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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6014345" data-attributes="member: 4937">And I would reply to that that no good critical or fumble system lacks a confirmation roll.   If a system lacks a confirmation roll, it tends to mean that the more skillful you are, the more likely you are to screw up badly.If there is a confirmation roll, then concievably a fumble only occurs every 400 attacks.  Then further, if 'strike self' is only one of many possibilities, then it's concievable that you hit your self fewer than 1 in 8000 attacks.  Further, since a vorpal weapon doesn't decapitate the target with every stroke, it could be that the fighter requires 10's of thousands of attacks with a razor sharp weapon enchanted to willfully remove heads to screw up so badly as to use it on himself.Is this realistic?  Speaking as someone with some experience with a blade, and having watched many others use or wield blades as tools or weapons, I would say, "Yes."But its not merely that it is realistic.  It is cinematic, in that it adds visually tangible results to the combat.  And it is memorable, in that when a fumble occurs it adds something to the battle which might other be 'swing, roll damage' and mostly grinding away hit points.   And on those grounds, I think fumbles are potentially a good addition to a rules set, provided that care is taken in their implementation so that skilled combatants have less to fear from fumbles than incompotent ones.In my system, I do this by having a variaty of types of fumbles, each of which has a confirmation check which the skillful can avoid far more readily than the unskilled.  These are:1) Balance checks: These tend to be fairly low DC, depending on the entry rolled 5 to 10 DC - though they are modified by the terrain you are fighting on.  Results vary from losing your dexterity bonus for a round, to falling prone.  As a result, a combatant with a few ranks in balance can normally fight without tripping himself up, though anyone can expect to fall down more often fighting on a slippery slope, broken stairs, etc.  2) Endurance checks: These also tend to be fairly low DC, again 5-10, and so can be avoided with good constitution and various feats and abilities.  Failure indicates anything from immediate or delayed fatigue to a pulled muscle, causing either immediate or delayed loss of strength or dexterity.  3) Combat skill checks: These are confirmed by making a second roll, which if it also fails to hit the target indicates you did something particular silly and klutzy.  Again, this can very between simply dropping your gaurd, and giving your opponents a bonus to hit you, to losing your grip on your weapon, to granting your opponent an attack of opportunity, to trying to sunder your own weapon, to striking yourself with your weapon.  Note that the 'strike self' result is further qualified by entries that negate it if you use a natural attack, and others negated by using a blunt weapon, and that some 'strike self' results note that your strength bonus doesn't apply and/or that critical hits cannot result from the blow.The campaign has been going for about two years now real time with scores of combats, with six players lasting in some cases 20 or 30 rounds, yet in all of that I think there have only been 3 cases of players striking themselves with their own weapons - with the maximum result of 6 damage - and probably an equal number of goblins and the like shooting themselves the foot or wrapping flails around their own necks.  There have been 2-3 cases of overexhertion or pulled muscles, 2-3 dropped weapons, and several dozen cases of dropping ones guard and leaving oneself vulnerable to attack (not all of which have occurred when an enemy was capable of capitalizing on the situation).  I'm fairly certain even the least skilled melee combatants among them would beat a practice dummy.</blockquote>

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