One was a glass cannon character famed for his repeated failures, the other hadn't blown the save in 6 years of this campaign!
I considered this adaptation of the Vitality / Wound rule. Keeping the Massive Damage Save in place but changing the effects. The Massive Damage failure will now be a staggered degradation... still fatal in a duel, but providing a chance for fellow PC intervention. Players of L4D might be familiar with this cinematic metaphor.
"When a character first fails a Massive Damage Save — he is stunned for 1d4 rounds. (During that time, any other character can take a standard action to help the stunned character recover; doing so ends the stunned condition.) The character also becomes fatigued."
[Rules inspired by and adapted from http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm]
This pretty much entails death in a duel situation... but gives a little respite in a sudden threatened TPK!
What other methods (apart from fudging the dice) have you used? This was a perfect storm after 6 years of reasonable balance... so maybe I should leave well alone.
"Try geting shot less."
Looks like you had a guy that frequently fails MDS, where one more failure wouldnt seem out of place. You also had a PC that hadnt failed a MDS in years.... dont tell me he wasnt overdue for a NaturalOne (5% chance, but never in 6years?).
If you are asking
Q: What happens if the party rolls a whole lotta 1's at the worst possible time in the game?
A: They lose the game.
If folks remove the possibility of Losing from the game, we should just rename it d20Nanny. Even superman had kryptonite, just in this case we call PC-kryptonite "Rolling a whole bunch of 1's". Why play a game that will always result in success regardless of a bunch of bad planning & bad rolling.
Perhaps this is an educational event.
What environment put the whole party over MAS, and maybe... just maybe the party should avoid walking into that kind of meatgrinder again expecting success. "Try getting shot less" includes "Think, then Act"
You should look at my variant Vit/Wounds system. Can be found here:
http://www.megaupload.com/dk/?d=1GHP0M9E
...in the Action Movie Grittiness file.
Since each of the party members has different Cons, and Defences, and Fort Saves the balance is a little more tricky. The glass cannon was/is almost unhittable (Def 38 ish), but when a 20 sneaks through and he has already used his Action point that round - he is in trouble with his bad Fort and Con. Of course it is his own choice to burn the Action Point in the pursuit of damage knowing he is vulnerable later that round. The fragile-ness is a story decision.
The other chap has an respectable AC, reasonable Con, reliable Fort, as is often the last one standing. Both Glass Cannon and old reliable went down on 1s. The shock value more than anything else un-nerved me!
After consultation with my players I will likely not explore a change... but I know I would be less than pleased if I was sat out for 20 mins because of a bad diceroll. However the very real consequences mean victory will be all the sweeter....
NCLanceman - nice thoughts - i like the graduated effects, but it lacks the golden simplicity I am looking for.
You could simply allow them to spend an action point to negate the "natural 1 = failure" effect, or to be stabilized and just unconscious.
Personally, I'm a fan of making new reasons to force... er... "allow" my PCs to spend their action points, because otherwise they tend to hoard them for encounters where you'd rather them not breeze their way through.
1) knocked prone and unconscious, and...
2) double hp damage from that attack (which may prove fatal from hp loss, but won't trigger another MD check)
3) Is bleeding out. This condition means the character loses 1 hp/round until stabilised (simialr to the dying condition, but for positive numbers of hp).
4) If the group has agreed beforehand, I implement a system to check if there was a permanent major injury (an excuse to include prosthetics/cybernetics/role-play a one-armed bandit).