Do natural 1's instantly mean a failed save?

[Kae'Yoss]

Yowp! So the average first level commoner - or wizard - has to make a DC10 Fort Save or die if someone punches him (taking the -4 to deal real damage) for 2 hit points?

-Hyp.

Hee hee. I so much like it when rules are proven to be broken even at 1st level.

And there's another thing: Hit that wizard 1 with an arrow. Chances are not that bad that you hit him (even if he stays out of melee, something that cannot be avoided completely) and those 3 points of damage are not much (below average, especially when the archer has point blank shot. If he's a ranger, it's guaranteed damage!). The wizard is hit and must make a save for which he has roughly 50% chance of failure - and when he doesn't make it, he goes down.

The chances to survive 1st level have just gotten slimmer, especially for wizards (and sorcerers, bards, rogues)

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Natural 1 and 20 are for Saves, no question. Saying that you only take it when it's 100% official, and that it's 99% only, since it appears in the official FAQ and in several official WotC Rulebooks (and would have appeared in the PHB itself, but was just forgotten) is splitting hairs.

And I just like the Idea that you have to roll still for such important things as saves. They're not much different from Attack Rolls - Warriors have their Attack Rolls with the guaranteed 5% chance of failure and success, and spellcasters should have the same. (I would just miss the rolls you make in hope that it's a 20 and you save against something that's usually beyond you). If you do away with Natural 1/20's for saves, do away with them for attack rolls as well.

 

[Ranger REG]

Personally, I don't like open-ended rolls, as it slows down combat sequence, especially if you must also apply open-ended rolls for Threat rolls.

As I said before, I would like even the weakest of creatures to having a fighting chance against powerful creatures, even if the chance is 5 in 100, or 1 in 20.

 

[Gunslinger]

It seems dumb to me that there is still a chance of failure when the DC is only a fraction of the save. My epic monk has +57 to will saves, so how is it possible that he can miss a DC of 12? Really now, that's just idiotic.

 

[demon_jr]

i can only speak from my own expriences within my campaign group.

i believe the system we use dictates that 1 is an automatic failure and 20 is an automatic success, in regards to saves.

in my own opinion, i believe that randomness is a key factor to any DND game. without that random element, i believe games would soon become dull and boring. for myself, i have much more fun playing encounters where my survival is not assured, as oppossed to encounters where there are no actual consequences, fatal or otherwise. i believe that DND is meant to be dynamic and random, with very rare instances of "a sure thing."

this is of course, my own opinion in. i do not believe my way is any better or worse than anyone elses. i just have more fun my way.

 

[Number47]

Boy, I have a hard time believing that this is even an issue. I have not once since third edition came out, seen a situation where a natural would've hit or saved, or a natural twenty would not have otherwise hit or saved. Sure, you can say that your level one character is attacked by a level 20 archmage of the flaming death for an example, but does that ever happen in a game? No. For even the toughest or easiest of challenges that real characters will face in a real game, the ease or difficulty to not even approach having to worry about the 1/20 rule!

Note, my rant and examples exlude the Epic stuff, which is just silly anyway.

 

[1337 h4xor]

Boy, I have a hard time believing that this is even an issue. I have not once since third edition came out, seen a situation where a natural would've hit or saved, or a natural twenty would not have otherwise hit or saved. .

take your first level fighter with fullplate and a large sheild and a +1 dex bonus fighting defensively.... his ac is 23... why in gods name should a kobold be able to kill him with a stick on a lucky roll. The same goes as levels progress if you build a character with one great strength it's silly to make it an auto 5% chance someone defeats it.

If wizards actually bothered to edit it's books and managed to do some of that extensive playtesting they talked about before 3e came out maybe their opinion would have been in the core rules.

 

[Coredump]

But his point still stands.

Just how common is it to have a 1st level fighter with full plate, a +1 dex and a large shield chose to fight defensively against a single kobold with a stick? And how common is it for that Kobold to be able to kill him with it?

First of all, he should be getting close to 3rd lvl before he can get full plate, and why would he want to fight defensively? And why is there only one kobold?

Is point is that the question/discussion is 99% academic; since it is very uncommon for a 1 to hit or for a 20 to miss; even without the 'auto' rules.

(now, I am being a bit of a pinhead... cuz I'm not sure if I agree with him or not, I am too tired to thinnk about it, but I am awake enough to see that he has a point, and you example did not address it.)

 

[Li Shenron]

and would have appeared in the PHB itself, but was just forgotten

Forgotten? There are at least 3-4 chapters in the PHB talking about saving throws and in neither occasion it is said about nat 1/20. No mention either in the DMG.

Then I started to notice that in some accessory books (written by someone else, not Cook, Tweet or Williams), when talking about ST it was given as obvious that from the corebooks nat 1/20 rule applies.

I don't think that either using or not using that rule would spoil the game (at least, not my low-level game), so I don't really mind to change it when I am sure.

Was that rule in AD&D 2ed? Sometimes I think that maybe the original idea was not to apply that rule to ST, and then they noticed that players (and authors) were accustomed to it from previous editions...

 

[Leopold]

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..

tossed that rule out the door as well. felt that that was a good rule just waaaayyyy too much paper work for me to deal with..