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

[Shiroiken]

In general, I'm glad of bounded accuracy making the need for automatic (and critical) success/failures unnecessary. The problem for criticals is that it will on a d20 will happen 10% of the time (1 and 20), and this makes them fairly common, rather than special. One thing that was interesting about the critical hits of 3E was the confirmation check, making them much more rare than they are in 5E, and thus special. A critical failure should conversely work the same, keeping them both memorable and special.

I will agree that I feel that there should be an opposite to rolls. If there's a critical hit in 5E, then there should either be a critical miss or a minimum hit. A critical miss would be fairly easy: you grant advantage to the next attack roll from that target against you (you've opened yourself up to them in your attack) before the end of their next turn. In the rare event both have multiple attacks, and one has multiple critical misses, this would stack on the number of attacks. A minimal attack is easy to figure (hits exactly the AC), but harder to resolve. I'd probably go with half the damage dice with no minimum, but this makes it pretty weak for most weapons since you'd only get your modifier. Another option would be to set all dice to a 1, which feels really bad too.

 

[Laurefindel]

How fantastic are natural 1's? I am a firm believer that they are better than natural 20's.

Very few players remember when the Rogue succeeds on a Sleight of Hand check when pick-pocketing the Watch Commander to filch a couple of SP.

However, Everyone remembers the ensuing shenanigans when the same skill check resulted in a natural 1!

So how great are natural 1's?

What are your wonderful stories when the campaign goes off-script with an almighty fail?

Both for Players and of course DM's...Awesome anecdotes required.

Natural 1s can be awesomely memorable, but in my experience, not much more so than natural 20s. Unless you're only speaking about combat? But even then, I can, as a player and as a DM, remember as many memorable and critical (ha!) natural 20s than natural 1s.

Striking the right balance between "naughty word happens" and an episode of the Three Stooges can be tricky. So much depends on the players' tastes, the tone of the game, and style sought after by the DM. But then again, what doesn't... Playing games like Edge of the Empire and Blades in the Dark gave me new insights on how complications can be brought in the game, and nat 1s are a good vector for that. It doesn't even need to target the player specifically, or immediately. I've used nat 1s to trigger rotation of guards, bad guys targetting a player as "the leader to be captured", getting low on arrows, succeeding at a cost (losing rations during the attempt, or getting wet and thus rolling with disadvantage on cold temperatures saving throws etc), taking way more time than anticipated etc. It gets the action moving in unexpected directions, but they happen too frequently to be that memorable.

My most memorable natural 1s moments usually imply a succession of 1s. I have a Star Wars game in mind where we all had to roll for riding (which few of us were proficient), all succeeding with the exception of one character rolling 1. Like in the movies, the one guys not getting along with its camel (or Star Wars equivalent). Then another day, another challenge, all roll riding again. All of us succeed except the same player... with a nat 1. Decidedly, him and his mount don't get along. IIRC, minor penalties arose from that. Then a firefight! Roll riding to control your mount. All of us succeed except for you know who. With a 1 at that. Character falls, get some damage from that. Then, stampede in a canyon threatens our mounts from being trampled. Guess who roll natural 1. At this point we can barely believe it. His mount didn't survive... because he shot it down himself!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Ok, you're not talking about the same thing anymore that I am so I'm leaving this alone and your insistence that some things are silly is just insulting. Later.

Go back to page three when I first quote you. I've been talking about the same thing.

Now if you don't think it is silly that the first level characters, even ones with no skill or attribute bonuses keep trying and succeeding in tasks that are defined as nearly impossible (or super skilled characters keep failing at things that are defined as very easy) and you want to encourage that sort of gameplay in your table, then that's fine. But I am really glad that the official rules do not agree with you.

 

[Laurefindel]

Go back to page three when I first quote you. I've been talking about the same thing.

Now if you don't think it is silly that the first level characters, even ones with no skill or attribute bonuses keep trying and succeeding in tasks that are defined as nearly impossible (or super skilled characters keep failing at things that are defined as very easy) and you want to encourage that sort of gameplay in your table, then that's fine. But I am really glad that the official rules do not agree with you.

I agree with you, but the rules already agree with auto-success and auto-failure houserules, because the rules suggest that a DM shouldn't allow a roll if there are no chances of success or failure. According to that, it doesn't matter how proficient a character is. If the DM allowed a roll, its because a believable chance of success or failure exist.

 

[Richards]

Another exciting natural 1 roll from a previous campaign involved the PCs fighting a pair of what they thought were demon cultists for the soul of the sister of one of the PCs, who had been tricked into allowing it to be claimed by one of the "cultists." During the ensuing arena battle, the "cultists" revealed themselves to be a nalfeshnee demon and a glabrezu demon, both of whom had been gated in and thus would die a permanent death if slain on the Material Plane. But the other PCs had put their own souls on the line to win back the soul of the one PC's sister, so it was a pretty high-stakes fight.

The glabrezu was taken down fairly easily - not slain, but brought down enough he didn't want to risk a permanent death and thus he plane shifted away. The nalfeshnee, though, was giving the PCs quite a hard time: several had already been forced to bow out of the fight and if he managed to take out as many with his second use of his smite attack as he had with his first use of it, the PCs were going to be in a world of hurt.

That's when one player recalled her PC wore an angelhelm, which had a usable-once-per-day power of dispel evil - if the nalfeshnee failed its Will save it would be banished back to the Abyss upon a successful touch attack. I did the math, though, and announced it would save on anything but a "1."

So the ranger activated the dispel evil power of her angelhem, made the touch attack, and overcame the demon's inherent spell resistance. I always roll in the open, so I threw my d20 on the flat surface of a Player's Handbook, it teetered off the edge and onto the tabletop...and came up as a natural 1.

I have never seen that player - or any player, really - so excited about any die roll in all of my years of gaming. She was literally out of her chair and jumping up and down for joy.

Johnathan

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I agree with you, but the rules already agree with auto-success and auto-failure houserules, because the rules suggest that a DM shouldn't allow a roll if there are no chances of success or failure. According to that, it doesn't matter how proficient a character is. If the DM allowed a roll, its because a believable chance of success or failure exist.

Right, but certainly that 'no chance' adjudication means in general sense, and not on individual basis, being different for each character?

 

[DND_Reborn]

I've been talking about the same thing.

It's actually clear you haven't, but I am trying to let this go. Please respect that and let it go. Thank you.

 

[Oofta]

So may be a dumb question about the odds of rolling a one. If I flip a coin, it's a 50% chance of getting heads. The odds of getting heads in 2 flips of the coin is of course less than 100%. But if you flip the coin 100 times, odds are it will be close to 50 heads, 50 tails.

So if my fighter does 4 attacks per round, the odds of fumbling are less than 20% that they will roll a 1 on any specific turn. But what about over the course of 25 turns? What about 100 turns? Seems like in 100 turns (400 D20 rolls) I would expect an average of 20 fumbles. In other words, a 20% chance.

I don't care about any individual turn so what's wrong with the logic? Or is is just lies, damn lies and statistics?

 

[DND_Reborn]

So may be a dumb question about the odds of rolling a one. If I flip a coin, it's a 50% chance of getting heads. The odds of getting heads in 2 flips of the coin is of course less than 100%. But if you flip the coin 100 times, odds are it will be close to 50 heads, 50 tails.

So if my fighter does 4 attacks per round, the odds of fumbling are less than 20% that they will roll a 1 on any specific turn. But what about over the course of 25 turns? What about 100 turns? Seems like in 100 turns (400 D20 rolls) I would expect an average of 20 fumbles. In other words, a 20% chance.

I don't care about any individual turn so what's wrong with the logic? Or is is just lies, damn lies and statistics?

You're quite right. Out of 100 turns, with about a 20% chance of getting a nat 1 during a turn, you can expect it to happen about 20 times out of the 100 or 1 round in 5.

This is much higher than a fighter with one attack, who would expect to see a nat 1 only 1 round in 20!

But, again, that is where the confirmation roll is essential IMO, it changes the odds because you are much more likely to make that confirmation roll and avoid any "fumble" that might otherwise occur when you are higher level.

If you just play that a nat 1 is some sort of mishap (with no confirmation roll) you are indeed penalizing more experienced PCs.

 

[Arvok]

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.