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Hello all,
Would the creators of PFS be thinking to include a nat 1 critical miss on the next go around of updates? It seems like a house rule that I have come across a few times that is always fun to have included. "Oh you rolled a one and now your buddy is wounded", or "Ooops, your weapon takes damage.". There are a number of potential issues one might have done.
Yes?
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It's an absolutely idiotic rule. Well trained fighters don't mess up once every twenty swings. They certainly don't do friendly fire that often and stay in the business long.
Higher level fighters don't mess up more often than first level fighters either. Whee, level 20 fighters have 4 chances to fail catastrophically and chop their friend's head off, whereas the level 1 fighter just has one chance.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I'm not going to say it's not going to happen, but considering there is nothing like that in the RAW, and that PFS strives to stick to it as closely as possible so that entry into the campaign is as painless as possible for new players, I doubt you will see anything like that ever. :/
This. You can be about 99% sure that such a rule would never get into PFS unless it got into Core rules.
Will it get into Core rules? I doubt it. My impression of Paizo's stance on such things is that they're pretty firmly against mechanics that leave Big Damn Heroes failing at their primary competencies.
Venture-Captain, Texas—Waco
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Paizo does have two products which make Critical Hits and Critical Misses more interesting - Critical Hit deck and Critical Fumble deck.
However, both are expressly forbidden in PFS play. In order to make everyone's experience roughly equivalent across the whole world these would have to be mandated for all GMs, which isn't going to happen. They're great for a home game, though, assuming all the players buy in to the concept. Sucks when the BBEG critically hits you back...
Also, a critical fumble should have to be "confirmed" with a miss on a second roll, thus a high level fighter probably wouldn't confirm very often, although against a high AC opponent this could be a problem.
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It's an absolutely idiotic rule. Well trained fighters don't mess up once every twenty swings. They certainly don't do friendly fire that often and stay in the business long.
Higher level fighters don't mess up more often than first level fighters either. Whee, level 20 fighters have 4 chances to fail catastrophically and chop their friend's head off, whereas the level 1 fighter just has one chance.
This... More than anything this. I hate, hate critical misses. The day somebody creates a balanced system that doesn't penalize the most competent I'll listen, but that day hasn't happened yet.
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Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Columbus
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when we played with critical misses in AD&D, a critical miss was rolling a 1--then to confirm you had to roll a 1-3 on your next roll. So even if you rolled a 1 and then rolled a 9 on the next dice and missed the target it would not confirm the critical.
The closest thing to this, if it is still legal for PFS, is the feat Reckless Aim, IIRC.
Actually the closest thing is guns which not only auto miss on a one they get broken or explode. Add to that the fact that most guns (all of them if you want to reload faster) have a crit failure range of at least 1-2 which gets higer by 4 on the first nat 1 rolled until the gun gets fixed.
For what it's worth, I do incorporate a nat 1 rule into my games but only for humorous reasons. No, your character will not accidentally put an arrow in your friends rear if you roll a 1, but you might just send a stray arrow into the nearby farm yard and bulls-eye a rooster that was about to crow.
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Hello all,
Would the creators of PFS be thinking to include a nat 1 critical miss on the next go around of updates? It seems like a house rule that I have come across a few times that is always fun to have included. "Oh you rolled a one and now your buddy is wounded", or "Ooops, your weapon takes damage.". There are a number of potential issues one might have done.
Yes?
Yeah....a level 1 monk hits himself in the face every 10 rounds. A level 20 monks hits himself in the face every other round. Sounds like a good balanced system to me.
Actually, anything that favors casters I'm generally all for. ;)
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Oh, so it's a go then.
Chill mob. Put down the pitchforks.
If there was a crit miss, a player or enemy would have to confirm and then see what happens. Higher level characters would have an easier time with the save as their stats improve so chance for damage to them would be lessened considerably. However, equipment sometimes does not survive all battles in conflicts and just being higher level awesome is not a guarantee against of unfortunate circumstances when you are fighting higher level bad guys.
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Venture-Captain, Texas—Waco
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Daniel, you sound like you think critical misses/fumbles already exist in PFS (just without the cards). I hope that's not the case, as you'd be incorrect.
Where on Golarion would you get such an opinion? Of course critical misses don't exist in PFS, certainly not at my tables. I was just trying to point out that, if they did exist in PFS, simply rolling a 1 isn't automatically a critical miss, they would have to be "confirmed" with a second roll much like rolling a 20 isn't automatically a critical hit.
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I'm here with dbass. Roll a 1 and I aim to grace your action with some extra fluff.
No mechanical effect - but I try to build it into how I describe the effects of your actions.
The opposite goes for crits. Enough damage and I might describe it as a head rolling away or give you some different extra gore.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Daniel, you sound like you think critical misses/fumbles already exist in PFS (just without the cards).Where on Golarion would you get such an opinion?
Well, I wasn't sure or anything, but you were very specific in calling out the cards themselves, but not the fumbles. So it sounded like you were differentiating between the two, implying one was illegal while the other was not. So I just wanted to double-check. :)
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I agree that they don't have a place in PFS. However, I think they're fantastic for home games. They ratchet up the suspense a bit and can make combats a bit more memorable.
In my experiences, most players that are against critical misses suffer from a, "My PC has to badass 100% of the time" type of mentality. They don't like anything happening that is outside of their control. It's more like a board game for them that they're trying to win, instead of a roleplaying game.
On the flip side, most players that I know that are FOR critical misses are in it more for the story and experience, and generally are more fun and laid-back to game with anyway.
I know it's simply anecdotal evidence and certainly not true for everyone, but it seems to be the case for my local player base, anyway.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I've seen PFS judges make you drop your weapon on any 1.
When you encounter a PFS judge enforcing house rules like this one, politely address it with them, as they're not supposed to be doing that. If they're not receptive to polite correction, talk to your local VC or VL about it.
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For what it's worth, I do incorporate a nat 1 rule into my games but only for humorous reasons. No, your character will not accidentally put an arrow in your friends rear if you roll a 1, but you might just send a stray arrow into the nearby farm yard and bulls-eye a rooster that was about to crow.
I've done the same thing. Had a PC nat 1 three times (in 3 consecutive rounds), so I described them as furiously wailing on a rock next to their target. End of the session, the player asked what the XP total was for the rock, since he was pretty sure he'd killed it.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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For what it's worth, I do incorporate a nat 1 rule into my games but only for humorous reasons. No, your character will not accidentally put an arrow in your friends rear if you roll a 1, but you might just send a stray arrow into the nearby farm yard and bulls-eye a rooster that was about to crow.I've done the same thing. Had a PC nat 1 three times (in 3 consecutive rounds), so I described them as furiously wailing on a rock next to their target. End of the session, the player asked what the XP total was for the rock, since he was pretty sure he'd killed it.
Did he have an adamantine weapon? ;)
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Did he have an adamantine weapon? ;)For what it's worth, I do incorporate a nat 1 rule into my games but only for humorous reasons. No, your character will not accidentally put an arrow in your friends rear if you roll a 1, but you might just send a stray arrow into the nearby farm yard and bulls-eye a rooster that was about to crow.I've done the same thing. Had a PC nat 1 three times (in 3 consecutive rounds), so I described them as furiously wailing on a rock next to their target. End of the session, the player asked what the XP total was for the rock, since he was pretty sure he'd killed it.
Nope, or I would have added "small bag of rubble" to his chronicle sheet. I did appreciate the player making cracks about that later (because when a 1/8000 event occurs, it *should* be talked about).
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In my experiences, most players that are against critical misses suffer from a, "My PC has to badass 100% of the time" type of mentality. They don't like anything happening that is outside of their control. It's more like a board game for them that they're trying to win, instead of a roleplaying game.
-I'm getting really tired of the "people that disagree with me aren't true role players" ... line.
Is it really too much of a stretch to say that a fighter can get through a battle without cutting off their own toe? People don't want to be a badass all the time they want their professional adventurer to be slightly better with a blade than bozo the drunken clown.
The only time I do something that can somewhat negatively affect someone on a crit miss is if they do something REALLY stupid before the crit miss, like drawing a loaded heavy crossbow from a seated position (and yes, I did have someone do that) but mostly is thematic fluff to bring out some laughs from the rest of the table.