Help me fill out my fumbles table

[Asmor]

Hey all. I've just had the chance to play in a game, which is an exceedingly rare treat from me, and while I'm not too taken with the GM's style there are a few things he did that I'm stealing.

One of those is the idea of a fumble table. He played with the annoyingly common rule that if you rolled a 1 on an attack, something bad happened. I've never been fond of this particular house rule, but cest la vie. The thing I did like, however, was that after you rolled the 1, you rolled again to determine severity of what happened. This made things a little bit more interesting at least. He just played things off the cuff, but I'm wanting to make a full table of results. In fact, I want two tables; a regular table, and a critical fumbles table, which would be accessed if you rolled another 1, and would have some really spectacular results.

So what I'm looking for is some really spectacular results for the critical fumbles table. Here's what I've got so far, and I'm very interested in any comments you might have!

If you roll a natural 1 on your attack roll, roll a d20 and consult the following fumbles table:

Fumbles
Roll: Effect
1: Roll on the Critical Fumbles table
2: Internal damage causes 2 points of temporary constitution damage. You must regain your balance*.
3: You pull a leg muscle, dealing 2 points of temporary dexterity damage. You must regain your balance*.
4: Your pull a back muscle, dealing 2 points of temporary strength damage. You must regain your balance*.
5-6: Your grip slips and you send your weapon flying off in a random direction. Roll a d8 to determine direction as with a thrown splash weapon to determine direction and it goes 1d6x5 feet.
7-10: You drop your weapon. Picking it up again provokes attacks of opportunities. In addition, you must regain your balance* and cannot pick it up again until your next turn.
11-14: Your foe's ferocity catches you by surprise. You may not do anything except move actions until you've taken a full defense action. In addition, you must regain your balance*.
15-19: You lost your rhythm, but otherwise you're no worse for the wear. You must regain your balance*.
20: Luck is on your side, as your fumble actually takes your foe by surprise! You score an automatic critical hit on your target(s) which ignores all forms of damage resistance, immunity, etc.

* Regaining balance: If you roll a 2-19, you've been knocked off balance. If you had any remaining attacks or actions, your turn ends immediately. Otherwise, your next turn you may take only a single move action and no standard or full-round actions.


Critical Fumbles
Roll: Effect
20: In an incredible display of dumb luck, a potential tragedy turns itself around as you kill your foe in a most unexpected fashion!!

Yeah, that's right, I'm looking for 19 really nasty things. The more unique, the better!

 

[Sir Brennen]

Well, here's my Fumble Table.

I have to make a comment tho... you realize that with fumbles occuring whenever a player rolls a "1", that all classes will fumble equally, regardless of level or skill. Also, since fighters attack more often and will be more likely to be making iterative attacks, more two-weapon attacks, or more AoO's (especially with Combat Reflexes), meaning they actually more likely to roll a "1" than any other class. Add in your "spectacular fumble" rule, and they are going to be punished for their class features more than any other character.

These are fairly common arguments against fumbles. However, I do like fumbles, and address the first issue by requiring a confirmation roll (just like a critical threat) against a flat DC 15. The second issue I address by allowing the fighter to use his best attack bonus for the round when confirming, which means at around 10th level, most fighters will automatically succeed on the check unless they have penalties for some other reason, like Power Attack.

Sorry to derail. Carry on.

 

[Nebulous]

The DM i'm playing with now demands a DC 10 Dex check when you roll a 1. Failing that, you drop your weapon, or some other calamity happens.

Personally, i like the Grim Tales method of awarding Action Points to activate critical failures.

 

[el-remmen]

Feel free to check out mine: http://aquerra.wikispaces.com/Critical+Fumble+Results+-+All+Weapons

 

[Rhun]

My favorite fumble tables are still the one's from ICE's Middle Earth Role-Playing Game. They had things like "Trip over imaginary, deceased turtle" and "Worst move seen in ages. You pull your groin, - 60 to actions. Foe stunned 2 rounds laughing."

 

[Lorehead]

I highly advise against this.

As characters go up in levels, they'll make more and more attacks per round, which makes them fumble more and more often. Not only that, the fighter is more likely to fumble than the cleric or rogue. And will this table make sense for wizards casting weaponlike spells? Monsters attacking with natural weapons? Monks attacking with unarmed strikes? Oozes? Combatants who are flying, underwater or on another plane?

My opinion is that fumble rules aren't worth it. If you did have them, however, you should at least introduce a confirmation roll so that a 20th-level fighter is less likely to fumble on each swing than a first-level bard, and design the table so that the results make sense for all attack rolls, not just dwarf fighters swinging axes.

 

[el-remmen]

If you did have them, however, you should at least introduce a confirmation roll so that a 20th-level fighter is less likely to fumble on each swing than a first-level bard, and design the table so that the results make sense for all attack rolls, not just dwarf fighters swinging axes.

I agree on the confirmation roll, that is how we handle it.

However, I would recommend making them as generic as possible and just adjudicate it on the fly rather than trying to come up with all sorts of specifics head of time - but that is a style of play choice.

As I wrote on the fumble table page of the wiki:

The DM should feel free to adjudicate fumble results to fit the situation, either by slightly changing them, or declaring they have no effect. For example, a character that is already prone cannot fall and be stunned, or a critical hit, self result that results in a decapitation might deal the extra damage, but not actually cause one to chop one's own head off.

 

[Asmor]

With monks, I'm basically making them immune to fumbles. I don't have anyone that plays them anyways, so it's irrelevant.

As far as fighters go, though, what I've done is added a +2 bonus to their rolls for each attack beyond the first. So a 13th level fighter with 3 attacks gets +4. That way, they avoid the more nasty stuff. Most of the things, I think, are just slaps on the wrist. There's also a little bit of built in protection for fighters, since they more attacks you have, the more likely you've got attacks left to give up tor regain your balance and so you still get to attack next turn. And it works for the enemies, too, so it should be balanced.

 

[Evilhalfling]

My Fumble rules have a Reflex dc 12 (+4 DC for risky moves) to avoid. Fumbles only occur on the primary attack. This second problem avoids things like high level fighters and hydras fumbling every other round.

The results tend to be based heavily on the situation - falling into nearby pits, tripping over fallen bodies, or hitting an ally. If nothing else comes to mind the fumbler provokes an AoO.

In all cases they lose the remainder of thier actions for the round.