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

[Arial Black]

I've always found this argument to be rather lame. Being in melee and swinging swords around is obviously going to lead to more mishaps than standing in the back not swinging a sword.

I find this argument to be disingenuous.

The wizard in the back is NOT merely 'standing in the back not swinging a sword', he is standing in the back 'messing with forces Man Was Not Meant To Know!' Without a possible negative consequence. Unless he casts a spell that involves an attack roll, easy to avoid if you find yourself in a slapstick...er, I mean...fumble rule campaign.

Where is the rule that says 'every time you cast a spell of 1st level or higher you have a 5% chance of having some extra-planar being permanently suck out 10 hit points from your soul'?

In the stories we read that inspire our games, magic is dangerous to even the powerful caster, but expert warriors don't act like the 3 stooges walking under a ladder after kicking a black cat. In fumble-rule campaigns, being more skilful with weapons makes you more clumsy than those who don't even know which end to hold, while reality is being changed by casters with zero chance of anything going awry.

Where is a rule that punishes the caster if the target rolls a nat 20 on their save?

 

[Arvok]

It seems like most of the people here who are opposed to fumble rules either haven't played with them and are imagining some hellish/comedic scenario or have played with really awful rules. I've played many, many games with fumble rules. Higher level characters have ways of mitigating fumbles, and when fumbles occur they're just as often dramatic as comedic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Where is the rule that says 'every time you cast a spell of 1st level or higher you have a 5% chance of having some extra-planar being permanently suck out 10 hit points from your soul'?

They're in Warhammer 40 000.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It seems like most of the people here who are opposed to fumble rules either haven't played with them and are imagining some hellish/comedic scenario or have played with really awful rules. I've played many, many games with fumble rules. Higher level characters have ways of mitigating fumbles, and when fumbles occur they're just as often dramatic as comedic.

I've played Rolemaster. Never again.

 

[Oofta]

It seems like most of the people here who are opposed to fumble rules either haven't played with them and are imagining some hellish/comedic scenario or have played with really awful rules. I've played many, many games with fumble rules. Higher level characters have ways of mitigating fumbles, and when fumbles occur they're just as often dramatic as comedic.

Really? Never played with fumble rules? Good to know you've been spying on every game I've ever played.

So to reiterate. I've played games with fumble rules and "extra special" crit rules. Hated it every time. As far as "comedic effect" ... umm yeah. It's just hilarious when you're playing a high level fighter and drop or break your weapon on a regular basis while the worst that happens to the archer in the back is that they drop an arrow or ... wait for it ... automatically hit the fighter in the back. Loads o' fun.

I tried toned down fumble and crit rules but for me it just wasn't worth the effort.

My game are full of laughter (including comedic failures and successes) without stupid rules and fighters that mimic the 3 Stooges.

 

[Mistwell]

Personally, I hate the idea that a natural 20 is always a critical hit on an attack roll or an automatic success on saving throw but a natural 1 is no different than missing the AC or DC by 1. I play with critical failures (fumbles) on attack rolls and saves for players and NPCs/monsters.

That just means PCs who roll d20s more than once in a turn, like from having the higher level ability to attack more than once per round, are punished far more than PCs who cast a spell with a saving throw. So the higher level a fighter gets, the worse it gets for them as the odds of a fumble go up.

 

[Umbran]

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?

In reality... I rolled four of them on Saturday.

 

[Arvok]

Really? Never played with fumble rules? Good to know you've been spying on every game I've ever played.

That's why I said "seems like".

 

[prabe]

In reality... I rolled four of them on Saturday.

In reality, I've rolled 8 d20s at once (DMing, rolling a large number of attacks at once) and rolled 4 nat 1s and a nat 2. Granted, my dice luck is legendarily bad ...

I've also seen a 5E rogue min his sneak attack with a weapon that gave him bonus dice, so something like 7 damage dice, all 1s. Weird stuff happens.

 

[Oofta]

That's why I said "seems like".

Which I interpret as "I have absolutely no clue, but I'm going to say that if you used critical failures like I do you'd like them." It's a pretty typical logical fallacy that people who don't agree with you are just ignorant and lacking understanding.

You're entitled to play the game any way you and your group want. Just like people are allowed to have a different opinion on the subject. So have fun with fumbles, I'll just never play in a game that uses them. Hardly the end of the world.

But again, I don't have a problem with comedic effects resulting from failure. I do it sometimes when someone fails an ability skill check by 10 or more. So if we want to have a fun discussion about comedic failures, I'm all for it.