D&D 5E How fantastic are natural 1's?

[Don Durito]

5% is not infrequent.

 

[Flamestrike]

Did you read the rest of my post? Fighters and other front line melee combatants are more likely to benefit from the fumbles of their enemies.

Which is more than made up for the fact that Fighters and Monks get clumsier as they advance in level, or use their core/ key class features (extra attack, action surge, martial arts, flurry).

Again, if you want to use 'fumbles' on attack rolls, it should be limited to 1/turn, for your first attack roll only, that way it affects every combatant more or less equally.

 

[robus]

Yes it is silly and it is a terrible rule. Allowing some no-skill, low-ability character succeed in a DC 30 task is silly. Allowing a high level character with expertise and high ability score fail at a trivial tasks is a terrible rule.

And yet no one here is arguing for this straw man surprisingly!

 

[robus]

So you're nerfing monks then? Because that's what you've effectively done.

I really don’t understand this. Sure statistically, nat 1 should show up 5% of rolls (when rolled 1,000s of times), but in reality? Some days your dice are hot, some days cold, but most of the time somewhere in the middle. The high level monk in my old table very rarely missed their attacks in my memory (and much to my frustration but when they did it was a memorable moment.

 

[Charlaquin]

Regarding all this talk about who critical failures affect the most...

In my experience no one rolls more attacks, saves, or ability checks in a game session than the DM. As long as NPCs/monsters play by the same rules, fumbles end up benefiting the players. Sure, that's spread out over several encounters but it still means the DM is the one at the table most likely to fumble.

This is correct, but generally the effects of fumbles are worse for the players. The monsters are likely to lose the encounter anyway, so unless the effect of the fumble is severe enough to hasten the monsters’ defeat by a turn or more, it really doesn’t impact the outcome of the fight. The PCs, on the other hand, are expected to face several encounters per adventuring day, with the challenge mainly being based on attrition. So, a fumble is meaningfully harmful to the players if it results in any additional taxation of their resources, as this will leave them more vulnerable in future encounters.

Critical hits do favor the monsters though, because the monsters make far more attacks than the players. Accordingly, I’m of the opinion that it is best to keep the effect of critical hits minor. Enough that it feels rewarding to roll one, but not so much that a monster getting a crit is likely to turn a win into a loss for the players.

 

[Flamestrike]

I really don’t understand this.

Monks and Fighters have their DPR directly contributed to with thair ability to make multiple attacks (plus flurry, action surge, martial arts and extra attack 2 and 3), unlike rogues who get it from sneak attack, and paladins who get it the lions share from smites and spells, and barbarians who get it from crit fishing (plus an easy source of advantage).

At 20th level TWF Fighter makes 5 attacks per round (not including action surge when it goes up to 9 attacks). If any of those attacks can 'fumble' he is now 5-9 times more clumsy that he was at 1st level, and is getting punished more by the fumble house rule than a Rogue, Barbarian, Paladin or any other class is.

It would be like a rule that a natural 1 on a sneak attack dice is a fumble. As the Rogue advances in level, it becomes more likely he fumbles.

The only 'fair' way to do it, is a rule that ONLY the first 20 roll on any turn that is a 1 is a fumble. That way most classes are affected more or less equally, and you avoid the problem of monks and fighters getting more comically clumsy in direct proportion to them becoming epic heroes.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

Awesome anecdotes required.

It's interesting that the first few people that replied to this thread very successfully hijacked this thread.

So, here's an anecdote.

Our party of three went into a town. We just purchased an important scroll to get rid of our curse, and we were in a safe place and a good mood. So, we did what most roleplayers do in that situation: We hit the pub (while having beers in real-life too). Encouraged by an enthusiastic barman (and a well-made menu with interesting ales & spirits to try, made by our DM - probably homebrew (get it?)), two out of the party of three started binge drinking. At some point, the DM made us roll a CON save to see if we were holding our drinks in. Natural one for the half-orc, natural two for the elf. The DM narrated that we went into a blackout and did not remember what happened next. He basically took over the characters and made us sing and scream in the streets and cause a great ruckus in the middle of the night. The halfling monk subsequently tried to save the day night by tying a rope around us and dragging us out of town (city guards were happy to open the gates and let us out into the night). She then tied us to a tree and went to sleep herself.

Next morning, we woke up, hung over, soiled and still tied to a tree. We missed our appointment with the local cleric and had to humbly apologize and wait another week to get rid of our curse.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And yet no one here is arguing for this straw man surprisingly!

A poster literally did exactly that on the page three:

As I mentioned earlier I think the only rules that should be part of the RAW is a 20 always succeeds and a 1 always fails--for attacks, ability checks, saves, or whatever.

Then they got upset and insisted that I drop the topic. I don't want to continue an argument with a person who wants to drop it, but I still want to clarify what was actually said.

 

[DND_Reborn]

The only 'fair' way to do it, is a rule that ONLY the first 20 roll on any turn that is a 1 is a fumble.

Or use confirmation rolls.

But your idea would keep them just as likely to fumble as a level 1 PC, instead of making them less likely to fumble.

If you combined the two, then higher level PCs would really be less likely to fumble!

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't want to continue an argument with a person who wants to drop it

And FWIW I thank you for that.