Post your Fumble Charts here!

[Sir Brennen]

I meant making more attacks per round, not just attacking the tank.

Trying to get that third hit in and you're reaching.
You're reaching and it makes it easier for thing to go wrong.
And if a rogue's, etc doing it, they aren't as experienced so they're reaching.

The math makes it easier for things to go wrong, yes, but aren't you then punishing the fighter for using his class abilities? Using fumbles this way dissuades characters from ever using the full attack action, and causes fumbles to occur more often at higher levels if they do, which, either way, reduces the power of the fighter class significantly. Better to only check on the first attack in a sequence, rather than penalize a fighter for doing his job.

First off, who the heck carries a tower shield into combat?

And if you throw the oil at the guy's feet, you get a pool that the shield doesn't help with.
And fumbles can happen with the oil, too (that would be fun)

You ignored the fire-proof possiblity, DM control of circumstances, and the overall point that you provided a limited, specific solution to a general issue.

'Cause it's harder to effectively hit the guy in plate mail, and, when you do effectively hit, the armor has some protection against damage.
The lightly armored guy you hit and you damage.
That's the logic behind it.

And how does any of that translate into a reason to fumble more often against the tank? (Effectively) miss more often, yes, but fumble?

Well, no, his armor takes it, he doesn't.

Besides the point. The less mobile tank is easier to hit, if not damage, as you pointed out. This is all abstracted and simplified in the "you either hit or you miss" result of the attack roll.

So you have the same exact chance to fumble against a naked guy, with his hands tied (AC 8) as a guy in +5 plate with a +5 shield and a +5 amulet of natural armor (AC 33)?
Where's the logic in that?

You use extreme examples to explain something you can't rationalize for more common cases?

Even so, if the naked guy is just standing there, and he can't fight back, it's a Coup de Grace, and fumbles don't come into play. If he's sane, then he's running for his life, and you once again have a more mobile target than the plate mail guy. Possilibity of fumbles for a number of reasons enter the picture, unrelated to his AC.

Maybe our views of what a fumble is should be clarified. From what I'm reading, your view is: if you hit something hard, the more likely your weapon is to bounce out of your hand. Not unreasonable, but not my definition, which might be where our differences lie.

Mine is: in the heat of fighting for your life, all manner of unexpected, unpleasant things can happen, and the better trained at fighting you are, the more likely you are to recover from such an event. A fumble isn't just a really bad miss, a moment of clumsiness. It's the guy trying to kill you swinging so hard he knocks the weapon from your hand, or cleaves it in two. It's a slipping on the blood-soaked floor, or falling for an opponents subtle feint so that you leave yourself wide open. It's the chaos of battle.

Okay, maybe a little over the top, but you get the idea So, I think you can see, from my perspective, the opponen't AC is just one of many possible factors which I abstract into a flat DC 15.

Make sense?

 

[Aust Diamondew]

My fumble system is simple. If you roll a one on an attack you make a dexterity check DC 15 to try and regain your control of the weapon if you fail you drop your weapon if you are fighting unarmed you trip and can spend the next turn standing up.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

My fumble system is simple. If you roll a one on an attack you make a dexterity check DC 15 to try and regain your control of the weapon if you fail you drop your weapon if you are fighting unarmed you trip and can spend the next turn standing up.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

My fumble system is simple. If you roll a one on an attack you make a dexterity check DC 15 to try and regain your control of the weapon if you fail you drop your weapon if you are fighting unarmed you trip and can spend the next turn standing up.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

My thought is this: if you really want to use fumbles, then a fumble shouldn't be something so humiliating that you couldn't see it happening to Inigo Montoya, Legolas, or Conan. Dropping an arrow, fine. Getting the sword stuck for a second in the opponent's armor or body, sure. But a PC hitting himself looks as incompetent as the Ewok in RotJ, which is not what most players are going for. And it takes a lot of effort to break a magical weapon - fumbles shouldn't accomplish this more readily than enemy Sunder attempts.
A 1 is already an automatic miss, regardless of bonuses, which is already a substantial negative effect.
Marauder, your #1 option, is the PC helpless? Or just stunned and prone? Makes a big difference for CdG.

 

[Sir Brennen]

My thought is this: if you really want to use fumbles, then a fumble shouldn't be something so humiliating that you couldn't see it happening to Inigo Montoya, Legolas, or Conan. Dropping an arrow, fine. Getting the sword stuck for a second in the opponent's armor or body, sure. But a PC hitting himself looks as incompetent as the Ewok in RotJ, which is not what most players are going for. And it takes a lot of effort to break a magical weapon - fumbles shouldn't accomplish this more readily than enemy Sunder attempts.
A 1 is already an automatic miss, regardless of bonuses, which is already a substantial negative effect.

But a 1st lvl character is as incompentent as an Ewok

These mythic characters have to start somewhere, right?

Also, in my suggestion for using a flat 15 DC fumble check, a fighter will almost never fumble once they reach about 10th level. I don't think any of your examples are below 10th. Other classes might take a couple more levels, with no one but wizards and sorcerers fumbling after level 15, and only infrequently for them. (This also assumes not checking for fumbles after the first attack roll in a full attack.)

And until 10th level or so, rolling a 1 is almost always going to be a miss anyway, as most characters won't have an attack roll which would allow them to hit much with that 1. Making it "automatic" is really kind of redundant at those levels.

Injure self: this doesn't have to be the same as hitting one's self. It may be a twisted ankle, the opponent may have pressed your weapon up against you in as he parries, or a hernia

Weapon breaks - Automatic melee weapon breaks - no way. I agree; it should take some effort. But using the Sunder rule mechanics isn't unreasonable for a fumble, IMO.

Your examples are cinematic, Brother Mac. I think alot of people add fumbles to combats to make them more cinematic, but obviously, how you interpret what a fumble is exactly can color your perception of them.

 

[MarauderX]

Marauder, your #1 option, is the PC helpless? Or just stunned and prone? Makes a big difference for CdG.

The PC is not helpless, just stunned. If you look up stunned in the PHB you will see that the definition is that the PC gives any attacker a +2 bonus, but does not allow a coup de grace. I took out damage to PCs by their own hand, and wouldn't render a PC completely helpless by their own actions (or even extremely bad rolls).

Sunder is an option that I like a lot; it deals with the 'realistic' modeling of battle a bit more closely IMO, and can leave behind a trail of broken weapons in the wake of a battle, which is sometimes a tell-tale clue to the players.

 

[Darklone]

Hmm. My rule for fumbles:

If you roll a 1, make a Reflex save DC 15 (like this one much better than the silly Dex check). If you fail, you provoke AoOs from everyone around you and you're flatfooted for one round.

Sunder/Disarm and similar attempts by the AoO take care of lost weapons

I thought about stunned... but after some testplaying it proved to be too strong.