D&D 5E Critical Failures & House Rules

[The Crimson Binome]

And, really? that big of a chance is 5%? When combat usually endures through 3/5 rounds?

Given the number of dice rolls being made, a 5% chance of critical failure will on average affect every player in every session.

 

[Erechel]

Yes, of course this will affect them... about a 5% of the time. But you forgot that chance is not cumulative, and every roll of die have the same probability of a 1 or a 20. In a game, maybe almost every attack is a critical, but also you can be in several sessions without one.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I've been considering a house rule where fumbles occur if you have disadvantage and roll double 1s. And some kind of superior critical would occur if you rolled double 20s on a crit. Would be rare (1 in 400 chance IF you have adv/dis), and only occur when the conditions are befitting.

I've considered making it so that when you have adv/dis you have to roll a 20/1 and succeed/fail with the other roll to superior crit/fumble. It's more complicated but it also factors in skill.

The main issue I have with it is that it still doesn't address the fact that a Wizard with 1 attack could be less likely to fumble than a fighter with 9 attacks (action surge), under the same conditions. Maybe something like you can give up an attack to prevent your next attack from fumbling? It's still a work in progress.


We use a few house rules. 15 minute short rests (doesn't change a darn thing AFAIC, but the players prefer it). An initiative system where only the PCs roll; NPCs just take 10 (they often have NPCs with the party, and I found it was time consuming to constantly have to roll initiative for them AND the enemies). That sort of thing.

 

[doctorhook]

Yes, of course this will affect them... about a 5% of the time. But you forgot that chance is not cumulative, and every roll of die have the same probability of a 1 or a 20. In a game, maybe almost every attack is a critical, but also you can be in several sessions without one.

Just to reiterate what others have said, as the players increase in level, they'll get more attacks, which means more rolls. By max level, a fighter will attack four times with every action, meaning a 20% chance of at least one critical failure each round. Statistically, he's therefore extremely likely to get at least one critical failure every five rounds. Imagine it: at this point, he's one of the best fighters in the world, and yet the game says he'll fumble once every thirty seconds (five rounds). That's absurd.

 

[Li Shenron]

Hello, people, long time non reading you. Quick question: how much have you houseruled 5ed yet?

Depends on what kind of house rules you have in mind...

1) House Rules as rules changes

> none so far

2) House Rules as choosing what is/isn't in the game

> whole PHB allowed, and I would also allow to pick some character stuff from DMG, UA articles and WotC official online supplements, but first I'd check them out and decide on an individual basis if they fit with the current fantasy world

During playtest however I had restricted the game quite a lot, such as e.g. using only pregens, or not using Races, multiclassing and feats.

3) House Rules as metarules

> inevitably, you need these, whether you call them House Rules or not... these are the rules about how your groups arranges and manages gaming sessions. A couple of examples in my groups:

- Player's absence: when a player cannot make it to the game, her PC fades to background; the DM will run the PC on minimum terms i.e. participates in battles with a simple strategy, uses her non-limited resources including casting spells but not the limited ones such as items that don't recharge, does not make strategic decisions or plot decision of her own; the PC will not die, acquire penalties, lose equipment or suffer from other significant negative effects (unless the whole party does); the PC will not earn XP but will earn her share of treasure.

- PC death: if a player wants control over her PC's chance of death, it's fine for me. She won't die when she should by the rules, but something else bad will happen to her character instead.

- New characters start at 1st level (this still needs to be seen if it works! In previous editions, I had new characters start at the beginning of the same level as the lowest-level PC in the party)

- Summoned monsters and polymorphed stats: if your character can summon monsters or polymorph, you'd better have all the stats ready!

- Animal companion, familiars, cohorts ecc. are always run by the DM. The player interacts with them as with an NPC. (This is not always enforced)

 

[Pickles III]

Do you like these rules? Have you applied some minor (or major) ones?

No for the reaons other people stated. Plus the crit thing further nerfs 2 wepaon fighting and othe highly skilled warriors who attack multuple times per round

 

[Chocolategravy]

The main issue I have with it is that it still doesn't address the fact that a Wizard with 1 attack could be less likely to fumble than a fighter with 9 attacks (action surge), under the same conditions. Maybe something like you can give up an attack to prevent your next attack from fumbling? It's still a work in progress.

Have it only apply to the first attack in a round.

You aren't going to be seeing double 1s or double 20s much, and when you do it is likely to be on some random kobold no one cares about. Advantage is already almost doubling your crit chances, I don't think you really need to enhance that further.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'm not a fan of the fumble rules, for reasons others have stated. Its also a potentially heavy nerf to the rogue, which absolutely doesn't need it. The class is balanced under the assumption that sneak attack is always on.

IMO, D&D is and always has been a crappy system for a sim heavy game. Classes, hit points, armor, etc are all things you're going to struggle against.

I prefer a narrative fumble system, where the player is rewarded for risking or accepting a fumble. I quite liked 4th edition Darksun's weapon breakage rule, where it put the choice in the hands of the player, where you could re-roll an attack at the cost of having the weapon break.

In terms of my house rules:

I implemented a group pool for stats. Everyone rolled 4d6, drop the lowest, IN ORDER (so your first roll was assigned to strength). After everyone had generated an array, anyone could use any of them, or you could use the standard array arranged to taste.
I don't allow rolling for hit points (you take average after 1st level).

I moved the extra attack from dual wielding to the Attack action for those with the feat or fighting style. This lets fighters get 2 offhand attacks on their action surge, lets rangers cast their bonus action spells, etc.

Pact of the Chain familiars improve with Warlock levels. They gain size appropriate hit dice and stat bumps/feats every 4 warlock levels.

Warlock's add their patron spells to list of spells known, not just spells they CAN know.

Thief subclass gets use magic device at 3rd level, can use a magic item as a bonus action as their Cunning Action. The campaign hasn't got there yet, but at 13th now they get an ability to steal a quality/characteristic from someone, similar to the Thief of Legend ability from 4th edition.

I also granted a feat at 2nd level as people were wanting to try them out and I knew it would be months before anyone hit 4th. I might not do this for future games where the advancement was faster or we played more often.

Thus far, we only have a Paladin, Warlock and Rogue in the group. The paladin is by far the most powerful in combat, and no slouch in out of combat versatility (charlatan background, 20 charisma, additional spells from Oath of the Ancients). Were anyone playing them, I'd boost the Ranger a bit by adding cantrips, more spells known, fighters (with a third skill, and a few non-combat ability options) and add some thematic spells known to sorcerers based on bloodline.

 

[DMCF]

We have a crit fail and crit hit table. 1d1000. roll a 1 and another 1? You die. It will only happen a few years for each player gaming 1 time a week with 20 attack rolls each week.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Have it only apply to the first attack in a round.

You aren't going to be seeing double 1s or double 20s much, and when you do it is likely to be on some random kobold no one cares about. Advantage is already almost doubling your crit chances, I don't think you really need to enhance that further.

I had considered only applying it to the first hit, but it feels too artificial for my tastes. It certainly would succeed in balancing those with only one attack vs those with multiple attacks though.

Heh, you'd say that based on the odds, and from a mathematical perspective I'd agree with you. But as a DM/player of mine likes to say, "Ours' is an auspicious table".

The main reason I'm contemplating it is that in 3rd edition we used a fumble/crit table (and later a deck of cards), and while the frequency could be annoying, it did lead to some fun results. (Such as when a giant I was playing tried to use a drow warrior as a club and rolled weapon breakage.) So I'd kind of like to reintroduce that level of zaniness, though with a bit less frequency (I totally agree that 5% is too often).