Vorpal and Sharpness and Fumble rules...

[Dandu]

I also allow for Raise Dead, Reincarnation, etc... so even when a PC dies, it is not the end of the line for them unless the player wants it to be, or they cannot arrange to pay for such services, if unable to do it themselves. So if a limb gets cut off, they can get it regenerated. I had one player who liked his PC being one armed, so never got it fixed.

So it's alright because you can make up for cutting your limbs off every now and then with enough time and money.

Well, I guess if your players enjoy it...

So to sum up, its all about what is fun to you and what is fun for me, and that is how we should play.

And I play without them for reasons StreamoftheSky has adequately explained.

1) This would be a reasonable argument if fumbles were advanced and defended solely on the grounds that they were realistic.
2) Gritty sword play occurs in my games probably with about 1000 times the frequency that giant fire breathing magical lizards are encountered.

1) It is one of the grounds on which they are being advanced and defended, so it is one of the augments that will be put forth.
2) There are surely better ways of running gritty games without turning a session into slapstick theater. Now, I may be misunderstanding the term, but when I hear the term "gritty", I think of genres like Western cowboy movies like True Grit and 3:10 to Yuma, none of which involved much in the way of critical fumbles.

Now, you could add in a confirmation system for crit fumbles to prevent slapstick theater, but that makes the game less gritty, and adds even more dice rolls to the game.

 

[Celebrim]

I think what dandu is getting at, is with those vorpal rules, after 20 rounds the fighter should statistically have killed himself

And I would reply to that that no good critical or fumble system lacks a confirmation roll. If a system lacks a confirmation roll, it tends to mean that the more skillful you are, the more likely you are to screw up badly.

If there is a confirmation roll, then concievably a fumble only occurs every 400 attacks. Then further, if 'strike self' is only one of many possibilities, then it's concievable that you hit your self fewer than 1 in 8000 attacks. Further, since a vorpal weapon doesn't decapitate the target with every stroke, it could be that the fighter requires 10's of thousands of attacks with a razor sharp weapon enchanted to willfully remove heads to screw up so badly as to use it on himself.

Is this realistic? Speaking as someone with some experience with a blade, and having watched many others use or wield blades as tools or weapons, I would say, "Yes."

But its not merely that it is realistic. It is cinematic, in that it adds visually tangible results to the combat. And it is memorable, in that when a fumble occurs it adds something to the battle which might other be 'swing, roll damage' and mostly grinding away hit points. And on those grounds, I think fumbles are potentially a good addition to a rules set, provided that care is taken in their implementation so that skilled combatants have less to fear from fumbles than incompotent ones.

In my system, I do this by having a variaty of types of fumbles, each of which has a confirmation check which the skillful can avoid far more readily than the unskilled. These are:

1) Balance checks: These tend to be fairly low DC, depending on the entry rolled 5 to 10 DC - though they are modified by the terrain you are fighting on. Results vary from losing your dexterity bonus for a round, to falling prone. As a result, a combatant with a few ranks in balance can normally fight without tripping himself up, though anyone can expect to fall down more often fighting on a slippery slope, broken stairs, etc.
2) Endurance checks: These also tend to be fairly low DC, again 5-10, and so can be avoided with good constitution and various feats and abilities. Failure indicates anything from immediate or delayed fatigue to a pulled muscle, causing either immediate or delayed loss of strength or dexterity.
3) Combat skill checks: These are confirmed by making a second roll, which if it also fails to hit the target indicates you did something particular silly and klutzy. Again, this can very between simply dropping your gaurd, and giving your opponents a bonus to hit you, to losing your grip on your weapon, to granting your opponent an attack of opportunity, to trying to sunder your own weapon, to striking yourself with your weapon. Note that the 'strike self' result is further qualified by entries that negate it if you use a natural attack, and others negated by using a blunt weapon, and that some 'strike self' results note that your strength bonus doesn't apply and/or that critical hits cannot result from the blow.

The campaign has been going for about two years now real time with scores of combats, with six players lasting in some cases 20 or 30 rounds, yet in all of that I think there have only been 3 cases of players striking themselves with their own weapons - with the maximum result of 6 damage - and probably an equal number of goblins and the like shooting themselves the foot or wrapping flails around their own necks. There have been 2-3 cases of overexhertion or pulled muscles, 2-3 dropped weapons, and several dozen cases of dropping ones guard and leaving oneself vulnerable to attack (not all of which have occurred when an enemy was capable of capitalizing on the situation). I'm fairly certain even the least skilled melee combatants among them would beat a practice dummy.

 

[Celebrim]

And I play without them for reasons StreamoftheSky has adequately explained.

Yeah, but, you are citing SteamoftheSky as an authority...
On a board that isn't EnWorld...
That requires registration...
Which is closed...

So even if it was a brilliant essay, it isn't getting off to the greatest start.

but when I hear the term "gritty", I think of genres like Western cowboy movies like True Grit and 3:10 to Yuma, none of which involved much in the way of critical fumbles.

Funny, because when I think of the term gritty, neither the first, nor the second, nor the third thing that comes into my mind is anything put out by Hollywood. In fact, if I went to list things that were gritty, action movies would tend to be left off that list.

 

[Treebore]

Yeah, in my games I have a confirmation roll, then we determine what happens. Just with a Vorpal or Sharpness weapon, any result that involves the words "Hit self" means body parts are coming off.

 

[Dandu]

Do not worry, my friend, for through the power of the internets, I can transmit words through the tubes to your location.

I hate critical fumble rules. No, actually. I ING HATE critical fumble rules!!

I joined a game about 2 months ago with a character I have really enjoyed. A 17th level Dervish / Shadowdancer. She's sociopathic due to being kidnapped as a child and raised by bloodthirsty maurauders before becoming somewhat of an evil overlord herself, but she's since reconnected with her long-lost sister and is trying to be good, despite her tendencies and a complete ignorance of basic concepts of politeness or moral codes, which still perplex her. She's a fightery build. She hacks stuff up in melee and can get the drop on folks. She is so far from overpowered... Anyway, aside from mechanics, role playing her is a genuine blast, the mix of cruel childlike innocence and relatively carefree happy go lucky (to an almost creepy degree) attitude makes her fun to portray.

But alas, this thread is to lament her imminent passing. For, as I discovered this week, the first time we've encountered a lot of combat since I joined, the DM neglected to mention this game uses fumble houserules. ing godawful ones, at that. ANY physical attack, whether it be unarmed, bow, touch to initiate a trip... can fumble, and will, if you roll a 1. No confirm roll (not that it makes the fundamental problem any better, it just makes the blemish come up less), it just happens. Usually dropping the weapon, sometimes going prone or whatever other "funny" thing the DM can think of that will waste at least your move action the next turn. My character is a DERVISH. An AoO-centered dervish. Against numerous foes, the kind of opposition she was built to take on cause her background is being a ing warlord, she often gets well into the double digits for attack rolls per turn. Especially considering successful trips are basically two attack rolls in one action.

Suffice to say, she fumbled. A LOT. I think she managed to average one fumble per round she was in combat. Aside from the mechanical super nerf that is to melee, the more damning thing is...it just made me angry and blah. Until the first fumble came up, I was having fun. Artfully describing her actions, making witty banter, ROLEPLAYING. As soon as those completely immersion-breaking fumbles came into play, that immediately ended. I just felt deflated. THIS is what a near epic battle goddess performs like in combat?! I couldn't take my own character seriously anymore. I felt no desire to roleplay anything or be funny. I attempted a few 4th wall breaking comments about the situation, like "Guess I should get a locked gauntlet. ...But then I'd just start falling down..." which just annoyed the DM about my bitching. I started purposefully not using my trip abilities I had invested so much into because it mathematically doubled my chances of looking like a goober. Combat wasn't fun anymore, it was just a series of me wondering when next I was going to roll a 1 and have part of my gamer soul die inside. It was a chore.

The DM himself said he wasn't fond of fumble rules. But the game had gone on for over 2 years and the previous DM used them. The other players LOVED them (which they do in fact seem to), so when I said I refused to play a martial character under these conditions, he chose his stupid houserules over my character. And so now I am building a 17th level wizard who will never ever roll a physical attack roll (magical ones are ok ), and will be many times more powerful than the PC I enjoyed and was happy to play. It's hard not to be more powerful when you have Shapechange and PAO, and the DM's already said he's fine with them, of course. (WTF?)

Sorry this was so long, I just ing hate fumble rules soooooooooo much, and they've just managed to ruin for me one of the PCs I most enjoyed probably in my last 2 years of playing. And that makes me kind of bitter.

 

[Treebore]

So it's alright because you can make up for cutting your limbs off every now and then with enough time and money.

Actually, it just means I play by the rules by making such spells available/usable in my games. I have thought about eliminating them, but couldn't think of a better way to allow players to keep playing their PC's when killed, which will eventually happen, in all likelihood. I have had some PC's last whole campaigns without dying, but that works out to about 1 in 3, and they almost always are not the "front line" guys.

 

[Celebrim]

Do not worry, my friend, for through the power of the internets, I can transmit words through the tubes to your location.

Now that I see it, I think I've heard this story before. I believe it has actually been told at EnWorld if not in those exact words, then the general gist of it.

I joined a game about 2 months ago with a character I have really enjoyed. A 17th level Dervish / Shadowdancer. She's sociopathic due to being kidnapped as a child and raised by bloodthirsty maurauders before becoming somewhat of an evil overlord herself, but she's since reconnected with her long-lost sister and is trying to be good, despite her tendencies and a complete ignorance of basic concepts of politeness or moral codes, which still perplex her.

Isn't that just SotS all over.

She's a fightery build. She hacks stuff up in melee and can get the drop on folks. She is so far from overpowered... Anyway, aside from mechanics, role playing her is a genuine blast, the mix of cruel childlike innocence and relatively carefree happy go lucky (to an almost creepy degree) attitude makes her fun to portray.

Sweet. I can totally see SotS pulling that off and making a really memorable character.

No confirm roll...

Yep.

...she often gets well into the double digits for attack rolls per turn.

Sigh. I'm not sure which is worse - houserules that have unconstrained fumbles with no confirmation role - or thinking that you can play 17th level characters in a D20 system without severely houseruling the beejeesus out of the game.

No, I know what is worse, blaming bad DMing on the rules. And not only 'the rules' but what is actually on inspection the lack of rules. Because a close reading of the text discovers that they don't have a rule for what happens when you fumble. They leave it entirely up to the DM. So it wasn't like rules were actually screwing over SotS - every time he rolled a 1 the DM was actively screwing him over by fiat. You couldn't even do anything to avoid it, since taking precautions against losing a blade would just result in more severe penalties. That isn't rules. That's bad DMing - because the DM could have just said, 'Ok, your wild battle dance leaves you open to attack, your foes have a +2 bonus to hit you the next turn' or 'In your wild battle dance, you've become fatigued. Once you end combat you must rest for 10 minutes.' But the DM actually lacks the imagination to come up with a solution to the problem, even though he's been left with complete power because the system runs entirely on his word. That's not rules; that's bad DMing. That's the rest of the group collectively deciding someone else shouldn't be having fun.

Fundamentally, what we have here is an ancedote. A funny, slightly tragic, and instructive ancedote to be sure, but that's all it is. And the lesson I learn from it is, "Rules are a good thing. Don't leave things up to fiat, or you'll tend to be unfair even if it isn't your intention to be unfair." I'd also like to hear from the rest of the group, because it certainly sounds like another interpretation is, "That character that was rolling 15 attacks each round, wasn't nearly as amusing to the rest of the group as it was to SotS and the fumble rule was in place precisely to prevent people from taking 5 minutes rolling their attacks every turn."

 

[Dandu]

Funny, because when I think of the term gritty, neither the first, nor the second, nor the third thing that comes into my mind is anything put out by Hollywood. In fact, if I went to list things that were gritty, action movies would tend to be left off that list.

So, what is your list?

I'd also like to hear from the rest of the group, because it certainly sounds like another interpretation is, "That character that was rolling 15 attacks each round, wasn't nearly as amusing to the rest of the group as it was to SotS and the fumble rule was in place precisely to prevent people from taking 5 minutes rolling their attacks every turn."

My understanding is that in such situations, the conflict is generally best resolved by talking to the person and explaining the problem rather than through passive-aggressive dickery. YMMV.

 

[Wyvernhand]

I don't like critical fumble rules for several of the reasons posted above. Most particularly, however, is game balance. Why put in a rule that dynamically NERFS melee types while doing absolutely nothing with casters? Why does a 6th level character have a 2x more likely chance of screwing up than a 5th level character? If you put in a series of checks and balances to make sure it doesn't happen often, as [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] pointed out, and the actual chance is only 1 in over 9000, why even have the rule? If it doesn't come up in 99% of games, it obviously isn't something that is super important.

It either messes with PCs who don't need to be messed with anymore than already fighting for their lives, or it comes up so seldom that devoting time and effort to remembering it and enforcing it doesn't achieve any more immersion into the game.

I don't like rules that aren't applicable, and I don't like rules that kick a downed dog. I don't play with either fumble OR death by massive damage saves because statistically speaking, they mostly only really mess with melee oriented PCs, and rolling a 1 already sucks enough as it is.

 

[Celebrim]

So, what is your list?

To keep the list short and to the point, I'll just list examples of 'gritty violence' in decreasing grittiness.

1) Actual war.
2) Gladiatorial combat or other duels that are generally to the death.
3) Being attacked or eaten by carnivorous animals.
4) Duels which are likely to be called off a first blood.
5) Gang combat.
6) Getting mugged.
7) Street fights.
8) Barfights.
10) Bloodsports with few or no rules, such as early era MMA, ancient pankration, or boxing.
11) Full contact combat sports involving frequent victory by contact, such a MMA, kickboxing or boxing.
12) Play ground fights.
13) Full contact historical reenactment, including real jousting and combat in armor or padding with real but dulled weapons.
14) Low contact combat sports usually decided on points, such as free style wrestling, taikwano, judo, etc.

Below this level, combat is not gritty because it is not constrained by reality.

In otherwords, gritty involves 'looking like things are real and trying emulate things that are real'.

By contrast, things that aren't gritty would include:
1) Action movies that are trying to be gritty.
2) Wuxia.
3) Staged combat, such as faked jousting at dinner theater or RenFair.
4) Theaterical combat, such as in a play.
5) Video games.
6) Action movies that aren't trying to be gritty

Combat of this sort is designed to be 'showy', fun to look at, entertaining, to have a point, and to tell a definite story.

Games that attempt to be really gritty tend to also be low combat, high melodrama RP fests, because frankly if the combat is actually gritty no one really wants to engage in it because it tends to maim, impair, and kill those involved. GURPS played gritty with high tech weapons would tend to be like that. Games that attempt to be really theaterical tend to have lots of combat, but can also get so divorsed from reality that loose thier dramatic punch - like the sterilized bloodless combat of a 1940's war movie, the Matrix especially the sequels, or the visually stunning combat of an action movie or video game which - when translated to a PnP game - never seems to be quite as interesting because it really did depend on that viceral motion and visual effects to excite you. That can also get so cinematic that they lose any sense of tactics and problem solving. Exalted has all those problems in spades IMO, and still manages to be too lethal and swingy for what it is trying to achieve.