Liquide
DEX: 4
Well just wanted to post one of our house-rules in here to see what people think of it, and also what kind of problems that can occur when one uses this rule.
The grand OB is a rule that comes in effect every time either a natural 1 or natural 20 is rolled.
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NATURAL 1
Whenever a natural 1 is rolled, on an attack or skill check for example, you roll again to see how bad you actually rolled that one.
I'll explain the mechanic briefly.
Charzed a Lv. 8 Rogue that has +14 in Balance walks over the rope that stretches over a chasm that doesn't seems to have any visible bottom.
The DM decides it is DC22 to walk it over (this is an example so no rules-lawyering on the DC please
).
Charzed makes his check but rolls the dreaded natural 1 on his dice and we see terror in the players face. He now rolls again to see how bad his natural one turns out. This time he rolls a natural 15, he then deducts the 15 from 20 and gets the negative result from the roll, in this case -5, and adds Balance modifer to the final rolled result which sums up to 9 (14-5), ok this is a complete and utter failure and the poor player will fall down into the chasm unless anyone thinks fast and can get an improvised plan up to save him.
Now take the above scenario again but think that he rolls 2 natural ones in a row, this means he has slided down yet another step in the horrible failure chart. A double natural one means that he slided down into the -21 to -40 failure result and rolls again. This time he rolls a natural 6, not a very good result and he deducts this from 40 and gets his negative result from the roll, in this case -34, and then add his balance modifier to the roll for a total of -20 (14-34) for a complete and utter failure (he failed his DC with 42 which usually means that bad things start to happen).
So in our games never roll a natural 1, and never roll more then one in a row. Sure this adds some odd things to mechanics but the fear of failure is always there and makes things interesting even at higher levels, remember flukes can happen to everyone, and still the natural 1 is not an immediate failure, just an extraordinary one.
Worst thing that has ever happened is a -81 failure on a Tumble check for a Rogue to get away from a Troll in melee. (never roll 5 natural 1's in a row it gets messy) Even though we have a policy that a 1 should never outright kill a PC situations can do that however, in this case that guy that failed the check tried the backflip but landed on his head and took tonnes of subdual damage (enough to knock him out) but he didn't die and the Fighter and Cleric could save him from the situation a round after that (always have a fighter to distract trolls in melee just a suggestion).
This brings in more danger, but also gives you more suspense and interesting sessions even at higher levels.
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NATURAL 20
Whenever a natural 20 is rolled, on an attack ot skill check for example, you roll the die again to see how grand you managed to solve the task (or how hard you hit the enemy for that matter).
I'll explain it on skill checks first and then attacks.
SKILLS
Charzed who now once again is at the place he tried to walk a rope earlier (he was saved thanks to a daredevil wizard who jumped after him into the chasm and luckily had 2 spider climb spells prepared while Charzed used his grappling hook to takes them closer to the chasm walls).
He doesn't really feel up to the fact that he needs to walk the rope again, since that rope gotta be cursed or hate him or whatever so he decides to jump over the chasm instead. The chasm is some 20 feet wide, since Charzed is 6 feet tall this will not be a problem since his maximum distance from a running jump is 36 feet so when he looks at the distance he feels like it should be a quite simple task to perform.
Since the chasm is 20 feet and Charzed has a +10 in his Jump skill so he must roll a 15 or greater on his jump check (a moderatly hard jump really)
Charzed makes his check and see a shining wonderful natural 20 on the dice, even though he feels he has made the jump check he rolls the dice again to improve the result (who knows what circumstance modifiers that can pop out of nowhere at this dreaded place that nearly cost him his life). This time he rolls an 8 and adds this to 20 for a total rolled result of 28. He now adds his jump check modifier to the result to get his final score of 38 (10+28) which gives him a grand total distance of 33 feet jumped and he manage the jump without any problems whatsoever.
Now if he had rolled another 20 on his second roll he would add +40 (two natural 20's) to the roll and make another roll again, add the result to 40 and then add his jump modifier to the rolled result for his final result.
So while the natural 1 is hated the natural 20 is so wonderful it can bring tears into your eyes when it happens.
Most insane skill check ever performed is when the Rogue (once again) that Needs to get in some money (well he can spend like no-one else and loves small trinkets which most of his money goes to) so he takes a look in his backpack and finds an old stone idol he "borrowed" from a temple they happened to "visit" and figures he can prolly sell this to some luxury shop for the insanely rich for a good amount of gold.
So he goes to Gharned's Antiques and play it like he knows what he is talking about, and when the pricing issue comes up he starts to tell the background to this idol (a note we do roleplay these kind of discussion and then the DM decides what modifier the opposite side gets to his sense motive), this story was soooo wayout there that the DM decides that this requied a massive modifier to sense motive so he assigned the +20 modifier. However what happens, well the Rouge gets a final score of 97 on his Bluff check
(4 20's in a row for 80 +17 from his bluff skill) and beats the shopkeeper with too much (DM never said what he rolled at this occasion) and the shopkeeper is in total awe about this idol and the backstory around it (he also values this item to at least a few thousand gold) and feels like he needs to have it he really needs to have it no question about it. So while he tries to stay calm he asks the Rouge (as firm as he can) what he would like to have for this piece of fine idol, the Rouge who was in need to a bed for the night and maybe a few more trinkets replies give me 50 gold and I'm out of here (the Rouge feels that this is insane since he has a appraised it a few times and knows it is worth somewhere around 10-14 gold, but he who doesn't try will never know). What happens then is that a very confused Rouge is 100 gold richer and a very satisifed shop owner thinks he just made the bargain of his life 
, so funny how sessions can turn out.
ATTACKS
Well now Charzed is n the mood again and has moved into a very nice position to attack a nasty Troll bastard, he is however alone with this bastard but is in a very nice position for a sneak attack to happen (due to a very nice hide check earlier on and an utter failure on the trolls behalf in the spotting expertise).
So he rolls his to hit dice and see that wonderful 20 come up and roll his threat confirmation and gets another 20 and just feels so nice and rolls for a threat confimation again and ends up with a 16 which adds up to 24 which is a threat since it would have hit the troll normally.
So now he is allowed to for damage, in this case he adds 5d6 from his sneak attack but he also rolled a double crit with his short sword so we see what the multiplier is on short swords, we find it is x2 which we double for a total of x4 for the double crit to a grand total of 4d6+12 (1 from strength, and a +2 weapon for a total of +3 times 4) and the attack does a grand total of 9d6+12 damage.
Due to the nature of crits/threats only the second natural 20 (and beyond) really counts and every natural 20 beyond the first doubles the crit multiplier. However if you shouldn't be able to hit the creature normally (even with a crit/threat) this only gets converted to a "hit" instead of an extreme crit.
Most extreme scanrio ever in this is a Level 16 Fighter with a +3 Keen Greatsword, Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, Weapon Specialization, Power Attack and 32 Strength that Power Attacks for +10 damage for a grand total attack bonus of +20 against a Fire Giant. So he did rolled his first natural 20 followed by 7, YES SEVEN, natural 20's (statictics can go and forget that they exist here) for a grand total of a septuple crit (x14 for a Greatsword), his damage was then 2d6+33 for a single attack which became 28d6+462. He was the last person standing and we fought a very angered Giant chieftan and this totally saved our day and it is the largest amount of damage I have ever seen been dished out by a Fighter ever in a single attack. And who says miracles don't happen have never played dnd , the sad story however is that this particular 20 has since then only rolled a single natural 20 in two years but it did helped us out when we really needed it.
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So roll in questions and comments about these house-rules please , we will not change them but I just need some thoughts on them from you guys (they work for us and multiple natural 1's and 20's doesn't happen all that often for it to skewer balance over too much)
The grand OB is a rule that comes in effect every time either a natural 1 or natural 20 is rolled.
____________________________
NATURAL 1
Whenever a natural 1 is rolled, on an attack or skill check for example, you roll again to see how bad you actually rolled that one.
I'll explain the mechanic briefly.
Charzed a Lv. 8 Rogue that has +14 in Balance walks over the rope that stretches over a chasm that doesn't seems to have any visible bottom.
The DM decides it is DC22 to walk it over (this is an example so no rules-lawyering on the DC please
).Charzed makes his check but rolls the dreaded natural 1 on his dice and we see terror in the players face. He now rolls again to see how bad his natural one turns out. This time he rolls a natural 15, he then deducts the 15 from 20 and gets the negative result from the roll, in this case -5, and adds Balance modifer to the final rolled result which sums up to 9 (14-5), ok this is a complete and utter failure and the poor player will fall down into the chasm unless anyone thinks fast and can get an improvised plan up to save him.
Now take the above scenario again but think that he rolls 2 natural ones in a row, this means he has slided down yet another step in the horrible failure chart. A double natural one means that he slided down into the -21 to -40 failure result and rolls again. This time he rolls a natural 6, not a very good result and he deducts this from 40 and gets his negative result from the roll, in this case -34, and then add his balance modifier to the roll for a total of -20 (14-34) for a complete and utter failure (he failed his DC with 42 which usually means that bad things start to happen).
So in our games never roll a natural 1, and never roll more then one in a row. Sure this adds some odd things to mechanics but the fear of failure is always there and makes things interesting even at higher levels, remember flukes can happen to everyone, and still the natural 1 is not an immediate failure, just an extraordinary one.
Worst thing that has ever happened is a -81 failure on a Tumble check for a Rogue to get away from a Troll in melee. (never roll 5 natural 1's in a row it gets messy) Even though we have a policy that a 1 should never outright kill a PC situations can do that however, in this case that guy that failed the check tried the backflip but landed on his head and took tonnes of subdual damage (enough to knock him out) but he didn't die and the Fighter and Cleric could save him from the situation a round after that (always have a fighter to distract trolls in melee just a suggestion).
This brings in more danger, but also gives you more suspense and interesting sessions even at higher levels.
____________________________
NATURAL 20
Whenever a natural 20 is rolled, on an attack ot skill check for example, you roll the die again to see how grand you managed to solve the task (or how hard you hit the enemy for that matter).
I'll explain it on skill checks first and then attacks.
SKILLS
Charzed who now once again is at the place he tried to walk a rope earlier (he was saved thanks to a daredevil wizard who jumped after him into the chasm and luckily had 2 spider climb spells prepared while Charzed used his grappling hook to takes them closer to the chasm walls).
He doesn't really feel up to the fact that he needs to walk the rope again, since that rope gotta be cursed or hate him or whatever so he decides to jump over the chasm instead. The chasm is some 20 feet wide, since Charzed is 6 feet tall this will not be a problem since his maximum distance from a running jump is 36 feet so when he looks at the distance he feels like it should be a quite simple task to perform.
Since the chasm is 20 feet and Charzed has a +10 in his Jump skill so he must roll a 15 or greater on his jump check (a moderatly hard jump really)
Charzed makes his check and see a shining wonderful natural 20 on the dice, even though he feels he has made the jump check he rolls the dice again to improve the result (who knows what circumstance modifiers that can pop out of nowhere at this dreaded place that nearly cost him his life). This time he rolls an 8 and adds this to 20 for a total rolled result of 28. He now adds his jump check modifier to the result to get his final score of 38 (10+28) which gives him a grand total distance of 33 feet jumped and he manage the jump without any problems whatsoever.
Now if he had rolled another 20 on his second roll he would add +40 (two natural 20's) to the roll and make another roll again, add the result to 40 and then add his jump modifier to the rolled result for his final result.
So while the natural 1 is hated the natural 20 is so wonderful it can bring tears into your eyes when it happens.
Most insane skill check ever performed is when the Rogue (once again) that Needs to get in some money (well he can spend like no-one else and loves small trinkets which most of his money goes to) so he takes a look in his backpack and finds an old stone idol he "borrowed" from a temple they happened to "visit" and figures he can prolly sell this to some luxury shop for the insanely rich for a good amount of gold.
So he goes to Gharned's Antiques and play it like he knows what he is talking about, and when the pricing issue comes up he starts to tell the background to this idol (a note we do roleplay these kind of discussion and then the DM decides what modifier the opposite side gets to his sense motive), this story was soooo wayout there that the DM decides that this requied a massive modifier to sense motive so he assigned the +20 modifier. However what happens, well the Rouge gets a final score of 97 on his Bluff check
(4 20's in a row for 80 +17 from his bluff skill) and beats the shopkeeper with too much (DM never said what he rolled at this occasion) and the shopkeeper is in total awe about this idol and the backstory around it (he also values this item to at least a few thousand gold) and feels like he needs to have it he really needs to have it no question about it. So while he tries to stay calm he asks the Rouge (as firm as he can) what he would like to have for this piece of fine idol, the Rouge who was in need to a bed for the night and maybe a few more trinkets replies give me 50 gold and I'm out of here (the Rouge feels that this is insane since he has a appraised it a few times and knows it is worth somewhere around 10-14 gold, but he who doesn't try will never know). What happens then is that a very confused Rouge is 100 gold richer and a very satisifed shop owner thinks he just made the bargain of his life , so funny how sessions can turn out.ATTACKS
Well now Charzed is n the mood again and has moved into a very nice position to attack a nasty Troll bastard, he is however alone with this bastard but is in a very nice position for a sneak attack to happen (due to a very nice hide check earlier on and an utter failure on the trolls behalf in the spotting expertise).
So he rolls his to hit dice and see that wonderful 20 come up and roll his threat confirmation and gets another 20 and just feels so nice and rolls for a threat confimation again and ends up with a 16 which adds up to 24 which is a threat since it would have hit the troll normally.
So now he is allowed to for damage, in this case he adds 5d6 from his sneak attack but he also rolled a double crit with his short sword so we see what the multiplier is on short swords, we find it is x2 which we double for a total of x4 for the double crit to a grand total of 4d6+12 (1 from strength, and a +2 weapon for a total of +3 times 4) and the attack does a grand total of 9d6+12 damage.
Due to the nature of crits/threats only the second natural 20 (and beyond) really counts and every natural 20 beyond the first doubles the crit multiplier. However if you shouldn't be able to hit the creature normally (even with a crit/threat) this only gets converted to a "hit" instead of an extreme crit.
Most extreme scanrio ever in this is a Level 16 Fighter with a +3 Keen Greatsword, Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, Weapon Specialization, Power Attack and 32 Strength that Power Attacks for +10 damage for a grand total attack bonus of +20 against a Fire Giant. So he did rolled his first natural 20 followed by 7, YES SEVEN, natural 20's (statictics can go and forget that they exist here) for a grand total of a septuple crit (x14 for a Greatsword), his damage was then 2d6+33 for a single attack which became 28d6+462. He was the last person standing and we fought a very angered Giant chieftan and this totally saved our day and it is the largest amount of damage I have ever seen been dished out by a Fighter ever in a single attack. And who says miracles don't happen have never played dnd
, the sad story however is that this particular 20 has since then only rolled a single natural 20 in two years but it did helped us out when we really needed it.____________________________
So roll in questions and comments about these house-rules please
, we will not change them but I just need some thoughts on them from you guys (they work for us and multiple natural 1's and 20's doesn't happen all that often for it to skewer balance over too much)
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