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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5324756" data-attributes="member: 22779">Great replies all.  And, I'll admit, I'm impressed with everyone putting up with my rants.  Nice.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Just something I want to call out specifically here:Why this is a bad idea:1.  From a gamist point of view.  This is a bad idea because it biases the game against the players.  The players will make far more skill checks over the course of the campaign than the DM will.  And, consequently, the "1 always fails" will occur to players far more often than it will to NPC's.  Note, this doesn't occur in combat, where a 1 actually is an autofail because, over the course of the campaign, the DM will make at least as many attacks as the party (probably combined).  Thus, in combat, this rule is balanced - it favours no one.  Out of combat, however, this biases the game against the players.  2.  It runs counter to extablished rules.  How does Take 10 work if 1 autofails?  I can Take 10, in 3e or 4e, any time I wish.  There are no restrictions in the rules like there are for Take 20 in 3e.  If 1 autofails, is a player allowed to Take 10?  If a player IS allowed to Take 10, then trivial actions will never fail, thus bypassing the autofail rule.3.  From a simulationist angle, it fails.  It's ridiculous to think that a doctor will misdiagnose 5% of his patients, regardless of the difficulty of the diagnosis.  Yes, in the Olympics, people do choke from time to time.  But, somehow I doubt Olympic Swimmers begin floundering and drowning 5% of the time while treading water in a calm pool.  Let's not forget here, we're talking about a trivial action for this character.  The character actually cannot fail this action (except by changing the rules).  It's not a case of blowing a dive which is very difficult, it's a case of treading water in a still pool and starting to drown 5% of the time.The thing is, I highly doubt most DM's actually take the time to examine these things.  They rule from "common sense".  It makes sense that you should be able to fail actions.  You can fail combat actions, so why should jumping be different?  And, on a gut level, I totally agree that it does make a lot of sense.But, here's a case where gut reaction is actually pretty demonstrably wrong.  It interferes with other rules, it isn't really all that believable when you step back and think about it, and it breaks the balance of the game.Now, it's not a major issue.  And I certainly didn't quit this guy's campaign because of it.  I was bringing it up as an example where "common sense" leads to poor rules.  Doing this in no way makes someone a bad DM.But, it also doesn't make someone a good one either.</blockquote>

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