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

[Charlaquin]

I think people see the title, begin answering the question in their head, and that influences them even if they then read the OP and find it's asking something else.

It's not easy to change direction.

That too!

 

[DND_Reborn]

@Ovinomancer , let's discuss the concept of the confirmation roll in detail (I'll go with the base +12 attack you mention):

You roll a 1. Probability 0.05
Assuming our current confirmation DC 15, the Probability of a Mishap is 0.10 (you only need to roll a 3 or better to avoid the mishap).
That makes the chance of a mishap 0.005 or 1 in 200.

A mishap is typically dropping your weapon or falling prone. As I mentioned in another post, this is only a problem if you've already used your free object interaction (can't pick up your weapon) or have already used half your speed or more (can't stand up). In other words, it is rarely an issue because the PC can recover from the mishap easily.

Moving along to disasters (breaking weapon, hitting ally, etc.): you have to fail a second confirmation roll, so again just 0.10.
This means the chance of a disaster is 0.0005 or 1 in 2000! Translating to the idea of golf, this would be about once in 27 rounds, which is a lot of golf.

Now, given the (typical) 4 attacks per round a 20th level fighter makes, we have:

So, the chance of a mishap is less than 2% during an entire round. The chance of a disaster is about 1 in 500 rounds (not attacks, rounds!).

Personally, I don't find those odds unreasonable, and that is why we use this system.

For a level 1 attacker with +4, the confirmation roll fails 50% of the time. So a mishap would be 1 in 40 attacks, and a disaster 1 in 80 attacks.

Finally, if those odds still seem to steep, chance the DC for the confirmation roll to 10. Obviously at this point you only fail the confirmation rolls also on a natural 1 and would have to roll 3 in a row for a disaster or 1 in 8000 attacks or once in 2000 rounds of battle.

Ultimately, the point is that it is possible to come up with a system where the odds work, even for highly trained people. Professionals have bad things happen. For instance in a football game I watched the other night, the quarterback got the ball and ended up tripping over his own lineman's foot when he backed up, stumbled and fell. Since I don't like that team, it was hilarious!

Things like that happen. Maybe you don't want that chance in your games, which is fine, but myself and others (probably the OP) do want them. So, it can be done. Others might question with such a rarity then why bother? Because it is there and that element of chance lends more excitement and uncertainty to the game.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

I think it's just funny when someone rolls a 1 and new fantastic stories get created, often with hilarity.

Why are you only allowed to create fantaistic stories 5% of the time?

 

[MikalC]

Wow, what a whole pile of threadcrapping.

I feel sorry for the OP, who, I think, was only looking for some funny and interesting anecdotes. Instead, we get a whole lot of whining about how critical fumbles are badwrongfun. Now, I might agree from a gamist perspective, but, seriously people, move on.

So, let's rephrase.

If one accepts the proposition that the rolling of a natural 1 on a d20 has as much narrative value in the game as rolling a natural 20, what are some examples of entertaining or amusing situations that have arisen as a result of you or a person you have gamed with rolling a natural 1?

Happy now?

The problem is that many don’t accept that proposition.
if someone is willing to ask a question, they should be all right with getting answers they may not agree with.
#sorrynotsorry

 

[Ovinomancer]

@Ovinomancer , let's discuss the concept of the confirmation roll in detail (I'll go with the base +12 attack you mention):

You roll a 1. Probability 0.05
Assuming our current confirmation DC 15, the Probability of a Mishap is 0.10 (you only need to roll a 3 or better to avoid the mishap).
That makes the chance of a mishap 0.005 or 1 in 200.

A mishap is typically dropping your weapon or falling prone. As I mentioned in another post, this is only a problem if you've already used your free object interaction (can't pick up your weapon) or have already used half your speed or more (can't stand up). In other words, it is rarely an issue because the PC can recover from the mishap easily.

Moving along to disasters (breaking weapon, hitting ally, etc.): you have to fail a second confirmation roll, so again just 0.10.
This means the chance of a disaster is 0.0005 or 1 in 2000! Translating to the idea of golf, this would be about once in 27 rounds, which is a lot of golf.

Now, given the (typical) 4 attacks per round a 20th level fighter makes, we have:
View attachment 128357

So, the chance of a mishap is less than 2% during an entire round. The chance of a disaster is about 1 in 500 rounds (not attacks, rounds!).

Personally, I don't find those odds unreasonable, and that is why we use this system.

For a level 1 attacker with +4, the confirmation roll fails 50% of the time. So a mishap would be 1 in 40 attacks, and a disaster 1 in 80 attacks.

Finally, if those odds still seem to steep, chance the DC for the confirmation roll to 10. Obviously at this point you only fail the confirmation rolls also on a natural 1 and would have to roll 3 in a row for a disaster or 1 in 8000 attacks or once in 2000 rounds of battle.

Ultimately, the point is that it is possible to come up with a system where the odds work, even for highly trained people. Professionals have bad things happen. For instance in a football game I watched the other night, the quarterback got the ball and ended up tripping over his own lineman's foot when he backed up, stumbled and fell. Since I don't like that team, it was hilarious!

Things like that happen. Maybe you don't want that chance in your games, which is fine, but myself and others (probably the OP) do want them. So, it can be done. Others might question with such a rarity then why bother? Because it is there and that element of chance lends more excitement and uncertainty to the game.

You can't extend odds the way you did. You've figured the odds for a 4 roll trial, you can't just use that as a multiple for a larger trial set. You have to consider the larger trial independently. If you consider an adventuring day as 10 combat rounds, that's 40 attacks, plus 8 more for two action surges. If you then expect that a level twenty fighter will go on, say, 6 adventuring days before the campaign wraps up, that's 288 attacks. This gives a chance of mishap of 76.4%, and a chance of disaster of 13.4%. This is not trivial -- it means that there's a reasonable chance for a rather boring sword and board fighter to do something truly incompetent. You're focusing on the fact that it doesn't happen every or even most rounds, but it does happen, and when it does, it's going to result in the GM narrating the PC as being incompetent to a huge degree. And, quite often, it will result in the GM narrating the PC being incompetent to a lesser degree with the high chance of at least 1 mishap.

And, this will go alongside the PC missing normally, and the enemy doing bad things to the PC, and the player making a poor choice and suffering the consequence. There's not a lack of failure for a 20th level PC, but you're adding a high chance of incompetence to the mix (mishap chance is pretty good, here). Again, if you like this kind of farce, that's great -- it will definitely generate humorous moments of bumbling if that's what you're after. I'm not sure I understand why you'd limit this as you have if that's a desirable goal, but, hey, I quite often don't understand the reasons you come at your houserules. You seem to quite often contradict your stated design goals.

 

[DND_Reborn]

You can't extend odds the way you did. You've figured the odds for a 4 roll trial, you can't just use that as a multiple for a larger trial set. You have to consider the larger trial independently. If you consider an adventuring day as 10 combat rounds, that's 40 attacks, plus 8 more for two action surges. If you then expect that a level twenty fighter will go on, say, 6 adventuring days before the campaign wraps up, that's 288 attacks. This gives a chance of mishap of 76.4%, and a chance of disaster of 13.4%. This is not trivial -- it means that there's a reasonable chance for a rather boring sword and board fighter to do something truly incompetent. You're focusing on the fact that it doesn't happen every or even most rounds, but it does happen, and when it does, it's going to result in the GM narrating the PC as being incompetent to a huge degree. And, quite often, it will result in the GM narrating the PC being incompetent to a lesser degree with the high chance of at least 1 mishap.

And, this will go alongside the PC missing normally, and the enemy doing bad things to the PC, and the player making a poor choice and suffering the consequence. There's not a lack of failure for a 20th level PC, but you're adding a high chance of incompetence to the mix (mishap chance is pretty good, here). Again, if you like this kind of farce, that's great -- it will definitely generate humorous moments of bumbling if that's what you're after. I'm not sure I understand why you'd limit this as you have if that's a desirable goal, but, hey, I quite often don't understand the reasons you come at your houserules. You seem to quite often contradict your stated design goals.

Of course I can. I depends on what your interest is. Thus far, we (the thread as I see it) have been discussing the chance during a round, not an entire adventure! But if you want to change the focus of interest to more support your case, fine I can play along.

FWIW, you could have shown the same thing by saying it basically 72 rounds of battle over the 6 days, using my 0.002 probability of a disaster occurring from my prior post, it works out to your 13.4%. So, you aren't really showing anything new here, just your twist on it.

Now, even given those numbers, that PC could go on nearly 5 such adventures and have about a 50/50 chance of a disaster, which equates to well over 1250 attacks. It actually works out, in this case, to 1386 attacks before the chance of a disaster finally exceeds 50% (over 28 days of adventuring, btw).

But, as I said, if the numbers are too high for you, decrease the DC to 10 and it chances your scenario (288 attacks we will say..., assuming at least a +8 modifier or better) to 51.36% for a mishap (which the PC probably won't be inconvenienced by) and just 3.536% for a disaster. Such an individual could go on nearly 20 such 6-day campaigns with less than a 50/50 chance of a disaster happening on any them. With DC 10, this fighter would have to make 5545 attacks before the chance of a disaster happening exceed 50%. 5545 attacks, which would be over 114 days of adventuring with 48 attacks per day.

Then, consider the consequences of the disaster. Most of the time IME it is an inconvenience at worst and comical. I've never encountered a time when hitting your ally happened at just the right moment that you knocked him out by reducing him to 0 HP, and worse yet without that ally the party suffered a TPK or something crazy. Could it happen? Sure, of course, but in the same light it is just as much to the advantage of the PCs.

Think of this: players wince when the hear the DM cry out "critical hit!" against them, but they will also cheer when an enemy happens to run up to them, miss with a mishap, and fall prone without any movement left. "It's clobbering time!"

Anyway, I can play with numbers as much as you want but I have to get some dinner soon (I am so hungry!). The real question a player (or DM) has to ask themselves is this: is the result of fumbling something I want to have in a game I play in? I've read lots of people like them, lots don't. I don't recall reading a person posting, meh, I can take them or leave them but someone might have. So, you don't like the odds with my confirmation DC 15? Fine, what probability would be acceptable to you? If the answer is 0, then just don't use them. If a player can say, "Well, maybe 1 in 100" or whatever, a system can be made that will hit or come close to those odds.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Of course I can. I depends on what your interest is. Thus far, we (the thread as I see it) have been discussing the chance during a round, not an entire adventure! But if you want to change the focus of interest to more support your case, fine I can play along.

FWIW, you could have shown the same thing by saying it basically 72 rounds of battle over the 6 days, using my 0.002 probability of a disaster occurring from my prior post, it works out to your 13.4%. So, you aren't really showing anything new here, just your twist on it.

Now, even given those numbers, that PC could go on nearly 5 such adventures and have about a 50/50 chance of a disaster, which equates to well over 1250 attacks. It actually works out, in this case, to 1386 attacks before the chance of a disaster finally exceeds 50% (over 28 days of adventuring, btw).

But, as I said, if the numbers are too high for you, decrease the DC to 10 and it chances your scenario (288 attacks we will say..., assuming at least a +8 modifier or better) to 51.36% for a mishap (which the PC probably won't be inconvenienced by) and just 3.536% for a disaster. Such an individual could go on nearly 20 such 6-day campaigns with less than a 50/50 chance of a disaster happening on any them. With DC 10, this fighter would have to make 5545 attacks before the chance of a disaster happening exceed 50%. 5545 attacks, which would be over 114 days of adventuring with 48 attacks per day.

Then, consider the consequences of the disaster. Most of the time IME it is an inconvenience at worst and comical. I've never encountered a time when hitting your ally happened at just the right moment that you knocked him out by reducing him to 0 HP, and worse yet without that ally the party suffered a TPK or something crazy. Could it happen? Sure, of course, but in the same light it is just as much to the advantage of the PCs.

Think of this: players wince when the hear the DM cry out "critical hit!" against them, but they will also cheer when an enemy happens to run up to them, miss with a mishap, and fall prone without any movement left. "It's clobbering time!"

Anyway, I can play with numbers as much as you want but I have to get some dinner soon (I am so hungry!). The real question a player (or DM) has to ask themselves is this: is the result of fumbling something I want to have in a game I play in? I've read lots of people like them, lots don't. I don't recall reading a person posting, meh, I can take them or leave them but someone might have. So, you don't like the odds with my confirmation DC 15? Fine, what probability would be acceptable to you? If the answer is 0, then just don't use them. If a player can say, "Well, maybe 1 in 100" or whatever, a system can be made that will hit or come close to those odds.

By the by, at a DC 10, a 1st level point buy fighter (+3 STR, +2 proficiency) will suffer a "mishap" with a probability of 11.4% over 10 rounds of combat (sword and board, single attack). At fifth, assuming a stat bump (+4 stat, +3 prof), that actually stays pretty consistent at 11.3%. However, at 8th level, the odds drop to 5.8%. When the third attack comes online at 11th, the odds increase to 8.6%, and at 17th, the odds go back up to 11.3%. The point I was making that fumbles, even confirmation fumbles as you do it with the smallest odds of confirmation, are a competence tax. The 20th level fighter has essentially the same odds over the same number of combat rounds to fumble as a 1st level fighter, because he's been getting steadily more likely to fumble since 11th level after peaking in competence at 8th.

ETA: sorry for the hack job of this post. Turns out all I really wanted to say was in the last paragraph, so I clipped out my own fisking responses.

 

[DND_Reborn]

ETA: sorry for the hack job of this post. Turns out all I really wanted to say was in the last paragraph, so I clipped out my own fisking responses.

I happens. I've removed things myself because it is more productive to stay on point.

By the by, at a DC 10, a 1st level point buy fighter (+3 STR, +2 proficiency) will suffer a "mishap" with a probability of 11.4% over 10 rounds of combat (sword and board, single attack). At fifth, assuming a stat bump (+4 stat, +3 prof), that actually stays pretty consistent at 11.3%. However, at 8th level, the odds drop to 5.8%. When the third attack comes online at 11th, the odds increase to 8.6%, and at 17th, the odds go back up to 11.3%. The point I was making that fumbles, even confirmation fumbles as you do it with the smallest odds of confirmation, are a competence tax. The 20th level fighter has essentially the same odds over the same number of combat rounds to fumble as a 1st level fighter, because he's been getting steadily more likely to fumble since 11th level after peaking in competence at 8th.

Sure, did you expect anything different? Whenever you get more attacks, your chances of errors increases. Actually, the peak is whenever you hit +8 bonus (with 2 attacks) since at that point a nat 1 is all that fails the confirmation roll. If you roll scores, it could be as early as 5th level. Regardless, the probability fluctuates between roughly 9.5% and 4.9% for the most part (depending on exact bonuses and number of attacks), over 10 rounds of combat.

Anyway, if you do +5 for level 1, and +11 for level 20, the odds of a mishap are basically identical (9.5618 vs. 9.5276), despite the level 20 PC getting 4x the number of attacks.

Again, if the precise numbers bother you (anecdotally I've never had a problem with these house-rules, even with DC 15...), you can always do what others have suggested, and apply the fumble rules to just the first attack, or only one attack per turn (which also decreases the odds).

Another idea I came up with yesterday, but haven't had time to run the numbers yet, is that when making your confirmation rolls you use a number of d20s equal to your proficiency bonus. So, at level 20, you get to roll 6d20 and use the best result. The numbers become so small by level 20, using the 288 attacks over the 6-day adventure from before, the odds of a mishap are less than 1 in 4 million. THAT is small enough, IMO, I wouldn't even bother anymore. If you return to DC 15, it is about 1 in 6000 (for all 288 attacks). So, I like the concept (you gain more dice because your proficiency goes up, which offsets the extra attacks pretty well), but personally is too fiddly for me and since I don't have time now to do any more with it, I'll leave it to you if you like the concept.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I happens. I've removed things myself because it is more productive to stay on point.


Sure, did you expect anything different? Whenever you get more attacks, your chances of errors increases. Actually, the peak is whenever you hit +8 bonus (with 2 attacks) since at that point a nat 1 is all that fails the confirmation roll. If you roll scores, it could be as early as 5th level. Regardless, the probability fluctuates between roughly 9.5% and 4.9% for the most part (depending on exact bonuses and number of attacks), over 10 rounds of combat.

Anyway, if you do +5 for level 1, and +11 for level 20, the odds of a mishap are basically identical (9.5618 vs. 9.5276), despite the level 20 PC getting 4x the number of attacks.

Again, if the precise numbers bother you (anecdotally I've never had a problem with these house-rules, even with DC 15...), you can always do what others have suggested, and apply the fumble rules to just the first attack, or only one attack per turn (which also decreases the odds).

Another idea I came up with yesterday, but haven't had time to run the numbers yet, is that when making your confirmation rolls you use a number of d20s equal to your proficiency bonus. So, at level 20, you get to roll 6d20 and use the best result. The numbers become so small by level 20, using the 288 attacks over the 6-day adventure from before, the odds of a mishap are less than 1 in 4 million. THAT is small enough, IMO, I wouldn't even bother anymore. If you return to DC 15, it is about 1 in 6000 (for all 288 attacks). So, I like the concept (you gain more dice because your proficiency goes up, which offsets the extra attacks pretty well), but personally is too fiddly for me and since I don't have time now to do any more with it, I'll leave it to you if you like the concept.

Yes, I do expect different from a mechanic touted as protecting the better skilled. You ignored action surge in your evaluation, which is why you got a different number. Add in two action surges to each, on the assumption there's 1 short rest. Technically, you should add in four for the final one (I didn't), due to the 17th level rider on action surge being able to be used twice per short rest, which would mean the 17th+ level fighter has the highest chance to fumble and confirm of any level at 12.2%

The rest of your post are increasing complex ways to limit the impact of a fumble rule, to the point of asking what it's supposed to be adding for the effort involved? Why do I now need paragraphs of rules (short paragraphs, but still) to define a fumble -- how it happens and what happens? What is being added here? Design wise, when you need this many saving constructions on a rule, it's time to look at the rule and consider if it needs to be there. I'm sure this isn't a consideration for you, as I think your house-rule document must rival the PHB at this point given your posts here, but unless a group really likes that many layers of rules, is this a valuable thing to save? It's a lot of rules just to inject farce -- surely there's a better way to do that.

 

[DragonWitch42]

All this talk of probability of critical fumbles is off topic. Yes, a great swordsman who fails 5% of the time wouldn't be a great swordsman.

But you need to look at it a different way. In combat many things are going on (rarely a one on one affair), it isn't just that the swordsman screwed up and failed (luck plays a part in these battles, good luck for the target in this case) it could be narrated that while his strike was on target for that chink in the armor below the armpit, but his friend the dwarf who is fighting along side him and attacked immediately before cause the opponent to grunt in pain bringing his arms down at the last second causing the sword strike to deflect off his armor instead perhaps being accidentally re-directed into his friend the dwarf. The swordsman did nothing wrong here, but in combat stuff happens that was not planned.

In my games I allow/expect my players to narratively decide what happens on a critical (failure or success). They can choose to be as punitive or not as they see fit.

A few games ago we had a cleric who being spooked after being woken up by the roar of a bear coming into camp, did what he always did when startled, up-cast a guiding bolt before getting out of his sleeping bag. He rolled a Natural 1. Based on his positioning and his paladin friends positioning compared to the bear. He narrated, that his hands got tangled up in the sleeping bag as he cast his spell through the sleeping bag destroying it and hitting his paladins shield from the back side. He also rolled nearly max damage so the shield was bent and ruined and nearly ripped from his arm.

All of this is the players choice. In my opinion it has worked well.