Why do we need Fumbles?

[Snowy]

but surely "the demon brings down his gigantic flaming sword with a scream of effort knocking your sword flying from your hand then turns to you with a smile of sadistic satisfaction on his face"

is more dramatic than " *roll dice roll dice roll dice roll dice* right you've dropped your sword yeah I know that you've been practicing with it for years, that you use it 8 hours a day and that its sentient and will be helping you to hold on to it"

 

[wsclark]

I use fumbles in our game. They do not happen very often and have added to what happens story wise. I have had one player changed the direction of his character development because of the unique ability to always end up getting the same result. It works as follows:

If you roll a 1, there is a fumble check which is a DC 10 Dex check. You also lose any further attacks if you get multiple attacks (if this occurs on your turn, or further AoO if you get multiple ones).

If you fail the Dex check, a critical fumble has occurred and is essentially rolled against a table I found a long time ago somewhere. Except I did something different with the implementation of the table. It was a d100 table and it just took too long to 1) find it in the middle of my stuff and 2) roll against it and look it up.

So, I converted the table to 40 entries and printed each entry on a business card (using Avery cards). I put the word FUMBLE on the back of the cards. Now all I do is shuffle them before the game and put them on the table. If someone gets a critical fumble, turn over the top card and you have your result. Sometimes additional rolls are required by the cards.

Here are the card descriptions. The number in front is the number of them in the deck:

2 - SLIP

Make a DC 10 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 1 round
​

2 - SLIP

Make a DC 10 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 2 rounds
​

2 - SLIP

Make a DC 10 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 3 rounds
​

2 - SLIP

Make a DC 10 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 4 rounds
​

1 - STUMBLE

Make a DC 15 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 1 round
​

1 - STUMBLE

Make a DC 15 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 2 rounds
​

1 - STUMBLE

Make a DC 15 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 3 rounds
​

1 - STUMBLE

Make a DC 15 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 4 rounds
​

1 - STUMBLE

Make a DC 15 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 5 rounds
​

1 - STUMBLE

Make a DC 15 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down stunned for 6 rounds
​

2 - TRIP

You fall down stunned for 1d6 rounds
​

4 - OFF BALANCE

Make a DC 10 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you have no attack next round
​

4 - LOSE GRIP, DROP WEAPON

Make a DC 10 Dexterity Check to recover the weapon
​

2 - TANGLED

Roll 1d6 to see if you lose your attack next round:

1-2 Make a DC10 STR check to avoid
3-4 Make a DC15 STR check to avoid
5-6 can not avoid
​

2 - WEAPON KNOCKED AWAY

Roll 1d8 for direction and 1d10 (result in feet) for distance to where the weapon lands
​

2 - WEAPON BREAKS

100% base chance (-20% for each +1 the weapon has) that the weapon breaks
​

2 - HIT SELF

Roll 1d6 to determine amount of damage:

1-2 Half
3-4 Normal
5-6 Critical
​

2 - HIT FRIEND

Roll 1d6 to determine amount of damage:

1-2 Half
3-4 Normal
5-6 Critical
​

2 - TWIST ANKLE

Your speed is halved
Make a DC 10 Dexterity Check
If the check fails, you fall down prone
​

1 - EQUIPMENT INTERFERENCE

Make a DC 10 Dexterity Check to fix
-6 to all attack rolls until problem is fixed
​

1 - DRAW TWO MORE CARDS
2 - NOTHING HAPPENS

I still have the Word documents for these if anyone is interested.

 

[Crothian]

but surely "the demon brings down his gigantic flaming sword with a scream of effort knocking your sword flying from your hand then turns to you with a smile of sadistic satisfaction on his face"

You mean: Rolls dice, "demon knocks sword out of your hand." :\

is more dramatic than " *roll dice roll dice roll dice roll dice* right you've dropped your sword yeah I know that you've been practicing with it for years, that you use it 8 hours a day and that its sentient and will be helping you to hold on to it"

The sentient sword does not matter when talking about general fumbles. Also, the fact that tthe person practices for a long time every day doesn't matter. I've seen Olympians mess up (fumble) so there no reason to thing a dedicated swordsman can't fumble as well.

But it was good for the biasness of your post to shine through like that since you didn't even attempt to describe the two sitautions equally. Fumble is part of rules, and rules by themselves are not dramatic. It is the DM and the players who turn rules, any rules, into drama.

 

[Devilkiller]

I've always hated fumbles that trigger on a natural 1 because they mess up folks with multiple attacks. This can be a real pain for folks who use TWF. Of course soem DMs would say "TWF is cheesy anyhow", and I have definitely sensed a undertone of punishing the powerful in many fumble charts. If you have lots of attacks you will drop your weapons constantly. If you have powerful attacks you will accidentally kill yourself. If you are meek and humble and not very good at anything then you will not suffer the wrath of the DM fumble chart.

If I played with a fumble rule which weren't vindictive or annoyingly complex and time consuming I think I could learn to like it. I'm not sure I'd ever be a fan of having characters accidentally decapitate themselves even on "3 ones in a row" since if you play a character long enough it WILL happen, especially with my luck. An occassional dropped sword might be kind of interesting, but it could be annoying if spiked gauntlets and such flew off with similar frequency. This would make it tough to do without DM fiat, which can be a good or a bad thing for both players and DM.

Anyhow, there's always the obligatory discussion of whether a monk who fumbles should drop his arms. This is usually good for a few laughs so long as nobody takes it seriously

 

[RFisher]

If you want your character to have all 18s, than I agree fummbles are a waste of time. But if you are trying to make a non heroic character heroic, than fumbles are necessary. They bring in the element of luck and seat of the pants thought.

OK. Color me a rollplaying powergamer if you wish.

Straight 18s is pretty rare, though, using 6 rolls of 3d6.

Roleplaying--at my table--isn't about mechanics.

I think my players would tell you that there is plenty of opportunity to be both lucky & unlucky & for thinking on their feet.

But believe what you want.

FWIW, I strive for a balance between roleplaying & rollplaying. Too much of either is bad, IMHO.

 

[Particle_Man]

One way to stop the "multiple attacks leads to multiple chances to fumble" problem is to say that a chance to fumble only applies to a character's first attack. Thus the 20th level 2 weapon fighter won't fumble more often than the first level one weapon fighter.

 

[robberbaron]

Short answer: you don't need 'em.

Slightly longer answer: you don't need them, but they can serve to balance the ability to Critical.
I reason that if a character can make such an exceptional strike that he does triple damage, it stands to reason that he could also make such a balls-up of his attack that he hits a tree, or trips over, or throws his weapon away (all of which I have seen during my time in re-enactment).

Upshot: If you don't like them don't use them. See how simple that was?

 

[Snowy]

Sorry Crothian, was in a bad mood last night and thought I'd use some evocative language and unfair comparisons for the other side of the argument, in the interest of equality.

 

[likuidice]

they can add extra amusement to the game, or annoyance and disgruntled players. It all depends on how well theyre implemented. Currently our DM is using some horrific table that he rolls on whenever we roll a 1, no save, no way of avoiding it, roll a 1, get a result from "weapon breaks" to "stab yourself" "stab your mate" "chuck weapon away". It's starting to get ridiculous, our weaponsgifted by the gods break nearly every session, we are already starting to go through magic weapons like we're fighing with glass bottles, and I'm seriously regretting taking 2 weapon fighting, 7 attacks each round, average of one broken weapon/stabbed ally/lost item every 3 rounds. Thankfully we don't have a monk, or he'd break his arm every 20 seconds, or punch himself in the face. It's like the higher level we are, the more inept we become. Fumble tables are fine if theres a reasonable chance of avoiding them, maybe based on Bab, with weapon focus/greater focus adding an extra +1 to your roll (seeing as it represents dedicated training with one weapon). Maybe D20 + BAB + weapon focus vs DC15 check, with a natural 1 always a failure.

 

[Cor Azer]

I don't like them myself - not as a player or a DM.

At the most basic level, it's extra rules and rolls that drag combat out just slightly longer. Sure, the same can be said of critical hits, but I think the image of the amazingly luck strike is more emblazoned on fantasy and science fiction than the unlucky failure.

Plus, I have a big problem with any rule that hurts the PCs far more than it hurts NPCs. PCs are (generally) involved in every combat in the game, so they always face the risk of fumbles; NPCs face them less often - they're involved in one (but occasionally more) combat, and usually the intention is for the PCs to defeat them (but not necessarily kill them).