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:

• #242. Ability Check Criticals. Rolling a natural 20 or a natural 1 has never been so much fun! With these ability check critical effects, there are positive and negative tables for physical, social, medicine, knowledge, and arcane style checks. By Jeff Gomez; illustrated by Herman Lau.
• #241. Bloodweaver: Tome of Disciplines. This enormous, 15-page article, contains a whole host of disciplines for the Bloodweaver class introduced in EN5ider earlier this week!
• #240. Bloodweaver: Basic Class Information. Bloodweavers use the primal power coursing through their veins to enhance their own abilities, heal or bolster allies, and debilitate or kill their foes. Many fear them for their control over the substance of life but those that can see past this superstitious dread often find powerful allies.
• #239. Geomancer: Advanced Class Information. Last month EN5ider, the 5E Patreon, introduced the Geomancer class. In this week's article, Josh Gentry provides you with three new geomancer orders - Order of the Apothecary (mystical healers), Order of the Architect (builders and protectors), and Order of the Rune Knight (wielders of elements in war). Illustrated by Julio Rocha and Tan Ho Sim.
• #238. ZEITGEIST #5 (Part 2) - Cauldron Born. The conspiracy continues in Flint's dark underbelly. Now at the king’s command it is time for the Royal Homeland Constabulary to rip this threat from its shadowy womb beneath the haunted mountain named Cauldron Hill and thrust it into the light of day.
• #237. Backstory Feats. An adventurer’s background doesn’t need to end when they begin the adventuring life. The skills learned in an adventurer’s past can grow and develop into lifelong skills throughout their adventuring career. This set of 13 feats uses the 13 core backgrounds as prerequisites and represents the advancement and integration of their old skills with their new experience. The Grifter feat allows a character with the charlatan background to fleece marks like a master, and the Old Salt feat allows a character with the sailor background true mastery over the nautical arts.
• #236. Expanded Races: Half-Orc. This selection of half-orc subraces includes the barbaric Bloodrager, fiendish Brimskin, deadly Deeplurker, industrious Forgemaker, draconic Scalefang, and the primal Spiritspeaker. By Chris Davies; illustrated by Xanditz.

 

[jmucchiello]

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.

But do you allow Persuasion crits to turn an enemy into the party's best bud? If you enjoy that kind of thing, that's great for you. But I don't enjoy it. No persuasion roll is going to make the Ancient Red Dragon decide not to incinerate a band of thieves in their den. The dragon my toy with the thieves because of the roll. But unless they have something more to offer than an attempt at seduction, they are getting fried in the end.

But there are tables were a single Persuasion crit turns that evil red dragon into the party's pet dragon. That's the badwrongfun I was referring to. And I don't mean it condescendingly. I mean such play unfun to ME and I would prefer not to play at that table.