D&D 5E Should you always fail on a 1 and always succeed on a 20 for every d20 roll?

[Shiroiken]

I don't believe there should be an automatic success on a 20 or failure on a 1, because this negates several class abilities, especially for contested rolls. I had an 11th level rogue in my game who's minimum roll for stealth was 23 (all rolls less than 10 became a 10), so I'd check the monster's maximum Perception. If the roll couldn't get to 23, I wouldn't even bother to make any rolls. If it could, I'd check to see if they even got to the minimum, and only then would I bother the player to roll. It actually saved time, and the player felt vindicated that his specialization (which came at the cost of other options) was useful.

Additionally, this takes away from the rule of the DM determining the outcome of an action and only using dice when the outcome is uncertain. If a 20 is always a success, or 1 a failure, then there is ALWAYS uncertainty, allowing players to do some really silly things (like jumping to the moon, or tripping over their own feet while walking) 5% of the time.

 

[James Gasik]

I do miss the ability to succeed on saving throws by rolling a 20. The inability to make a saving throw, even if you roll a 20, can happen in the game, and that's kind of crazy to me. It's also quite possible for characters to be in situations where they can't fail a saving throw even on a '1' (thanks Mr. Paladin!). I'm not sure if that's really a problem or not though.

As far as extending the concept of critical hits to other d20 rolls, as well as adding crit fumbles to the game, let's take a look at death saves.

Unlike other saving throws, the death save has both a critical success function (on a 20, you instantly revive with 1 hit point) and a critical failure function (on a 1, you die). Why it's ok to have this sort of thing here, on a fairly common die roll, but not anywhere else (other than critical hits on attacks)? Why isn't this concept extended to, say, other kinds of saving throws, let alone other kinds of d20 rolls.

Is it because, for the most part, death saves are just flat d20 rolls, without modifiers (barring cloaks of protection, Paladins, bless spells, etc.)? Did the designers think to themselves "Well, I mean, it's 50/50 if you live or die, so just in case that's not dramatic enough, you can either win the lottery, or instantly die!".

 

[Waterbizkit]

Depends on the style of the game, so this is a session zero thing for me. If the players are cool with their character potentially dropping the ball no matter how skilled they might be at a given task or have a chance to luck into a glorious success no matter how otherwise inept, then we'll use the 1/20 fail/succeed rule. On the whole though we don't play with the rule.

 

[aco175]

5e has halflings re-rolling 1s, which also skews things. In 5e I'm not sure the auto +/- mechanic is as viable. There was an optional rule in 4e someone came up with where you would +10/-10 to the roll, which would virtuously make a success or fail, but not always.

I still use the auto success/fail mechanic and it has not been a problem leaving as is. Our characters are marginally min/maxed at best and norming towards the middle seems like it is designed that way.

 

[James Gasik]

Halflings get to reroll 1's. Halflings get advantage on saves made against fear. If a Halfling has an 8 Wisdom and is told to make a DC 20 fear save, none of that helps.*

*Arguments about how Halflings shouldn't dump Wisdom, that everyone should have a weakness somewhere, and that DC 20 saves should be rare are not welcome. All of these facts are noted, and yet, I saw this exact scenario play out in Storm King's Thunder.

 

[Satyrn]

Oh, sorry - misunderstood.

IMO it still gimps skill characters. At a level that Wizards are teleporting all over the world, let the damn Rogue climb a wall without rolling.

I'm not sure I agree, but I'm leaning that way.

But mostly, I don't like the feel this gives for skill checks. If the rogue is so good at this thing he's attempting that he can't miss the DC on this crazy DC 15 things he attempts, then it would be jarring when he fails on the easy DC 5 things he tries.

So if you want to use such a rule, I'd hope that you don't call for checks for routine things. Or just limit it to combat-only situations. Or do something that doesn't result in an expert flopping on regular tasks that he really ought to do.

 

[Alexemplar]

With expertise and bonuses to saving throws from class features, many skill checks and saving throws become almost impossible to fail even on a 1. On the opposite end, there are also checks and saves that can be nearly impossible to succeed at even after rolling a 20. I'm wondering what consequences there would be for extending the crit fail/success to all d20 rolls. Would there be any disastrous effects or could this actually be a decent balancing factor?

Just not seeing how it's reasonable to expect someone to fail at something they're incredibly good at (by definition) 5% of the time, but a spell- with all its complicated verbal, somatic, and sometimes finicky material components- just goes off without a hitch every single time it's attempted without fail unless someone is actively clobbering the caster.

I feel this further distinctives skill use and further promotes using spells in order to ensure you don't fail at an important task.

 

[robus]

Borrow from FFG Star Wars RPG and make nat 1 and nat 20 skill checks trigger triumph and despair. The rogue can still succeed on a nat 1 but did something that alerts the guards to intruders or what have you.

But I still think it’s fine for PCs to fail (if the challenge is appropriate). A rogue shouldn’t generally fail to crack a lock, but how about cracking it in 10 seconds before the patrol comes round the corner? Now it becomes a challenge and the rogue can certainly mess it up.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

If you want to bring back auto-fail and auto-success for everything, then bring back the old Take 10 rules too to balance that out.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, I only ran into the "fails on a 1" thing for skills with one DM. It was quite jarring. D&D has never actually had that for skills and it really doesn't make any sense. "Hey, I've got a +x bonus which is one higher than the DC for this task, but, I still am going to fail it 5% of the time? WTF"

To me, it just doesn't make any sense. Why do I need a chance to fail? What purpose is being served here? What is being added to the game, other than pointless dice fapping? Is the game going to somehow be better or more interesting just because you add in a 1 in 20 chance of me failing trivial tasks?

As you can see, I'm very much against this idea.