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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Should you always fail on a 1 and always succeed on a 20 for every d20 roll?
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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 7238901" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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!".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 7238901, member: 6877472"] 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!". [/QUOTE]
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Community
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Should you always fail on a 1 and always succeed on a 20 for every d20 roll?
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