a great way to ensure all the PCs are dead before level 20.

Triple one or triple twenty is a one in 8000 chance. Let's make up a number for neatness and say the average PC is subjected to 16 possible insta-deaths per battle. That means this rule will kill each PC on average once per 500 encounters. Most campaigns only have about a hundred encounters, I'd guess? So the odds aren't too bad, maybe one PC per campaign, with a good chance of it not happening before Raise Dead is available.


Yes, the odds certainly do seem to be stacked against the PC's. Each time a PC attacks AND is attacked there is a chance of a critical fumble/success respectively.

I think that just about all the points we've discussed have turned me off from keeping our current 'system', but as was correctly pointed out, isn't really a system. At bare minimum I think we should implement the crit fumble/success apps, which would stop a player from feeling singled out. I felt pretty singled out on our last session when the BBEG's weapon slipped out of his hand (aiming at a PC next to him) and hit me 25-30 feet away on a crit fumble for 20-ish dmg. The DM probably didn't want his BBEG looking incompetent or wanted to not make the fight too easy, but that's the consequence of crit fumbles.

The only real upside I see people writing about crit fumble/success is that it keeps combat interesting, but I already find combat interesting.


I've found you can reduce the comedy aspect of fumbles if you add an element of "your opponent did this to you". For example, if instead of you rolling to confirm a fumble, you and anyone you're in melee with make attack rolls, and only if your opponent rolls higher does something bad happen. So instead of "you somehow get your sword tangled in your trousers and fall over" it becomes "your skillful opponent seizes upon a slight flaw in your defences and makes you fall prone".

Liberty's Edge

The situation described by the OP instantly made me think of Grognard GM-as-a-capricious-god

I am really happy that most GMs have moved beyond that


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What? How dare you question GM the great and powerful? Rocks fall! You die!


In my game, the default fumble rule is

Attack roll Nat 1 > lose all actions for the rest of your turn > roll d% > possible additional negative effects, based on d% roll and circumstances (usually only as bad as dropping your weapon or snapping your bowstring)


I have playing in games/systems where fumble and crits were a great addition to the game and I have played in games/systems in which fumbles and crits had a huge negative impact on the game.
It all depends on the way the rules are implemented by the designers and used by the GM during the game.

So depending on the product and how your GM uses it I could see vast table variance and enjoyment of such add-on products.

Having said that, there is a reason why there were no middle ages armies wielding scythes in battles vs the super weapons they can be in quite a few FRPG's. The fact that some weapons are more difficult to use during combat (damage and fumble) and some require quite a bit more room to wield or the fact they are near useless in tight spaces is often just hand waved away in many RPG's.

MDC


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Matthew Downie wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
Never played with the triple 20s = instant death rule, but there's a discussion of it here.
That's a great way to ensure all the PCs are dead before level 20.
Triple one or triple twenty is a one in 8000 chance. Let's make up a number for neatness and say the average PC is subjected to 16 possible insta-deaths per battle. That means this rule will kill each PC on average once per 500 encounters. Most campaigns only have about a hundred encounters, I'd guess? So the odds aren't too bad, maybe one PC per campaign, with a good chance of it not happening before Raise Dead is available.

It has been mathematically proven to be extremely likely in a number of threads and online articles discussing such topics.

Clearly you underestimate the number of rolls that are made between levels 1 and 20.

I myself have seen it happen three times in a single 1-6 campaign.


Most of the discussions I've found have people saying things like, "I've been playing with this rule for 20 years and I've seen this kill two PCs in that time."

But your anecdotal evidence and rumors of internet articles proving your point are pretty compelling.

Dark Archive

Not in pathfinder, but in D&D 5e my fighter was bored during his travels to seek out and destroy bandits. I decided to RP twirling my Halberd, Sussy, to pass the time. Incidentally, rolling a 1 on my twirl attempt caused me to accidentally impale and knock out one our NPC guards. Needless to say, my fighter was far more terrifying after that.

Incidentally, we started imprisoned and were sent on this dangerous mission in lieu of being executed. Our sentence would only be communicated if we brought back at least one guard alive to attest that we completed the mission. The only guard to survive was the one we had stabilized and left in the cart and we didn't have to split the loot with more than one of the guards, ended up being a "win-win". The guard gave up his soldiering profession and became a baker but was constantly afraid of stick like objects and couldn't bake a baguette to save his life.

Unfortunately, I was banned from twirling and so Sussy wasn't getting the attention she needed to thrive as a Halberd. I managed to adopt a Greatsword, toothpick, to do battle with and largely retire Sussy to a more peaceful life.


Matthew Downie wrote:
I've found you can reduce the comedy aspect of fumbles if you add an element of "your opponent did this to you". For example, if instead of you rolling to confirm a fumble, you and anyone you're in melee with make attack rolls, and only if your opponent rolls higher does something bad happen. So instead of "you somehow get your sword tangled in your trousers and fall over" it becomes "your skillful opponent seizes upon a slight flaw in your defences and makes you fall prone".

I would much prefer this idea over a lot of the others out there. So in essence if you fumble while in a threatened square you may provoke an AoO? Although then only melee martial characters would really be affected by this. Archers would still be unaffected and so would most casters.

At the moment I'm recommending the crit success and crit fumble decks to my group (in free android app form), but I'd recommend that we only use them on confirmed natural 1's and 20's, although I'm seeing a variety of ways to confirm a fumble.


Aksess wrote:
I believe the hit was pretty hard, about 30 dmg out of my 72 hp, but we only do massive damage rolls if its over half your max hp. I believe the reasoning for the armor damage was that the weapon the enemy was using had an acid enchantment on it, which ties into the narration vs rules. Luckily a player had make whole, but he had to burn a spell. We're playing a Paizo campaign, and we've seen other things at about the same power level.

Well, under the circs, it wasn't so bad. It caused your party to burn a resource, but you didn't actually lose the armor for an extended time. I'll bet that player keeps Make Whole handy! :)

Still, it wasn't that big a hit. Massive damage rolls don't start until a minimum of 50 points in one attack. (Besides being more than half your max HP.) So you maybe could suggest to the GM that he restrict his narrative effects to blows or spells that do at least 50 HP.


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Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

So much hate for critical hits & fumbles!

At my table, we like both, if only because they add an unpredictable dimension of variable fun.

Yes, fun! And no, it's not Three Stooges day around my table. And no, we do not inappropriately penalize 2-weapon fighters or martials with iteratives or martials over spellcasters. How do we do it?

1) We use the Paizo critical hit and critical fumble decks. However, we only consult them in the following circumstances:
2) Any confirmed critical hit by a PC, or by a named enemy gets a draw from the critical hit deck. Unnamed mooks don't get to draw, and simply do double damage. (Monsters whose hit dice are at least equal to PC hit dice get auto-named.)
3) Only the first attack in a round is subject to a chance of critical fumble (so that iteratives and TWF doesn't suffer).
4) On a natural "1", you roll to confirm a critical fumble: if the confirmation roll is a miss, then it's a critical fumble and you draw.
5) Spells using an attack roll can fumble as with any attack.
6) All spells that don't use an attack roll must roll anyway: a natural "1" is a chance of spell fumble, confirmed by missing a caster level check vs 10 + Spell level.
7) A second natural "1" is always a fumble.

That about sums it up. No cumulative penalties for martials. No comulative penalties for having multiple attacks per round. No free ride for spellcasters. No "Three Stooges effect" because the Paizo Critical Fumble deck doesn't roll that way.


Oh, on crit hits in my group & the group I play with:

Players get to choose whether or not to draw from the crit deck. We make it nasty, though: Any time the card says "double damage," you get an extra multiple -- so x3 for a x2 weapon & x4 for a x3 weapon. Anytime it says "normal damage," you get the normal crit effect plus the extra from the card.

The GM only gets to draw a card if the players have. And not for low-level mooks. And no more cards in an evening than what the players have drawn to that point. So the players have to balance the risks and rewards. We think it makes it fun.

And if players have been swinging builds toward getting crits, I suppose I wouldn't see it. I mean, this is how Pathfinder has always been for me. We seem to have had a good variety of classes in play, though. (From Core & the APG, anyway.) Maybe it's just that we don't have an extreme power-build mentality, in general.

~~~~~

On narrative effects that didn't crit: When I think about it, that sort of narrative effect seems mostly suitable for a massive damage hit. That is, a damage roll above 50 and above half your max HP both. Obviously, if you fail your Con check, the narrative is mostly flavor. But even if you succeed, okay, there's results. I might start doing this, in fact. What do others here think?


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I hate crit fumbles. Being a mature adult, however, I handle them appropriately: with a passive-aggressive build centered on rerolls.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Over the course of the last 4 years of gaming (one full AP, three half-APs, and a couple short-lived homebrew campaigns) I've seen triple 1s one time and no triple 20s. Not just counting the ones I rolled, but the ones other people at the table rolled too. With an average table size of 3+GM and rolling d20s for every attack by players and monsters, assuming maybe 4 combats a night (conservative estimate) and on average 30 attack rolls per combat (there are always two PCs with attack rolls and usually a few monsters) that would give me 120 attack rolls per night, on average 3 times a month. That's 360/month, 11 months a year (no games around Christmas), for 15840 over 4 years. About half as often as the 1/8000 estimate, and so uncommon it barely deserves mention.

Why that low? Consider that you have a 1/8000 chance to roll three 1s or 20s in a row. Now consider the likelihood that this occurs in combat as opposed to while making skill checks, and the chances that the first roll will be the initial attack roll rather than a crit confirmation roll, initiative, a save, a mid-battle skill like Acrobatics, etc. You may have a 1/8000 chance to roll the same number three times in a row, but the chances of it occurring at exactly the right moment involve so many unquantifiable variables that I can't imagine how unlikely it must be.

This isn't so much a defense of the Triple Threat rule as it is an explanation of why it's pointless to begin with. Unless you can legally fudge the dice rolls it just takes up space on the house rules list.

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