What if a level 1 killed a level 40

[NaturalFn20]

What about 1s? I've rolled 8 1s out of the first 11 rolls of the 4th ed game I played once as a warlock. Eventually I nat 1'd 4 times in a row and the last one was to hit a campfire. the DM said "You have angered the Weave. You summoned a Fire Elemental out of the camp fire with your Eldritch Blast"

lmao. Thankfully I've never really angered the D&D gods enough to have suffered more than 2 natural 1s in a row.

Rolling D8s is another story though. I'm HORRIBLE with D8s and get 1's all the time.

I'd rather roll a d6 for damage than a d8. Pretty sad.

 

[Dandu]

What can you do against 20 20 20?

If you're a Fatespinner, you can force the enemy to reroll.

 

[Axel]

All you can do (as player or DM) is laugh, and make up an awesome story afterwards. Sadly I've never even scored 2 20's in a row, my best effort being a 20, then 19. At least they were attack rolls.

Natural 1's don't come all that often to me, thankfully. At least for attack rolls. I do have a tendency to roll single digits in long sequences (I once missed 7 consecutive attacks with a level 12 barbarian vs AC 24).

Spot rolls on the other hand...natural 1 ahoy! Say what, there's a Grell? Where???? I'm going closer to have a look.

 

[Pergentile]

Automatically killing something with three rolls of "20" for "to hit" is a home-brew rule isn't it? RAW state that normally, the damage multiplier simply increases by one for each extra critical roll.
20=x2 Threat
20, 20=x2 with x3 Threat
20, 20, 20=x3 with x4 Threat
20, 20, 20, 20=x4 with x5 Threat

Also, since Eldritch Blast is an Invocation, it has a critical threat range of 20, but no critical fail chance unless home-brewed again, IIRC.

 

[NaturalFn20]

Automatically killing something with three rolls of "20" for "to hit" is a home-brew rule isn't it? RAW state that normally, the damage multiplier simply increases by one for each extra critical roll.
20=x2 Threat
20, 20=x2 with x3 Threat
20, 20, 20=x3 with x4 Threat
20, 20, 20, 20=x4 with x5 Threat

Also, since Eldritch Blast is an Invocation, it has a critical threat range of 20, but no critical fail chance unless home-brewed again, IIRC.

Hmm, not sure really. Haven't personally read enough to say. I just know that in my group we play 20=auto hit, threatening critical if the monster can be criticaled. Another successive 20=Auto Critical if it can be criticaled and threatening instant kill. A 3rd successful 20 = Instant kill.

Can't instant kill a monster that can't be criticaled like contructs.

 

[AuraSeer]

Automatically killing something with three rolls of "20" for "to hit" is a home-brew rule isn't it? RAW state that normally, the damage multiplier simply increases by one for each extra critical roll.

By RAW, a natural 20 is just an autohit and a critical threat. Two 20s in a row only means that you've automatically confirmed the critical. Then you roll damage. That's all.

Anything that has you keep rolling d20s is a house rule.

Note that such rules are almost always to the disadvantage of the PCs. Since a PC lives longer and is subject to a lot more attack rolls over his lifetime, he has a much higher cumulative chance of eventually getting nailed by the dice gods.

 

[the Jester]

Automatically killing something with three rolls of "20" for "to hit" is a home-brew rule isn't it? RAW state that normally, the damage multiplier simply increases by one for each extra critical roll.
20=x2 Threat
20, 20=x2 with x3 Threat
20, 20, 20=x3 with x4 Threat
20, 20, 20, 20=x4 with x5 Threat

Also, since Eldritch Blast is an Invocation, it has a critical threat range of 20, but no critical fail chance unless home-brewed again, IIRC.

Huh? 3e RAW says you threaten a crit on a 20 (or whatever your weapon's threat range is), and a second attack roll that hits means you inflict a crit. There's nothing about increasing the multiplier on another natural 20- although that's a cool house rule.

Also, there's no critical failure at all by RAW.

 

[Pergentile]

Ah, my bad. Increasing critical multipliers is also a Variant Rule like Instant Kills, Fumbles, Critical Successes and Critical Failures.

 

[Jhaelen]

I made a exp chart based off of the D&D 3.5 exp table
View attachment 47993

Actually the answer to the thread title's question is 'well, then something's fishy!'

Killing something with a CR more than 8 above your level will grant zero xp, just like killing something 8+ levels below your level. Alternatively, instantly award godhood to the level 1 character, thus taking him out of play.

 

[SuperJebba]

The variant rule for insta-kills is in the PHB. I forget exactly where it is, but it's in a sidebar. It says if you roll a 20 and then roll a 20 to confirm the critical hit, you can roll again and if you confirm the roll again, you insta-kill.

I did that to an adult black dragon with my throwing returning dwarves waraxe. It. Was. AWESOME!