The Gaming Den

I'm preparing for an upcoming game and I'm houseruling some stuff away. Most of it is done with player suggestions. One of the rules in question is the "1 is an automiss(fail save), 20 is an autohit(succed save)".

If i say that 1 and 20 are just numbers, would that fvckup the game much?

Much? No.
A little? Yes.

It will make SoD effects less fearsome, since a high enough bonus will automatically defeat them.

It will give high-level warriors an edge (not that that's a bad thing), as they will be absolutely guaranteed a hit on their first attack or two against some foes. It will also make Cleave + Great Cleave more potent, and make mob monsters somewhat weaker.

In general, it removes a minor amount of randomness, and that always favors the PCs.

Real-Life Example: I once played under a GM who used that exact rule. At one point, we were defending a mountain pass against a small army of goblin worg-riders. The cleric and wizard were buffing the barbarian (enlarge, bull's strength, stoneskin, etc).

The barb eventually realized that he literally could not miss the goblins (natural 1 = still higher than their AC) and, because of his many buffs and hideous Strength, his minimum damage auto-killed a gobbo. Due to his vast reach, he used Great Cleave to take out around 20 goblins + their worgs per round.

Then he took a five-foot step and used his second attack.

If i say that 1 and 20 are just numbers, would that fvckup the game much?

The game would not suffer at all. It would only even affect perils which had a large discrepancy between the character's power and their own strength. So really edge case strategies like the poison microdot would go away... and that's about it. And I don't really care.

Sure, it's an improvement, but in most games it won't matter.

-Username17

Statistically speaking if they are just numbers then why not go all the way and allow "Take 10" on every d20 roll in the game?

I'd do that. Many gamers I know would not, though, and are very virulent about giving up their critical fumbles (even when Nat20 critical hits are forced to require confirmation? fuckin house rule bullshit...)

Critical fumbles are a place of flavor in combat. Combat is abstract too much in D&D, and it allows for a "I take my turn and then you take yours" approach. When someone drops their weapon and has to tumble-dive to pick it up and still get to stab, or whatever it takes a bit away from the abstraction.

Dropping a weapon mid-combat and having to retrieve it is fun, as is having the enemy loose his footing, fall prone, and have to resort to begging for mercy. The bad part is that the fighters with 4 attacks eventually have the tendency to "drop a weapon" or "fall prone" or "get an axe struck in the enemy armor" or whatever significantly more often than the wizard/cleric types, and it gives the spell-casters a further edge.

I remember in my first campaign when an NPC was crit'ted twice in a row and had a leg lopped off. We were too late to re-attached it and he became the "caravan driver" for the rest of the campaign. Later, when we finally retrieved Woundhealer (the sword that healed people that it struck) and healed his leg, he had already become the caravan expert and was in charge of all shipping routes through the keep that we had conquered. This was fun, flavorful, and showed a real danger to being in combat all of the time, but it ends up hurting the players mechanically.

SunTzuWarmaster at [unixtime wrote:1203644478[/unixtime]]
Dropping a weapon mid-combat and having to retrieve it is fun, as is having the enemy loose his footing, fall prone, and have to resort to begging for mercy. The bad part is that the fighters with 4 attacks eventually have the tendency to "drop a weapon" or "fall prone" or "get an axe struck in the enemy armor" or whatever significantly more often than the wizard/cleric types, and it gives the spell-casters a further edge.

I gave my DM an argument about that last session when 3 members got fumbles that almost killed themselves and others.
I said "if you plan to run a game like that, I want you to know that, realistically, no one would even try to swing a weapon because 1 out of 20 swings would get themselves killed"
In a session I had missed recently, a Changeling player made a Disguise check and got a 1. She changed back into her natural form in a crowded tavern.
I told them that's not how the game works, and their response was "it's a house rule that makes this campaign more fun".

I seriously don't know what to do. My girlfriend called me a whiner for challenging the DM on that ruling. She'll see why it's not a good idea to have autocrit fumbles eventually, but in the mean time I will school every low level encounter with Color Spray (no checks on my part, and if enemies roll 1s I pity the result.... they might die instantly of blindness or something equally stupid)

It's awkward that they are so resolute in changing the D&D game in these supposedly minor ways, but as much as I do enjoy their company I just wish they would stop and realize that they are changing the game basics for the worse.

I like minor effects on critical fumbles with weapons - and this includes spells. I don't use critical fumbles on skills or other checks - a natural 1 is a failure, which is a house rule, but there's no "critically fail a Spot check" or similar stupidity.

One of my players positively hates critical fumbles, so I ultimately came up with this compromise. Since I use edges and hindrances (think Deadlands, or White Wolf's merits and flaws), I came up with a hindrance: Fumble. Take it, and natural 1's become interesting for you.

Oh, and there's ALWAYS a fumble confirmation roll, just like with a critical hit. This negates the 5% fumble paradigm...a high-level warrior or whatever may MISS 5% of the time, but outright fumbles are far less common.

Sig, you have my sympathy. The worst thing one of my fumbles will do is "drop your weapon" or "trip and fall" - none of this "hit self for double damage" I've seen some GMs use. I gamed under a fumble-crazy GM once...not pleasant.

That's a good compromise, Talisman, but please no sympathies... I got into this mess so I'll stick it out.
I still have other gaming options, although 2 games a week is too many with my schedule.
Old friends from high school is one alternative (but that would take some effort in coordinating, and be a rare event) and the other is to contact Calibron (a member here, lives in the same state) again. We were going to arrange for a few sessions this winter but his friend had an emergency or something... still, offer remains.
Maybe I'll invite both groups for a big Tome session, and try out a few other house rules.

As mentioned previously in some thread I can't remember, an alternative I thought up was to have 1 apply a -10 to the check and a 20 gives +10. (And then I found out that I'm neither the first nor the last to come to that decision.)
So, to go with this change, any hit 20 less than the target's AC gives a fumble which would do nothing more than an AC penalty or maybe -1 to all checks until next action. None of this "you hit your friend" bullshit, as funny as it may be it's just not fair to anyone... unless you take the Flaw or Hindrance for it, of course.

Also a natural 20 would not be a critical by guarantee.
Instead, any hit 10 above the target AC is a critical threat. (True Strike, being abusable as it is, would also have to be cut down to something more reasonable or removed completely)

You should've seen this one DM I encountered who used some kind of strange chart. One of the players rolled a 1 on his attack with a quarterstaff, which resulted in his literally losing an arm.

Later that session, some goblin tried to coup-de-grace a player while the party was asleep (nobody took watch), but the DM rolled a natural 1 and the party found a goblin with a dagger in its chest that morning.

I'll at least give the DM props for not ever trying to work under a double standard, which I've seen many other do.

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1203659932[/unixtime]]That's a good compromise, Talisman, but please no sympathies... I got into this mess so I'll stick it out.

All right; I withdraw my sympathy and replace it with mocking laughter.

I made a really good critical fumble chart:

d6: Effect:
1 Automatic Miss
2 The enemy ducks at the last minute, causing you to automatically miss
3 You miss automatically due to mis-judging the distance
4 Slightly unbalanced, you automatically miss your foe
5 Roll Again!
6 Automatic Miss

Hey! You left out a number of entries!

7 Your foot slips and you automatically miss
8 Your grip on your weapon slips slightly and you automatically miss
9 Sweat drips in your eyes and you automatically miss
10 You remember a funny story and become distracted; you automatically miss
11 Someone bumps you, causing you to automatically miss.
12 Roll twice and apply both results.