Ability Check Criticals

A new article over on EN5ider! Rolling a natural 20 or a natural 1 has never been so much fun! With these ability check critical effects for your 5E game, there are positive and negative tables for physical, social, medicine, knowledge, and arcane style checks. By Jeff Gomez; illustrated by Herman Lau.

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Recently on EN5ider:

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[jmucchiello]

Well the assumption going in is that the DM only called for a roll when there's uncertainty in the result. If the Lich Queen is not interested in seduction then there is no roll. It seems too many DMs allow or call for too many rolls making tables, such as these, overkill. For DMs that strike the right balance there's nothing wrong with introducing some extra fun into the times when the roll is needed.

The stories I see are usually the DM is upset after and even when they do it reluctantly, there's a difference between "she gives you a wink and says, 'I admire your audacity but your friends must die for entering my sanctum. I'll keep you alive because you amuse me.' " and "she finds you so hot she gives you all her treasure and vows to help you in future endeavors."

 

[epithet]

Not a fan of empowering the dice with Nat 1/20 additions.
...

You can always regard critical success/failure as beating the DC by more than 10 or failing by more than 15, or whatever floats your boat. This is a house rule, after all.

 

[5ekyu]

Which is entirely your choice within the game that you run. Personally I enjoy critical hits and failures and that's how it's played at my place. No matter how many times you quote the rules.

Well, thanks for the snack of attitude there at the end. I was just pointing out to the poster who was commenting on how they did not go for the auto-success on 20 bit that it actually was not part of this particular product - the ENW PDF on ability crits.

If somehow you took that as a challenge to your playstyle, I suggest you take it up with the author, not me.

 

[5ekyu]

You can always regard critical success/failure as beating the DC by more than 10 or failing by more than 15, or whatever floats your boat. This is a house rule, after all.

Absolutely!

If i were going to implement critical success it would be based on something related to character skill, not just the plastic bouncey bouncey bit of "natural roll of". The "succeed by xxx" is one such method (esp if combined with requiring proficiency as well and obviously no disadvantage) and another is a notion of requiring disadvantage to be "taken" to go for "a crit success" and combos of the options etc. This is especially true if the crit is "chosen" not randomly rolled.

Generally, i prefer empowering characters, their abilities and choices with "cool options" and not "natural rolls" that are divorced from all those actual in setting aspects and choices.

So, when i house rule - that is indeed how i focus my mechanics - choices and characters spotlight over "natural dice" spotlight.

 

[Paragon Lost]

Well, thanks for the snack of attitude there at the end. I was just pointing out to the poster who was commenting on how they did not go for the auto-success on 20 bit that it actually was not part of this particular product - the ENW PDF on ability crits.

If somehow you took that as a challenge to your playstyle, I suggest you take it up with the author, not me.

It's because you posted more than once in the thread, pointing out not liking it and pointing out the RAW. It's the only reason I posted to you, you were coming off like one of those "If it's not by the rules as written sorts then it's wrong.

 

[Paragon Lost]

You can always regard critical success/failure as beating the DC by more than 10 or failing by more than 15, or whatever floats your boat. This is a house rule, after all.

Oh, nice. I like that idea. I'd never really thought about doing something like that. Hmm, something to think about.

 

[5ekyu]

It's because you posted more than once in the thread, pointing out not liking it and pointing out the RAW. It's the only reason I posted to you, you were coming off like one of those "If it's not by the rules as written sorts then it's wrong.

Again, if you have problems with the PDF rules for that product not allowing auto-success and just limiting itself to "add-on" effects - you should take that to the author, not folks who mention it in discussions with others.

No amount of attitude directed at me will change one pixel in that PDF (cuz its not mine) for you to make it any less offensive to your playstyle sensitivity meter.

I do not see how my preferences would be a challenge to your playstyle either but hey... to each their own outrage.

 

[Yaarel]

I want skill rolls to use the same math as combat rolls. So, if combat has crits and fumbles, then I want skills to have them too.

 

[5ekyu]

I want skill rolls to use the same math as combat rolls. So, if combat has crits and fumbles, then I want skills to have them too.

There are three d20 combat rolls - saves, attacks and ability checks (grapple and shove) and only one of the three has crits now.

I can see that desire but since a given attack roll is usually one of many rolls needed to overcome a combat challenge - the math is extremely different. In my games, most ability check based challenges require one roll to resolve and the rest between 3-5 but most combat require more attack rolls than that, a lot more.

So the math isnt the same - even it it seems like it.

But if I were to choose to standardize the d20 rolls homebrew I would go with how saves and ability checks go and remove nat 20 crits from attack rolls - making the mechanics the same.

If having the "math be the same is the purpose, it's reasonable to remove the odd case than to make all of them odd cases - to me at least.

 

[77IM]

This article is excellent!

The DM already decides the effects of success and failure on an ability check. So I already give "extra success" on a Nat 20 and it works great. Players love hitting that Nat 20! On a natural 1, I let the player decide whether a fumble happens, and if it does, they get Inspiration. Otherwise it feels like punishing people just for trying, which is no fun.