Fumble: Need Help with Feat Design

[Aluvial]

Hi, I would like some feedback about a Feat I would like to design to work with the Fumble rules for my game.

IMC, if you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, you have to roll a Fumble check. The DC for the check is 10 + 1d12. The modifier for your roll is your BAB + Dex modifier. This simulates both the unpredictable nature of combat, and the idea that more "combat agile" creatures will Fumble less. A failure means a roll on a chart, a natural roll of a 1 on the Fumble check means two rolls on the chart. I have charts for melee attacks and thrown weapons, and one for missile weapons. I'm developing charts for natural attacks and for spells.

Anyhow, the purpose of this thread is help me talk through the Feat design that would help offset the chance for a fumble during the Fumble check. I could also use a name (although, I prefer practical names for Feats so I know exactly what they are meant to do).

I've been thinking that the Feat should be a +2 competence bonus on Fumble checks, with the Improved version giving a +5 bonus (prereq: the first Feat).

This is where I can use some helpful feedback. Do you think the bonus is enough for a feat that will happen in 1 in 20 attack rolls? If you would change the bonus (or add a prereq for the first feat, like a particular Dex modifier or something) what would you change and why? Any practical advice would be helpful to me in creating this as of yet, unnamed Feat for my campaign.

Aluvial

 

[Nebten]

Before putting any time or effort into this you should probably think if this feat will be used or not. It is for something that "may" occur 1 in 20 times. I know there are feats out there that give benefits on top of critical rolls, but nobody seems to take them. Also, is it worth it to even have this fumble system in place? You have the attack roll, a DC creation roll, then the fumble check roll then if it fails, its 2 more rolls on a chart.

PC's have only a limited number of feat slots already. It could only be worth it if there is a high chance of death or permanent mutilation on that fumble chart. Besides, it appears you want to penalize your players for rolling a 1, so why give them a way out?

After all said and done, if you still want to go along with it here's my advice:

Fool the Fumble: Add +5 to Fumble check rolls in addition to BaB and Dex modifier. (No pre-req required.)

Still Fooling the Fumble: Add an additional +5 to fumble check rolls (for a total of +10) in addition to BaB and Dex modifier. (Pre-req: Fool the Fumble).

 

[Celebrim]

Hi, I would like some feedback about a Feat I would like to design to work with the Fumble rules for my game.

IMC, if you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, you have to roll a Fumble check. The DC for the check is 10 + 1d12. The modifier for your roll is your BAB + Dex modifier.

Ok, stop right there. A random roll to resolve the DC and a random roll to beat a DC is mostly redundant. Just assign a DC (say 16 or 17) and go with that. The results will still be unpredicatable.

This simulates both the unpredictable nature of combat, and the idea that more "combat agile" creatures will Fumble less.

It's absolutely essential to do this because otherwise, fighters and other attackers with full BAB progression will fumble the most.

Anyhow, the purpose of this thread is help me talk through the Feat design that would help offset the chance for a fumble during the Fumble check. I could also use a name (although, I prefer practical names for Feats so I know exactly what they are meant to do).

Ok.

I've been thinking that the Feat should be a +2 competence bonus on Fumble checks, with the Improved version giving a +5 bonus (prereq: the first Feat).

I concur with the other poster that the feat must be good enough to warrant taking it, or there is no sense in having it. A +2 bonus on a fumble check is an advantage that will only matter in like 1 in 200 attacks (at most), and depending on what your table has on it, may not even matter then. It also doesn't do what the player really wants it to do because unlike a skill check, you can still fail this roll regardless of your bonus and when you do fail it, you fail in the worst possible way.

I'd be looking at something like this:

Careful Attacker [General, Fighter]
You don't make many mistakes
Prerequisite: Wis 13
Benefit: Whenever you make a fumble check, you may throw two dice and choose the better result.
Special: You may take Careful Attacker as a fighter bonus feat, even if you don't meet the normal prerequisites for the feat.

 

[Aluvial]

Thanks to both Nebtin and Celebrim for the thoughtful responses. You are both right, the feat needs to be worth it. I am going to answer specific parts of your posts because I want to explain my rationale better (which helps me think through the process). Your continued comments are greatly appreciated.

It is for something that "may" occur 1 in 20 times.

This feat would help every time you roll a 1. So the feat would help in 5% of your attack rolls. The bonus occurs on the Fumble check to see if you roll on the specific outcomes chart.

So the procedure would be: creature rolls a 1. Roll a 1d12+10 to set the DC for the Fumble. The creature then rolls their Fumble check (BAB+Dex Mod+Feat). If they fail the check, they roll on the chart for the outcome.

I know there are feats out there that give benefits on top of critical rolls, but nobody seems to take them. Also, is it worth it to even have this fumble system in place? You have the attack roll, a DC creation roll, then the fumble check roll then if it fails, its 2 more rolls on a chart.

My players and I like fumbles and we really don't mind the extra rolls. We like that you can do well, and we like that you can do poorly. The actual fumbles seem to occur to their opponents more often (based on the opponents are often more numerous and have lower BAB's).

PC's have only a limited number of feat slots already. It could only be worth it if there is a high chance of death or permanent mutilation on that fumble chart.

The extent of the chart that you roll on if you fail your Fumble check is not to dire. There are no automatic deaths or limb loss. I have 12 different effects; most of which have impact on the user is some way (Stumble, Fall Down, Provoke AoO) or their weapon (Fling Weapon, Damage Weapon, Ruin Weapon). I'll post what I have later.

I see that you think the value is not worth it unless there are dire consequences, but I feel that if you are rolling a Fumble check for every 1, it will come into play quite often.

Besides, it appears you want to penalize your players for rolling a 1, so why give them a way out?

The players and I don't see it that way. We see the fumble as "extra negative consequences." There is a balance to the threat and the threat roll; we have the fumble roll. The way out is only for those who take a feat. I see feats as a way to make your character unique. If you take Dodge, Mobility, and this Feat, you are a bit different from the character who takes Power Attack, Improved Critical.

Ok, stop right there. A random roll to resolve the DC and a random roll to beat a DC is mostly redundant. Just assign a DC (say 16 or 17) and go with that. The results will still be unpredictable.

We've been playing that the roll is a 15 for 5 or 6 years now. I think that I'm making the change to deal with what I see is an issue with the Fumble check's static threshold. If it is always a 15, then high level fighters will only miss on the .25% chance that they roll two 1's in a row.

If I make the change, you roll the d12 you get a DC between 11 and 22. If a commoner with the pitchfork (BAB of 0) rolls a 1, he will fail a great percentage of the time. The 15th level fighter (BAB of +15) will make most of the time. If we choose to make a roll to set the DC for a Fumble the average will be slightly higher than the 15 we use now, but I like the idea that the potential for a Fumble, after rolling a 1, could be really mild or could be severe.

It's absolutely essential to do this because otherwise, fighters and other attackers with full BAB progression will fumble the most.

Yes, absolutely. Experience represented as BAB is the best way to overcome the Fumble DC. A Dex modifier makes sense as well.

I concur with the other poster that the feat must be good enough to warrant taking it, or there is no sense in having it. A +2 bonus on a fumble check is an advantage that will only matter in like 1 in 200 attacks (at most), and depending on what your table has on it, may not even matter then. It also doesn't do what the player really wants it to do because unlike a skill check, you can still fail this roll regardless of your bonus and when you do fail it, you fail in the worst possible way.

The Fumble check will occur more. 1 in 20 times. The fumble may occur much less frequently, but the check will happen every time you roll a 1 (5% of the time). I agree that the bonus needs to be useful, or there would be no point, but like feats that add to critical in some way (I know there are some, but I can't think of any), I think that a reasonable bonus is all that is required.

I'd be looking at something like this:

Careful Attacker [General, Fighter]
You don't make many mistakes
Prerequisite: Wis 13
Benefit: Whenever you make a fumble check, you may throw two dice and choose the better result.
Special: You may take Careful Attacker as a fighter bonus feat, even if you don't meet the normal prerequisites for the feat.

First off, I love that name, and that is very likely the one I will pick. I just couldn't think of it.... I was stuck tying to fit the word "fumble" in somehow and the best I could think of was "Anti-Fumble" which is very lame.

I very much like the idea that this feat should be on the Fighter bonus feat list.

I'm curious about the Wisdom prerequisite. Why Wisdom? Why not Dex?

As for the benefit, I think that your two dice method might be a really good solution to the Improved Version, and you and Nebtin are right about the value of the Feat. Why have it if no one will take it. So, my idea of -2 is too weak but +5, I think, is too high.

I think that if I go with a +4 for the check, that would be very similar to the bonus described with Combat Casting... Both describe something similar that the creature/character is doing to prevent failure in their action.

Aluvial

 

[Celebrim]

We've been playing that the roll is a 15 for 5 or 6 years now. I think that I'm making the change to deal with what I see is an issue with the Fumble check's static threshold. If it is always a 15, then high level fighters will only miss on the .25% chance that they roll two 1's in a row.

I see this as trying to extend the sweet spot of the mechanic. My guess is that if you do the now somewhat more complicated math, you'll find that the change doesn't have a significant impact over most of the level ranges and that its impact isn't as great as you think it is. But its not that big of a deal, and if you want to add an extra roll to the mechanic I'm not that concerned. I just wanted to point out that in many cases setting DC randomly and then rolling to beat it randomly resulted in no net changes. You can see this pretty easily in the case of rolling a D20 with no modifiers to beat another D20 roll with no modifiers. Add modifiers of various sorts complicates it somewhat, but only over a narrow range.

The Fumble check will occur more. 1 in 20 times. The fumble may occur much less frequently, but the check will happen every time you roll a 1 (5% of the time).

Yes, but a +2 bonus only matters if your fumble check misses the target DC by 2 or less. The number of times you make the fumble check isn't the number of times that the feat matters; it's the number of times the feat changes the outcome of the fumble check. And that's slightly less than 1 once in every 200 attacks. One of the reason I don't like the static bonus to your fumble check is that it is truly a static bonus which gets progressively less valuable over time because the target DC is effectively static (it never gets higher than 22). If your BAB is 20 or so, the feat is not only worthless, it doesn't in fact protect you from fumbles.

I very much like the idea that this feat should be on the Fighter bonus feat list.

I'm curious about the Wisdom prerequisite. Why Wisdom? Why not Dex?

Well, first of all because it fits with the Feats name and idea - "You rarely make mistakes". A wise fighter is one that doesn't take unnecessary risks and avoids situations where he may be disadvantaged. It fits with the idea of someone who uses good judgement.

Second of all, because it avoids double rewarding someone for having a high dexterity. A high dexterity fighter already adds his dex bonus on the fumble check, so we can think of a high dexterity fighter as one who is skilled at recovering from his mistakes and using his dexterity and reflexes to get himself out of trouble. Whereas, the wise one is better at not getting into trouble at all.

Thirdly, because dexterity is already a 'god skill' in that it can do pretty much everything for you - make you better at hitting a target, make you harder to hit, make you faster, etc. Wisdom on the other hand doesn't get enough love under the core rules. So doing things that give Wisdom, Charisma, Intelligence some more love reward people for creating characters with non-sterotypical stat arrays - ei something other than a fighter that dumps all of his mental skills for high strength, dexterity, and constitution.

As for the benefit, I think that your two dice method might be a really good solution to the Improved Version, and you and Nebtin are right about the value of the Feat. Why have it if no one will take it. So, my idea of -2 is too weak but +5, I think, is too high.

I don't think any possible version of the feats is worth a two feat tree. Even if you make the first one worth taking, the second 'improved' version would probably never be worth taking even if it said 'You never fumble'. Feats are a rare enough resource that either this is going to constitute a feat tax - yet another feat you have to take to be a skilled fighter - or else its going to be worth perhaps investing a feat into to mitigate against yet another problem that melee combatants are saddled with. The full scope of my opinion of fumbles is sorta outside the purpose of this thread, but I consider the feat I offered the minimally useful version of the feat. Any static bonus eventually becomes useless, which means in the long run the 'entry' feat to the feat tree is always useless. Which means no one will take the feat unless they plan on taking both feats in the tree, but almost no one will be able to spare two whole feats in their build just to avoid fumbles unless avoiding fumbles is so important that the very existance of fumbles argues against useing martial attacks instead of spell attacks. As things stand from what I understand of your rules, the fumble check becomes increasingly irrelevant at just about the time that non-spellcasters are beginning to lose their shine relative to spellcasters. So hitherto it hasn't mattered much.

In no way should it ever be made to matter enough that you're tempted to spend two feats on it. That just screams 'Combat Casting for the win' unless you've tweaked your game to the point that you can't do combat casting (and that as an at minimum).

 

[Aluvial]

I see this as trying to extend the sweet spot of the mechanic. My guess is that if you do the now somewhat more complicated math, you'll find that the change doesn't have a significant impact over most of the level ranges and that its impact isn't as great as you think it is. But its not that big of a deal, and if you want to add an extra roll to the mechanic I'm not that concerned. I just wanted to point out that in many cases setting DC randomly and then rolling to beat it randomly resulted in no net changes. You can see this pretty easily in the case of rolling a D20 with no modifiers to beat another D20 roll with no modifiers. Add modifiers of various sorts complicates it somewhat, but only over a narrow range.

I see what you are saying. Perhaps tampering with this is just one more roll and one more process to figure. We have been fine with the static nature of the roll to this point, it just seems too static for the players at this point (I agree). We may try it and then if it turns out to be a pill, then just move it back to 15 (or try 16).

Yes, but a +2 bonus only matters if your fumble check misses the target DC by 2 or less. The number of times you make the fumble check isn't the number of times that the feat matters; it's the number of times the feat changes the outcome of the fumble check. And that's slightly less than 1 once in every 200 attacks. One of the reason I don't like the static bonus to your fumble check is that it is truly a static bonus which gets progressively less valuable over time because the target DC is effectively static (it never gets higher than 22). If your BAB is 20 or so, the feat is not only worthless, it doesn't in fact protect you from fumbles.

I'm glad you have shown this to me again, and it does make sense. The static bonus does fail to deliver at higher levels for most level-to-BAB fighter progressions, and who but the fighter may take a feat of this nature... good point.

Well, first of all because it fits with the Feats name and idea - "You rarely make mistakes". A wise fighter is one that doesn't take unnecessary risks and avoids situations where he may be disadvantaged. It fits with the idea of someone who uses good judgment.

Second of all, because it avoids double rewarding someone for having a high dexterity. A high dexterity fighter already adds his dex bonus on the fumble check, so we can think of a high dexterity fighter as one who is skilled at recovering from his mistakes and using his dexterity and reflexes to get himself out of trouble. Whereas, the wise one is better at not getting into trouble at all.

Thirdly, because dexterity is already a 'god skill' in that it can do pretty much everything for you - make you better at hitting a target, make you harder to hit, make you faster, etc. Wisdom on the other hand doesn't get enough love under the core rules. So doing things that give Wisdom, Charisma, Intelligence some more love reward people for creating characters with non-stereotypical stat arrays - ei something other than a fighter that dumps all of his mental skills for high strength, dexterity, and constitution.

Three good points, especially 2 and 3. I think that I've defaulted to Dex for this in the past because it does seem to deal with Dexterity (really Agility) but I see that Wisdom is just as viable. If the feat used a modifier that was BAB + Wis then characters might actually use it for a +4 bonus. Which brings you back to your point...

I don't think any possible version of the feats is worth a two feat tree. Even if you make the first one worth taking, the second 'improved' version would probably never be worth taking even if it said 'You never fumble'. Feats are a rare enough resource that either this is going to constitute a feat tax - yet another feat you have to take to be a skilled fighter - or else its going to be worth perhaps investing a feat into to mitigate against yet another problem that melee combatants are saddled with. The full scope of my opinion of fumbles is sorta outside the purpose of this thread, but I consider the feat I offered the minimally useful version of the feat. Any static bonus eventually becomes useless, which means in the long run the 'entry' feat to the feat tree is always useless. Which means no one will take the feat unless they plan on taking both feats in the tree, but almost no one will be able to spare two whole feats in their build just to avoid fumbles unless avoiding fumbles is so important that the very existence of fumbles argues against using martial attacks instead of spell attacks. As things stand from what I understand of your rules, the fumble check becomes increasingly irrelevant at just about the time that non-spellcasters are beginning to lose their shine relative to spellcasters. So hitherto it hasn't mattered much.

In no way should it ever be made to matter enough that you're tempted to spend two feats on it. That just screams 'Combat Casting for the win' unless you've tweaked your game to the point that you can't do combat casting (and that as an at minimum).

I think in retrospect you are correct. Two feats are silly, one is plenty to deal with my house rule anyway. I see your point about the static nature of a bonus... and I'm not sure if I can work around that without a bit more thought. I don't want to overcomplicate this, the mechanic gives us "something extra" in the combat, and the Fumble check that I propose could be based on Wisdom (conceivably) rather than Dexterity.

Right now I think a static bonus of +4 is attractive and helpful, even if it becomes useless later (we allow retraining of feats at certain points in the game).

I think that if I were to change from a static bonus, I could do a few different things. I admit that probability and I are not friends. I could maybe...
1) Your two rolls seems to increase the chance of success, but to this point, I don't understand the math (although I have the capacity to understand math, given the opportunity, if you know what I mean).
2) Increase the bonus by some factor of levels, which shows experience in combat unrelated to BAB.
3) Option 3.... ???

(BTW, we use an opposed roll for Casting Defensively, the provoker can make their Con check vs. the AoO roll of the provokee. If the provokee succeeds in the roll, we make a second roll at the same bonus vs. the AC to see if the hit lands. We do the same kind of thing with Tumble.)

Aluvial

 

[Celebrim]

1) Your two rolls seems to increase the chance of success, but to this point, I don't understand the math (although I have the capacity to understand math, given the opportunity, if you know what I mean).

In practice I usually find that the two rolls, take the best is worth somewhat more than a +3 bonus. The actual worth of course depends on the situation, in some cases it is worth less, and in some cases it is worth more, but the important thing to note is that the more likely you are to succeed the more valuable the two rolls are. Conversely, the more likely you are to succeed the less valuable a static bonus vs. a static DC tends to be (because eventually your bonuses from other sources render it irrelevant).

As a side note here, I want to make sure everyone understands that a static +1 bonus versus a scaling DC (like armor class, or a saving throw) always maintains roughly the same worth. It's only when DC is capped and doesn't scale upward with level that a static bonus begins to be unattractive.

To see the math of static bonus vs. two rolls, let's consider two hopefully typical cases.

#1) The character is low level and has a +3 bonus on his fumble checks, and the fumble DC is 16.

a) If he takes a feat giving him a +3 bonus, he fails on a 9 or less, roughly 45% of the time.
b) If he takes a feat giving him to rolls but no bonus, the chance that he fails both rolls is 12 in 20 times 12 in 20 or roughly 36% of the time. Hense, the roll is slightly better in this case than a +3 bonus and is in fact worth nearly a +5 bonus. With other math the value would be slightly less or slightly more, but at this level the two approaches are comparable.

#2) The character is high level and has a +15 bonus on his fumble checks, and the fumble DC is 16.

a) The feat the player took earlier is now worthless. A +18 bonus is no better in this case than the +15 bonus, as a roll of 1 is a failure regardless, and so there is a 5% chance of failure.
b) This is where two rolls really start to shine. The chance of failure is now 1 in 20 times 1 in 20 or roughly 1 in 400 times - .25% percent. At this level, there is no comparison between the two approaches. The static bonus now utterly useless, and the two rolls save the player from 95% of all failures.

Anyway, I hope that illustrates my point. Even if you don't take my advice in this situation, I hope this adds another tool to your rules smithing tool box and you'll have some better idea of what your future rules accomplish so you can fit your rules to your goals.

Lastly, there is always more than one approach. That a feat becomes useless over time is less of a problem if you allow retraining. I don't allow retraining but do take care to make sure that feats don't become less useful over time (so that retraining isn't necessary). And I do think it encouraging that you've added fumbles and made things harder on spellcasters, which suggests you are looking at the rules set holostically.