| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Muddling some ideas around in my head. (My wife says it is bad when I have too much free time. This could be an example.)
What if your wizard rolls a natural 20 on a Knowledge Arcana when trying to remember the weaknesses of stone golems. Critical threat. Roll again and if you still succeed, you remember the time you assisted your mentor in weeks of detailed analysis of stone golems. Basically you know everything in the Bestiary about them.
Your weaponsmith rolls a natural 20 while crafting a masterwork earthbreaker. Critical threat. Roll again to confirm and if you still succeed this earthbreaker has a non-magical +10 hitpoints incase anyone ever tries to sunder it.
You roll a natural 20 on your save vs Bestow Curse. Critical threat. Roll again and if you still succeed, the caster gets a small amount of feedback and takes a point of damage per spell level.
Or something like that. I don't know, nothing too powerful or game breaking. Just seemed like a decent thought for some occasionally special results. The time where you happen to remember something in great detail, did an amazing job building a model plane, or made the 3-point swish in the last second of the game.
What do you think?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My friend (who was the best DM I have ever met) had a house-rule for rolling nat 20's and 1's on anything that doesn't normally have "critical rules" (like skills).
A nat 20 counts as a roll of 30.
A nat 1 counts as a roll of -10.
From there you just DM rule any effects. A wizard rolls a nat 20 on his knowledge of the enemy demon, so altogether gets a roll of about 45. Not only does he know what the demon is and what it's abilities are, he has read extensively and written a paper on that kind of demon. He knows their abilities and weaknesses in detail.
A fighter kicks a door, making a strength check. He rolls a nat 20, ending with a 35 or something. Not only does the door break in, he hits it with such force that it flies several feet and hits the first enemy inside the room, possibly knocking them prone.
Him and I always liked that because it left the effects largely up to the DM, and you had an actual number to consider.
Getting a 20 on a skill check already does that, though. It's an exceptionally good checck, for you.
If the Wizard rolls a 20 on his Knowledge check, that's already a minimum of 2 more pieces of information he's learned. Or if you're like my Inquisitor with +33 to each Monster Knowledge, basically everything about the creature.
And TBH, introducing critical successes often leads to a slipper slope of "Wouldn't it be cool if there were critical failures, too?" and then NOBODY'S having fun.
On the contrary Rynjin, I think critical failures can be rather hilarious. I remember I was playing the party face and I rolled a nat 1 on sense motive against the big bad mob boss. My character became convinced that he could be easily intimidated...in his office...with half a dozen guards...and I was a halfling bard.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
And for every fun story there's a million "I rolled a 1 on a check I beat by 15 even with that one and my GM f&#+ed me over for it" and "I decapitated myself with my own sword" stories.
"Fun."
Sounds like a good houserule. As it is, I have a hard time convincing my players that a nat 20 does not always mean success at whatever they're attempting. I don't usually tie bonuses to a list though, and end up improvising. If you made a list of possible critical bonuses and your players were aware of the list, then they might try to hold you to it even when it isn't convenient for the story.
A) If there's a skill check that you can beat with a -15, there should be no possible way you can decapitate yourself with a failure. Your DM is being an unreasonable dick.
B) That's the point of GM moderation on it. Say you were climbing a rope out of a pit trap and you got a nat 1 on the climb check. An a&$&*+$ DM (the type you are depicting) would say "You neck gets caught and you're hung by the rope as you fall". A fun DM would say "Your ankle gets caught, so not only have you failed to climb out but now you're upside down and helpless". The party laughs as they have to pull you out themselves.
And for every fun story there's a million "I rolled a 1 on a check I beat by 15 even with that one and my GM f+@$ed me over for it" and "I decapitated myself with my own sword" stories.
"Fun."
I guess it depends on the group. In our group, the "I rolled a 1 on stealth, so my ninja with a +25 check trips and exposes himself to the guards" moments are the bread and butter of why we have so much fun playing together. If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?
If wanted to play one of the Stooges, I'd make a 3 Stooges RPG. Assuming it doesn't exist already which it probably does.
My character is supposed to be competent at the things he does well, and not at the things he isn't. If my character is bad at climbing, his poor Climb skill will reflect that. Not simply an arbitrary "You fail" determined by the dice despite the fact that without that horrid houserule he could put champion mountain climbers to shame.
Auto-fail on 1's rules just make me Take 10 or 20 on every skill check, since at least if I fail I won't be humiliated or killed by some funny coincidence.
Sure, describe a 1 or 20 in great detail if it fails/succeeds. I know I've described a few fun moments where someone gets a result of 0 on a Perception check as him being distracted by something shiny.
But adding additional mechanical impact is unnecessary and annoying at best, and infuriating at worst.
Some people really love critical failure/fumbles and some people really hate them. I don't think there is any chance to get the one group to change their view to the other group.
If I did critical fumble (which I currently don't) I wouldn't have a 1 automatically fumble. I'd have it be a failure threat. They would have to confirm the fumble with another failure. So if is a skill you are really good at, the odds of a fumble are miniscule.
My biggest 2 problems with critical fumbles are:
1) Some groups have the effects wildly too powerful. I saw one where a guy destroyed and repaired is holy avenger 3 times in one game night.
2) Pretty much mostly affects martial characters. Most casters don't roll attack rolls except one a level or so. So almost no chance of them ever getting a fumble. Martial characters might have hundreds of to hit rolls in each level.
.
.
...
If the Wizard rolls a 20 on his Knowledge check, that's already a minimum of 2 more pieces of information he's learned. ...
Why does a 20 already give you a minimum 2 more pieces of information? I don't remember seeing that rule anywhere.
One of the reasons I was considering it is because other than knowledge nature and knowledge religion, my group doesn't have more than a +8 to any knowledge skills. For some of the rare higher level things they have been fighting, that is a DC of about 27 to learn any one thing about it. They would have to get a 32 to learn a second piece of information. They literally can not get a 32. They can only learn one thing if they roll really lucky.
But people (especially educated people) have weird bits and pieces of knowledge tucked away in their brains. So even though they don't usually know anything about powerful aberrations, maybe this one just happens to be something they have heard quite a bit about. Critical Success.
I build hundreds of models when I was a kid. But there was one model (of the HMS Prince of Wales if you're interested) that was just a perfect work of art. No trimming or glue out of place. The paint job looked almost exactly like the battle damaged pictures in the book. It came out so great that everyone thought I had purchased a professionally painted model. Critical Success.
I was on a basketball team in grade school. I was decent at defense, but my shooting frankly sucked. I could just barely get it as far as the hoop from the 3 point line and I never got it to hit the rim much less go in. But in on of the last games of the season. Everyone started chanting down the clock. At the 2 second chant I threw it at the hoop. It not only got there, it was a perfect swish. I tried for hours, days, weeks to duplicate that shot. Was never able to come close. Critical success.
That was my thinking anyway.
.
.
... I don't usually tie bonuses to a list though, and end up improvising. If you made a list of possible critical bonuses and your players were aware of the list, then they might try to hold you to it even when it isn't convenient for the story.
The list is mostly just examples. I mean that it would have some minor but noticeable above and beyond effect. I don't think I would give the players a hard list though.
Some people like to have fun and laugh while playing. Others like to play the unbeatable badass. The latter approach gets boring after a few games, and it's a lot harder to have fun that way.
Also, things like that do happen. Not as common as 5% of the time, but every once in a while a master chef will completely forget he put something in the oven and he'll burn the hell out of it.
If you're afraid to be humiliated in a game, that sounds like a problem with personality projection. If you're afraid to get killed, than your DM is a dick. Or you're overly protective of your characters.
The only mechanical impact is giving you a number to represent how you should describe the failure or success. Most of the time a 20 will succeed anyways, while a 1 will fail anyways.
@ElterAgo
He was saying that if you roll a 20 you'll most likely get at least 2 pieces of information unless the check is really high.
Yes, that's what the rule is for. That's what the number representation is for as well, because some of the time things are just not possible. Say a party member wants to climb up a perfectly flat wall that's covered in oil. That's a ridiculously high check, and even with a roll of 30 it's very unlikely that most characters can do that. However, shooting a basketball across the court could be to accidentally using physics perfectly. Very difficult, but in the realm of possibility. Hence the 30 representation for the roll.
Why does a 20 already give you a minimum 2 more pieces of information? I don't remember seeing that rule anywhere....
If the Wizard rolls a 20 on his Knowledge check, that's already a minimum of 2 more pieces of information he's learned. ...
For every 5 points you exceed the DC, you get an extra piece of information.
So if your Wizard already made the DC on a 10 (assuming he made it exactly), he gets two more pieces of info from a 20.
One of the reasons I was considering it is because other than knowledge nature and knowledge religion, my group doesn't have more than a +8 to any knowledge skills. For some of the rare higher level things they have been fighting, that is a DC of about 27 to learn any one thing about it. They would have to get a 32 to learn a second piece of information. They literally can not get a 32. They can only learn one thing if they roll really lucky.
That's the downside of not investing in a skill, yes.
A person with 5 Cha and zero ranks in Craft: Painting is not going to paint the Mona Lisa. Sorry.
I build hundreds of models when I was a kid. But there was one model (of the HMS Prince of Wales if you're interested) that was just a perfect work of art. No trimming or glue out of place. The paint job looked almost exactly like the battle damaged pictures in the book. It came out so great that everyone thought I had purchased a professionally painted model. Critical Success.
I was on a basketball team in grade school. I was decent at defense, but my shooting frankly sucked. I could just barely get it as far as the hoop from the 3 point line and I never got it to hit the rim much less go in. But in on of the last games of the season. Everyone started chanting down the clock. At the 2 second chant I threw it at the hoop. It not only got there, it was a perfect swish. I tried for hours, days, weeks to duplicate that shot. Was never able to come close. Critical success.
Not a critical success, merely an exceptionally good throw/model. A great roll, the best you could possibly do.
But obviously, not out of the realm of your ability.
Think now, if you had never shot a basket in your life, and you were a scrawny weakling who can't make a shot from 5 feet.
You're not making that 3 pointer. Ever.
That's what you're suggesting happens on a Critical Success.
Some people like to have fun and laugh while playing. Others like to play the unbeatable badass. The latter approach gets boring after a few games, and it's a lot harder to have fun that way.
Spare me the Strawman, please.
If you think it's a strawman, tell me why. Because that's what I'm getting from your argument.
The point of the critical success is to represent an exceptionally lucky event. One of his players makes a Knowledge (nature) check to find out about something that's a DC 35. He rolls a nat 20. Maybe he heard a story about the creature and knows just one thing about it. Maybe he's studied similar creatures, and from their traits he extrapolates something about the creature.
From your view, you're saying that there should be NO critical successes, on anything. According to RAW, a level 1 peasant could stab a level 40 fighter with an AC of 80 if he happened to roll a nat 20. He would do completely negligible, if any, damage, but he would pierce armor and skin.
If there's no chance of failure, things get pretty boring in an RPG.With knowledge checks unless it's something beyond obscure... the alch in our party literally cannot fail any knowledge check.
I remember in a high leveled campaign we had a wizard who created a pocket dimension just to store his personal library. Every time there was a knowledge check to be had he popped out of existence, then minutes later would return with some sort of knowledge to the massive confusion of our characters. Almost as funny as the ethereal dumpster.
Some people like to have fun and laugh while playing. Others like to play the unbeatable badass. The latter approach gets boring after a few games, and it's a lot harder to have fun that way.Some people don't need a gambler's high to have fun and laugh. Others do. The latter keep casinos in business.
And some people like to compare having fun with friends to unhealthy addictions.
If you think it's a strawman, tell me why. Because that's what I'm getting from your argument.
It's a strawman because you're taking something I never said, nor implied, and propping it up as some sort of false dichotomy.
"You must love crit successes/fails or you don't like having fun and only care about being an unbeatable badass."
The point of the critical success is to represent an exceptionally lucky event. One of his players makes a Knowledge (nature) check to find out about something that's a DC 35. He rolls a nat 20. Maybe he heard a story about the creature and knows just one thing about it. Maybe he's studied similar creatures, and from their traits he extrapolates something about the creature.
From your view, you're saying that there should be NO critical successes, on anything. According to RAW, a level 1 peasant could stab a level 40 fighter with an AC of 80 if he happened to roll a nat 20. He would do completely negligible, if any, damage, but he would pierce armor and skin.
And according to RAW, a Natural 20 does nothing special on anything but attack rolls and saves, so if you're bringing RAW into the equation you've already lost.
The Nat 20 on saves/AC rules at least serves a purpose: It ensures that no encounter is completely unbeatable, though highly unlikely you'll win unless you get a never-ending string of 20's.
Introducing it elsewhere just leads to silliness, and devalues skills even more than this system already does.
I can see how you got to that. I suppose I misrepresented my own portrayal of that. Some people don't like to see their characters fail in any way, and as such like to mitigate any chance of failure. While there's nothing wrong about making a powerful character, worrying too much about failure can lead to more anxiety than anything. The point I was trying to make was that taken to an extreme it can have very negative consequences. As most things do.
And as the writers themselves have admitted, the rules are not perfect. So fighting should not be unbeatable, but puzzles should be?
Yes, it can lead to silliness if that's how you choose to interpret it. When I run sillier games I have quite a bit of fun with those kinds of checks. In my more serious games I don't include that rule. It depends on what you want out of your experience.
I did not mean to imply that the people I spoke of were addicts.
I didn't think so either. I was poking fun at your exaggeration by exaggerating myself.
Every session? THAT would be boring, much more boring than a game that was purely serious. Games should be an experience of many kinds. Action, romance, adventure, comedy, realism, dread, fear, pain, they are all parts of a great experience. My point is that a game can be serious, deadly serious, while still having funny slapstick moments. These two polar opposites should be isolated, of course. My best example for that would be Fullmetal Alchemist, which is one of my favorite shows. There are times when there's totally cartoony slapstick comedy with wild exaggeration and wounds that heal by the next shot. Other times people are being horribly mutilated or blown up and there's a sense of horror and dread. I'm saying there is a balance that needs to exist, and comedy is part of it.
You could have said that at the start instead of implying that Rynjin had crippling social phobias.
You could have said that at the start instead of implying that Rynjin had crippling social phobias.
Personality projection is not a crippling social phobia. Nor is being protective of your characters. Every character you make has a bit of you, even if you don't mean them to be. What I was saying is that worrying about your character dying because they're a representation of yourself is unhealthy for a game where character death is a possibility. It leads to angry words being said and DMs becoming afraid to kill their players, which takes away from the suspense. Yes, the best characters are the ones you care about and that you spend some time on. But if you are overly-concerned about their impending death, put them in a book, not a game run by somebody else. Preferably one not written by George R.R. Martin.
Every session? THAT would be boring, much more boring than a game that was purely serious. Games should be an experience of many kinds. Action, romance, adventure, comedy, realism, dread, fear, pain, they are all parts of a great experience. My point is that a game can be serious, deadly serious, while still having funny slapstick moments.
And this can be represented more easily and with less frustration by simply describing actions without rules consequences.
Codifying it into rules makes this dichotomy impossible. Because it's just as likely to pop up in a tense, dark situation as it is in a light and happy one.
How I handle a Natural 1 on an attack roll: You swing your sword with terrifying force, and a sickening crunch rings through the air. Congratulations. You have killed the floor.
How Critical Fumble rules handle a Natural 1 on an attack roll: You throw your sword across the room! It lands squares away!
In the first case A.) Nothing mechanical has occurred and B.) I can stop doing it in tense situations.
In the second case, neither of those things is true.
I have no problem with my character failing. I just don't want him failing at something he can easily achieve if not for a houserule. Nor do I have a problem with my character being mocked for doing something poorly...unless, again, it is something I SHOULD have succeeded on, but magically didn't because of a houserule.
Hell, I often describe failures myself. Here's one from barely an hour ago:
(Knowledge Nobility) 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 = 9
"Yes, I'm pretty sure that's the signet of Count Von Suchin Suche, Lord of Weyrevir."
The thing about the number (30 or -10) is they are only a representative number for you to decide what happens. There is no table that says "A -5 on climb means he falls and gets his foot caught in a rope". Instead you get a vague idea on how catastrophic the failure or how awesome the success was, and then you get to decide on what happens. It's a common sense ruling, so the only way to be unhappy with the results is if you chose to use a result that you knew you would be unhappy with. That's the greatness of playing a tabletop game instead of a video game, out of the box, on the spot thinking. In a video game you can't capture the enemy lich because he can't die and can always spellcast to get his way out of any prison. In a tabletop game you can cut off his hands and put him in a prison with silence cast on it.
You CONTROL when it pops up. It doesn't ALWAYS have to happen. If the assassin is trying to climb up a wall to get the drop on the BBEG and he rolls a nat 1, you just say he fails, not that he tumbles over three times and gets wrapped in his gear.
As you say in point B, you can just stop doing it in tense situations. By no means am I saying "This should be in the core rulebook and always implemented!" I'm saying that it's one choice if you want a representation of extremely lucky or unlucky situations.
Jumping to the moon is a common example, but doesn't actually work. You can't jump farther than you can move in a round, so unless you can move millions of miles in a round, you can't jump to the moon.
The number representation is to give a somewhat realistic version of what's in the realm of the edges of possibility. The best high jumper in the world couldn't jump to the moon with a nat 20, because even with this houserule he's only at 30 over his skill bonus, which is hundreds short of the DC to jump to the moon. Nowhere did anybody say a nat 20 on skill checks should always succeed.
When they fall and get wrapped up in their gear, yes there will be actions requiring them to get out of it. Which is why you don't do it in high-tense situations, because it's unfairly adding extra rules that make things harder.
Yes, you do pull the rules out of your ass. I can hardly remember a single session, EVER, where I did not have to make something up on the fly. That's half the fun of being a DM. "The GM gets to make up whatever they want" is a gross exaggeration of the common-sense house-ruling that I proposed. Yes, there is room for a GM to be incredibly silly and do things detrimental to a game. That same room, however, it what keeps the rules from being incredibly stiff and boring. Even laws are fluid and constantly changing, because circumstance demands it.
It was not pointlessly obvious, because his concern was that the rule would get out of control, and I was reinforcing that you had control over it. And since when does the player always know what the consequences of a failed check are? The player is not in control, you're right. Nor should he know every outcome of every possible action. That turns a dynamic game into a set of statistics.
Hah, +1 Rynjin.
The rules are not always the best representation of what you want to happen, and need to be modified with common sense in certain circumstances. Exploits like the vorpal butter-knife and the peasant railgun come to mind.
If there's no chance of failure, things get pretty boring in an RPG.
Nobody said anything about removing failure.
We're just not playing 'The Three Stooges: The RPG' where you hurt yourself every time you turn around.If you want a failure to be comical, do so without mechanical suckage. Your arrow gets embedded in your wizard buddy's pointed hat, not his head. You spin around after an over-enthusiastic sword swing, not fall down and throw your sword across the room.
First I would ask some of you to stop intentionally insulting each other. That was not the topic of the thread. As I said before, some people like critical fumbles and some people don't. I think it exceedingly unlikely that either will convince the other. Insults certainly aren't going to do it.
There is nothing wrong with either style of play. If you enjoy it go for it.
.
.
...
A person with 5 Cha and zero ranks in Craft: Painting is not going to paint the Mona Lisa. Sorry.
...
Not a critical success, merely an exceptionally good throw/model. A great roll, the best you could possibly do.But obviously, not out of the realm of your ability.
Think now, if you had never shot a basket in your life, and you were a scrawny weakling who can't make a shot from 5 feet.
You're not making that 3 pointer. Ever.
That's what you're suggesting happens on a Critical Success.
...
No actually that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm not talking about something out of the realm of possibility. I'm talking about something more approaching the limits of possibility. Or possibly just a little bit different than normal.
Yes, I made that one shot. Obviously possible. But I tried probably thousands of times and couldn't repeat it. It was clearly better than 5% of my attempts.
That model was also clearly better than any of my other best 5%. obviously it was within the realm of my capabilities. But not within my top 5%. Maybe the top 0.5% of my capabilities.
I really don't know very much about sailing vessels. So if someone asked for general information about the subject, I really couldn't give much in general, let alone specific. I clearly didn't invest in that skill.
However, due to a particular high school project I happen to know quite a bit about the Essex. One of the United States' first very successful fighting frigates. On that one particular specific subject I actually have a moderately decent amount of information.
Every once in a while someone does better than anyone thought they were capable of doing. Much better than the top 5% of their best work.
That is what I was thinking about providing. On the other hand, it may be a needless complication. It was just a stray thought.
Our group works with the 20=30 and 0=-10. Nothing in addition beyond that, so failure is simply a failure. Hell, most slapstick tends to come from the players themselves deciding their failure is even worse than a book failure. I know I've had one character of mine fumble around like the aforementioned stooge on occasion.
I do see how having a 1 result in added penalty can be frustrating, and shouldn't be hard-enforced. Especially with more sadistic DMs. Still, there's something to be said for the dramatic tension of a failure adding complexity to a situation. But trying to enforce it in the rules is not the way to go about it, lest you start getting paper cuts on the eye reading your spellbooks. (Old comic reference.)
As for the adding more consequences on failure, that's apparently a playstyle difference. I would absolutely refuse to play in a game with a GM who changed the skill rules and added more consequences to failed rolls. If they pulled it on me in-game I'd walk out. This also applies to critical fumbles (doesn't matter what other rules they have about it). I've played the Three Stooges (Paranoia is by far the best system I've found for it). I've never created a Stooge for Pathfinder. Handing over control of my character to the GM so they can run me through a slapstick gambit is pretty much the worst thing I can see happening. Removing player agency at the whim of the GM is top of my list of "things I'm unwilling to tolerate while I'm supposed to be having fun". No, I won't change my mind on that.
I'd say more but at this point it'd be a mostly unrelated rant about some truly awful GMs I've had, heavy on the railroading and all big proponents of critical everything. Some classic "break all your stuff when you fall", "you're stunned because you rolled low on knowledge", "you rolled so low you're blinded", and "you succeed so much you still fail because I made this cool encounter and you're going to face it @#$% it", if anyone's curious. Telling me the story they want me to hear instead of actually letting me write my own story.
It's totally a playstyle difference, and honestly, there is nothing wrong with either method, as long as everyone agrees which way to play beforehand, and the rules are fairly applied to all sides.
My group plays with the critical fumble and success decks. Granted, the dice tend to hate us and we roll far more 1's than 20's, but the Monsters do too.
I guess the real problem is leaving it up to the whimsy of the GM, and poorer GMs who fall into a "beat the players" mentality. That's an entirely different issue though.
All manner of criticals could improve the existing system.
Critical Knowledge rolls that allow you to bring the skill up to modern levels.
Critical HP rolls, ensuring survival of future generations.
Critical Initiative- allowing you to travel back in time.
In our last RotRL session (Thistletop) we used for the first time the critical fumble and critical hit decks. They were hilarious. Several goblins killed themselves, but the worst thing that happened to players was falling prone.
For critical failures, we make a confirmation roll: a second miss confirms the critical failure and we draw from the deck.
The party wizard had a critical spell failure and suddenly grew to enlarged size for 1d4 rounds. He took advantage of the enlarged size and ripped open a stubborn door. Great stuff.
We only roll for critical failure on the first attack roll of a given round, so guys with iterative attacks do *not* have a greater chance of fumbling. For critical hits, only "boss" monsters or critters with character levels get to use the critical hit deck.
It works for us, the players all love the extreme theatrics of critical hits and fumbles. We don't worry too much about the math behind the scenes.
YMMV.
If there's no chance of failure, things get pretty boring in an RPG.
If there's a 5% chance of crashing my car every time I go to pick up some milk at the store, I'm probably going to stop driving.
Replace with "climb a knotted rope with a rough wall to brace against, and by the way I'm a master mountaineer with a +30 Climb check". Sometimes there really shouldn't be a failure chance, much less a critical failure chance.
And I actually like chaotic effects like wild magic, but not for tying my shoes.
Sometimes there is no failure chance, simply because you aren't rolling the dice: take ten is a thing.
Or, if a natural "1" = a roll of -10, with your +30 bonus you've still got a final result of 20. Not too bad.
