NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7694607" data-attributes="member: 4937">As I've said before, it's very difficult to talk about a fiction that isn't a product of a game system and say anything definite about how the same fiction would be produced by a game system.  But it's probably impossible to talk about a fiction that isn't a product of a game system and say anything definite about how it would be produced by a hypothetical game system.We can't really say for sure whether Han stepping on the stick was a simple failure, resulting in him being heard and then losing initiative, or whether it was a catastrophic failure resulting in additional penalties.   For example, we don't know if in some hypothetical system, fumbles of a Stealth check also result in disadvantage of some sort to initiative.  This would indeed by a fumble, as the character is now subject to some additional penalty beyond having lost the stakes.  Even in systems where it is possible, "Decapitate Ally" is not the normal result of a fumble.  I mean, theoretically speaking, "Decapitate Ally" is possible in my system.  The sequence of events though is highly improbable:a) Attack an opponent while squeezing with an ally or while the opponent is grappled or clinching an ally.b) Fumble and don't have some sort of fumble mitigation feat.c) Confirm the fumble by missing the target with a second roll.d) Attack the ally and hit.e) Score a critical on the attack.f) Confirm the critical by successfully hitting the ally with a second attack roll.g) Do sufficient damage with the critical to drop the ally to 0 hit points or less.h Roll against the traumatic injury table and obtain the 1 in 36 chance decapitation/crushed skull result.i) Ally fails DC 15 fortitude save to avoid traumatic injury.That's obviously a fumble in the fiction, but like 10 things had to go perfectly and unlikely wrong to achieve it.  Probably that sequence is so rare you'll never see it in a game.  Maybe 1 in 40,000 attacks would go that wrong and only in situations where it was obvious the attack carried risk.   The more common results of fumbles wouldn't be so obvious 'on screen' in the movie version of the fiction.  They include things like loss of initiative order, becoming flatfooted for a round, stumbling and needing to make a balance check, yielding an attack of opportunity, loss of shield bonus for a round, having a weapon become unreadied, becoming fatigued, straining a muscle, and so forth.  These are all extra penalties and therefore fumbles, but they aren't necessarily large obvious results like accidently jabbing a stick through your own eye.</blockquote>

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