Explain the appeal of critical fumbles to me

[Numion]

If you roll to confirm a fumble, then experienced fighters don't fumble more often than novices. Not all critical fumble rules are equal.

I'd like to see the math on that. The iterative attacks have smaller attack bonuses, and thus have a larger chance of fumble if confirmation is used. So I'd say a fighter with 4 attacks at decreasing attack bonuses will fumble more often than a level 1 fighter with one attack. That's just my heuristic first guess, and would need to see the math whether Ftr 20 or Ftr 1 fumbles more.

Hey, what could be more fun than a magical spell gone awry?

It is good fun - just saying that the common critical miss schemes presented in this thread unfairly penalize the martial classes, because no such system is used.

 

[pawsplay]

So it's a simulationist thing? Because, as was pointed out, shouldn't mass combat involve 5 percent of each army harming themselves, then?


Conservatively, yes. But in general, I think some kind of confirmation method or some other reason more experienced characters are less likely to fumble is in order.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

but without the critical hits / fumbles it would not have been described that way

Read my Story Hour.

and (no offense) but do your players still talk about your combats 20 years on?

Let me hop in the time machine and find out.

OK, I'm back. Holy crap, they erected a statue of me!

 

[pawsplay]

It seems I look at fumbling the same way Whizbang. I don't like to think that a perfect swordsman could drop his weapon...even if he slipped or something. To me it's the equivelant of a professional juggler fumbling at a show...

In general, professional jugglers are not performing on top of piled up corpses while a hald dozen goblins try to kill them. Even so, I've seen professional jugglers drop things, even hit themselves. But perhaps I've seen more jugglers than most people.

The sad fact is, in the real world, you're lucky to do 95% of anything right. I believe a study a while back determined that upwards of 80% of all grocery store ring-ups, or thereabouts, had at least one human error. Taking 10 is a useful game construct, but in the real world, people who take 10 all the time end up amputating the wrong leg in surgery, driving home instead of the store when they zone out, burning the pot roast, and so forth. In real life, failure is everywhere. People fail Drive checks all the time and they are only lucky that another driver makes his check to avoid him; when both fail, an accident occurs.

 

[0bsolete]

Critical fumbles are fun because of the simple fact that it adds something new to the fight. You ask what it adds. Its adds some randomness and danger to the fight. It adds challenge, and, more importantly, a certain amount of fun. The thing about critical fumbles that often draws away from the game is that it can cause death if the DM just goes by what the dice say. I usually decide what the critical fumble does based on logic, some creativity, randomness, and most importantly, discretion. Don't make your player critical fumble his main magic weapon into a portal or into some hideously deep crack that he will never be able to get it from. Don't have your players critical fumble kill them or whatever else. That just ends up making people mad. A scar or something similar, thats fine and it adds fun and enjoyable stories to your players little book of "no sh*t there I was in a dungeon when" stories

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The sad fact is, in the real world, you're lucky to do 95% of anything right.

But, again, there's lots of places where D&D is wildly unrealistic. Why draw that line here? How are critical fumbles inherently different than tossing out hit points and the current armor class system or having lots and lots of disease checks or cutting way, way, way back on community wealth and community size?

 

[prosfilaes]

But, again, there's lots of places where D&D is wildly unrealistic. Why draw that line here? How are critical fumbles inherently different than tossing out hit points and the current armor class system or having lots and lots of disease checks or cutting way, way, way back on community wealth and community size?

They're simple: it's just redefining what a 1 means and possibly adding another roll in that case. The main reason we still use hit points and AC is because anything much more realistic is also much more tedious. Cutting way, way back on community wealth and size would require major changes to the game.

And it's fun; we enjoy that extra chance, where we don't want to deal with what a smaller community wealth would imply. Random diseases just aren't fun.

 

[atom crash]

There is already a statistical opposite to the critical hit. On a 1, you miss. On a 20 you deal double damage and on a 1 you deal none. Simple and effective.

It seems to me that "I always miss on a 1" is NOT the statistical opposite of "I always hit on a 20, and sometimes I do extra damage as well."

Maybe a math person can jump in here and explain (in layman's terms, of course, since I'm not a math person).

IMC a natural 1 means an auto-miss plus a Reflex check against DC 15 to avoid fumbling. Fumbling depends on the situation (and by how badly the Reflex check goes), but in general it means you've overextended your reach, twisted your ankle, dropped your guard, etc. In mechanical terms it means you lose the rest of your iterative attacks for the round and either a) get a -2 on your next attack, b) get a -2 to AC until your next turn, or c) open yourself up to an AoO.

Dropping a weapon on a critical fumble seems overly harsh to me, but in the right situation (two consecutive 1s plus the correct story elements, such as not having proficiency with the weapon at hand) I might consider it.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

There is sort of something like Critical Fumbles when I game with my group. Instead of dropping your weapon, you roll for damage and you tkae whatever damage you rolled. Instead of saying you hurt yourself, it is usually described as the enemy taking advantage of an opening in your defense.

It can also happen to the enemies as well of course.

 

[Rallek]

My group has used critical misses since I started playing, and when I inherited the magic DM hat, I continued to use them. Perhaps critical miss is the wrong term, it's more like a fumble, actually.


Whenever a natural 1 is rolled during an attack, The DM rolls to see if a fumble occurs, and what the result of the fumble is. This ranges for a normal miss, to a minor mis-hap (like over extending your attack and being denied your dex bonus to AC until your next action) to a more serious screw up (dropping or throwing your weapon, falling down, provoking AoO's, possibly even breaking your weapon). Of course it isn't all bad, the fumble check could also result in you stumbling into your opponent and knocking him down, forcing him to drop his weapon, you might even have scored a critical hit against the enemy next to or behind the one that you were aiming at. Just because you "throw" your sword, that doesn't mean an enemy can't "catch" it for you... hopefully in the head, throat, or chest.


I guess the key points to our use of critical fumbles is that first, there is no static table. The DM rolls the dice to determine the nature of the fumble, and the magnitude. The final in-game result is determined "on-the-fly" and is context sensitive to the situation at hand. This allows the DM to weight the average in favor of the skill/level/situation of the character making the fumble, and the nature of the weapon being used. Breaking the bowstring of your average shortbow... sure. Shattering your +3 Sword of Legend.... not so much.


My group uses critical fumbles because we like them. They inject the unexpected in a way that we enjoy, and while they never, or at least rarely completely reverse the flow of a battle, they can definitely make an otherwise "easy" encounter into a much tougher fight. That makes all combat a little harder to predict, and thus just a little more uncertain... perhaps even a little more dangerous.... and that suits us just fine.

As always YMMV.


EDIT: It may also be worth noting that you can't maim, or even directly injure yourself the way we play it. Humiliate, inconvenience, and frustrate yourself sure, but you don't have to worry about chopping off your own leg, or stabbing yourself in the hand... at least not under normal circumstances.