Last night we had a ruling that failing your medicine check to stabilize a dying person caused a mark on the failure track.
The character eventually did survive but I wanted an offical ruling.
Thanks, the DM insisted that it did last night and would not be swayed. I would think it would say specifically that it cost a failure spot on a failed attempt but could not find it in the rules under saving for death or under the medicine skill check section.
Yeah, failing doesn't give a death mark in itself.
I MIGHT make this happen on a critical fail (rolling "1"), but that's not part of RAW either but more my personal flavour I always add on rolls of "1" and "20".
Inside combat, the waste of a whole action is enough penalty, no need to penalize the failure further.
Outside combat, I personally rule that stabilizing a person can only be attempted once per death saving throw. Death saving throws need to be done once per 6 seconds, so I just can't imagine each PC of whole group attempting to stabilize the same person within 6 seconds.
AndrewJO wrote:
To be fair though it isn't like you have a 5% chance of fumbling everything you do, only the things that require a check, which is probably less than 5% of the things you attempt. 5% of 5% is more like 0.0025%, which is pretty generous when the types of things we're talking about are dodging arrows and slaying dragons.
EDIT - Oh, and like the others have said, there is nothing in the rules to indicate that a failed medicine check should incur a failed death throw. Though like everything else, its really up to the DM.
NAD212000uk wrote:
I do fumbles, but I make them rarer by making the person who rolled a 1 repeat the check. If it fails the second time, it's a fumble. If it suceeds then it was just a failure. I think fumbles do add some level of fun to an adventure. Some of the greatest stories of my RPG career have been because of both player and NPC fumbles.
Some people like fumbles, some don't. Only bad thing is if you don't like them but the rest of your group does. But for that there's a fix: play a halfling 
The reason to play out critical fails (or fumbles as you call them) is not because it's realistic, but rather because it creates really funny situations. The flavour texts I usually write on critical fails seem to be rather popular with my players. That's why I do them.
Properly done most fumbles should just be no effect anyway. Or should just invoke some interesting flavor text about the situation and at worse cost someone a turn. I like fumbles but indeed 1-20 being a fumble is pretty harsh. Id be afraid to walk down the stairs or worse take a shower
Rya.Reisender wrote:
Well, walking down stairs and taking a shower are trivial actions. Trivial actions don't require an ability check so you can't roll 1 (or 20).
I didn't find it happening too often so far...
And yes I usually leave fumbles having no effect (other than becoming the laughing stock of the remaining party, maybe). So yeah giving a death mark might be way too harsh (that's why I said "might" in my initial post; probably would do it when the group tries to stabilize an enemy they just dropped unconscious or an NPC, but not when stabilizing a PC, unless the player has stated that he wants his character to die and start a new one when the situation fits).
I had a DM for a while that had two six-sided dice. One for crits, one for fumbles. If a creature critted you (and he regularly threw mobs at the PCs so it happened often) he'd roll his crit d6. A limb would be lopped off, you'd lose your head or whatever other body part was rolled. The only way my front line fighter ever survived a fight was because he had a ring of regen.
If you rolled a 1 on an attack you would drop your sword, break it, etc. He was "generous" in that magical weapons got a save.
Needless to say he wasn't my DM for very long.
OoftaMeg wrote:
AndrewJO wrote:
Jenks wrote:
Failed Medicine checks don't add a Death Save fail.
I generally despise critical failures and critical hits. A 1 always missing in acombat and a 20 always hitting is good enough for me. That being said, my favorite critical hit was a 2e game where my character rolled a 20 while attacking the dragon and the DM ruled I killed it. I'm not sure if I rolled damage, if I rolled extra damage because it was a critical, and I don't recall if I knew how many HP the dragon had anyway.
But, I killed it and the DM also ruled I broke my weapon. It was the final monster of that adventure and it seemed like a dramatic way to end a combat. Yes, a critical hit had a result taht you might see on a critical failure. But it was fun! I did the same thing on the BBEG the very next adventure. Became part of my character's lore. Dard, Sword Breaker!!! And when it was said, the other PCs would say quietly to themselves, "his own sword..."