So after years of gaming I finally got tired of critical misses being either dropping or breaking weapons or shooting an ally so I had a discussion with my group and we added a little house flavor for critical misses.
We decided that now when someone, PC or NPC, rolls a 1 they roll again. If the 2nd roll is a miss then they have had a mishap, rather than just a miss if the 2nd roll is a hit, this immediately provokes an attack of opportunity to anyone within melee striking range. This represents a serious misstep during combat.
The players love it because they feel that attacks of opportunity were under-utilized and feats like combat reflexes were cooler in theory than in practice. It can be brutal when the fighter botches but generally it works out in the players favor since most of the time they have a much greater chance of striking and in turn a lower chance of botching than the monsters.
Tell me what you think?
Been playing with my old DM?
"I rolled a 1"
"You missed the monster, roll an attack roll against your teammate."
"I rolled a 1 again."
"Your bow breaks."
"It was a +3 bow."
"It breaks."
Been playing with my old DM?
"I rolled a 1"
"You missed the monster, roll an attack roll against your teammate."
"I rolled a 1 again."
"Your bow breaks."
"It was a +3 bow."
"It breaks."
Nothing that nasty old rules were that if you missed on a 1 you either dropped your weapon or snapped your bow-string... something to that effect. This I thought added to the chaos that would be melee combat.
Broken +3 bow thats just cold blooded :(
We decided that now when someone, PC or NPC, rolls a 1 they roll again. If the 2nd roll is a miss then they have had a mishap, rather than just a miss if the 2nd roll is a hit, this immediately provokes an attack of opportunity to anyone within melee striking range. This represents a serious misstep during combat.
Tell me what you think?
This is along the same lines of what I use with my group: "On a natural 1 on your attack roll, you provoke an AoO from the creature you were attacking."
This lacks some of the flavor of the traditional "mishap" system, but it also keeps the pace of combat up since confirmation rolls (and accusations of the DM being a bastard) are avoided. As you say, it gives greater worth to the AoO-based feats, although I'm not sure that provoking an AoO from everyone who threatens you would sit well with my group.
I use a home variation of an optional rule, when a player rolls a natural 1 they make a DC:15 Dex check, pass nothing, fail they throw their melee weapon a d8 direction, d3+ str bonus squares, I have not had a single complaint using this system.
as for ranged and spells that require a attack roll I really haven't come up with a suitable explanation for the fumble, but most players don't complain and most range specialists never fail the dex check.
We decided that now when someone, PC or NPC, rolls a 1 they roll again. If the 2nd roll is a miss then they have had a mishap, rather than just a miss if the 2nd roll is a hit, this immediately provokes an attack of opportunity to anyone within melee striking range. This represents a serious misstep during combat.
Tell me what you think?
This is along the same lines of what I use with my group: "On a natural 1 on your attack roll, you provoke an AoO from the creature you were attacking."
This lacks some of the flavor of the traditional "mishap" system, but it also keeps the pace of combat up since confirmation rolls (and accusations of the DM being a bastard) are avoided. As you say, it gives greater worth to the AoO-based feats, although I'm not sure that provoking an AoO from everyone who threatens you would sit well with my group.
I guess by putting in the confirmation miss roll it eliminates getting tag teamed too often. Most often it works in the parties favor allowing them additional attacks against the troll that over botches leaving himself exposed.
Not to nitpick, but critical misses are a houserule in and of themselves, and not a good one. Neither 3.5E nor Pathfinder mention critical misses anywhere in the core book.. and given the nature of both games, they are just a bad idea. Let me elaborate.
Every time you roll an attack roll, you have a 5% chance to critical miss. Every time. Who rolls lots of attack rolls? Everyone except spell casters. Who are the most powerful characters in the game? Spell casters. So why do we perpetuate a system that punishes the already sub-par classes for doing (in many cases) the only thing they CAN do in combat?
I dropped any semblance of a critical miss mechanic when I realized how good a mid-high level wizard could be. It's just not right to further damage the other classes. Rolling a 1 means you miss with that attack regardless of modifiers, and nothing more. Which is RAW.
Not to nitpick, but critical misses are a houserule in and of themselves, and not a good one. Neither 3.5E nor Pathfinder mention critical misses anywhere in the core book.. and given the nature of both games, they are just a bad idea. Let me elaborate.
Every time you roll an attack roll, you have a 5% chance to critical miss. Every time. Who rolls lots of attack rolls? Everyone except spell casters. Who are the most powerful characters in the game? Spell casters. So why do we perpetuate a system that punishes the already sub-par classes for doing (in many cases) the only thing they CAN do in combat?
I dropped any semblance of a critical miss mechanic when I realized how good a mid-high level wizard could be. It's just not right to further damage the other classes. Rolling a 1 means you miss with that attack regardless of modifiers, and nothing more. Which is RAW.
That is a valid point, again though with the followup roll it generally is a boon to melee combatants. I would say that for every player botch there are 3-4 monster/NPC botchs. So in turn this system actually rewards player.
Doing the math my 1st lv fighter has say a +4 to hit and an AC of 18. Typical 1st level mook, say a zombie, have +1 to hit and an AC of 12. We both have to roll a 1 so thats a 5% chance, but subsequently the zombie needs to roll a 17 on the dice to avoid the attack of opportunity and the fighters need only roll an 8. Therefore the zombie has a 85% chance of letting himself be exposed for the attack of opportunity and the fighter has only 40% chance.
Follow that up with the fact that the zombie needs to roll a 17 on the dice to hit with the subsequent attack of opportunity and the fighter only 8 to make it mean anything.
Using critical misses also scales in the wrong direction. 1st level fighter has a 1 in 20 chance per round. 20th level fighter could easily have 8 chances per round. Aren't they supposed to be getting better at this fighting stuff as they advance?
Using critical misses also scales in the wrong direction. 1st level fighter has a 1 in 20 chance per round. 20th level fighter could easily have 8 chances per round. Aren't they supposed to be getting better at this fighting stuff as they advance?
Friend pitched to me that only the lowest iterative attack has the chance to critically miss. But, I think that's only a band-aid.
The critical miss rule just makes monsters like the Glabrezu, the Retriever or the octopus an utter flipping wonder that they can even function in the game. An octopus has a good chance per full attack to provoke an attack and immediately dies. Not a lot of fun there.
And having it provoke takes a lot of the AoO avoidance dancing out of the game. I don't know how to feel about the caster trapped in melee cheering when his barbarian companion duking it out with the huge monster rolls a 1.
Aratex, Trainwreck, and Ice Titan all raise good points. Perhaps the AoO on a natural 1 should only apply if the attack misses by a certain threshold, and/or only if it's on the initial attack(s) in a series of iterative attacks.
That way, with the exception of a character who is dual wielding, a higher-level character will not have more chances to fumble than a low level character. To the contrary, since their BAB is significantly higher, the chance that they'll miss by a given margin (let's say 10) is also reduced.
Alternate Idea: Another idea is that on a natural 1, that character loses any further attacks/actions they would otherwise be able to take in that round. This would apply to all attacks, iterative or otherwise. Thus, if a high-level ranger has 3 attacks with each weapon, if they roll a "1" on their 3rd attack, they don't get to make the last three. This would give melee combatants yet another reason to favor feats like Vital Strike, Great Cleave, over rolling fistfulls of dice ad nausea.
The way my group handles crit misses involves a reflex save (though I like the sound of a dex check better). Typically they will fall prone, drop there weapon, or something annoying like that on a fail. However, if you crit fail that check, you'll usually end up hurting the party or yourself. Sometimes though the DM will just throw out something comical to happen to you no matter how bad you fail.
Regardless of the outcome, your turn ends.
The way my group handles crit misses involves a reflex save (though I like the sound of a dex check better). Typically they will fall prone, drop there weapon, or something annoying like that on a fail. However, if you crit fail that check, you'll usually end up hurting the party or yourself. Sometimes though the DM will just throw out something comical to happen to you no matter how bad you fail.
Regardless of the outcome, your turn ends.
That's a wonderful collection of player ending things that occur on a 1.
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I just improv it depending on the context. If the fumble occurs on a flight of stairs, fumbler falls down the stairs. If the fumble occurs with a centuries old bow in the hands of an undead mummy, fumbler breaks the bow string. If the fumble occurs while throwing a tanglefoot bag, bag pops in fumbler's hand. I try to make it more humiliating than deadly and will usually choose an effect that leads to strategizing and roleplaying not a TPK.
I've never been a fan of critical misses, myself. If there is something that can thematically happen when you roll a 'natural 1' in special circumstances, that's one thing, but general 'fumbles' ... they basically make the weakest classes (straight up fighting classes) weaker at higher levels when they are already weak enough. The more dice you roll, the more chances you have of being hit by a fumble, and so the more skilful you are (the more attacks per round you get) the more likely you are to mess up ... nah, not logical, not good mechanically and not good for the people it happens to the most.
Alternate Idea: Another idea is that on a natural 1, that character loses any further attacks/actions they would otherwise be able to take in that round. This would apply to all attacks, iterative or otherwise. Thus, if a high-level ranger has 3 attacks with each weapon, if they roll a "1" on their 3rd attack, they don't get to make the last three. This would give melee combatants yet another reason to favor feats like Vital Strike, Great Cleave, over rolling fistfulls of dice ad nausea.
Yet again, you're punishing more skilled warriors more than less skilled ones. At 20th level, a fighter rolls a 1 on his fist attack and loses 4 attacks. A rogue rolls a 1 on his first attack and loses 3. A wizard biding his time with ranged attacks only loses 2 attacks. (Assuming no buffs, DW, etc.) I think it's pretty obvious who's losing the most under this scenario as well.
Pushing skirmish feats like Vital Strike and Cleave on the players doesn't help. Vital Strike is still resting all your eggs on that first d20 roll, and Cleave still has you making a string of attack rolls that can be borked at any point by a 1.
Aratex: Do you have any ideas then on a fair way to implement critical misses? You picked apart my alternate idea, but made no comment on the one that was an iteration of the method I've been using — a method that seems-to-me to be more forgiving to highly skilled combatants. While pointing out imbalances in various approaches is helpful in a way, the impression I get is that you don't think folks like Grifter and I should use them at all.
That's all well and good, but when people are trying to find a method of doing something that will work well for their group, simply trying to end the discussion by [in not so many words] saying, "don't do that" isn't particularly helpful. Quite simply, some of us aren't willing to kill our sacred cows, but that's not to say we don't want to breed a better one.
Gorbacz: I have the Critical Hit Deck, but there's already established rules on what defines a critical hit. Since there's nothing in the rules concerning critical misses, what mechanics determine when someone draws a card from the Critical Fumble Deck?
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Aratex: Do you have any ideas then on a fair way to implement critical misses? You picked apart my alternate idea, but made no comment on the one that was an iteration of the method I've been using — a method that seems-to-me to be more forgiving to highly skilled combatants. While pointing out imbalances in various approaches is helpful in a way, the impression I get is that you don't think folks like Grifter and I should use them at all.
That's all well and good, but when people are trying to find a method of doing something that will work well for their group, simply trying to end the discussion by [in not so many words] saying, "don't do that" isn't particularly helpful. Quite simply, some of us aren't willing to kill our sacred cows, but that's not to say we don't want to breed a better one.
Gorbacz: I have the Critical Hit Deck, but there's already established rules on what defines a critical hit. Since there's nothing in the rules concerning critical misses, what mechanics determine when someone draws a card from the Critical Fumble Deck?
The rules are in the deck. A natural one triggers a threat. Then you roll again and if you miss the target, you rtigger a critical miss. I've seen a variant that uses full BAB on the confirm roll.
Aratex: Do you have any ideas then on a fair way to implement critical misses? You picked apart my alternate idea, but made no comment on the one that was an iteration of the method I've been using — a method that seems-to-me to be more forgiving to highly skilled combatants. While pointing out imbalances in various approaches is helpful in a way, the impression I get is that you don't think folks like Grifter and I should use them at all.
That's all well and good, but when people are trying to find a method of doing something that will work well for their group, simply trying to end the discussion by [in not so many words] saying, "don't do that" isn't particularly helpful. Quite simply, some of us aren't willing to kill our sacred cows, but that's not to say we don't want to breed a better one.
Fair enough, and I don't mean to be totally dismissive. It's true that I'm pretty much entirely against critical misses because, as previously and repeatedly mentioned, they hurt the classes that are already weakest in the game while barely affecting the strongest classes. While I don't have a hard and fast rule in place to balance, I can spout a couple ideas that I would use to build on if I were to develop a home brew rule on the matter.
- Once the 1 is rolled initially, players need to have some chance to avoid the crit fail all together. Ideally this would be tied to BAB, as BAB is essentially the measure of the martial prowess of your character.
- Players can't lose anything for a critical failure. Attacks, actions, etc. (Note: losing actions would cover things like falling down or dropping your weapon, where an action would have to be spent to recover.) Bad luck sucks enough. Making your character worthless for longer than just the one missed attack is silly.
- If players can crit fail, so can their opponents. I've known many DMs who delighted in watching the players fail but never ever allowed any of their villains to have similar mishaps. Now if extra dice are involved in the process, I'm alright with nameless mooks not having to roll for it because it would slow the game down... but any important villain should be susceptible.
That said, the second two rules can go right out the window in certain circumstances. Experience always, always trumps rules. If there's a reason why it would be really cool for the fighter's longsword to go flying across the room, go for it. Just remember that he's probably screwed until he gets back over to it, so it better do something at least kind of helpful to offset that "cost." If a goblin mook is doing something ridiculous and rolls a 1, give him a crazy mishap: something funny and awesome at the same time.
Pathfinder/D&D rules are overwhelmingly focused on the mechanics of combat. There are tidbits about roleplay and out of combat skill use, but the vast majority of your book is about how to kill stuff. I always strive to keep the game FUN, rather than making it an exercise in memorizing endless rules and how they apply to situations. If the air in the room is getting thick, throw a lighthearted and/or cinematic mishap in there. On either side of the screen. Even if nameless mook #7 didn't actually roll a 1 on his attack.
Now, if you want actual crunchy bits, I'll give you this little nugget before I stop rambling. I once did play with critical misses. When I first started DMing, one of my players was the DM who taught me the game and he was adamant about fumbles being an integral part of the game.. but I'd already made the connection that they hurt fighters far more than wizards, so I made a compromise. The rule was this:
- When a player rolls a 1 on an attack roll, it might be a critical miss. Roll percentile. If you roll less than or equal to BABx5 (if using a weapon in which you have Weapon Focus, count it toward your BAB), you avoid the critical miss and your turn continues normally.
The system wasn't perfect, but it served me well enough. Yes, this makes very high level martial characters immune to dropping their weapon at inopportune times, but doesn't that make sense? My only problem with it was the chance to avoid the fumble was so low at low levels it almost wasn't worth rolling. I thought about making a minimum tied to BAB progression (full BAB classes start at X% then scale normally once BAB catches up, 2/3 BAB classes start at Y%, etc.) but ended up dropping the idea of critical misses all together. If you start your games at level 5+, I wouldn't even bother with calculating minimums anyway.
Edit: All that talk and I never made any real mention of what happens on a critical miss.. To be honest, I always let the circumstances at hand dictate this, improvising stuff like this can be kind of fun. I tried to do something realistic without being too hard on the players. That said, sometimes there are situations where the only feasible mishap is hitting a nearby ally or dropping/throwing your weapon. If that's all there is, use it... but try to do those things as a last resort because, for the players, they really really aren't fun.
This also has a lot to do with how your group actually plays. I always encourage my players to roleplay in combat as well as outside it. Don't say "I hit the goblin with my longsword." How are you swinging? Why? Are you throwing yourself off balance to reach at him or setting yourself up to follow through with your second attack or trying to give him something to think about as you turn to face the more threatening creature beside him? We need flavor and cinematics! Use your imagination, and urge your players to do the same. Not only does this give you fuel to describe what happens when you critical hits and misses happen, but it gets everyone involved into the game on another level.
Of course, if you don't already play this way, it may take some coaxing to get your players into it at first.. Give a couple of their opponents fighting styles and ham it up. Or talk to them before a session and tell them you'd like to try this to bring some life to combat.. I always tease players new to the idea by offering them bonuses to hit or damage if they do something really clever.. and if they're willing to roll with me making up stuff off the cuff, I'm happy to let them try nearly any action they can think of in combat. Even with the ridiculous rolls required, I've had players over the years do things like grab an enemy and use him as a living shield when they saw an attack coming, take out a fleeing BBEG with a ridiculous penalty throw with a 2H weapon, and improvise bungee cords for diving hit-and-run tactics against a caravan passing through a forest. I cannot stress enough to reward creativity by letting your players try anything they can think of because it makes the game more interesting for everyone. If it's difficult but possible, make it difficult but possible with dice.
Wow, I got way off topic. Sorry, but I guess you get a free mini-rant on my own personal gaming theory.
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In my groups we do what we call "Extended" rolls. What this means is that when you roll a natural 1 or a natural 20, it isn't over and done yet. You reroll with a +20 (if a nat 20) or a -20 (if a nat 1) modifier. These keep going (and stack) until you land on something other than a 20 or a 1. You then total all of these modifiers with the roll and your normal modifier to determine your result. Crit threats are based on the result of the first die roll.
This is only valid for rolls that allow automatic success or failure. Basically, attack rolls and saving throws.
Our "critical failures" (if we use them at all) only occur if you get a negative total result on your attack roll or miss the save DC by at least 10.
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I hate fumbles with a passion.
So to keep them in the game without having them too often, I require two natural ones in a row to cause them.
I suppose I really should sit down and hash out the effects into defined rules, since I mostly make it up on the spot. My dislike is probably what has kept me from doing that though.
Wow, I got way off topic. Sorry, but I guess you get a free mini-rant on my own personal gaming theory.
Actually, thanks for taking the time to hash out some additional "crunch" on the matter. My groups (and others that I've played in rather than DMed) have always been fond of critical misses/fumbles. If nothing else, they tend to liven things up and yes, we've always applied them equally to both good guys and bad. (Conversely, only "named" enemies get the benefit of drawing from the critical hit deck.)
When I made the change [during 3.5] to turn fumbles into AoO's, the players really seemed to like this as it let them get in extra hits on the bad guys. Similarly, when the players would have a critical miss, they preferred being subject to an AoO rather than throwing their sword away, or hitting a teammate. (Mind you, I guess that's kind of an unfair comparison — kinda like asking someone if they'd rather lose their thumb or their hand, huh?)
Now while I was reading your post, particularly the bit about the player never losing something, a completely different idea struck me...
At its most basic form, the old school idea behind a natural 1 is a wiff that's so bad that something truly unexpected happens. However, what if it was a bit more like a swashbuckler's luck? Now this is kinda far out there I'll admit, but what if the results of a natural 1 by a "named" character was that they gained an action point or a free re-roll to be used within the next round? (Or maybe one that can only be spent the next time they roll a 1.)
I suspect I'll probably end up ordering the Critical Fumble Deck to check out the rules that Paul mentions, but the notion of a lucky miss kind of appeals to me the more I think about it.
Example: The last critical fumble I had, my Viking girl tripped and fell to her knees before her gloating foe. Her next attack was double-20s on a shield bash to said knave's nether regions while on her knees.
Stuff like that is both cool and memorable which I think is always a valuable goal to strive for. A lucky miss rule would be another tool in the DM & players' arsenals to engineer such events.
While failing or succeeding in a spectacular way is very memorable I found that if you really want to incorporate critical fumbles, you must use a separate die roll.
So we do it the following way:
Whenever a player rolls a "1" on his Initiative roll he is prone to fumble this round. At the start of each turn he rolls a d10, if it comes up with a "1" then this is a fumble.
Determine effects like usual (critical fumble deck is nice).
This has several advatages:
- it has a nice theme (catched on wrong food - looming doom)
- it scales right as more attack rolls per round do not mean higher chance to fumble
- it isn't too obstrusive to game flow (only one more unmodified die roll per turn in 5% of all battles)
- it is rare (0.05 + 0.1*[#rnds]), but not too rare
Nothing that nasty old rules were that if you missed on a 1 you either dropped your weapon or snapped your bow-string... something to that effect.
I could be mistaken, but I don't think critical miss or fumble rules have ever been an official part of any edition of core D&D rules. Nearest I can think of to being official is that I think 2e might have had it in a sidebar as an optional rule. As far as I know, it wasn't even until 3rd edition that a natural 1 meant you automatically missed, and that's all it's meant since then, within the rules.
Yet, with the exception of the game I run, every single DM/GM I've played with has had some additional effect on an attack roll of 1.
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Use the Critical Fumble Deck ? Works like a charm.
Yes, if you like using critical misses the Critical Fumble Deck is the thing to buy. It's fun to use a prop, and this one does not disappoint.
Been playing with my old DM?
"I rolled a 1"
"You missed the monster, roll an attack roll against your teammate."
"I rolled a 1 again."
"Your bow breaks."
"It was a +3 bow."
"It breaks."
Or maybe one of my old dm's.
"I rolled a 1"
"Aww that sucks, you fall into a pit with a new hidden monster in it that is actually harder then the monsters your fighting now, enjoy"