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You miss. That's it. No reprecussions for you. I'm generally not a fan of punishing martial types more than necessary, and them getting more likely to do wildly unusual things (like most crit miss house rules do) as they get more experienced just feels wrong to me.
If your having them confirm the crit fail by a reroll against AC I believe you should be alright. But keep in mind these rules by and large wont affect the full casters at all
"You rolled a natural ONE...your choice...throw your weapon across the room...or fall on your.....face. Lose your attacks for the rest of the round."
i have a fumble chart that my PCs roll against. When you roll a one, according to the rules nothing bad happens, you just missed. IMO something caused you to miss so i made a fumble chart. i use the d100 and have them roll. For example, 1-20 your hands are exceptionally sweaty and your weapon slips from your grasp throwing it 1d4 squares. Now obviously this does not work for bows and crossbows etc... but for a melee type it's possibly horrible. Now of course it can be countered by wearing locked gauntlets making your miss just a miss. But sometimes you trip yourself up a bit or you suddenly found a bit of uneven ground that took you by surprise. In that case you are off balance and you take a -2 on attack rolls, AC, CMD, Acrobatics etc. Another option that one of my mates use is you hit your target. But the kinks in his armor cinch down and your weapon gets lodged.
So the possibilities are endless. On my fumble chart i only have it where there is 5% chance that you can injure yourself. I don't want to murder my PCs, but i do want to inconvenience them.
You fail to hit your target.
I have to agree with Cheapy. If you go with critical miss you are making the weak classes even weaker. It is a good way to make your less potent players feel even more overshadowed.
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When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I stopped using critical failures in my RPGs.
I think it evens out in a way with critical hits...with crit heats you dominate...why should it be different or the other side of the spectrum...and as for casters...unless its a ray ya it doesn't bother them, so I got no good argument there.
While I agree that while your level 15 fighter has a ton of experience in combat, combat is extremely chaotic. It is nearly impossible to notice all of the variables at all times. Given these circumstances, accidents can happen. Which is where a 1 comes into play. Who's to say the level 20 fighter that has slain dens of giants by himself hasn't ever got blood or sweat in his eyes causing him to be temporarily blinded for 1 round. Crazy things happen in combat. The fumble chart, to me adds just 1 more level of realism to my game. That being said, it's my game. I can use the fumble chart in my game. Not trying to force it on anybody. I just think it's cool. And hey, its your game. Feel free to tell me to !@#$% off!
When an enemy rolls a nat 20 on a save against a caster the spell blows up in the caster's face and they lose all their prepared spells for the day unless they make a Fort Save higher than the save DC of the spell they just cast, if they roll a 1 their head explodes and they instantly die.
That's how I do critical misses.
Dwarf kin the problem is the better the fighter is the more likely messes up.
A lvl one fighter will auto fail on average once every two mins. The same fighter at level 16+ will auto fail on average 4 times in the same length of time.
I (and my players) enjoy critical misses as a rare circumstance. Roll a 1, confirm with a 1, and random effect happens. Generally something minor like "Hit yourself in the leg with your own weapon" or summat.
We also do stacking crits. 20 confirmed by a 20 is a double crit (increases multiplier by 1) and so on.
At the root of it all is the fact that critical fumbles get worse as you increase in level - as in as your character is meant to get better at fighting... they actually significantly increase their chance of a critical fumble.
A 1st level fighter has a 5% chance to get a natural 1.
A 6th level fighter has a ~10% chance to get a natural 1 on a full attack.
An 11th level fighter has a ~14% chance to get a natural 1 on a full attack.
A 20th level fighter has a ~18.5% chance to get a natural 1 if he takes a full set of iterative attacks.
A spellcaster has a 0% chance to fumble his spells.
not a good argument about spellcasters...but they can fumble spells if they fail their concentration checks for casting defensively...be it from damage or effects. liven it up with a crit fail on a one...kaboom fireball up their own nose :)
I don't even use the '1 is an automatic miss' rule, so critical fumbles are definitely out. I want to play D&D, not The Three Stooges RPG. At worst, I may describe the miss as being a little embarrassing, but without mechanical effect. You might spin around, or lodge your arrow in your wizard buddy's pointed hat (but not his head), but that's as bad as it gets.
ok...i can see the logic. Just somethin that i've used for years...tis all. Not sayin it's the best or anything...just what i'm used to
I like the critical fumble and hit cards. They add a little funny spice into the adventuring day.
And to keep it fair, casters have to use them too (not only when attacking with rays. Also every time they don't manage their concentration check.)
If a character is using a weapon with which they are not proficient, a natural 1 followed by a "confirmed miss" results in a critical miss with negative effects.
A character using a weapon with which they are proficient avoids this risk, except if combat is occurring in extraordinary circumstances that make weapon use difficult (example: the character is laboring under a severe debilitating status effect, such as blind or exhausted).
So some guy who tries to fight with a broken bottle (without knowing how) might well end up with a fist full of glass. A master swordsman however is not at risk of accidentally cutting his own throat during his daily warm up exercises or under ordinary combat conditions.
Some games I've led, we used the crit and fumble deck..after everyone agreed.
Generally though, a natural 1 requires a confirmation roll. Miss again and you provoke an AoO.
Often, provoking doesn't matter: your attacking at range, the enemy has no AoO's left for the round, they are unarmed and don't threaten.
Other times, they hit you.
I've never EVER seen it be the horrific, combat-neutering end to a melee type character. To be fair though, I also use a house rule that lowers the number of iterative attacks in a full-round action. Still, every player I've gamed with seems to like the concept.
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When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I stopped using critical failures in my RPGs.
We get that you don't like it. That's no reason to be patronizing with those who adopt different gaming habits.
I use critical fumbles in my home games. After rolling a natural 1, the player must make a dexterity check to confirm the fumble. if the player rolls less than 10 (including plusses or minuses as per his dex mod), the adventurer slips and falls prone- if carrying a melee weapon-dropping whatever he was carrying in the same square. If carrying a ranged weapon , the weapon breaks or jams. If a dex roll equal or greater than 10 is made, the character only loses the remainder of his turn.
So, the Wizard can freeze time with no chance of error, but the poor Fighters can't swing a pointy stick around without risking falling on his butt? Seems fair.
On the plus side, you've managed to make the weakest fighting style (Two Weapon Fighting) even more pathetic. And, hey, the Monk's Flurry of Blows needs the nerf anyway.
And even if they make their ability check (which, seriously, a straight ability check, not even adding in BAB or anything to represent, you know, skill? Really?) they lose their turn? Even better.
I ask if they want a Critical Fumble card. They usually take it. Minor NPCs always take Critical Fumble cards. Beyond that, they just miss.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I stopped using critical failures in my RPGs.We get that you don't like it. That's no reason to be patronizing with those who adopt different gaming habits.
I have a bad habit of not including smiley faces - it was only meant to be humorous. The line I stole that from was on a show the other night and I looked it up, so it was on my mind.
Critical miss (fumbles) can have their place in the game. As it stands, the game has no rules for simulating unexpected events. Mirroring the critical hit rule seems a fairly intuitive way of introducing these.
I have seen two major objections to critical misses rules, one objective and one subjective.
1) throwing many d20 is supposed to be a good thing: If you base fumbles on d20, your chances of provoking a fumble increase with level (while chances of confirming the fumbles remains more of less stable with level-appropriate encounters). Also, some characters throw more d20 than others (because of feats of class) and therefore run into more chances of fumbling.
A possible solution would be to base confirmation of fumbles on a level-related check (like fixed AC 10 or something of the sort) in order to have decreasing amount of confirmed fumbles with upper levels. Also in my experience, the higher the level of the character, the shorter (in terms of rounds) the combat lasts. That's also a balancing factor.
As for characters throwing more dice than others, these character also run into more chances of critical hits. Small consolation, I know.
Casters will always throw less d20 than other character. Martial/caster disparity has plenty of impacts already. Fumbles can also be affected to caster checks. My experience with critical misses for casters were fewer, but with bigger impact for the caster and his friends. Also if caster checks can fumble, that's a few throws that can go wrong when the fighter hasn't even drawn his sword.
2) three stooges RPG: Most fumbles are played as if the players came out of a bad slap-stick movie. There's a whole plethora of events can can happen beyond falling on your butt or throwing your sword like an olympian athlete.
The game has many conditions that can be used in a pinch. Other events like rain or snow, distractions, failing equipment, slippery terrain, blinding sunlight, forcing a player to re-take a test that he/she has succeeded etc, can be incorporated to the list.
This works well when the player know what's going to happen in advance. "You guys are fighting in deep snow and it's excessively tiring. Any confirmed fumble will make you "fatigued" for 3 rounds." "The sun is shining bright and low; fumble = dazzled for 1 round).
There are ways to make it fun, but people are so aggressive against the idea of fumbles that these discussions rarely lead anywhere...
You roll a 1. You roll to confirm your fumble (if your second roll would have missed, then you fumble). The DM draws a fumble card, and the result follow.
Before the fumble cards, I had a series of fumble tables that I used. I like the cards better.
Before the fumble cards, I had a series of fumble tables that I used. I like the cards better.
Cards, published or homemade, are a much better randomization tool than charts when it comes to that kind of things.
We have the critical hit/fumble deck. The fumbles are fairly penalizing, so we ruled you have to confirm the fumble (similar to confirming a crit, if you roll a 1 its a potential fumble, roll again, if you miss AC again, then you pull a card). It drastically reduced fumbles (especially against weaker enemies) but has come to our benefit as well (when a goblin dog fumbled and dealt crit damage to the nearest ally which happened to be the big hobgoblin master).
You miss. That's it. No reprecussions for you. I'm generally not a fan of punishing martial types more than necessary, and them getting more likely to do wildly unusual things (like most crit miss house rules do) as they get more experienced just feels wrong to me.
Right. Fumbles REALLY hurt fighter types, and usually don’t bother spellcasters much. Now, most folks around here think that fighter-types are under-powered and spellcasters are over-powered.
Why would anyone want to make the disparity worse?
We don't do critical fumbles. If you roll a 1 you are penalized enough by missing- even if you otherwise would have hit.
A level 16 fighter rolling at least 4 times a round for damage (5 for haste) shouldn't have 5 times the chance to chop off his own toe as does the level 1 WARRIOR he's teaching how to fight. Which is the situation "critical fumbles" creates.
A 16th level fighter and his 16th level wizard friend decide to have a friendly "melee only" spar. Using no buffs whatso ever the fighter has two times the chance of falling on his face, cutting himself with his own sword, or other goofy "critical failures" than does the guy who still thinks his dagger is only used to cut the evening meal with.
In actual combat of course the wizard isn't ever worried about critical failures because he isn't casting anything that requires the check and shouldn't be in range of someone often enough to deal with the concentration checks.
Its a "melee get worse at melee as they get higher in level" effect.
We skip it.
-S
I believe there is a third objection to critical fumble rules that isn't addressed here..one that has elements both objective and subjective. Over the course of a campaign, they will have more significant negative impact on the players (PC's) than on any NPC.
Agreed; fumbles have a bigger impact on PCs than on monsters, especially if, as suggested in the critical fumble deck, only characters and main villains are eligible. I can see how this doesn't appeal to all groups.
That's is not unlike many other elements of the game however, such as regeneration of HPs, negative levels etc.
For the better or for the worse, emphasis is put on the PCs, celebrating their victories and patching-up their defeats. The fact that D&D/Pathfinder is using a symmetrical rule system (monsters use exactly the same rules as PCs) makes us beleive that player characters are just like any other critters, but they are not. PCs are who the cameras and spotlight are following, inside and outside combat.
I'm glad fumbles are not part of RaW, so that they can remain a houserule for those who choose to use them. They are not necessary to the enjoyment of the game, but I believe that they can be used to make it a better game for some people.
I don't see fumbles as "penalizing" or "nerfing" more than taking damage or receiving conditions. They suck, they make it hard, they're part of the enjoyment of overcoming challenges.
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What I normally do is if they are in a multiple Attack phase they lose all addition attacks that round... For Fun we do the Roll a D20 and 10 or less you dropped your weapon 11 or more you are fine...
So when a full BAB character rolls a 1 (as he will do, on average, once every 30 seconds at 16th level and above (or 11+ if he's got Haste), he loses all his attacks for the round and has a 50/50 chance of dropping his weapon, meaning that a swordsman drops his weapon once a minute?
Seems fair ...
Fighter: I full attack. Dropping my sword as heroic warriors do in all manner of heroic fiction, surely my dedication and training in the art of swinging this weapon is no defense for my butterfingers.
Wizard: I freeze time and spend a round laughing at the Fighter Clown, breaking the laws of physics is child's play next to learning how to not drop a pointy stick.
I use my Critical Miss deck. I haven't done it recently, but I think I'm going to make my players (and NPCs, because I use it on them too) roll to confirm their critical misses against the same DC as the roll that caused the critical miss.
The deck has opened many hilarious moments, like when a Water Elemental rolled a natural one to attack a player and exploded itself from the impact damage.
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1.) Roll natural 1
2.) Roll to confirm your critical miss
3a.) if your confirmation roll is = to or greater then the AC of the creature you were trying to hit it is a miss
3b.) if your confirmation roll is less than the AC of the creature you were trying to hit something awful occurs, usually drawn from the critical miss table in dragon compendium, random critical failure generator, or one appropriate to the encounter (i.e. your swing misses and you become entangled in the spiders sticky webs).
I find that a confirmation roll helps to keep it fair as it allows martial characters with multiple iterative attacks to just miss more often then not and not suffer for advancing in their class.
The biggest problem with any critical miss system is that you need to come up with a way to avoid having the chance of a critical miss go up as the character gains additional iterative attacks. So I would be inclined to go with the following:
1) Include a confirmation roll for the critical miss. Use the best attack bonus for your attacks this round as the bonus to the confirmation roll. Only if the confirmation roll fails to hit the target's AC do you fumble -- otherwise, you just miss with that attack.
2) If you fumble while you have attacks remaining, you lose all remaining attacks.
3) Only if you fumble on your last possible attack of your turn should something bad happen.
The only Problem with rolling against the AC
You will have players never want to use their Last attacks because the base is so low...
That is why I just do the 11 or higher and you are free..
The problem with that, is then if you roll a 1 on your first attack, you are more likely to drop your sword than if you were confirming against AC (usually).
The only Problem with rolling against the AC
You will have players never want to use their Last attacks because the base is so low...
That is why I just do the 11 or higher and you are free..
That is why I had the idea of using your best attack bonus for the round for the confirmation roll regardless of which attack you are currently making.
Still -- I see the point of not wanting AC to be a factor in confirmation rolls for fumbles, but they should still scale with level in some way so as to make fumbles less common as you gain levels.
I see AC contributing to the fumble, as the monster is more adept at dodging in such a way as to screw you up. Or if it has lots of armor, taking the blow and trapping your sword. Or just taking the hit in its strongest armor causing the sword to ring sending vibrations up your arm and making you drop it. Fights aren't just "He steps up and swings once, then waits for you to swing."
One of the posters elsewhere on these boards (Evil Lincoln, as I recall) has a rule when his group wants to use fumbles to help make it so that the number of fumbles goes down as the characters get more experienced, as they should.
Basically, he has it so that you have to confirm your fumble much like a crit. Second, he has it so that your first attack in a round is the only attack that can fumble.
Doing this makes it so that the chance of provoking stays about the same throughout all levels, but that the chance of actually confirming the fumble goes down, as your first attack gets ever more likely to hit your opponent's AC as you level up. It also makes it so that Monks and Two Weapon Fighters aren't unfairly penalized by the rules further than they already are.
Even with these rules I don't recommend using Fumbles for the reasons outlined by many other posters in this thread, but this seems like the most fair and sensible way to do them.
One of the posters elsewhere on these boards (Evil Lincoln, as I recall) has a rule when his group wants to use fumbles to help make it so that the number of fumbles goes down as the characters get more experienced, as they should.
Basically, he has it so that you have to confirm your fumble much like a crit. Second, he has it so that your first attack in a round is the only attack that can fumble.
Doing this makes it so that the chance of provoking stays about the same throughout all levels, but that the chance of actually confirming the fumble goes down, as your first attack gets ever more likely to hit your opponent's AC as you level up. It also makes it so that Monks and Two Weapon Fighters aren't unfairly penalized by the rules further than they already are.
Yep, this is what I do.
You can get as many crit cards in a round as you roll, but never more than 1 fumble.
I had not thought of tossing out a spell fumble after a botched concentration roll, but I'll be doing that now, as it does seem more fair.
My players love the fumble cards, it's provided nothing but laughs and the occasional "oh noooooo" groan. Granted, I've already got a standing policy on ignoring the really outlandish ones like "you cut off your own head".
I use my Critical Miss deck. I haven't done it recently, but I think I'm going to make my players (and NPCs, because I use it on them too) roll to confirm their critical misses against the same DC as the roll that caused the critical miss.
The deck has opened many hilarious moments, like when a Water Elemental rolled a natural one to attack a player and exploded itself from the impact damage.
There’s a game called “Toon!” full of such “hilarious moments”.
What’s the “roll to confirm their critical misses against the same DC as the roll that caused the critical miss” for Magic Missile?
What’s the “roll to confirm their critical misses against the same DC as the roll that caused the critical miss” for Magic Missile?
Spell resistance and concentration checks can become very fun very fast.
There are also alternative to fumbles as anti-critical.
I like the idea of the "fumble jar". Every time a "1" is rolled, a marble is added to the jar. When the the jar is full (perhaps after several combat or games), "something" happens.
There also the "event dice" alternative, whereas a dice is thrown at the beginning of every round to see if something "eventful" happens. It has the advantage of divorcing the fumble from the d20, thus fixing the many dice two-weapon fighter and no-dice wizard issue. You can even have a hit-and-fumble (darn, my sword is stuck in his skull!)