So last night I’m playing a female werewolf cleric, who’s trying to solve a murder mystery to save a fellow cleric who’s been framed for the crime. We get a tip that the bad guy we’re looking for is in a run down dive of a tavern in a run down section of Selgaunt.
So upon entering said tavern and looking around at all the rough and tumble types, I decide immediately that I need to act tough or they’ll eat me alive. I stalk up to the bar keep and demand a room (so I have an excuse for prowling the upstairs halls in search of my prey). He gives me the once over, overcharges me, and gives me a key while pointing me to a darkened hallway at the back of the common room.
I start to make my way back there, when other party members who have been victims of this particular trick in this particular city in the past tell me that it’s likely a set up, and I’m going to be shanghied. (The clue being that I was pointed towards the storage rooms rather than the upstairs guest rooms). So, really ticked off now, I decided to make an impression. I storm back to the bar and tell the DM I’m raising the key over my head dramatically before plunging it through the flimsy wood of the bar counter and demanding a REAL room…
…except I roll a critical fumble…
…and the DM tells me that instead, I’ve driven the key through the palm of my hand.
So after checking my CON to make sure I don’t pass out, I salvage what I can from the situation by waving my hand with the embedded key under his nose…
“See THIS? If I’ll do this to myself, what do you think I’ll do to YOU?!”
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LOL! That's beautiful!
I have one from the other end of the spectrum. This is 2nd edition, but anyway... The party was attacked by a small horde of goblins (about 40), but we average of 8th level, so it was more of an annoyance. After a well placed fireball, the mage threw a sleep spell over a few and down they fell into dream land. My halfling thief was going around dispatching the sleeping goblins while the fighters were running around after the screaming, paniced soon-to-be-dead remnants.
The DM had us roll 'to hit' vs. sleeping just to make sure that we didn't crit miss...Well, I didn't...I rolled a 20! Against a sleeping goblin! Woo-ha!! Way to waste it! Not just that, but I then got to roll on the 'Special Results' table... x3 damage! So, basically little Twilla did 20hp of damage to a sleeping 4hp goblin. Reveling in the overkill, the DM judged that I had managed to slice open the aorta spraying myself and everything in a 5' fan in goblin blood. The fighters returned to find my character looking like she just got home from Stihl chainsaw shower night at, that cockaroach, Tony Montana's house.
A glorious success, I assure you.
Did I ever tell you about the fourth level fighter who tried to dual-wield greatswords?
In my first, terrible session in the DM's chair I had the PCs encounter the villain only for him to catch them in one of those sphere of force items. I realised this was dumb because they couldn't get out and so I had him challenge someone to a duel. A greatsword duel.
The villain was a tiefling wizard, and this was back when Skip or someone had just ruled that all outsiders got martial weapon proficiencies, which would include tieflings. The player, whose character is named Sephiroth and names his greatsword Masamune or something, defeats the villain and kills him abruptly before he can finish his "you haven't seen the last of me!" dying speech. The player takes his +1 greatsword.
The player refuses to give up Masamune, and so when he reaches level 4 decides to take Ambidexterity (this was back in the day when you needed two feats to fight with two weapons). Why? In order to finally take advantage of the +1 greatsword, he was going to dual-wield it with Masamune.
The penalties were atrocious and he rarely hit anything. When he did, though, he'd splatter it in one hit. However, he had this remarkable knack for rolling natural 1 on his attacks! "Oh, I guess I drop the +1 greatsword then" -- after which he'd start being able hit things. "Alright," I said, eager to end the combat more quickly since he'd spent most of it not hitting, "The +1 greatsword flies from your hand, decapitates a skeleton and embeds itself in the wall."
Thus, he decided that every single time he rolled a criticle fumble, that +1 sword would embed itself into the nearest wall, no matter how far away that wall was. It became a running joke. I eventually decided that the sword had been cursed to leap from its wielder's grasp when he least expected it, and that's why it had been embedding itself in so many walls.
I gave up trying to get him to give up Masamune when he tried to climb down a cliff face without a rope, fell a hundred and twenty feet, survived--I gave him a broken leg--and he tied the legendary sword to his leg as a splint.
***
There was another time, when he found a rock and said "I throw it at Quinn" -- Quinn was my half-elven bard NPC, who they hated so badly that they kept trying unsucessfully to get him killed in hilarious ways. "Quinn didn't follow you, he's back in town."
"So what's the range increment on that?"
"Range increment? He's one mile away."
"Can I hit him if I roll a natural 20?"
"Yeah, why not."
He rolls. "Oh yeah! Natural 20!"
"...oh wow. Quinn's busking on the street when a rock falls from the sky and knocks him flat out. The people disperse and brigands steal his lyre."
I stopped letting them do dumb things on natural twenties after that.
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I usually DM for a group of middle-schoolers in a fast-paced, rules-lite game. We play natural 20 is an automatic critical hit (keeps the tension high) and a natural 1 is a critical miss. When someone rolls a 1 in combat I count the number of people - including friends! - the player threatens and make her roll to see which one she accidently attacked. Then she rolls a new attack roll versus her new, accidental target. Sometimes players end up hitting another bad guy but we've had quite a few incidents of "friendly fire" and even a few crits on friends. One of my players - a young lady who curently runs a 4th level fighter with 17 Strength - has earned the nickname "Liria, Friend Killer." She was a little miffed at first but has come to embrace the title and uses her reputation to threaten friend and foe alike. Loads of fun.
This reminds me of a cyberpunk game I was in. My character was a demolition and security expert named Hindinburg, this title ended up being very appropriate considering how often he fumbled. On one job in particular it was his job to dissable the security on a local house. 'Burg got out his shovel and started to dig to get to the outside wire. GM said I had to roll for it, ok... Well anyway, I rolled a 1 and the GM determined that I had acidentally heaved a rock through a window during my digging and triggered the alarm. My teamate stormed the house, determined to take care of buisness before the cops arrived. I decided to try and cut the cord leading to the alarm system in a poorly thought out attempt to shut off the alarm. Well, the GM had me roll again and I rolled a 1, three times in a row (this system allowed for luck rerolls) Well, I hadn't found the alarm wire so much as the power main. So poor Hindinburg was stuck to the wire, taking damage each turn, unable to free himself. Fortunately one of my team mates saw me out a window, just as smoke was beggining to rise of my shoulders and 'Burg's neon tatoo was lighting on an off, so what does he do to get me free, well shoot me of course! (he was a little crazy). He fires his autopistol and hits dead center in my back, the bullet didn't penetrate my vest however, my first bit of luck that night. The GM said that the force of the bullet knocked me free of the wire. With only a few HP left Hindinburg crawled his way unceromoniously into the back of the getaway van, living to fumble another day. I still laugh when I think of that story.
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We played in a d6 starwars game(where 1s subtract from successes) and had a young wannabe jedi working under a drunkard former jedi. They were fighting a small band of space pirates and the apprentice made a swing for one of them with his lightsaber.
Using a force power that raised his skill with the saber he had like 9 dice he could roll, and every single one of them came up as a 1. The danger with lightsabers is that if you fail you could hit yourself, and he quite obviously did. We had him roll for damage and every single dice came up a six.
It was simply amazing. Or at least I'm sure thats what the pirates thought as he lunged towards one of them, straight through his own saber, neatly severing his head. The rest of the group just blinked at his body for a moment and dropped their weapons and surrendered.
The old drunkard blamed himself for teaching the kid wrong though. Got him to give up his booze...
Has anyone else embraced the new "Good Hits Bad Misses" charts from the Dragon Compendium? My guys love these charts, despite the fact that they have rolled more crit misses for themselves than crit hits.
I honestly thought using such a chart system like we had back in second edition would slow down the game, but the entertainment factor of coming up with clever descriptions of the fumbles and slips and falls, has Far out weighed the time it takes to pull out the book and flip to the charts.
A house rule in my game for natural 1s...
When a natural 1 is rolled, the person who rolled it must make a Dexterity check (DC10).
If he succeeds, then it's just an ordinary miss, and the character continues with his turn.
If he fails, the character drops his weapon (if any) and his turn ends right there (loses the rest of his attacks, again if any).
Ultradan
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When it comes to fumbles, I agree with the "1 in 20" camp, and so require two "1s" in a row for unplesant effects, and then they are fairly mild- All successive attacks/movement is forfeited and Drop weapon/wand or draw AoO from all threatening opponents or fall prone (GM & player chose the nastiest effect for that particular moment).
I also have a second "confirmation" roll occur when a "1" is rolled on a saving throw, with Wound damage (Vit/Wd) (fireball et al), empowered ability damage (poison, phantasmal assailant, et al), or extended durations (fear spells, compulsions, etc.) being a common result if the saving throw is failed a second time.
The other DM in our group uses a critical fumble variant. He treats it similar to crits. If you roll a 1, you roll to confirm. If the confirm roll would miss, /then/ you fumble.
When I DM, I throw it out. A 1 misses, plain and simple. While I've seen a few moments of hilarity ensue from critical fumbles, more often it just seems to put a bad taste in people's mouth.
Great anecdote though, Tiger Lily. Let the good times roll. :)
Fumbles can be fun, especially if DMs do them as well. Can you imagine Graz'zt charging out of the abyss only to trip over his own toes as his sword goes flying through the nearest PC and into the wall? or when the great wyrm rolls a 1 and critically bites his own claw off? or perhaps a mind flayer who somehow manages to eat his own brain! I tell you, the possibilities are endless.
This just happened today in the Drow War campaign I'm running.
So, a little background first...
The party has a Human Paladin who took a flaw at character creation, he only has one eye. Later in the campaign he got an Eyepatch of Vision made for him, which has the basic effect of allowing him to see normally.
They also have a Changeling Shadowsworn/Daggerspell Mage who is working towards becoming a legendary dagger fighter. (Basically, she's very good with daggers.)
Her brother is a Changeling Gutter Mage/Chameleon who prefers to stand back and cast spells most of the time.
The party was fighting a flight of young adult red dragons. The mage cast Combat Blessing which gives all allies +1/+2 and they automatically confirm critical hits.
The paladin and the shadowsworn were standing right beside one another, and flanking one of the dragons with the paladin's squire.
The shadowsworn rolls to attack the dragon.
[roll, roll] 1. Roll to confirm the fumble.
[roll, roll] 3. Fumble confirmed.
Draw card. Surrounded By Foes. Attack hits adjacent ally and is a critical threat. Hits paladin. Normally would roll to confirm, but the mage's spell gives her an auto-confirm.
Draw card. Eyepatch For You.
She stabs the paladin in his good eye.
