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General Tabletop Discussion
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Advantage, Criticals, and Fumbles
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8509557" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>My thoughts on adv-disadv is that it's a brilliant mechanic in the right situation but 5e uses it wa-a-ay too much, in places where a flat bonus or penalty would be better. Flat bonuses or penalties are also far more granular and apply equally all the way across the 1-20 spectrum, where adv-disadv instead turns a linear outcome into a bell curve.</p><p></p><p>I also think that for a given roll, if there's competing adv and disadv each instance of one should cancel out an instance of the other, and when all the cancelling-out is done if anything is left over it should apply.</p><p></p><p>To explain: right now if on a roll there's 4 things giving you adv and just one giving disadv they all cancel out and the roll is flat. My preference would be that the one disadv cancels out just one of the adv's, there's adv's left over so roll with advantage.</p><p></p><p>I fully endorse both criticals and fumbles.</p><p></p><p>That said, for criticals: there very much needs to be a confirm roll unless you want criticals happening all the time; and the strength of the confirm roll can also inform as to how powerful the critical is. Simple double-dice is kinda boring; I use an escalating multiplier on all damage (i.e. roll as normal, add the bonuses, then multiply the lot) that can go as high as 4x.</p><p></p><p>I get it about your points 2A and 2C but I've always kept criticals as being the same chance no matter what, in part because making crits easier against squishies would be hell on wheels for squishy PCs and they've already got enough headaches as it is.</p><p></p><p>As for saves, I've always had it that a 20 always succeeds and a 1 always fails. On a case-by-case basis I might rule that a 20-save has extra-useful effects (e.g. for a borderline case it shows you were just outside the fireball's AoE and thus got missed entirely) but it's not hard-coded and probably never will be. For ability checks etc. not so much, as sometimes you just ain't gonna fail or succeed no matter how hard you try.</p><p></p><p>Fully agree here with points 3A and 3B. Disagree with 3F, though; I likes me some comedy sometimes. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Fumbles IMO also need a confirm roll, but unlike criticals there also needs to be a table of possible effects ranging from the common and quite minor (e.g. disarm self, spend next [action, bonus action] rearming with same weapon or another) to the uncommon and potentially dangerous (e.g. a defensive miscue gives your foe an immediate free attack against you) to the rare oh-ship-I-really-shouldn't-have-done-that (e.g. full or even critical damage to self or ally).</p><p></p><p>A corollary here is that IMO many spells, particulaly AoE's, should require aiming rolls and should be fumble-able (but not crittable except in unusual circumstances). One rather hilarous sequence in my game a few years ago: fighter wants to charge in right where caster wants to put a fireball, caster yells at fighter to get behind her until her spell resolves, fighter does so*, caster then fumbles the spell and after some rolling it's determined she aimed it directly backwards, so guess who was ground zero... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>* - which itself was amazing; this might be the only time in his entire career this guy's ever followed anybody's instructions on anything!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8509557, member: 29398"] My thoughts on adv-disadv is that it's a brilliant mechanic in the right situation but 5e uses it wa-a-ay too much, in places where a flat bonus or penalty would be better. Flat bonuses or penalties are also far more granular and apply equally all the way across the 1-20 spectrum, where adv-disadv instead turns a linear outcome into a bell curve. I also think that for a given roll, if there's competing adv and disadv each instance of one should cancel out an instance of the other, and when all the cancelling-out is done if anything is left over it should apply. To explain: right now if on a roll there's 4 things giving you adv and just one giving disadv they all cancel out and the roll is flat. My preference would be that the one disadv cancels out just one of the adv's, there's adv's left over so roll with advantage. I fully endorse both criticals and fumbles. That said, for criticals: there very much needs to be a confirm roll unless you want criticals happening all the time; and the strength of the confirm roll can also inform as to how powerful the critical is. Simple double-dice is kinda boring; I use an escalating multiplier on all damage (i.e. roll as normal, add the bonuses, then multiply the lot) that can go as high as 4x. I get it about your points 2A and 2C but I've always kept criticals as being the same chance no matter what, in part because making crits easier against squishies would be hell on wheels for squishy PCs and they've already got enough headaches as it is. As for saves, I've always had it that a 20 always succeeds and a 1 always fails. On a case-by-case basis I might rule that a 20-save has extra-useful effects (e.g. for a borderline case it shows you were just outside the fireball's AoE and thus got missed entirely) but it's not hard-coded and probably never will be. For ability checks etc. not so much, as sometimes you just ain't gonna fail or succeed no matter how hard you try. Fully agree here with points 3A and 3B. Disagree with 3F, though; I likes me some comedy sometimes. :) Fumbles IMO also need a confirm roll, but unlike criticals there also needs to be a table of possible effects ranging from the common and quite minor (e.g. disarm self, spend next [action, bonus action] rearming with same weapon or another) to the uncommon and potentially dangerous (e.g. a defensive miscue gives your foe an immediate free attack against you) to the rare oh-ship-I-really-shouldn't-have-done-that (e.g. full or even critical damage to self or ally). A corollary here is that IMO many spells, particulaly AoE's, should require aiming rolls and should be fumble-able (but not crittable except in unusual circumstances). One rather hilarous sequence in my game a few years ago: fighter wants to charge in right where caster wants to put a fireball, caster yells at fighter to get behind her until her spell resolves, fighter does so*, caster then fumbles the spell and after some rolling it's determined she aimed it directly backwards, so guess who was ground zero... :) * - which itself was amazing; this might be the only time in his entire career this guy's ever followed anybody's instructions on anything! [/QUOTE]
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