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When you roll a natural 1 or 20, and you have another ability that modifies the degree of success, what is applied first?
For example, let's say I have the following ability from being a Death Warden Dwarf.
"Your ancestors have been tomb guardians for generations, and the power they
cultivated to ward off necromancy has passed on to you. If you roll a success on a saving throw against a necromancy effect, you get a critical success instead."
Let's say I am rolling a saving throw with a DC of 15, and I roll a 1 with a modifier of +14.
If I apply the ability before the natural 1 modifier first, I would bump the success up to a critical success, and then bump it back down to a success because of the natural 1.
If I apply the natural 1 modifier first, it would bump the success down to a failure, and the ability doesn't modify failures, so I would fail.
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My instinct tells me that the natural 1 comes first, and this would be a failure.
The ancestry feat says IF you succeed, you critical succeed instead. When you roll 1, you don't succeed to begin with. It's not a modifier, it's just what rolling 1 does.
The 1 comes first. Without taking the 1 into account you don't know what your success/failure is. If you add it to the +14 to get 15 you ALREADY have a crit-fail as the 1 resolves.
(Then you compare to the DC (succeeded anyway, only a regular fail), then your feat kicks in)
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The last paragraph under "Step 4: Determine the Degree of Success
and Effect" reads as follows
Some other abilities can change the degree of success for
rolls you get. When resolving the effect of an ability that
changes your degree of success, always apply the adjustment
from a natural 20 or natural 1 before anything else.
So apply the effects of a natural 1 or 20 first
This sounds like the order of operations is
- Roll and do math to determine (result)
- If 1 or 20 adjust to get (new result)
- If other effect adjust new result to get (final result)