Fumbles

[Kid Charlemagne]

I've probably swung a baseball bat five thousand times and seen a bat swung fifty thousand times more. Exactly how many times have you seen a baseball player injure himself with his own bat to anywhere near the severity of injury that would be inflicted if he were swinging at another person with intent to injure?

I think you're limiting the possible definition of "fumble" too severely. Using your example, a fumble could mean:
-the batter dives too far into the pitch and can't avoid taking a fastball upside the head or elbow.
-the batter has to hit the ground to avoid being hit by a pitch, or is driven far off-balance.
-the batter checks his swing and tears a muscle (Frank Thomas) or injures his wrist (Richie Sexson, Nick Johnson).
-the batter strains his hamstring coming out of the batters box.
-the batter fouls a ball off of his foot, possibly breaking it.

And so on. Is he likely to injure himself with the bat? No. But he can injure himself in many ways while in the process of swinging the bat. Some of them severely - up to and including death (Ray Chapman, for example).

 

[Sir Brennen]

Guess what? If your fumble chance is per attack, you STILL have that problem.

KidC and I play in some of the same campaigns, and share the same Fumble Check rule (verification of To Hit vs. AC 15) I've also added the stipulation "Only check the first attack in a sequence." There ya go. Most fighters of 10th level or above will only fumble on a second roll of '1'.

* Who fumbles the most
* What determines the odds of fumbling
* The effects of a fumble

I think this system addresses your points:
* Static AC value eliminates the weirdness of fumbles being more likely against Higher AC opponents,
* To Hit check favors fighters, as it should be and mirrors the Crit check.
* The effects of the fumble - I think this is more open to being a matter of taste and opinion; my system uses a small random table with minor, round-long effects (off-balance drops AC by 2 for the round, for instance) or drop weapon, or injure self or companion (the term "injure self" used specifically to go beyond the "hit self" idea, and prevent bizarre AoO's, Cleaves, etc.)

The fumble effects, I think, are more for cinematic purposes, not neccessarily realism. They add variety to combat, a chance for PCs to smirk when the enemy screws up, to say "Oh Crap!" when it happens to them. It's fun.
And the DM is free to soften the effects when appropriate. A magic sword fumbled during a fight on a bridge over molten lava should skitter to the dangerously close to the edge, not automatically fly into the magma.

 

[Azul]

IMC we treat Fumbles similar to Critical Hits.. If you roll a 1, roll again to confirm a fumble, if you miss (roll + att bonus) then it's a fumble, if you hit with the second roll it's just a miss.

On a fumble I tend to give the enemy an AoO, or I may make the player roll damage and apply that to the weapon to see if it breaks. (hit's the ground, bow snaps etc..)

A little more streamlined I think, saves you from looking up things in charts and rolling so many times (or different dice (d%))

This is pretty close to what I use. On a 1, you are "threatened" with a fumble... kind of like an inversed version of the crit rules. If on the followup d20 roll, a 5 or less occurs then something bad happens.

1 = nasty event (ad hoc DM's ruling - typically injuring self or allies)
2 = semi-nasty event (ad hoc DM's ruling - e.g. dropping weapon, falling prone)
3-5 = provoke AoO if in melee or miss your next action (fumbling with your weapon) if using missiles

Fairly simple and it works pretty well in practice

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Guess what? If your fumble chance is per attack, you STILL have that problem.

I haven't seen an issue with fumbles on second or third attacks in my own games. I suppose if you think its really an issue, then you could have the fumble check be at full attack bonus, but then you'd only have fumbles in high level games if the player rolls consecutive one's. Not that that would be a terribly bad thing... But in my experience, if you've got a high level fighter who gets iterative attacks, even your third attack is going to be at a +10 or so (less if you're power attacking or using combat expertise). It just hasn't come up much.

 

[Liquidsabre]

For fumbles we use natural "1", roll to confirm fumble (i.e. miss your target's AC again), and followed by a Reflex save DC = 10 + foe's CR. If the save is failed then the character has fumbled and rolls on our fumble chart (%).

Though I think this fumble method favors the dextrous rogue-types in the game over other character types.

 

[Rhun]

I use a fumble system in my campaign...if you roll a natural '1' on the d20, you roll % on the fumble table for effect, with a save of some sort to avoid the fumble. I've found that it adds a little more chaos to combat, and can add some fun.

Nothing amused me more than when the tank in my campaign dropped his magic sword, and his enemy picked it up and abused him with it. It was fun times.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

I think you're limiting the possible definition of "fumble" too severely. Using your example, a fumble could mean:
-the batter dives too far into the pitch and can't avoid taking a fastball upside the head or elbow.
-the batter has to hit the ground to avoid being hit by a pitch, or is driven far off-balance.
-the batter checks his swing and tears a muscle (Frank Thomas) or injures his wrist (Richie Sexson, Nick Johnson).
-the batter strains his hamstring coming out of the batters box.
-the batter fouls a ball off of his foot, possibly breaking it.

And so on. Is he likely to injure himself with the bat? No. But he can injure himself in many ways while in the process of swinging the bat. Some of them severely - up to and including death (Ray Chapman, for example).

And this is why I said:

"Injure self" in the sense of sprained ankle makes some sense if it happens very rarely. Losing one's grip on one's weapon, possible once in a few thousand swings for someone proficient in the weapon, but it should not outpace active disarms. "Hit self with weapon" seems ludicrous and unnecessarily humiliating.

It's that one specific fumble result that really bugs me - "hit self with own weapon as per a normal attack." Or even better, "critical hit to self" which I think Rolemaster used.

 

[Sir Brennen]

It's that one specific fumble result that really bugs me - "hit self with own weapon as per a normal attack." Or even better, "critical hit to self" which I think Rolemaster used.

Perhaps it should just be "injury" - twisted ankle, dislocated shoulder, or even a damage from the foe's weapon (not from active attack, but you really screwed up and brought your arm across the opponent's sword as he was defending.) Your own weapon might even get knocked/pressed against you by your opponent. Whatever. It's lethal combat. It's really for the DM or players to add "flavor" to the injury.

I mean, if using a baseball batter as an example that violent, random, even deadly things can happen to someone wielding a "weapon", imagine how much more often they would occur if the baseball had it's own bat and was trying to KILL the batter

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

One thing I do with my "injure self" result is to have it just be the weapon damage without strength modifiers. I also keep the results fairly vague and general - its easier to flavor text the result than to have a die tell you all the possibilities.

And of course, some weapons are easier to hurt yourself with than others. Ever tried Nunchakus?

But I see your point.

 

[Sir Brennen]

One thing I do with my "injure self" result is to have it just be the weapon damage without strength modifiers. I also keep the results fairly vague and general - its easier to flavor text the result than to have a die tell you all the possibilities.

Or perhaps just a flat d6 damage, so it's not even specific to the weapon.

Of course, if one has a hit wrong target or the like in their fumble tables, base weapon damage is probably appropriate.