The *automatic* success/failure rule

[Golandrinel]

Then you should try it out as is first. Seriously, an epic character simply won't fall down trying to climb a flight of stairs. Even if he rolls a 1 on his skill check, he'll no doubt have so many bonuses that a 1 would even get him up a smooth rock wall. At epic levels, its also recommended that you ditch the auto success/failure for attack rolls bit and go with the 1/-10, 2/+10 rule. The ELH suggests this for the same reasons I put forth about the skills...meaning there is no reason at all why a 40th level fighter would miss an attack against even a standard orc. None. Even on a 1, he should still hit (unless the player just rolls that many 1's).

That's my whole point kreynolds!!!! Epic characters SHOULD be able to make mistakes like that! It's what makes them human! (or elven, or halfling.....)

 

[the Jester]

The rule should be kept as is, with variants suggested as they are now in the dmg.

Personally, I use -10/30 on attack rolls and auto fail or succeed on saves; for skill checks I use neither.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Way back when, when 3E first came out my group had this discussion. General consensus was, it should always be possible to fail at anything or succeed at anything, but a flat 5% chance is way too much for some situations.

We were going to use the +/- 10 system, but thought of something more interesting. It goes like this.

> If you roll a 20, roll again, and add to your previous total.
> If you roll a 1, roll again, but this time subtract from your previous total.

So far so good? It's simply replacing the flat +/- 10 with a d20 roll. A -19 (1 followed by 20) will fail practically anything, and a 40 will succeed at almost everything.

Note that if you were trying to beat something with a moderate DC, say, DC 15, and margin of success was meaningless (saving throws for example), you can choose not to keep rolling, so it's not going to slow the game down substantially.

We also tried to extend it like this:
> If on the "bonus" roll you roll a 1, you reverse direction and roll again. That is, if you had been adding, subtract the next roll, and if you had been subtracting, add the next roll.
> If on the "bonus" roll you roll a 20, add/subtract it in the direction you were already going and roll again.

This'd allow you to (in theory) have rolls infinitely high, although it'd be horrendously unlikely to get anything above a 40.
So let's say I roll a 1. On the next roll I roll a 20 (putting me at -19). The roll after that will still be a subtraction, so the third roll (let's say a 13) will bring me to -32.

In the end it was a bit too much of a headache, so we just do the first part for most situations, and let the player continue to roll if he really wants to. It isn't a lot of rolling; Average of 1.1111 rolls per d20, while without that last part you still average 1.1. Not much of a difference.

 

[Simulacrum]

I thought the *automatic* rule was silly from the first day reading the core books.
Honestly I dont care that much, becaue I always house ruled it to +10/-10 but while thinking about it I see that it simply doesnt belong into the CORE RULES, not as the standard mechanic to solve things. WHY? As said it creates exeptions and loopholes and weird circumstances. 5% is way too much in a game like D&D 3e. I hope they implement the +10/-10 rule as the standard one in D&D 3.5e as it would make things way simpler.
So my vote.
It would be one step closer to *streamlined* mechanics.
I dont care for holy cows, lead them to the slaughterhouse!

 

[Simulacrum]

I like the idea of Spazimaus too, but I decided that +10 / -10 is quicker and still fairly realistic.
We use the system as you described it, in the climatic scenes to highten the tension and fun!
(Oh god NO, I threw a 1 and a 20 noooooo....people get that confused look after that )

 

[kreynolds]

That's my whole point kreynolds!!!!

Yeah, I know. I disagree. Thus the rebuttal.

 

[Aloïsius]

what??? even if your character has say +20 on the roll he just made and throws a 1 (-10), that instantly pulls him down to +10.
This will make most things exept the MOST COMMON things go failure. and you have to be at least lvl 17 to get it that high.
(without any mods calculated in, assuming its not always your best stat that is used) Even if you calculate another +10 for misc boni into it you end up with 20 that isnt enough 99% of the time on the level you get there. (between 8 - 14 wild guess)

Eh ?

You got everything confused up.

You need to be level 17 to have 20 ranks in a class skill, so you're talking about skill. Hear me out, there are no auto-fail/success for skill check, ability checks, HD rolls, etc.

The only auto-fail/success are for attack rolls and saving throws.

That rules just means that, whatever the odds, you'll hit at least 5% of time (so a fight is never totally desesperate -- barring damage reduction and other immunities), and you'll miss at least 5% of time (so the fight is never already played out). Similarly, you'll be hit and miss at least 5% of the time as well.

Same thing for save. You have 5% chance of resisting even the most dire effect, and 5% chance of succombing to even the simplest of them. I think that's a good idea. This remove one of the sheer number crunching aspect the game would have otherwise.

Leaving room for a little randomness don't hurt.

 

[kreynolds]

I didn't think the ELH advocated 20=30 and 1=-10. I thought it advocated the open rolls where natural 1 = -20, a natural 20 = +20 and then roll again adding the next dice result to the roll (including another natural 1/20).

Ah, you're right. The former is a variant rule from the DMG.

 

[Simulacrum]

.

Originally posted by Aloïsius

nope I didnt confuse it with classskill, I thought of Saves and Attack mods (without ANY modifiers exept +3 for a '*weak* stat)
As AC and Saves are nothing else than DC's things get odd, the system creates exetpions and loopholes.
auto rules go for: opposed rolls, attack, saves...but nor for skills?
2+2=5??
The 5% chance you have to outwrestle the horrific colossal dragon who started a grapple with his teeth filled deathbringing jaw is just silly. The dragon rolls a 19 gets and gets a number above 30 or even 40. Your 1st level peasant gardener rolls a 20 snapps open the dragons mouth and escapes!
sure.
The same gardener standing on an open field with nothing but his toothbrush to protect him and no cover is attacked by the fearsome dragon who has only the one chance to kill the nasty peasent before the good mage teleports him into safety.
Despite his attackbonus of +99 he misses because he rolls a 1.
yeah.

 

[IceBear]

I know what you're saying, and I do plan on using open ended rolls myself, but I can see the other side of the argument. If said fighter was fighting the dragon, the law of averages would still dictate that the gardener (who might get in a lucky hit) would die and the fighter (who might miss once due to bad luck) would win.

The main reason the rule is there is just to keep luck as a factor in combat instead of it just being - ok, I can't miss (even with -10 for a natural 1) so I'll just roll for damage. My main pet peeve with RPG rules is when something becomes either 0% or 100%. I hate thieves with 14 ranks in tumbling ALWAYS being able to tumble past someone, and thus I hate the orc fighting someone with AC 33 ALWAYS missing The cases where someone is so incredibly skilled that he can't miss unless he rolls a 1 I can live with as long as there is always a chance someone will hit or miss.

IceBear