Critical Failure - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 NobleNewb Apr 30, 2015 12:56:02	Anyone out there have some good critical failure ideas or whole charts or "batch" charts. I am currently creating a list of 100 combat batches, spell batches and non combat batches. The funnier the better guys so be creative. Thanks - Cameron
#2 Tempest_Stormwind Apr 30, 2015 13:09:47	NobleNewb wrote:
#3 AaronOfBarbaria Apr 30, 2015 13:17:02	I agree with TS on this: fumbles are only good for a game if its intent is to make the characters appear to be shockingly incompotent. It works in a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics where "...and then everyone died embarrassingly gorey deaths" is the intended result, or in HackMaster where the point of the mechanics is to drive home that adventurers aren't brave so much as stupid and that regular, well-adjusted folk, would avoid combat at all costs because you aren't likely to live through many combats without sustaining lasting and/or life-changing injury.
#4 NobleNewb Apr 30, 2015 13:18:13	Wow, you have a really good point there Tempest.
#5 Touc Apr 30, 2015 13:35:25	If you do it for flavor, see it as a great addition. Rather than roll, I'd just have a list of 100 "goofs" when rolling a 1 that don't impact mechanics more than a "miss." It's easy as a DM to fall into the same descriptions (e.g. "you trip, stubbing your toe") and this helps. On the other hand, that's one more table you're looking up, slowing down play.
#6 CCS Apr 30, 2015 13:36:48	On a 1 you lose your next action + reaction and all attacks against you have advantage until the end of the next round. Make up appropriate fluff as to what exactly happened to result in this - over extended an attack, fell for a feint, dropped your bat guano, etc. That's it, that's all. That's as far as my crit miss chart goes.
#7 Tempest_Stormwind Apr 30, 2015 13:39:30	If you want an example of how these tables would be received, I forgot to mention: Ask anyone about the Wild Mage sorcerer, which has something similar to a fumble table except it goes a step further and has a chance of triggering only if the DM tells you it triggers (you'll note in this case the roll you're making is a defensive one, to see if the DM's invoking of the wild magic surge table will be phenomenally embarrassing or not). ...Actually, you don't have to, because Wizards themselves just did. These surveys have a way of being wonderfully understated (they have to be, since a gamer who is in a state of less than perfect bliss is capable of incredible vitriol), and they said this: we’ve heard consistent feedback that the sorcerer doesn’t offer enough options within the class. Not everyone is excited about the wild mage, thus leaving some players with only the dragon sorcerer as an option. It’s no coincidence that we showed off a favored soul option for the sorcerer in Unearthed Arcana. Plus, we have another sorcerer option on tap for that article series.
#8 fylth Apr 30, 2015 14:06:49	when my characters roll a 1 I always make it into a 'wiff' or 'fumble' as in, I describe their fumble, try to make it a little comical, but generally don't make any serious consequences for the most part. Player: "OK, I am going to try and jump across this 10 foot cap in the ice.. rolls a 1 ..uhh a 1.." Me: "You run up and go for a mighty leap to gap the short space, however, you slip on the ice, fall straight down onto yr rump and splash into the water. You can use the rest of yr movement to pull yrself out of the water, lucy there aren't any hungry fish down there..." On occasion I do make it have negative effects. One time that comes to mind is when the players had stolen some wyvrens, no one had even rode a horse at this point in time so I made them roll checks to see if they could hold on and contro the unruly beasts. My monk rolled a 1 and slipped off the saddle, plummetting to the earth, likely to his doom, but the fighter (who had rolled to control the wyvren) said "I want to dive after him and grab hold of him" he rolls an 18-19 or soemthing like that, swoops down and grabs the monk, saving his life. I don't always do those kind of things on a 1, but for certain situatiuons I feel like it makes an element of uncertainty that spices the game up a little more
#9 Ranthalan Apr 30, 2015 14:24:12	At my table a roll of 1 means you roll d10 to see if you've botched. A 1 on that roll, and bad things happened. That brings the percentage down to .5%. So far, only one monster has botched a roll in 6 sessions. I wouldn't use a table for a result, though. I always make something up that fits the context of the roll.
#10 Rya.Reisender Apr 30, 2015 14:29:11	I will disagree with the other insofar that I think critical fails / fumbles are actually something that's really good for Pen & Paper because it makes for funny scenes. I agree that tables are silly, though. A critical fail "joke" always needs to perfectly fit the situation. And should be fairly consequence-less, yet still funny.
#11 TheLarch Apr 30, 2015 15:13:37	+1 on "no fumble" in general One thing as others have mentioned is that it makes players seem and feel incompetent. Another thing to consider are NPC's "The evil overlord raises his mighty flaing sword of eternal doom and darkness. A thunderclap roars through the cold air as he swings it.. [roll=1] and...ehm.. drops it" Tends to take the air out of boss battles and make supposedly scary NPC's look rediculess. With that said as DM I occationally use a sort of fumble if a player or NPC is in a particular difficult or risky situation where it might make sense and can add some good narrative/spice to the game. Eg. a character is fighting on the very edge of a cliff. He fumbles. I might ask him to make a DEX save. If he fails it he'll slip and fall off the cliff but manages to hang on to some roots sticking out. He's now hanging there and need to succed a STR check to get up or have a buddy come over and pull him up. These situations only come up rarely.
#12 Rya.Reisender Apr 30, 2015 15:26:54	TheLarch wrote:
(Reply to #12) AaronOfBarbaria	Rya.Reisender wrote:
#14 tubadancross Apr 30, 2015 18:21:07	I have a fumble table being that on a nat 1 you roll a d20 and on a 5 or lower something happens, but it is run that a character must roll a natural 1 and have disadvantage on the attack. That makes a crit fail not only poor play on the part of the character but also poor play and having the odds stacked against them. Similarly, my crit table is a critical hit that you have advantage on roll a d20 and a 16-20 results above a normal critical hit.
#15 Barky Apr 30, 2015 19:15:08	I'm not a fan of critical fumbles either, for the statistical reasons others have already stated. However, I will situationally warn a player "don't roll less than X or something bad will happen" if they're doing something particularly goofy. It's my way of warning them that there's a risk in doing what they want to do.
(Reply to #6) AndrewJO	CCS wrote:
#17 Rya.Reisender Apr 30, 2015 23:31:47	AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
#18 Imaculata May 01, 2015 2:40:58	I never roll on a fumble table, it just destroys the immersion. Instead I describe the fumble based on the current combat situation. I kind of approach it as if it were an action movie. I want the players to feel like they are Bruce Willis in Die Hard, where all of a sudden their enemy gets the upper hand by doing something clever. For example: The party discovered a watchtower in the jungle, that had been built by a tribe of vicious cannibals. They succeeded in their perception check, and noticed the silhouette of a cannibal guard at the top, but he is hard to see, and they can't get a clean shot. One of the players decides to climb up to take him out stealthily (no climb check needed, its a normal ladder). So he makes a move silent check, as he carefully climbs the ladder. Then as he crawls onto the top platform, I make him roll for his hide, to do so unseen. But the cannibal manages to spot him, and an epic brawl follows, where both him and the cannibal are in an epic struggle. The player attacks, and he fumbles! So I describe how he tries to swing his sword at the cannibal, but the cannibal grabs his wrist mid-swing, and slams him against the wooden railing of the tower. The bamboo railing creaks, the tower shakes, and his sword tumbles to the ground. The cannibal now starts trying to push him over the side, so the player must make an opposing strength check. He succeeds, and pushes the cannibal away from him. He can also see how the cannibal is trying to reach for a dagger of his own, made from human bone. So the player tries to grapple the cannibal, and knock the dagger out of the hands of the cannibal before he can use it. He succeeds at his opposing strength check! He also tries to push the cannibal into the railing, and now the tables have turned. But both fighters are still unarmed, and it is now the cannibal who is being pushed over the edge of the platform! Etc.....
#19 alienux May 01, 2015 7:32:16	I occasionally use "fumbles" (if that's what you want to call it) for humor, but never with any actually penalty or negative results. If someone was making a DEX check to polevault and rolled a 1, I might jokingly say that they miss the spot where they intended to put the pole and caused it to snap in half, and then landed on their butt. But I also know that my players would appreciate the situation humor as they don't take things too seriously. If there were players that were being that serious about it, I probably wouldn't do it, but I've really never played with anyone that took the game so seriously that we didn't joke about things like that with each other.
#20 Tempest_Stormwind May 01, 2015 7:34:25	Moral of the story: anything positive you can expect out of fumbles can be handled by better description of what a miss means. Step up your cinematic description game, and leave the fumble table behind.
#21 OoftaMeg May 01, 2015 12:31:57	Critical fumbles are annoying for the reasons others have stated. The higher the character level, the more likely you will fumble (perhaps multiple times) during a combat session. I had a DM who thought it would be funny to implement a critical fumble rule. He had a lot of fun but the group broke up when he refused to listen to us when we told him it was annoying. I did try critical fumbles for a while myself, but I gave people a saving throw. Roll a 1? Roll a d20 minus twice your level to see if something bad happens (a second 1 always failed). The bad thing was always something I made up that was environmentally appropriate. A sword would get tangled in a low hanging chandelier, an arrow would go wide and hit a table lamp causing a fire to start in the wooden building, etc. After trying it for a few months though I decided it wasn't adding enough fun to justify the interruption of gameplay, particularly when the PCs were getting multiple attacks per round. On the other hand if someone at my table rolls a one and wants something goofy to happen - and gives the group a fun description - I will reward inspiration if it's creative/fun enough.
(Reply to #17) AaronOfBarbaria	Rya.Reisender wrote:
#23 BRJN May 01, 2015 17:52:57	I have done this (context: group of first-time-ever-player fifth-graders): One boy rolled a '1' with a shortbow. I said, "You shoot the bow at him and are still holding the arrow. The bow wobbles slowly into the square in front of you and falls to the ground." Everybody got a laugh, and on his next turn he stepped forward, picked up the bow, and took another shot his target. (He hit.) It was silly and embarrassing (and memorable, not just for me, as I was told years later) but did not cripple the character's ability to contribute, nor expose him to extra harm.
#24 Tempest_Stormwind May 01, 2015 19:23:32	BRJN wrote:
#25 Rya.Reisender May 01, 2015 22:58:24	Yeah, I'm doing it pretty similar to BRJN. @Aaron The reason why I differentiate it from a normal fail is that the text is different. Instead of for example shooting an arrow at the goblin and he blocks it. The arrow instead flies somewhere into the ceiling or hits the wall or an obstacle. Roll 2-9 when trying to identify a DC10 potion? "You can't tell what potion it is." But roll a 1: "You choke a little when trying to take a sip. Seems the content didn't kill you, but you have absolutely no idea what kind of potion it is." In fifth edition there aren't really critical fails in the old sense with horrible consequences. But keeping the funny descriptions at rolls of 1 still makes the game more fun.
(Reply to #25) AaronOfBarbaria	Rya.Reisender wrote:
#27 Imaculata May 02, 2015 3:51:07	My group sometimes uses critical failures for normal skill checks too. For example, the party wants to descend down a cliff, so they tie a rope around a tree with a use rope check. But the player rolls a 1. So I ruled that the rope looks perfectly fine, and he even pulls it a few times to see if it holds, and it does. Other players also look at it, and ask me if they can tell if the rope is incorrectly tied. But I ruled that they couldn't, it looks fine (I despise metagaming, so no they can't tell that he rolled a 1). Then as soon as they start descending, that is when they notice that the knod starts to slip under the weight of more than one person. The logic behind this, is that the rope in my opinion only needs to be tied really well if it endures stress. For example, more than one person hanging from it, or a tied up prisoner trying to escape from it. If it had been just one person hanging from it, that 1 would have been perfectly fine. The goal is not to piss people off, but to provide an exciting situation where the players have to react. They are Stallone, and this is a scene from Cliffhanger, basically. I then allow other players to roll skill checks based on their reaction. So if someone wants to grab the rope to keep it from slipping, thats a strength check. If someone wants to grab hold of the cliff, thats a climb check. I want to make it exciting, and not annoying. I don't want any of the players to feel bad or guilty for rolling a 1, because that isn't the point of the game.
(Reply to #27) AaronOfBarbaria	Imaculata wrote:

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

NobleNewb

Apr 30, 2015 12:56:02

Anyone out there have some good critical failure ideas or whole charts or "batch" charts. I am currently creating a list of 100 combat batches, spell batches and non combat batches. The funnier the better guys so be creative.

Thanks

- Cameron

Tempest_Stormwind

Apr 30, 2015 13:09:47

NobleNewb wrote:

AaronOfBarbaria

Apr 30, 2015 13:17:02

I agree with TS on this: fumbles are only good for a game if its intent is to make the characters appear to be shockingly incompotent.

It works in a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics where "...and then everyone died embarrassingly gorey deaths" is the intended result, or in HackMaster where the point of the mechanics is to drive home that adventurers aren't brave so much as stupid and that regular, well-adjusted folk, would avoid combat at all costs because you aren't likely to live through many combats without sustaining lasting and/or life-changing injury.

NobleNewb

Apr 30, 2015 13:18:13

Wow, you have a really good point there Tempest.

Touc

Apr 30, 2015 13:35:25

If you do it for flavor, see it as a great addition. Rather than roll, I'd just have a list of 100 "goofs" when rolling a 1 that don't impact mechanics more than a "miss." It's easy as a DM to fall into the same descriptions (e.g. "you trip, stubbing your toe") and this helps. On the other hand, that's one more table you're looking up, slowing down play.

CCS

Apr 30, 2015 13:36:48

On a 1 you lose your next action + reaction and all attacks against you have advantage until the end of the next round. Make up appropriate fluff as to what exactly happened to result in this - over extended an attack, fell for a feint, dropped your bat guano, etc. That's it, that's all. That's as far as my crit miss chart goes.

Tempest_Stormwind

Apr 30, 2015 13:39:30

If you want an example of how these tables would be received, I forgot to mention: Ask anyone about the Wild Mage sorcerer, which has something similar to a fumble table except it goes a step further and has a chance of triggering only if the DM tells you it triggers (you'll note in this case the roll you're making is a defensive one, to see if the DM's invoking of the wild magic surge table will be phenomenally embarrassing or not).

...Actually, you don't have to, because Wizards themselves just did. These surveys have a way of being wonderfully understated (they have to be, since a gamer who is in a state of less than perfect bliss is capable of incredible vitriol), and they said this:

we’ve heard consistent feedback that the sorcerer doesn’t offer enough options within the class. Not everyone is excited about the wild mage, thus leaving some players with only the dragon sorcerer as an option. It’s no coincidence that we showed off a favored soul option for the sorcerer in Unearthed Arcana. Plus, we have another sorcerer option on tap for that article series.

fylth

Apr 30, 2015 14:06:49

when my characters roll a 1 I always make it into a 'wiff' or 'fumble' as in, I describe their fumble, try to make it a little comical, but generally don't make any serious consequences for the most part. Player: "OK, I am going to try and jump across this 10 foot cap in the ice.. *rolls a 1* ..uhh a 1.." Me: "You run up and go for a mighty leap to gap the short space, however, you slip on the ice, fall straight down onto yr rump and splash into the water. You can use the rest of yr movement to pull yrself out of the water, lucy there aren't any hungry fish down there..."

On occasion I do make it have negative effects. One time that comes to mind is when the players had stolen some wyvrens, no one had even rode a horse at this point in time so I made them roll checks to see if they could hold on and contro the unruly beasts. My monk rolled a 1 and slipped off the saddle, plummetting to the earth, likely to his doom, but the fighter (who had rolled to control the wyvren) said "I want to dive after him and grab hold of him" he rolls an 18-19 or soemthing like that, swoops down and grabs the monk, saving his life.

I don't always do those kind of things on a 1, but for certain situatiuons I feel like it makes an element of uncertainty that spices the game up a little more

Ranthalan

Apr 30, 2015 14:24:12

At my table a roll of 1 means you roll d10 to see if you've botched. A 1 on that roll, and bad things happened. That brings the percentage down to .5%. So far, only one monster has botched a roll in 6 sessions.

I wouldn't use a table for a result, though. I always make something up that fits the context of the roll.

#10

Rya.Reisender

Apr 30, 2015 14:29:11

I will disagree with the other insofar that I think critical fails / fumbles are actually something that's really good for Pen & Paper because it makes for funny scenes.

I agree that tables are silly, though. A critical fail "joke" always needs to perfectly fit the situation. And should be fairly consequence-less, yet still funny.

#11

TheLarch

Apr 30, 2015 15:13:37

+1 on "no fumble" in general

One thing as others have mentioned is that it makes players seem and feel incompetent. Another thing to consider are NPC's

"The evil overlord raises his mighty flaing sword of eternal doom and darkness. A thunderclap roars through the cold air as he swings it.. [roll=1] and...ehm.. drops it" Tends to take the air out of boss battles and make supposedly scary NPC's look rediculess.

With that said as DM I occationally use a sort of fumble if a player or NPC is in a particular difficult or risky situation where it might make sense and can add some good narrative/spice to the game. Eg. a character is fighting on the very edge of a cliff. He fumbles. I might ask him to make a DEX save. If he fails it he'll slip and fall off the cliff but manages to hang on to some roots sticking out. He's now hanging there and need to succed a STR check to get up or have a buddy come over and pull him up.

These situations only come up rarely.

#12

Rya.Reisender

Apr 30, 2015 15:26:54

TheLarch wrote:

(Reply to #12)

AaronOfBarbaria

Rya.Reisender wrote:

#14

tubadancross

Apr 30, 2015 18:21:07

I have a fumble table being that on a nat 1 you roll a d20 and on a 5 or lower something happens, but it is run that a character must roll a natural 1 and have disadvantage on the attack. That makes a crit fail not only poor play on the part of the character but also poor play and having the odds stacked against them.

Similarly, my crit table is a critical hit that you have advantage on roll a d20 and a 16-20 results above a normal critical hit.

#15

Barky

Apr 30, 2015 19:15:08

I'm not a fan of critical fumbles either, for the statistical reasons others have already stated.

However, I will situationally warn a player "don't roll less than X or something bad will happen" if they're doing something particularly goofy. It's my way of warning them that there's a risk in doing what they want to do.

(Reply to #6)

AndrewJO

CCS wrote:

#17

Rya.Reisender

Apr 30, 2015 23:31:47

AaronOfBarbaria wrote:

#18

Imaculata

May 01, 2015 2:40:58

I never roll on a fumble table, it just destroys the immersion. Instead I describe the fumble based on the current combat situation. I kind of approach it as if it were an action movie. I want the players to feel like they are Bruce Willis in Die Hard, where all of a sudden their enemy gets the upper hand by doing something clever.

For example:

The party discovered a watchtower in the jungle, that had been built by a tribe of vicious cannibals. They succeeded in their perception check, and noticed the silhouette of a cannibal guard at the top, but he is hard to see, and they can't get a clean shot. One of the players decides to climb up to take him out stealthily (no climb check needed, its a normal ladder). So he makes a move silent check, as he carefully climbs the ladder. Then as he crawls onto the top platform, I make him roll for his hide, to do so unseen. But the cannibal manages to spot him, and an epic brawl follows, where both him and the cannibal are in an epic struggle. The player attacks, and he fumbles!

So I describe how he tries to swing his sword at the cannibal, but the cannibal grabs his wrist mid-swing, and slams him against the wooden railing of the tower. The bamboo railing creaks, the tower shakes, and his sword tumbles to the ground. The cannibal now starts trying to push him over the side, so the player must make an opposing strength check. He succeeds, and pushes the cannibal away from him. He can also see how the cannibal is trying to reach for a dagger of his own, made from human bone. So the player tries to grapple the cannibal, and knock the dagger out of the hands of the cannibal before he can use it. He succeeds at his opposing strength check! He also tries to push the cannibal into the railing, and now the tables have turned. But both fighters are still unarmed, and it is now the cannibal who is being pushed over the edge of the platform! Etc.....

#19

alienux

May 01, 2015 7:32:16

I occasionally use "fumbles" (if that's what you want to call it) for humor, but never with any actually penalty or negative results. If someone was making a DEX check to polevault and rolled a 1, I might jokingly say that they miss the spot where they intended to put the pole and caused it to snap in half, and then landed on their butt. But I also know that my players would appreciate the situation humor as they don't take things too seriously. If there were players that were being that serious about it, I probably wouldn't do it, but I've really never played with anyone that took the game so seriously that we didn't joke about things like that with each other.

#20

Tempest_Stormwind

May 01, 2015 7:34:25

Moral of the story: anything positive you can expect out of fumbles can be handled by better description of what a miss means. Step up your cinematic description game, and leave the fumble table behind.

#21

OoftaMeg

May 01, 2015 12:31:57

Critical fumbles are annoying for the reasons others have stated. The higher the character level, the more likely you will fumble (perhaps multiple times) during a combat session.

I had a DM who thought it would be funny to implement a critical fumble rule. He had a lot of fun but the group broke up when he refused to listen to us when we told him it was annoying.

I did try critical fumbles for a while myself, but I gave people a saving throw. Roll a 1? Roll a d20 minus twice your level to see if something bad happens (a second 1 always failed). The bad thing was always something I made up that was environmentally appropriate. A sword would get tangled in a low hanging chandelier, an arrow would go wide and hit a table lamp causing a fire to start in the wooden building, etc.

After trying it for a few months though I decided it wasn't adding enough fun to justify the interruption of gameplay, particularly when the PCs were getting multiple attacks per round.

On the other hand if someone at my table rolls a one and wants something goofy to happen - and gives the group a fun description - I will reward inspiration if it's creative/fun enough.

(Reply to #17)

AaronOfBarbaria

Rya.Reisender wrote:

#23

BRJN

May 01, 2015 17:52:57

I have done this (context: group of first-time-ever-player fifth-graders):

One boy rolled a '1' with a shortbow. I said, "You shoot the bow at him and are still holding the arrow. The bow wobbles slowly into the square in front of you and falls to the ground." Everybody got a laugh, and on his next turn he stepped forward, picked up the bow, and took another shot his target. (He hit.)

It was silly and embarrassing (and memorable, not just for me, as I was told years later) but did not cripple the character's ability to contribute, nor expose him to extra harm.

#24

Tempest_Stormwind

May 01, 2015 19:23:32

BRJN wrote:

#25

Rya.Reisender

May 01, 2015 22:58:24

Yeah, I'm doing it pretty similar to BRJN.

@Aaron

The reason why I differentiate it from a normal fail is that the text is different. Instead of for example shooting an arrow at the goblin and he blocks it. The arrow instead flies somewhere into the ceiling or hits the wall or an obstacle.

Roll 2-9 when trying to identify a DC10 potion? "You can't tell what potion it is."

But roll a 1: "You choke a little when trying to take a sip. Seems the content didn't kill you, but you have absolutely no idea what kind of potion it is."

In fifth edition there aren't really critical fails in the old sense with horrible consequences. But keeping the funny descriptions at rolls of 1 still makes the game more fun.

(Reply to #25)

AaronOfBarbaria

Rya.Reisender wrote:

#27

Imaculata

May 02, 2015 3:51:07

My group sometimes uses critical failures for normal skill checks too. For example, the party wants to descend down a cliff, so they tie a rope around a tree with a use rope check. But the player rolls a 1. So I ruled that the rope looks perfectly fine, and he even pulls it a few times to see if it holds, and it does. Other players also look at it, and ask me if they can tell if the rope is incorrectly tied. But I ruled that they couldn't, it looks fine (I despise metagaming, so no they can't tell that he rolled a 1). Then as soon as they start descending, that is when they notice that the knod starts to slip under the weight of more than one person.

The logic behind this, is that the rope in my opinion only needs to be tied really well if it endures stress. For example, more than one person hanging from it, or a tied up prisoner trying to escape from it. If it had been just one person hanging from it, that 1 would have been perfectly fine.

The goal is not to piss people off, but to provide an exciting situation where the players have to react. They are Stallone, and this is a scene from Cliffhanger, basically. I then allow other players to roll skill checks based on their reaction. So if someone wants to grab the rope to keep it from slipping, thats a strength check. If someone wants to grab hold of the cliff, thats a climb check. I want to make it exciting, and not annoying. I don't want any of the players to feel bad or guilty for rolling a 1, because that isn't the point of the game.

(Reply to #27)

AaronOfBarbaria

Imaculata wrote: