D&D 5E Critical Fumbles a core rule?

The Crimson Binome · Jun 23, 2017

ccs said:
And yet no one cries about crit successes heavily rewarding those same people beyond always hitting.

It's not a significant bonus, and it doesn't scale only by number of attacks. Critical successes reward attackers in proportion to how much damage they deal normally, without accounting for critical successes. You could replace the current crit rules with "all weapon attacks deal +1 damage per die" and it would have very little effect beyond smoothing out paladin bursts.

Fanaelialae · Jun 23, 2017

ccs said:
And yet no one cries about crit successes heavily rewarding those same people beyond always hitting.

I know it's weird, but a lot of people who play this game want to have a cool persona in the game whose chance to trip over his own feet isn't directly proportional to his skill with a blade. Crazy!

Redthistle · Jun 24, 2017

KahlessNestor said:
And none of those address crit fails on attack rolls other than auto miss.

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Yes, it does. As Jeremy Crawford has stated time and time again (most often in Sage Advice), if a description (whether of a rule, a spell, a feature, etc.) includes something, it specifically states it in that description.

Critical failures are not mentioned in the core rules, therefore, they are not included in the core rules. The auto-miss is the only aspect of a natural 1 that is a core rule.

Any other effects of a critical failure are strictly left up to home rules.

robus · Jun 24, 2017

I support the critical success and failure as they can add some fun drama even in combat. For example the other night the party was having a fight on an airship. The monk PC stated that with his extra attack he was going to rush at the crewmember at the other side of the ship. He rolled a 1. I adjudicated that the crewmember surprised him by ducking out of the way and his momentum threatened to send him over the side. He made a Dex save and managed to grab something before falling off.

KahlessNestor · Jun 24, 2017

Redthistle said:
Yes, it does. As Jeremy Crawford has stated time and time again (most often in Sage Advice), if a description (whether of a rule, a spell, a feature, etc.) includes something, it specifically states it in that description.

Critical failures are not mentioned in the core rules, therefore, they are not included in the core rules. The auto-miss is the only aspect of a natural 1 that is a core rule.

Any other effects of a critical failure are strictly left up to home rules.

Not sure why you're quoting me, since that's exactly what I have been saying. .. *shrugs*

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Jester David · Jun 24, 2017

While it's often been in the core rules, it's always been optional.
But that doesn't really matter. If your DM says it happens, it happens.

Al2O3 · Jun 24, 2017

The fumble part is not in the rules, but it is common enough that it is an easy misunderstanding. I guess there are a bunch of memes etc on the topic.

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Redthistle · Jun 24, 2017

KahlessNestor said:
Not sure why you're quoting me, since that's exactly what I have been saying. .. *shrugs*

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Oops! I missed the intended meaning of your comment.

Oofta · Jun 24, 2017

Jester David said:
While it's often been in the core rules, it's always been optional.
But that doesn't really matter. If your DM says it happens, it happens.

Not that I disagree with you, but that's kind of like saying it's always been an optional rule that all characters are colored purple and can only say "bleep".

While technically true, it's kind of meaningless. Optional rules in home games have always been, well, an option.

Critical fumbles are probably one of the more common house rules, but I don't remember ever seeing them in a book (I don't even remember in anything officially published from TSR/WOTC), and I've been pretty much playing from the beginning. Of course, that means I'm old so I could have old-timers and just forgetting that optional rule in 2E's Book of Stupid Options. What were we talking about again?

Some people like critical failures, and if all classes only had one attack I could see some variant working. I tried it for a while, giving people a secondary save based on their level, but it's more hassle than it's worth. Now if someone misses by a lot I may use it for fluff to describe combat but there's no mechanical effect.

To the OP: the DM does make the rules and while you can discuss your concerns about it at some point you have to decide whether it's a deal breaker for you. In the past, it has been for me. I had a DM that between critical hits being auto-death on a regular basis and breaking or losing weapons every other combat the game just wasn't fun anymore. Especially since they never applied to the other characters since they used ranged weapons or relied on spells.