Critical failure or not?

[Nimonys]

Hello! Leading the campaign, I had a disagreement with one of the players about a critical failure. I will describe the situation for a better understanding.
My player has a bonus of the skill of medetsin 14. She throws out 1 and her final result is 15. Here the disagreements begin. Step 4: Determine the Degree of Success and Effect Chapter 9: Playing the Game says the following: "This means that a natural 20 usually results in a critical success and natural 1 usually results in a critical failure. However, if you were going up against a very high DC, you might get only a success with a natural 20, or even a failure if 20 plus your total modifier is 10 or more below the DC. Likewise, if your modifier for a statistic is so high that adding it to a 1 from your d20 roll exceeds the DC by 10 or more, you can succeed even if you roll a natural 1! If a feat, magic item, spell, or other effect does not list a critical success or critical failure, treat is as an ordinary success or failure instead. "
In the description of the skill of medecine, there is the result of cretic failure.
1 is always a critical failure? Or at high levels with low DCs, a drop of 1 simply lowers the degree of success

[beowulf99]

Yes, it is possible for a 1 to result in a failure or even a success. If for instance the dc of the medicine check was 10, and the players total was 15, it would only be a failure, not a critical failure. If instead the DC was only 5, that check would have resulted in a success.

[Ascalaphus]

So let's unpack this.

* We're talking about a DC 15 medicine check. So normally, on a total result of 15, you would get a success.

* A '1' on a roll makes the final result one step worse. This usually causes a critical failure.

* Your player has a +14 score, and she just rolled a 1.

=

So, your player's result is a total of 15, which would normally be a success, but because of the '1', it becomes one step worse, which is a normal failure.

To this is the "unusual" case when a 1 doesn't result in a critical failure; because if your player has a +14 modifier, then a DC 15 check is a really really easy task.

[Saldiven]

Ascalaphus wrote:

So let's unpack this.

* We're talking about a DC 15 medicine check. So normally, on a total result of 15, you would get a success.

* A '1' on a roll makes the final result one step worse. This usually causes a critical failure.

* Your player has a +14 score, and she just rolled a 1.

=

So, your player's result is a total of 15, which would normally be a success, but because of the '1', it becomes one step worse, which is a normal failure.

To this is the "unusual" case when a 1 doesn't result in a critical failure; because if your player has a +14 modifier, then a DC 15 check is a really really easy task.

And, to extrapolate even farther.

If your character had a modifier of +24, the rolling a 1 would result in a 25 on the check. For a DC 15 skill check, this would normally be a critical success, but the 1 on the roll would reduce it to a normal success.