Have Critical Failures that hurt you ever been an official rule.

[Moon_Goddess]

I started playing in 2e, I've played a little OD&D but never any 1e, and it's been years and years since I've done any of them so I just don't remember

I have frequently heard as a complaint from my friends about new DND (4e) that it doesn't include this rule, and how "Well that's how it always was" (despite some of them starting in 3.x)

So I'm not really asking was there an optional rule in the book, I'm asking was it every the default rule that rolling a 1 did damage to you, or a miss hit your allies.

 

[Morrus]

Critical failures (fumbles) based on a roll of 1 have a fundamental, inescapable flaw. They penalise the best combatants - the ones with more attack rolls. The more attacks you have, the more likely you are to roll a 1.

I don't object to fumble rules, but not ones which hurt good fighters more often than crappy ones.

 

[Bolcien]

I sparsely use fumbles in my game mainly cause the players don't like it, usualy I limit them to dropped weapons, or 1d4 damage due to cutting them selves if they do it more then once in an encounter. it's just a random thing I do no real set rules, I just throw out what feels right.

 

[DeathPhoenyx]

I don't believe that there have ever been a rule that says so, I think it is just a thing that spreads from group to group and everybody just takes for granted that is how it is done because that is how everybody does it.

In my group we have always treated fumbles as what they are, particularly bad luck, things going haywire or just monumental ups in general. We don't really like that whole "oh yo stab yourself in the kidney while trying to swing your greatsword" because, most of the times, having a fumble hurt yourself won't always make sense. Fumbles in our games are represented with things going horribly wrong: your gun jams in the middle of a firefight, you swing your weapon but the sweat in your hands make it slip and flies a couple of meters and you are now defenceless, you try to shoot the guy holding a human shield but end up blowing the civilian's head up by accident, things like that. It is just a matter of being a little bit imaginative, and the fights have much more flavour that way, if you ask me.

Obviously a fumble can also mean you end up hurting yourself, but I consider that it can happen in particular situations, not as a general rule (you it up setting up an explosive charge and it blows up in your face, or a grenade slips as you throw it and fall at your feet)


tl;dr: I don't think there has ever been a rule that says so and yes, fumbles can mean that you hurt yourself, but they only should do so when it makes sense, and it is better for a fumble to be an unfortunate turn of events that can change the landscape of a combat on a moment's notice, it makes it more interesting

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

No, there has never been such an official rule in D&D.

I suggest mocking your friends mercilessly until they actually read ye olde rules.

 

[Dausuul]

No, that was never the default rule in any edition, and for good reason. It turns combat into a farce, especially with combatants who have lots of attacks per round. Imagine being a soldier in the real world who hurt yourself or an ally with 1 out of 20 shots fired. You'd never make it out of boot camp! If you did somehow wind up on a battlefield, you'd be court-martialed... if you survived.

 

[Dandu]

The rate of fire of an M-16 is roughly 500-600 rounds per minute and the magazine size is 30 rounds. If fumbles existed in real life, you'd have someone who causes wouldn't make it through his first magazine without injuring himself, his ally, or having the gun malfunction after roughly 5 seconds of firing.

 

[Morrus]

A lot of that can be mitigated if you say a fumble occurs on a 1 IF you would normally miss on that roll (ignoring the auto-miss) and IF a confirm roll misses. Stil skews a bit towards making those with multiple attacks fumble more often, but recuces it significantly.

However, a decent fumble rule CAN'T be based on a random chance per die roll in a system where competent charaters have more die rolls. You'd have to think of a totally different system. Mentally locking yourself into a place where it arbitrarily has to "mirror" the critical rule is a mistake.

 

[Argyle King]

Critical failures (fumbles) based on a roll of 1 have a fundamental, inescapable flaw. They penalise the best combatants - the ones with more attack rolls. The more attacks you have, the more likely you are to roll a 1.

I don't object to fumble rules, but not ones which hurt good fighters more often than crappy ones.

agreed

However, I see that as a flaw of D&D using a flat d20 rule in conjunction with the way D&D (and Pathfinder now) tends to handle multiple attacks. Plenty of other systems have fumble rules which work perfectly fine.

 

[Dausuul]

agreed

However, I see that as a flaw of D&D using a flat d20 rule in conjunction with the way D&D (and Pathfinder now) tends to handle multiple attacks. Plenty of other systems have fumble rules which work perfectly fine.

I don't doubt they exist somewhere, but I've yet to see a fumble rule in any system that didn't make me roll my eyes. In any case, fumble rules strike me as a solution in search of a problem. What is the value of having them?