Players can't force a 20, but can they force a 1?
- Thread starter a-d
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airwalkrr
Adventurer
I see no reason not to allow a player to "take 1" if he wants to. But a roll of 1 is simply always a failure (on attacks/saves, they might still succeed on skill checks), there are no extra side effects unless you are using variant rules for critical failures or something. For example, if a player wanted to make it look like he was attacking his opponent (just for show or something), but didn't want to actually his opponent, I would probably allow the player to automatically miss. Waving a sword around, even if you aren't trying to hit can be dangerous though, so I might make the player roll anyway and on a roll of 1 the player accidentally hits, so the player would be well-advised to strike for nonlethal damage if this is the case.
But the "luck" of rolling a natural 1 is generally just a failure. In my campaigns, when a player rolls a 1 on an attack or save, I describe it as an ill-fated attempt of some sort, but it doesn't have any extra bad mojo than a normally failed attack roll or save would have. The only exception I can think of is rolling a 1 on a save versus an area of effect spell, in which case an item on the player's possession might be damaged. If the player really wanted to take a fireball full in the face, I'd have him roll 1d4 to see which item was affected as per the PH for rolling a 1 on a save versus an area of effect.
But the "luck" of rolling a natural 1 is generally just a failure. In my campaigns, when a player rolls a 1 on an attack or save, I describe it as an ill-fated attempt of some sort, but it doesn't have any extra bad mojo than a normally failed attack roll or save would have. The only exception I can think of is rolling a 1 on a save versus an area of effect spell, in which case an item on the player's possession might be damaged. If the player really wanted to take a fireball full in the face, I'd have him roll 1d4 to see which item was affected as per the PH for rolling a 1 on a save versus an area of effect.
The question then should be a "failure to fail".
For example, let's say I'm being a reckless jerkface and I'm swinging a sword about my friend.
I wouldn't roll a 1 to fail to hit him... Instead I'd want to roll high in order to avoid hitting him because in this instance failure isn't missing, failure is connecting.
For example, let's say I'm being a reckless jerkface and I'm swinging a sword about my friend.
I wouldn't roll a 1 to fail to hit him... Instead I'd want to roll high in order to avoid hitting him because in this instance failure isn't missing, failure is connecting.
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