Do natural 1's instantly mean a failed save?

[Creeperman]

Cardinal rule of level one bards, mages and rogues: Stay out of melee combat. Even without this rule, any kind hit on them is usually a fight-stopper.

If that's too lethal for you, you might try further house-ruling a failed massive damage save to drop you to -1 and dying, instead of -10 and dead.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Cardinal rule of level one bards, mages and rogues: Stay out of melee combat. Even without this rule, any kind hit on them is usually a fight-stopper.

There's a difference between fight-stopper and death, though

It takes 14 points to kill a mage outright. With your massive damage rule, a rat or tiny centipede has a 45% chance of killing them with a crit. Massive damage save against a minimum damage magic missile, or average damage ray of frost.

I dunno. Ray of frost doesn't feel like a save-or-die spell to me

If that's too lethal for you, you might try further house-ruling a failed massive damage save to drop you to -1 and dying, instead of -10 and dead.

I think I'd put a minimum cap on the house rule instead - maybe 14 or 15 points. Massive damage, to me, is something that would kill a normal person instantly, no save. For a Com-1, that's 14 points. So your 2nd level fighter (HP say 19) makes his Massive Damage save when he takes more than 14 points in one attack; the 5th level fighter (HP say 42) on a 21+, and the 15th level fighter (HP say 140) on a 70+.

-Hyp.

 

[Kaji]

Well, folks can do what they like, but we threw out the massive damage rule without too much complaint around the table. It's just that much more likely that the PC's will insta-die when that Fire Giant lays a couple on the cleric when he wasn't paying attention. And as far as automatic failure on 1's and 20's, we've been messing around with house rules on that, implementing a variant similar to the Epic level rules but not quite as severe. I've just never felt it scaled up very well, so here's tis rock solid Warrior with a Fort save of + 17 and some Kobold sorcerer with a Ray of Enfeeblement DC 17 gets him? Blah..

 

[Li Shenron]

I personally prefer using the open-ended roll variant in the Epic Level Handbook on all rolls. A natural 1 means roll again, but subtract 20 from the result.

I agree completely.

We still use, for simplicity, the rules as written in the PHB: automatic hits and misses ONLY for attack rolls, and item damage on a ST natural 1. Until we see a definitive official errata, we won't apply natural 1/20 to any other things; it's not we dislike the idea, but only we have decided for a policy to adhere only to what is 100% official (and FAQs are only 99%), even if the online community already knows that something is going to be changed.

On the other hand, I personally don't love the rule at all, while I have found the open-ended roll the best idea I have ever read, and one of the next variants that we'll use in the future.

I especially dislike the automatic hits, you can still have 5% chance of hitting a "fine" supernatural flying bug (to whom someone has cast Mage Armor + other AC buffing spells), moving at the speed of light, hiding behind a 9/10 cover, at the end of your bow range, even if your Dex dropped to 1 for some reason...

 

[Spatzimaus]

I wish I could remember who proposed these things, but on this board (well, okay, about two boards ago) someone came up with a system I liked. It was a variant on the +10/-10 thing the DMG proposes, but was based on the concept that ANYTHING should be possible given enough time.

If you roll a 20, roll another d20 and add it.
If you roll a 1, roll another d20 and subtract it.

So far so good, but the trick is, you keep going. If they get a 20 on the second roll, they roll AGAIN, continuing in the direction they were going (i.e., if you rolled a 1, then roll a 20 on the second roll, you continue subtracting).
If they get a 1 on the second roll, they reverse direction and continue.

It's theoretically possible to get insanely high rolls if you roll several consecutive 20s. It may sound like a lot of rolling, but it's not that bad; you'll just average 1.11 die rolls per.

The point was, everything should be possible, but in 3E the minimum possibility is 5%, which is just too high for some things.

Apply this method to everything: attack rolls, saving throws, Psionic save DCs, skill checks, ability checks; pretty much anything that uses a d20 except monk fist damage.

 

[1337 h4xor]

So that everyone has a chance of failure and needs to be a little worried in what they do and whom they face.

nah

 

[kreynolds]

nah

I keep refreshing the page over and over, waiting for this to be edited into an actual response.

 

[Kai Lord]

I keep refreshing the page over and over, waiting for this to be edited into an actual response.

Its a perfectly valid response. He obviously doesn't like to play with epic heroes and villains that, with every single encounter, get to sweat that they might be the victim of something really, really stupid that makes them look completely ridiculous. Especially when the official rules say they shouldn't.

A save of natural 1 means an item takes damage. You want more than that, then take it to House Rules boy.

 

[kreynolds]

You want more than that, then take it to House Rules boy.

I didn't address whether it was a house rule or not. You want more than that, wait until I actually do.

 

[1337 h4xor]

I didn't address whether it was a house rule or not. You want more than that, wait until I actually do.

nah