Nat 20 rule. Is it immersion breaking?

[Campbell]

I also would not cast Smaug as an Ancient Red Dragon. Generally nothing seen in Middle Earth can't be accomplished in the first 10 levels of the game.

If Bard is a Ranger it would also help explain why he could put so much power into a single arrow.

 

[gargoyleking]

I also would not cast Smaug as an Ancient Red Dragon. Generally nothing seen in Middle Earth can't be accomplished in the first 10 levels of the game.

If Bard is a Ranger it would also help explain why he could put so much power into a single arrow.

Or a rogue...

 

[Kaodi]

Tolkien was clearly house ruling that consecutive naturals 20s when combined with the correct weapon (or prophecy, Mr. Witch-King) is an instant kill.

 

[Mistwell]

If the adventure or DM put in a hard block that can only be solved with a 20, doesn't allow rerolls, and has no alternate way to move forward in the adventure - that's poor adventure design, has nothing to do with the game system.

Now we have a case where even a 20 won't handle it, and that stays true. It's bad adventure design or DMing, has nothing to do with the game.

And if it's a combat and the characters can't hit on a 20, perhaps the players should not assume everything they encounter is a fight they can win and instead retreat. With the same caveat - if an adventure has an unbeatable monster and no reasonable way to win via alternate methods or retreat, it's a poorly designed encounter.

I disagree with your analysis on this. Let's say at low levels the players face defeat at the hands of goblins. And the PCs swear some day they will return and kill all the goblins.

Fast forward, the PCs are now all high level. And they say they want to go back to the goblin nation, and start killing all the goblins.

This is not "adventure design" it's "ordinary sandbox play". The world doesn't automatically increase the difficulty level of challenges in an area just because the players enter it, like a video game. If that's the goblin nation, composed almost entirely of low level goblins, and the rules state the goblins literally cannot hit the players even if they roll a 20, that's a RULES issue that is breaking immersion, not a DM or adventure design issue. Any sort of fantasy or real world laws of physics should state that someone can get a lucky hit, and that hordes can overwhelm individuals even if each member of the horde couldn't do it alone. The rules should, in some respect, account for this. The DM should not need to design around it.

 

[Blue]

I disagree with your analysis on this. Let's say at low levels the players face defeat at the hands of goblins. And the players swear some day they will return and kill all the goblins.

Fast forward, the players are now all high level. And they say they want to go back to the goblin nation, and start killing all the goblins.

This is not "adventure design" it's "ordinary sandbox play". The world doesn't automatically increase the difficulty level of challenges in an area just because the players enter it, like a video game. If that's the goblin nation, composed almost entirely of low level goblins, and the rules state the goblins literally cannot hit the players even if they roll a 20, that's a RULES issue that is breaking immersion, not a DM or adventure design issue. Any sort of fantasy or real world laws of physics should state that someone can get a lucky hit, and that hordes can overwhelm individuals even if each member of the horde couldn't do it alone. The rules should, in some respect, account for this. The DM should not need to design around it.

I disagree. You are mixing up "real world" hit which mean contact, and PF hit, which also adds penetrating armor. I can take a stick, swing it at the WW2 tank that's an exhibit at a nearby park, and I don't care if I do it 20 times of 100, I can guarentee that it will not penetrate the armor to do damage to something inside. And yes, high level characters with magical defenses are like that tank.

So it might be that there is a rules issue, but it's with defenses generating "misses" in the first place, something in place with both versions of PF (and every version of D&D both before and after).

 

[Mistwell]

I disagree. You are mixing up "real world" hit which mean contact, and PF hit, which also adds penetrating armor. I can take a stick, swing it at the WW2 tank that's an exhibit at a nearby part, and I don't care if I do it 20 times of 100, I can guarentee that it will not penetrate the armor to do damage to something inside. And yes, high level characters with magical defenses are like that tank.

So it might be that there is a rules issue, but it's with defenses generating "misses" in the first place, something in place with both versions of PF (and every version of D&D both before and after).

Then you would be wrong. Ordinary infantry soldiers, in sufficient quantities, destroyed tanks sometimes during WW2. It was not a favored tactic, but it definitely happened (usually by destroying tank treads, or running them into an unseen ditch).

You should be able to hit anything, with really very good luck. The odds might be drastically, overwhelmingly against you, and you might do little damage, but you should have a chance. If PF2 has built a rules-based system which says you simply cannot hit something, ever, no matter how much luck and fate is on your side, I'd say that is very clearly a rules issue and not a DM or adventure design issue.

I am not even sure how this is a controversial issue. I know people get super passionate about rules, particularly new rules which are under fire, and I can appreciate that as I've experienced that sentiment myself before. But I feel like this is pretty objectively a rules-oriented discussion and not something people should bash DMs or adventure designers over. If you're OK with something being just entirely not hittable at all, that's a fair opinion. But I don't get the bashing DMs and adventure designers over this issue - PF2 made a rules-oriented choice about this. Adherents to PF2 should be able to defend that rule without turning it on players of the game for not finding a way to work around the rule. If it's something players need to work around, that's a pretty good sign it's the rule that's the problem.

 

[Agamon]

I'd be okay with letting players come up with plans to deal with something that isn't "hittable" with a normal attack. It'd make for an interesting encounter. Going against design? Maybe

I don't really see it being much of a real problem though. PF2, much like it's predecessors, isn't a flat math game where the party might fight anything, sandbox-style. If they stay in their +/-4 lane, this should never come up.

It's okay for myriad different RPGs to have different types of rules.

 

[Blue]

I am not even sure how this is a controversial issue. I know people get super passionate about rules, particularly new rules which are under fire, and I can appreciate that as I've experienced that sentiment myself before. But I feel like this is pretty objectively a rules-oriented discussion and not something people should bash DMs or adventure designers over. If you're OK with something being just entirely not hittable at all, that's a fair opinion. But I don't get the bashing DMs and adventure designers over this issue - PF2 made a rules-oriented choice about this. Adherents to PF2 should be able to defend that rule without turning it on players of the game for not finding a way to work around the rule. If it's something players need to work around, that's a pretty good sign it's the rule that's the problem.

It's basically inconsequential. A 20 that's a failure is still turned into a success. It's only a 20 that's already a critical failure that won't succeed. So we're talking about a check where after all bonuses we would need to roll a 30 to succeed normally, right?

Combine that with even in that rare case, it only matters the 1/20th of the time when someone rolls a 20.

So this isn't going to come up very often at all. (Though I am a bit recalibrated to 5e's Bounded Accuracy, so it's not totally out of the picture as I was originally thinking.) But still, it's impact on most sessions will be nothing, and it may only come up a few times in a whole campaign for the players.

For "adventure shaming": I was originally thinking from the PC viewpoint as my examples showed. Any situation that requires a 20 (or worse yet - lots of 20s) to be the only solution, the DM or adventure has let us down. You brought up the valid counter-example of foes, which I have to say is a good point.

Still not a fan of even massed foes that only succeed on 20s. We're talking lowest ACs in the 30s if the goblins would still critically fail on a 20. So we're talking quite powerful PCs against the same wimpy goblins.

It's a great revenge scene, but forcing it through the combat system that either ends up with inconsequential damage to the PCs or ends up being a horrible grind because of the sheer number of them. That corner case really showcases a weaknesses of the combat system. I'd suggest handling it as some sort of other challenge that will provide better pacing and risk - and therefore tension - to move forward. That's a much more successful scene then tying yourself to the combat mechanics for something so far off their intended math.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You should be able to hit anything, with really very good luck. The odds might be drastically, overwhelmingly against you, and you might do little damage, but you should have a chance. If PF2 has built a rules-based system which says you simply cannot hit something, ever, no matter how much luck and fate is on your side, I'd say that is very clearly a rules issue and not a DM or adventure design issue.

This is a d20 system. If something would happen much less than 5% of the time, then it's too rare to show up in our statistical model.

The idea that astronomically-unlikely events should have a 5% chance of happening is at the root of almost every bad anecdote in this medium. If you want to model unlikely events, then you need a game mechanic which is better suited to that job.

 

[GreyLord]

Sure, but I don't think you will be getting that in D&D either. Bard the Bowman made the shot with a non-magical bow and killed the dragon, despite a longbow only doing crit (1d8 + Dex) x 2 damage against an ancient red dragon that was previously at full HP. Even with bounded accuracy, I don't think D&D is meant to support these sort of stories.

Depends on which D&D.

Prior to 3e D&D had the Arrow of Dragon Slaying (based, interestingly enough probably on the Hobbit and Smaug's Death) which, if used against a Dragon, could slay it instantly.

No need for a critical hit, no need for a natural 20.