optional rules: Critical fumbles in combat


Prerelease Discussion


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

So one thing I am very interested in is how flexible the new system will be to house rules. House rules happen all the time in every game and that is a wonderful way for specific tables to set specific moods for their games.

One rule that I would like to be able to easily use in my Pathfinder the seconding is the ability to make critical fumbles with a weapon attack, cause very minor damage to the weapon, that could eventually cause the weapon to get something similar to the broken condition, or eventually, without care, be destroyed.

The current system handles this fairly well. Items have hp and hardness, and I can just make any critical miss cause 1 point of damage to the weapon, which can be repaired after battle relatively easily, without making critical fumbles into some horrific thing that destroys PCs unfairly. I even sometimes let enemies start with slightly damaged gear, especially if they don't seem like the types who would take good care of it. Yes this is a rule that I imagine might not make much sense to force on everyone, especially folks wanting to focus on more super heroic/high fantasy gaming, so I am not asking for it to be enshrined in the game, but I am hoping that the new critical rules will be able to handle the host of house ruling that tends to happen around them.

I don't think there has been any mention yet of whether there is going to be a hardness and hp mechanic for items and weapons, but I hope that the new system is robust enough to leave open options like this, without having to completely reinvent the wheel.


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There is a whole thread going of a lot of us explaining why this is a terrible idea.

Not least because it is lopsidedly punitive to martials over casters due to the much greater reliance on making lots of attack rolls. And the fact that "fumbles" really don't happen to trained combatants in real life, outside of extenuating circumstances like environmental effects or a shoddy weapon.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Fuzzypaws wrote:


Not least because it is lopsidedly punitive to martials over casters due to the much greater reliance on making lots of attack rolls. And the fact that "fumbles" really don't happen to trained combatants in real life, outside of extenuating circumstances like environmental effects or a shoddy weapon.

First of all, thank you for adding your thoughts here. I am familiar with that thread and I agree that making critical fumbles for martials into something serious is a very bad idea, and should not be a core mechanic of the game.

I am not asking for this to be a core game mechanic. I am asking for flexible but robust game design that takes "house rules" into consideration from design forward. People like having different little rules to tag on to critical hits and fumbles to make their games feel campaign or mood appropriate. It, weight and death house rules, seem like the ones that vary the most from table to table, because they greatly impact the tone of a campaign.
This rule is for games that want to add elements of weapon wear and weapon sturdiness as a minor consideration to the game without it becoming a game-breaking focus. One point of damage to a weapon for a soldier that keeps her weapons in good shape isn't a "fumble." She probably has chosen a weapon that can take some nicks if she is expecting to be fighting with it for more than 15 seconds a day. It can cause some issues for a melee combatant carrying only one weapon that isn't suited to be a weapon of war. It works in the current system because mending is a readily available spell, and the mechanic of having parties take a little bit of time after a battle to repair weapons can help break up the buff and run through a dungeon situation in a way that makes sense.
Even if mending has changed, if crafting as a skill can cover weapon repair, then this mechanic can still work fine as long as weapons still have something similar to hp, and that hp consider's a weapon's hardiness for war, which the current system does.

I am a strong believer that the way that pathfinder can really set itself apart from other fantasy RPGs is by streamlining its basic rules and having its depth come from a modular design that is supportive of customization. That was what the D20 engine enabled that made it such a strong and welcoming system and something that the new system doesn't have to lose.


I guess it depends on how often critical failure happens in the game. Depending on the system used in PF1, it can be pretty easy to determine how often they would happen. I think I remember that a designer said that even with the -10 penalty on attack rolls the 3rd attack can still be viable, it depends on how high enemy AC is. In PF2, their seems to be more variables involved. In this new system it seems like it would be punishing to characters that don't maximize their to hit, well more then the system already does.

I don't really know if there will be conditions for weapons, like broken, will exist in PF2 or as you have pointed out if they will have hit points and hardness. I would imagine it can be done, but without all the information it's hard to know how difficult it will be.


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IF, big IF, the degrees of success change to nat 1/nat 20 causing a one degree shift in the result, instead of being auto-anythings, I think there's a lot more design space for house rules interacting with crit fails/success.

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