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My rules are if a 1 is rolled, roll to confirm, if confirmed, you provoke an AoO. Most of the time, the AoOs from NPC are pretty weak, and the NPCs are generally more likely to fumble than the PCs. The net result is that the martial player characters actually receive a net gain in power from these rules.
Although the (weaker) NPCs are more likely to confirm a fumble than a (more skilful) PC, the fact that those PCs will have more attacks than those NPCs will result in the PCs actually fumbling more times per night than the NPCs.
Also, this is still a rule that doesn't really affect casters. How many casters will be casting while threatened? How many will get multiple attacks?
I can see that you mean well, but your system is still not 'fair', either to PCs or to martials.
My rules are if a 1 is rolled, roll to confirm, if confirmed, you provoke an AoO. Most of the time, the AoOs from NPC are pretty weak, and the NPCs are generally more likely to fumble than the PCs. The net result is that the martial player characters actually receive a net gain in power from these rules.Although the (weaker) NPCs are more likely to confirm a fumble than a (more skilful) PC, the fact that those PCs will have more attacks than those NPCs will result in the PCs actually fumbling more times per night than the NPCs.
If that was the only dimension to it, then yes, but....
1. Yes, weaker NPCs are less likely to succeed on the confirm roll.
2. The AoO from the weaker NPC is more likely to miss.
3. If the AoO hits, the hit from a weaker NPC is going to do less damage.
4. NPCs are very unlikely to be able to make multiple AoOs in a single round, so if any of the PCs have already done something else to provoke an AoO, then the fumble is meaningless.
5. Weak NPCs have a tendency to outnumber the PCs. If you have 2 Melee PCs with 2 attacks each being attacked by 6 NPC, then the NPCs are making more attacks per round.
Overall, the net effect is to give melee martial PCs a boost, especially when faces with fighting a a group of weaker foes.
Also, this is still a rule that doesn't really affect casters. How many casters will be casting while threatened? How many will get multiple attacks?
As for casters...
1. Casters get no benefit from this system(possible a net loss), while martial melee PCs generally see a net gain.2. If a caster is cornered, they don't get a choice about casting while threatened. A casters trying to use touch spells could potentially provoke 2 AoOs(1 for casting, and 1 for fumbling the attack roll).
3. Casters are generally more likely to get hit by the AoO than a dedicated melee character and they have less HP to soak the hit.
Roll a one and miss by at least fifteen is the one I liked. And you get to use your full attack bonus on all confirm rolls.
And I am perfectly peachy with fumbles and Crits.
We use them in the "roll a one, confirm, use full bonus method. Rarely even comes up. I think the fumble doomsayers are being massively melodramatic.
Just saying.
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Also, I've used before a rule that lets a player "spend" any unused iterative attack to negate a fumble.
Although the number of people who have spoken up on each side of this issue is not meant as a measure of the position's validity, I was curious about the general trend (volume in terms of numbers, not intensity). Once we count Lemmy changing his position, and I add my own, we're at:
Fumbles are good for Pathfinder: 28
Fumbles are not good for Pathfinder: 35Please note that while this is a good-sized number to chip in on a messageboard thread it is still statistically too small to draw any large conclusions from. Aside from establishing that opinions on both sides are strong. Which we knew.
That is also a bit of an oversimplification.
My positions would be more along the lines that fumbles can be good and interesting if the rules are done right. I have seen enough sets of fumbles rules done wrong to understand why people are wary of them.
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How I evealuate any potential fumble system (thanks to another poster whom I don't remember for the analogy):
Imagine a squad of 10 novice militia (commoner 1)attacking target dummies for 10 minutes.
Crunch the numbers on the fumble system (there will be 1000 attack rolls against AC5; there will be therefore 50 natural 1s, and, if confirming, 2.5 "double 1s")
If any of your soldiers are injured you have a problem. If any are dying or dead you have a very serious problem. If every single one of them has dropped (or thrown!) their weapon in this 10 minute non-fight, problem.
Now imagine a 20th level two-weapon fighter, hasted, making the same 10 minute rampage against a target dummy(8 attacks/round). If that guy fumbles more often than one of the commoners, again problem.
So far the only system I've seen that even comes close only allows fumbles on the first attack each round, and has a confirmation roll, and at worst provokes an AoO. At which point you barely have fumbles anyway.
(If your system can have a monk accidentally punch themselves, whoa big problem.)