Auto-failure on a Nat 1/Auto-success on a Nat 20 - How Often Does This Come Up?

[James McMurray]

Then perhaps he shouldn't power attack for 5?

 

[Brian Gibbons]

what about a 12th level character having no chance of saving due to a super high DC 50 attack? In that light, having a 20 count as an auto-success seems like a good idea, but one could not just ignore the 1 rule and leave the 20 rule or things would be unbalanced.

Whether or not you allow auto-success of a saving throw on a natural 20 has little effect. If a PC/creature could not save against the effect with a roll of 20, and needs the auto-success rule to live, the odds are that the next round is not going to go pleasantly for them anyway.

It will occasionally give the PC/creature one more round of life (or even allow them to realize they're out-matched and escape, or allow allies to finish off the foe), but it's rarely going to have a meaningful effect on the combat, and almost never going to be meaningfully harmful to the PCs.

Having a natural 20 auto-succeed on a saving throw, without natural 1s auto-failing, may not seem aesthetically pleasing, but it doesn't really have any balance implications either way.

 

[Slife]

Of course this is semi-addressed by some feats that let you sub skill checks (which don't autofail) for saves. There's one which subs concentration for fortitude, for example.

 

[hong]

but one could not just ignore the 1 rule and leave the 20 rule or things would be unbalanced.

Why can't you ignore the 1 rule and leave the 20 rule? Do you expect the 1 rule to complain bitterly that it's being nerfed or isn't getting enough spotlight time?

 

[Crothian]

I think I've seen it maybe 5 times in 7 years and I play plenty of high level games.

 

[jdrakeh]

I've seen it come up a lot, particularly at high levels when the attack and save bonuses between the classes grow large. It might be easy for the fighter to hit, but the wizard needs that natural 20 to have a chance. It might be easy for the monk to save, but the fighter's relying on sheer dumb luck. And it means even the figher in example one, or the monk in example two, can't afford to get too cocky, since there's always that one chance in 20 of failure...

I'd argue vehemently against any removal of this rule.

What he said. This rule ensures that actual dice rolling never becomes pointless because, when in place, there is always a 1 in 20 chance of failure -- no matter how good and practiced a character may be. Conversely, this rule also ensures that there is always a 1 in 20 chance that the untrained villager can get lucky with their pitchfork. This kind of random chance not only adds suspense to every die roll while also making such a die roll mechanically necessary but, likewise, imitates many conventions of popular fantasy fiction (e.g., extremely bad luck or good luck befalling the hero).

 

[hong]

I think I've seen it maybe 5 times in 7 years and I play plenty of high level games.

Fight more.

 

[Crothian]

Fight more.

We fight all the time. My players always lose.

 

[painandgreed]

It doesn't happen often enough to keep min/maxers from being cocky, but it does happen enough to occationally put them in their place.

 

[RFisher]

The obvious example of where needing a natural 20 for success is going to come up time after time in higher-level play is secondary attacks. Yes, the fighter may be able to hit easily against a particular enemy - but when he puts 5 points into Power Attack to make the most of his greatsword, and has a total of three iterative attacks to play with, you can easily find that by his third attack he 'needs' to roll a 22 on the dice to hit, barring the auto-hit-on-20 rules.

() This doesn't seem like much of an argument for auto-hit on a nat-20. A guy who gets three iterative attacks and has choosen to voluntarily lower his attack bonus via Power Attack?