Fumble House Rule

[Kusuf ibn Zaid]

Breaking a magical weapon on a fumble. I think there's rules against that, mundane means are not supposed to break a magical weapon.

This was 2nd Edition and the fumbles resulted in whacking two magic weapons together. Of course our DM might not have been following the 2nd edition rules correctly. In any event, we all hated his fumble chart.

My example was just meant to show that with lots of attacks, fumbles can get pretty silly if the probability of a fumble remains flat with character level.

- Kusuf

 

[Kareyev]

One DM I played with had a simple set of rules. I never asked him to explain them in total so this is just what I picked up observing over time. If someone rolled a 1 they then made a Dex check. DC 5 for small and medium weapons, DC 10 for large weapons, assuming the user was medium sized. If they missed the check, they dropped the weapon. This is where my memory gets a little foggy. I think it was something like using the grenade chart for direction the weapon would fall and 1d10 for number of feet away.

This made fumbles rare and they were not typically life threating, but once in a while would make things interesting. For example, one time our tank fighter threw his axe down a stairwell and ended up having to punch his way through the rest of the battle (AoO hell). Another time the archer dropped his favorite bow into a wall of fire.

 

[Azlan]

Our house rules incorporate a table that gives a fumble DC for each weapon. (The fumble DC for unarmed attacks and the natural weapons of creatures is simply 15.)

Examples of fumble DCs...

Dager: 16
Shortsword: 17
Longsword: 18
Bastardsword: 19
Greatsword: 20

Battleaxe: 19
Dwarven axe: 20
Great axe: 21

Lt Flail: 20
Hvy Flail: 21
Dire Flail: 22

Shortbow: 19
Compositebow: 20
Longbow: 21

Hand Crossbow: 17
Lt Crossbow: 18
Hvy Crossbow: 19

Sling: 20

A weapon's fumble DC is written beside each weapon entry on your character sheet.

You check for a fumble whenever you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll. When rolling against a fumble DC, you use the same attack modifier you would've used on the attack roll you just made.

Those fumble DCs may seem a bit high, but the results of a failed fumble check are fairly mild. (Usually, you end up just having to take a partial action to recover from the fumble.) In play-testing, we've found that this system makes combat a little more lively as well as a little more "realistic".

This may be more detail than most players want to bother with for fumble checks, but in our minds, it's no more bothersome than having to keep track of the threat range of each weapon.

 

[Nyms]

I just thought I'd reiterate that I think it's the wrong move to make a fumble check dependent on a reflex save. THat means that rogues (who aren't really skilled warriors) are less likely to fumble than highly skilled fighters.

For example, if you make it a DC 10 Reflex save, a 1st level rogue with an 18 DEX will make that on a roll of a 4 or better on a d20.

A fighter with a 10 DEX would have to be 18th level to fumble as rarely.

Is that how you want it to work?

True, but one way you could look at it is that it's not how often you fumble, but whether or not you recover from the fumble, or even how you recover from the fumble. That's what I'd use a dex check for.

For example, if I rolled a fumble and the result ended up being that I dropped my weapon, a ref roll could be made to determine whether or not I actually dropped the weapon. The actual fumble could be my trying to keep from dropping the weapon, which I think in turn would provoke an AoO.

Just a thought.

I use something like this.

If a natural role of 1, you must role for damage. The result of the role plus your STR modifier equal the DC for the Fumble Check. The Fumble Check is an attack roll (using first attack bonus) vs. the DC determined above. Natural 1's are always considered fumbles unless otherwise ruled by the DM.

Nyms

 

[rhammer2]

Fumble System

I use a simple fumble system, the check for a fumble after the natural one is a miss against the AC on the fumble check.

The effect of a fumble is -2 to your BAB for the next round and the loss of any additional attacks this round.