Critical Role [5e][Homebrew][Critical Role Episode 21, minor spoiler] A thought on Wil Wheaton

[ClaytonCross]

I just watch Critical Role Episode 21 where Wil Wheaton roles 29 critical fail 1s in a single 4 hour episode. ... And I thought my roles were bad. Anyway I was just thinking what would it take to off set his horrible luck and let him play normally without being broken? I errr... discovered that conversations about home-brew even in relation to Critical Role are apparently not allowed and deleted immediately on the Critical Role Reddit. With that in mind and a number of disclaimers in my subject here is my idea. I invite anyone interested to through out suggestions of their own. I also think it would be most interesting if the designs would be considered bad for anyone who rolls normally. Please, have fun with it and I look forward to seeing what others come up with.

Ring of Cursed Wil (Not a Typo)
Once adorned this ring binds to the wearer and cannot be removed without cutting off the finger. It then alters their fate by reversing the extremes of their luck.
If the creature bearing this ring roles a 20 or 19 on any attack, skill tests, or save it is an automatic failure however, if the creature roles a 1 it is critical success. If the creature roles a 2 it counts as a 15. Lastly, once per short rest the bearer may by "force of Wil" cause the role to be unaffected by the ring.

I was thinking maybe something that effected all single digit rolls with a +5 but thought that might actually be good for normal players or ones with just a bit of bad luck.

 

[jayoungr]

I might want to make it a charged item, rather than an "all the time" thing. Let the user choose which 1s are important enough to reverse. Also, it would suck if all the crits became autofails. You never know when you might get a run of good luck.

Say, 3 charges per day, regain 1d2 at dawn the next day. Or 5 charges per day, regain 1d4 at dawn.

 

[Valetudo]

I have a friend I used to play DnD with that had the same kind of luck as Wil. Its amazing and sad to watch. I also have another friend with just the opposite luck, he would roll them nat 20s right in front of us and say"You want to verify that?".

 

[Satyrn]

I just watch Critical Role Episode 21 where Wil Wheaton roles 29 critical fail 1s in a single 4 hour episode. . .

I wouldn't be surprised if the die was loaded, just for the entertainment value

 

[epithet]

The easiest solution might be to set a maximum number of 1s that a single character can roll on d20s in a session (on actual game rolls, obviously.) Beyond that point, let the player re-roll any 1s. Best case is that one of those re-rolls is a 20, and the player goes home feeling good about it, luke his bad luck actually worked out for him.

 

[rczarnec]

The easiest solution is that he should play a Halfling as he would at least get to reroll all of those 1s.

 

[cooperjer]

I have Inspiration tied to critical fails. I have a 3d8 critical fail table with the three values near the average listed as "Nothing happens." When a player rolls a 1 on the attack roll, they can choose to roll on the critical fail table and receive an inspiration chip and pass one along to another player. Otherwise the results is the character misses the attack roll. This only occurs with a 1 rolled on an attack. An ability check or save still has the bonus added so a roll of 1 is not a critical fail result, but just a low number total.

The critical fail table is not too bad with respect to draw backs. I took inspiration from Numenera for most of the results.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Back in 4e, my brother had some truly atrocious luck of the dice. He insisted that it was just random chance, but later on the salt test revealed that his d20 was clearly biased to roll low. But until that day, I gave him the option of reversing his d20, so that a 1 counted as 20, a 2 as a 19, and so on, all the way to a nat 20 being a nat 1.