Critical Fumbles [Archive] - Wizards Community

Critical Fumbles [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
RainerNader
12-22-06, 02:51 AM Hey all,

I'm playing in a game with some atypical house rules, and I like 95% of all aspects of the game except for the criticals systems, so hopefully you can be patient enough not to just dismiss this as saying, "Your house rules are stupid, find another game."

Okay, here are the house rules:

- A full attack is a standard action. Sounds wonky, I know, but I think we've adapted a lot of other rules to balance with this. For instance, if a Scout moves 10 feet, their first attack gets skrimish damage, and then they get their other attacks get just their regular damage.

Wat I've realized is this goes a long way towards making melee-based characters relevant past 6th level. We all like this rule, and we're having fun with it, so hopefully you can keep reading...

- Improved Critical works on everything. Take one feat and every item you ever hold in your hands has an increased threat range.

- A critical hit is automatic crit damage, no need to confirm, unless the attack would normally miss. Yes, that's right, a ranger with Improved Critical wielding a rapier and a scimitar is going to crit hit an awful lot of times, unless they're facing an enemy with an AC of 50 or something, in which case it's the usual "only a 20 actually hits" (although that 20 will still do double damage)

- And here's my beef, and why I'm posting... a Crit Fumble (ie. rolling a 1) is not only an automatic miss, but you don't get to make any further attacks in that round. So if you get six attacks a round, and you roll a 1 on your first attack, then that misses and you don't get your five other attacks.

Anyway, so I'm playing a monk and another player is playing a ranger, and you can see how we can get frustrated. Rolling a '1' as your first attack makes you sit around and do nothing for an entire round, while your enemies get all *their* multiple attacks on you.

So I've seen threads in core rules that explain how critical fumbles are biased against characters that get multiple attacks, but my DM claims those statistics don't apply to our system. But I still maintain even with our generous crit system, that it's still flawed. If you roll a 20 and do double damage, that's the equivalent of hitting with one extra attack. But if you roll a 1 as your first attack, that's equivalent of missing with FIVE attacks.

Our DM counters with "well, probabalistically speaking, you can still do more damage overall since you can only fumble on a 1, but it's very easy to crit on 15-30."

Who do you think is right? I'd rather just dump the entire crit system entirely, I just hate getting ready to unleash a flurry of blows and end up doing absolutely nothing because an ugly '1' reared its head on my d20.
Tyraxus
12-22-06, 03:08 AM Eh, you're right, critical fumbles do tend to affect PCs more than monsters, but with your current system, it's hard to justify making it less harsh, except perhaps making you miss your next one or two attacks that round (which in all liklihood would equal the same thing). Since you're not confirming crits, then balance-wise there's no need to confirm fumbles either. It does suck sitting there not doing anything because you rolled a 1, but at least you're not smacking the monk up top his head with your sword or some such.

Part of the problem might be the DM's narrative. How is he describing your fumbles, or is he just saying "1, damn, sucks-to-be-you. Okay, next?" like your character just misses once and stands there stupidly for six seconds? Even something as simple as "As you swing with your mighty overhead blow, attempting to split the orc from shoulder to hip, your axe hits a branch that you didn't see and gets momentarily stuck. You spend the rest of your turn pulling it loose," makes it a lot easier to swallow, since you now have a nice in-game reason that you don't get the rest of your attacks.
Abulafia
12-22-06, 01:21 PM RainerNader,

Look . . . I want to help. I really do. NOBODY hates critical fumble rules more than I do. However, you are being granted a smorgasbord of munchkinny rules here. You can run 90 feet and make 5 attacks (six if you're hasted!), and you're complaining that the crit rule makes you lose your extra attacks? As in, those extra attacks you shouldn't be getting anyway?

The DM has made his bed, and you're lying in it. Don't complain about the tacky pillowcases.
RainerNader
12-22-06, 01:54 PM Look . . . I want to help. I really do. NOBODY hates critical fumble rules more than I do. However, you are being granted a smorgasbord of munchkinny rules here. You can run 90 feet and make 5 attacks (six if you're hasted!), and you're complaining that the crit rule makes you lose your extra attacks? As in, those extra attacks you shouldn't be getting anyway?

Keep in mind this rule applies to *everyone*, including monsters. A carrion crawler can still move and get all 8 of its attacks too. So they're not "extra attacks," they're the attacks that everyone gets as part of their standard action.

So yes, it is slightly annoying when my character tries to attack, I roll a 1, and then the carrion crawler moves and proceeds to whallop my character for 8 attacks.

Maybe my issue isn't necessarily the 'fairness' of it (since the carrion crawler can technically fumble and lose all its attacks too), but how pivotal a critical fumble becomes.
UAMDB
12-22-06, 02:52 PM I dont feel your pain, sorry. i hate to fumble rules, and i dont use them in my game. But you have to confirm every potential crit. When i played 2nd 1 20 was autohit and crit, but a 1 was auto fumble. It balanced out. The house rules that you are playing by are so over powered you could make a 1 make you miss all of you remaining attacks and the next rounds attacks and still not balance out the other bonuses. i wish my 10 level TWF Fighter could move 30ft and make 4 attacks with his longswords that crit auto on a 17+.
Sphyre
12-22-06, 04:13 PM RainerNader,

Look . . . I want to help. I really do. NOBODY hates critical fumble rules more than I do. However, you are being granted a smorgasbord of munchkinny rules here. You can run 90 feet and make 5 attacks (six if you're hasted!), and you're complaining that the crit rule makes you lose your extra attacks? As in, those extra attacks you shouldn't be getting anyway?

The DM has made his bed, and you're lying in it. Don't complain about the tacky pillowcases.

No one?

I'd rather give up the ability to crit for the ability not to fumble, even with those 'really easy to crit' rules.

Fumbles don't make sense, at all, to any rationally thinking person.
trapspringer
12-22-06, 04:14 PM Yea, I gotta' agree.

It just means you have a 1-in-20 chance of playing by the rules. So do the monsters. I bet it actually hurts them more 'cause they are more likely to have in excess of three attacks.

Sucks for the archer, though. In fact, they are basically awful with this variant.
RainerNader
12-22-06, 04:30 PM It just means you have a 1-in-20 chance of playing by the rules. So do the monsters. I bet it actually hurts them more 'cause they are more likely to have in excess of three attacks.

Presuming the DM is honest about all the 1's he rolls, that's true. But we've faced hydras and carrion crawlers and other beasties with tons of attacks, and they rarely fumble. But I don't hold it against the DM, necessarily -- fumbling would essentially make the encounter a cakewalk, wouldn't it? We'd just run up to the creature and whale on it.

Sucks for the archer, though. In fact, they are basically awful with this variant.

Not true. Obviously the archer has an advantage in the core rules in that they had less need to move, and thus got more rounds with a full attack.

But there are several times an archer can benefit from our house rules too. Several times our archer characters will get in a better strategic position and then get all their attacks. One guy has Shot on the Run and he's able to move, get all his attacks, and keep moving.

Also, the longbow crits as x3. While more attacks does mean more chance of fumbling and wiping out all other attacks, according to my DM and you guys, it also means more chance to crit at x3 and thus balances out.

Not to mention the archer's main advantage of staying away from the front lines and rarely being targeted. That won't change no matter whose rules you use. Trust me, nothing is 'awful' about archers in our game.
Mitchell
12-22-06, 08:43 PM Presuming the DM is honest about all the 1's he rolls, that's true. But we've faced hydras and carrion crawlers and other beasties with tons of attacks, and they rarely fumble. But I don't hold it against the DM, necessarily -- fumbling would essentially make the encounter a cakewalk, wouldn't it? We'd just run up to the creature and whale on it...
Emphasis mine.
1) If you don't trust the DM, what are you doing there? Stuff happens. Sometimes it happens to you, sometimes it happens to your opponents. Cakewalks happen, as do TPKs. Just because they weren't intended doesn't matter.
2)Nitpick: You wail on things, not whale on them. Unless you summon a whale to fight them, anyway. :cool:
trapspringer
12-22-06, 08:57 PM Hey what's that coming at me really fast? I think I'll call it an orc. I hope we'll be friends.

SPLAT.
Dei
12-22-06, 10:30 PM If I were you I would point out to the DM that his rules haven't changed the to-hit stats whatsoever. They've definately impacted the damage tables but the hit mechanism is the same as it ever was, even the crit rule doesn't effect how and when you hit.Therefore the crit fumble rules will be effecting you just as badly as on other occasions.

If anything they'll be effecting you worse because of the extra power granted to melee fighters. The extra power that it grants to the melee NPCs means that the penalty of having them full attacking you is higher than it otherwise would be and so if you loose all the attacks that would have put them down normally you're worse off than you would be in the normal rules. Your DM may say, but the same can be said for the NPCs being worse off and it's true, but the stats you mentioned show that this is worse for the players than the NPCs. If he likes the rule don't ask him to scrap it, perhaps simply change it a little to make it more bearable. A couple of varients that I've played are:
1)On a crit miss make a reflex save DC15. If you save it has no effect other than a normal miss, otherwise it counts as a crit miss.
2)On a crit miss you take a -5 penalty on all attacks you make until the start of your next initiative.
3)On a crit miss roll to confirm it just like a crit hit. If you miss with the confirm roll the crit miss is confirmed otherwise it is treated as a normal miss.

Hope this helps, peace out
Sir_Jack_Sparrow
12-22-06, 10:52 PM The single best rule i have ever seen for dealing with critical misses is makign a reflex save after dc 15 or 20, bottom line is that means your expert fighter with 4 attacks per round and a reflex mod of like 19 will never crit fumble, just miss on that 1

Without somethign like that your levle 20 fighter will crit fumble 4 times as much as the level 1 fighter, how does that make sense?
Croix Ragnan
12-22-06, 11:20 PM 2)Nitpick: You wail on things, not whale on them. Unless you summon a whale to fight them, anyway. :cool:

I didn't summon a whale to fight them. I summoned a whale on them.

And as long as there are people whining about how bad their critical fumbles that ruin their full attack, I will relate the story of the bard and the bayonet. In a game I was playing, the party bard had a +2 vorpal dagger as a bayonet on his lute. He critical fumbled and flung the lute, beheading two of the other characters. The lute was unharmed.
Sphyre
12-22-06, 11:29 PM The single best rule i have ever seen for dealing with critical misses is makign a reflex save after dc 15 or 20, bottom line is that means your expert fighter with 4 attacks per round and a reflex mod of like 19 will never crit fumble, just miss on that 1

Without somethign like that your levle 20 fighter will crit fumble 4 times as much as the level 1 fighter, how does that make sense?

Base Reflex Save for fighter: Poor, equation: level/3. level 20? that's +6. Not anywhere near +19. Add dex? ok +0-4. Add a cloak of resistance? +5. Still not +19.... And most fighters unless two weapon fighting (which isn't that great for fighters anyway), don't heavily invest in dex.

Also since you you declared it a reflex save you have the auto-fail on a roll of a 1 rule that applies to saves.

There are a billion better ways to do it other than a reflex save. Look at the link on my first reply in this thread. It does the statistics for you, and even has guidelines on what you need to do to make a "better" recovery from a critical fumble threat. But ultimately you have to take at least two methods into account to make it work semi-reliably.
xTimx
12-23-06, 12:28 AM i have a Q about a monk and unarmed strike.

if he rolls a 1, its a critical miss. does he fall? or what do i do to make it a critical fumble?
Sphyre
12-23-06, 01:00 AM i have a Q about a monk and unarmed strike.

if he rolls a 1, its a critical miss. does he fall? or what do i do to make it a critical fumble?

Rolling a 1 on an attack roll is an automatic miss. Nothing more, nothing less.

Critical fumbles are a houserule that some people implement in addition to the automatic miss because they feel it adds more to the game. Being that it's a houserule it has widely variations as to what can happen when a fumble occurs. It can be as simple as someone taking 1 subdual damage, to falling prone, to losing the rest of their attacks in the round, to killing themselves or killing their allies who happen to be 2 miles away.

Whatever happens. It's upto your gaming group to decide the type of fumbles you want to implement.

Some people hate them. Some people swear by them. I personally hate them because they statistically make fighters clumsier as they become more skilled, yet the concensus of people's opinions tend to think full casters dominate melee capability late game. Nerfing melee more makes no sense to me.

Being that you play a monk, at higher levels, we could assume you'd be much more of a master of unarmed combat and would have trained much beyond that of a newbie, and you can attack 5 times in the time that that commoner can attack once. Yet with 99.9999999% of the critical fumble houserules out there, you're way more likely to fumble in the first 6 seconds of combat than that commoner fumbling, attacking you for the first time in his life.

There was yet another thread about how if critical fumbles existed in an army of thousands vs thousands, each army would do more damage to themselves than the other army, due to critical fumbles, all in the first 6 seconds.

But simply because I hate them, I still accept that other may like them. Do whatever floats your boat. Just make sure there's no one like me in your group that's going to have a heart-attack if you say "Hey guys! Lets implement critical fumbles!" Unless of course you really hate that guy and want to be the cause of his death...
:ghosted:

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
RainerNader 12-22-06, 02:51 AM	Hey all, I'm playing in a game with some atypical house rules, and I like 95% of all aspects of the game except for the criticals systems, so hopefully you can be patient enough not to just dismiss this as saying, "Your house rules are stupid, find another game." Okay, here are the house rules: - A full attack is a standard action. Sounds wonky, I know, but I think we've adapted a lot of other rules to balance with this. For instance, if a Scout moves 10 feet, their first attack gets skrimish damage, and then they get their other attacks get just their regular damage. Wat I've realized is this goes a long way towards making melee-based characters relevant past 6th level. We all like this rule, and we're having fun with it, so hopefully you can keep reading... - Improved Critical works on everything. Take one feat and every item you ever hold in your hands has an increased threat range. - A critical hit is automatic crit damage, no need to confirm, unless the attack would normally miss. Yes, that's right, a ranger with Improved Critical wielding a rapier and a scimitar is going to crit hit an awful lot of times, unless they're facing an enemy with an AC of 50 or something, in which case it's the usual "only a 20 actually hits" (although that 20 will still do double damage) - And here's my beef, and why I'm posting... a Crit Fumble (ie. rolling a 1) is not only an automatic miss, but you don't get to make any further attacks in that round. So if you get six attacks a round, and you roll a 1 on your first attack, then that misses and you don't get your five other attacks. Anyway, so I'm playing a monk and another player is playing a ranger, and you can see how we can get frustrated. Rolling a '1' as your first attack makes you sit around and do nothing for an entire round, while your enemies get all their multiple attacks on you. So I've seen threads in core rules that explain how critical fumbles are biased against characters that get multiple attacks, but my DM claims those statistics don't apply to our system. But I still maintain even with our generous crit system, that it's still flawed. If you roll a 20 and do double damage, that's the equivalent of hitting with one extra attack. But if you roll a 1 as your first attack, that's equivalent of missing with FIVE attacks. Our DM counters with "well, probabalistically speaking, you can still do more damage overall since you can only fumble on a 1, but it's very easy to crit on 15-30." Who do you think is right? I'd rather just dump the entire crit system entirely, I just hate getting ready to unleash a flurry of blows and end up doing absolutely nothing because an ugly '1' reared its head on my d20.
Tyraxus 12-22-06, 03:08 AM	Eh, you're right, critical fumbles do tend to affect PCs more than monsters, but with your current system, it's hard to justify making it less harsh, except perhaps making you miss your next one or two attacks that round (which in all liklihood would equal the same thing). Since you're not confirming crits, then balance-wise there's no need to confirm fumbles either. It does suck sitting there not doing anything because you rolled a 1, but at least you're not smacking the monk up top his head with your sword or some such. Part of the problem might be the DM's narrative. How is he describing your fumbles, or is he just saying "1, damn, sucks-to-be-you. Okay, next?" like your character just misses once and stands there stupidly for six seconds? Even something as simple as "As you swing with your mighty overhead blow, attempting to split the orc from shoulder to hip, your axe hits a branch that you didn't see and gets momentarily stuck. You spend the rest of your turn pulling it loose," makes it a lot easier to swallow, since you now have a nice in-game reason that you don't get the rest of your attacks.
Abulafia 12-22-06, 01:21 PM	RainerNader, Look . . . I want to help. I really do. NOBODY hates critical fumble rules more than I do. However, you are being granted a smorgasbord of munchkinny rules here. You can run 90 feet and make 5 attacks (six if you're hasted!), and you're complaining that the crit rule makes you lose your extra attacks? As in, those extra attacks you shouldn't be getting anyway? The DM has made his bed, and you're lying in it. Don't complain about the tacky pillowcases.
RainerNader 12-22-06, 01:54 PM	Look . . . I want to help. I really do. NOBODY hates critical fumble rules more than I do. However, you are being granted a smorgasbord of munchkinny rules here. You can run 90 feet and make 5 attacks (six if you're hasted!), and you're complaining that the crit rule makes you lose your extra attacks? As in, those extra attacks you shouldn't be getting anyway? Keep in mind this rule applies to everyone, including monsters. A carrion crawler can still move and get all 8 of its attacks too. So they're not "extra attacks," they're the attacks that everyone gets as part of their standard action. So yes, it is slightly annoying when my character tries to attack, I roll a 1, and then the carrion crawler moves and proceeds to whallop my character for 8 attacks. Maybe my issue isn't necessarily the 'fairness' of it (since the carrion crawler can technically fumble and lose all its attacks too), but how pivotal a critical fumble becomes.
UAMDB 12-22-06, 02:52 PM	I dont feel your pain, sorry. i hate to fumble rules, and i dont use them in my game. But you have to confirm every potential crit. When i played 2nd 1 20 was autohit and crit, but a 1 was auto fumble. It balanced out. The house rules that you are playing by are so over powered you could make a 1 make you miss all of you remaining attacks and the next rounds attacks and still not balance out the other bonuses. i wish my 10 level TWF Fighter could move 30ft and make 4 attacks with his longswords that crit auto on a 17+.
Sphyre 12-22-06, 04:13 PM	RainerNader, Look . . . I want to help. I really do. NOBODY hates critical fumble rules more than I do. However, you are being granted a smorgasbord of munchkinny rules here. You can run 90 feet and make 5 attacks (six if you're hasted!), and you're complaining that the crit rule makes you lose your extra attacks? As in, those extra attacks you shouldn't be getting anyway? The DM has made his bed, and you're lying in it. Don't complain about the tacky pillowcases. No one? I'd rather give up the ability to crit for the ability not to fumble, even with those 'really easy to crit' rules. Fumbles don't make sense, at all, to any rationally thinking person.
trapspringer 12-22-06, 04:14 PM	Yea, I gotta' agree. It just means you have a 1-in-20 chance of playing by the rules. So do the monsters. I bet it actually hurts them more 'cause they are more likely to have in excess of three attacks. Sucks for the archer, though. In fact, they are basically awful with this variant.
RainerNader 12-22-06, 04:30 PM	It just means you have a 1-in-20 chance of playing by the rules. So do the monsters. I bet it actually hurts them more 'cause they are more likely to have in excess of three attacks. Presuming the DM is honest about all the 1's he rolls, that's true. But we've faced hydras and carrion crawlers and other beasties with tons of attacks, and they rarely fumble. But I don't hold it against the DM, necessarily -- fumbling would essentially make the encounter a cakewalk, wouldn't it? We'd just run up to the creature and whale on it. Sucks for the archer, though. In fact, they are basically awful with this variant. Not true. Obviously the archer has an advantage in the core rules in that they had less need to move, and thus got more rounds with a full attack. But there are several times an archer can benefit from our house rules too. Several times our archer characters will get in a better strategic position and then get all their attacks. One guy has Shot on the Run and he's able to move, get all his attacks, and keep moving. Also, the longbow crits as x3. While more attacks does mean more chance of fumbling and wiping out all other attacks, according to my DM and you guys, it also means more chance to crit at x3 and thus balances out. Not to mention the archer's main advantage of staying away from the front lines and rarely being targeted. That won't change no matter whose rules you use. Trust me, nothing is 'awful' about archers in our game.
Mitchell 12-22-06, 08:43 PM	Presuming the DM is honest about all the 1's he rolls, that's true. But we've faced hydras and carrion crawlers and other beasties with tons of attacks, and they rarely fumble. But I don't hold it against the DM, necessarily -- fumbling would essentially make the encounter a cakewalk, wouldn't it? We'd just run up to the creature and whale on it... Emphasis mine. 1) If you don't trust the DM, what are you doing there? Stuff happens. Sometimes it happens to you, sometimes it happens to your opponents. Cakewalks happen, as do TPKs. Just because they weren't intended doesn't matter. 2)Nitpick: You wail on things, not whale on them. Unless you summon a whale to fight them, anyway. :cool:
trapspringer 12-22-06, 08:57 PM	Hey what's that coming at me really fast? I think I'll call it an orc. I hope we'll be friends. SPLAT.
Dei 12-22-06, 10:30 PM	If I were you I would point out to the DM that his rules haven't changed the to-hit stats whatsoever. They've definately impacted the damage tables but the hit mechanism is the same as it ever was, even the crit rule doesn't effect how and when you hit.Therefore the crit fumble rules will be effecting you just as badly as on other occasions. If anything they'll be effecting you worse because of the extra power granted to melee fighters. The extra power that it grants to the melee NPCs means that the penalty of having them full attacking you is higher than it otherwise would be and so if you loose all the attacks that would have put them down normally you're worse off than you would be in the normal rules. Your DM may say, but the same can be said for the NPCs being worse off and it's true, but the stats you mentioned show that this is worse for the players than the NPCs. If he likes the rule don't ask him to scrap it, perhaps simply change it a little to make it more bearable. A couple of varients that I've played are: 1)On a crit miss make a reflex save DC15. If you save it has no effect other than a normal miss, otherwise it counts as a crit miss. 2)On a crit miss you take a -5 penalty on all attacks you make until the start of your next initiative. 3)On a crit miss roll to confirm it just like a crit hit. If you miss with the confirm roll the crit miss is confirmed otherwise it is treated as a normal miss. Hope this helps, peace out
Sir_Jack_Sparrow 12-22-06, 10:52 PM	The single best rule i have ever seen for dealing with critical misses is makign a reflex save after dc 15 or 20, bottom line is that means your expert fighter with 4 attacks per round and a reflex mod of like 19 will never crit fumble, just miss on that 1 Without somethign like that your levle 20 fighter will crit fumble 4 times as much as the level 1 fighter, how does that make sense?
Croix Ragnan 12-22-06, 11:20 PM	2)Nitpick: You wail on things, not whale on them. Unless you summon a whale to fight them, anyway. :cool: I didn't summon a whale to fight them. I summoned a whale on them. And as long as there are people whining about how bad their critical fumbles that ruin their full attack, I will relate the story of the bard and the bayonet. In a game I was playing, the party bard had a +2 vorpal dagger as a bayonet on his lute. He critical fumbled and flung the lute, beheading two of the other characters. The lute was unharmed.
Sphyre 12-22-06, 11:29 PM	The single best rule i have ever seen for dealing with critical misses is makign a reflex save after dc 15 or 20, bottom line is that means your expert fighter with 4 attacks per round and a reflex mod of like 19 will never crit fumble, just miss on that 1 Without somethign like that your levle 20 fighter will crit fumble 4 times as much as the level 1 fighter, how does that make sense? Base Reflex Save for fighter: Poor, equation: level/3. level 20? that's +6. Not anywhere near +19. Add dex? ok +0-4. Add a cloak of resistance? +5. Still not +19.... And most fighters unless two weapon fighting (which isn't that great for fighters anyway), don't heavily invest in dex. Also since you you declared it a reflex save you have the auto-fail on a roll of a 1 rule that applies to saves. There are a billion better ways to do it other than a reflex save. Look at the link on my first reply in this thread. It does the statistics for you, and even has guidelines on what you need to do to make a "better" recovery from a critical fumble threat. But ultimately you have to take at least two methods into account to make it work semi-reliably.
xTimx 12-23-06, 12:28 AM	i have a Q about a monk and unarmed strike. if he rolls a 1, its a critical miss. does he fall? or what do i do to make it a critical fumble?
Sphyre 12-23-06, 01:00 AM	i have a Q about a monk and unarmed strike. if he rolls a 1, its a critical miss. does he fall? or what do i do to make it a critical fumble? Rolling a 1 on an attack roll is an automatic miss. Nothing more, nothing less. Critical fumbles are a houserule that some people implement in addition to the automatic miss because they feel it adds more to the game. Being that it's a houserule it has widely variations as to what can happen when a fumble occurs. It can be as simple as someone taking 1 subdual damage, to falling prone, to losing the rest of their attacks in the round, to killing themselves or killing their allies who happen to be 2 miles away. Whatever happens. It's upto your gaming group to decide the type of fumbles you want to implement. Some people hate them. Some people swear by them. I personally hate them because they statistically make fighters clumsier as they become more skilled, yet the concensus of people's opinions tend to think full casters dominate melee capability late game. Nerfing melee more makes no sense to me. Being that you play a monk, at higher levels, we could assume you'd be much more of a master of unarmed combat and would have trained much beyond that of a newbie, and you can attack 5 times in the time that that commoner can attack once. Yet with 99.9999999% of the critical fumble houserules out there, you're way more likely to fumble in the first 6 seconds of combat than that commoner fumbling, attacking you for the first time in his life. There was yet another thread about how if critical fumbles existed in an army of thousands vs thousands, each army would do more damage to themselves than the other army, due to critical fumbles, all in the first 6 seconds. But simply because I hate them, I still accept that other may like them. Do whatever floats your boat. Just make sure there's no one like me in your group that's going to have a heart-attack if you say "Hey guys! Lets implement critical fumbles!" Unless of course you really hate that guy and want to be the cause of his death... :ghosted: