fett527
First Post
A word on Crits and Fumbles
I quoted this part of the story hour to address a house rule that we have instituted. We have always loved critical hits. Not the roll in your particular crit range, you confirm, you roll more dice, but the you roll a 20 and YOU JUST BROUGHT DOWN THE WRATH OF THE GODS UPON THEM!!! (Ok, they're not always that extreme, but they can be.) Back in the day, we used crit and fumble charts. You roll a 20 or a 1, roll percentile to see what happens (Dragon magazine I think). We eventually, and I do believe Enkhidu did this, made our own crit and fumble charts as we went along through 2nd ed. We did this because of the fun, unexpected and great role-playing opportunities that could come out of these circumstances. Some of the most fun and memorable events in our games have occurred because of an extreme crit or fumble. Then 3rd Ed entered the picture and changed the landscape of crits and fumbles. Hmmm...what were we to do to integrate the new rules with the fun of the percentile rolls? Here's the outcome: we have always believed that when you roll a natural 20 something extra good always happens and when you roll a 1 something bad always happens. (Rolling a 20 and only doing normal damage just takes that special feeling out of rolling a 20) So, first we decided if you roll a natural 20, but do not confirm the crit then max damage is applied. Second, we decided if you roll a 1 and are in range of an opponent you incur an AOO. Third, if you roll a 20 and then roll another 20 we roll percentile for the outcome (now to be decided solely by the DM-no tables) the higher the roll the better. Fourth, if you roll a 1 and then roll another 1 (confirming a fumble basically) you roll percentile for the outcome (same as above) the higher the roll the worse the outcome.
In the scenario form the story hour I, playing Ashrem, rolled a 20 and then rolled another 20 and then rolled percentile. The percentile roll was high enough that dshai527 decided the blessed crossbow bolt destroyed the creature outright-describing it pretty much the same way as it is in the story hour.
Also, I should add that we decided to modify things even further. The critical criticals and critical fumbles (as we have come to call them) were not happening with as much frequency as we wanted them to. Rolling 20 back to back or 1 back to back just doesn't happen very often. Remember this is all personal preference, but we decided to increase the chances of having these occur. Every player now rolls a 4 sided die at the beginning of the session. (We call this the luck of fate roll. Fate has decided that the character has more luck than usual-both good and bad.) This is to determine the confirmation range for a critical critical or critical fumble. Example: I roll a d4 and get 3. To confirm a critical critical after rolling a natural 20, I now will do so on an 18, 19, or 20. If I roll a 1 on the d4 it would still only be confirmed with a 20. The same for the fumbles, I take the 3 from the previous example and apply it to fumbles which would be confirmed on a 1, 2, or 3.
This is just something we love to do to spice things up and throw a little chaos into the mix every so often.
I quoted this part of the story hour to address a house rule that we have instituted. We have always loved critical hits. Not the roll in your particular crit range, you confirm, you roll more dice, but the you roll a 20 and YOU JUST BROUGHT DOWN THE WRATH OF THE GODS UPON THEM!!! (Ok, they're not always that extreme, but they can be.) Back in the day, we used crit and fumble charts. You roll a 20 or a 1, roll percentile to see what happens (Dragon magazine I think). We eventually, and I do believe Enkhidu did this, made our own crit and fumble charts as we went along through 2nd ed. We did this because of the fun, unexpected and great role-playing opportunities that could come out of these circumstances. Some of the most fun and memorable events in our games have occurred because of an extreme crit or fumble. Then 3rd Ed entered the picture and changed the landscape of crits and fumbles. Hmmm...what were we to do to integrate the new rules with the fun of the percentile rolls? Here's the outcome: we have always believed that when you roll a natural 20 something extra good always happens and when you roll a 1 something bad always happens. (Rolling a 20 and only doing normal damage just takes that special feeling out of rolling a 20) So, first we decided if you roll a natural 20, but do not confirm the crit then max damage is applied. Second, we decided if you roll a 1 and are in range of an opponent you incur an AOO. Third, if you roll a 20 and then roll another 20 we roll percentile for the outcome (now to be decided solely by the DM-no tables) the higher the roll the better. Fourth, if you roll a 1 and then roll another 1 (confirming a fumble basically) you roll percentile for the outcome (same as above) the higher the roll the worse the outcome.
In the scenario form the story hour I, playing Ashrem, rolled a 20 and then rolled another 20 and then rolled percentile. The percentile roll was high enough that dshai527 decided the blessed crossbow bolt destroyed the creature outright-describing it pretty much the same way as it is in the story hour.
Also, I should add that we decided to modify things even further. The critical criticals and critical fumbles (as we have come to call them) were not happening with as much frequency as we wanted them to. Rolling 20 back to back or 1 back to back just doesn't happen very often. Remember this is all personal preference, but we decided to increase the chances of having these occur. Every player now rolls a 4 sided die at the beginning of the session. (We call this the luck of fate roll. Fate has decided that the character has more luck than usual-both good and bad.) This is to determine the confirmation range for a critical critical or critical fumble. Example: I roll a d4 and get 3. To confirm a critical critical after rolling a natural 20, I now will do so on an 18, 19, or 20. If I roll a 1 on the d4 it would still only be confirmed with a 20. The same for the fumbles, I take the 3 from the previous example and apply it to fumbles which would be confirmed on a 1, 2, or 3.
This is just something we love to do to spice things up and throw a little chaos into the mix every so often.
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( I will never forget the monk entering the tavern to join his friends in a tavern brawl...He furiously charged his opponent, trying to deliver his powerful flying kick move...But his 1 made him go straight to the bottle stands behind the balcony...)
