Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mortaine Apr 21, 2011 17:19:29	I'm in a group that has sprung a couple of uncomfortable house rules on me after I joined. They're not completely unreasonable-- one is melee cover, the other is crit fail. The crit fail rule is from the DMG-- basically, if you roll a 1 on your to-hit, your turn ends immediately. I play a wizard. I roll about 3 to-hit rolls per round. Yeah. You can imagine how thrilled I was last game session when I lost both my move and minor actions just because I decided to open with my attack. Rolling three 1's in a row (2 attacks, 1 save) didn't make my evening any better, either. I have talked to the DM about this rule and told him it sucks. I've been really clear about why it punishes me more than the other players. It even says in the description of the rule that this is a frustrating rule for wizards. He doesn't care. He has decided the rule stands. That's fine. It just means it's a personal challenge to me to play smarter/tougher in his game. And find my own way to wreak vengeance (oh, you had a wide-ranging adventure prepped? Aw, too bad. We're going to go over here instead....) I know it's petty, but screwing up your carefully planned adventure is the main form of player empowerment. Anyway, the house rule changes my tactics a bit. As an example: I have Familiar Harrier, so I use my move action to set up flanking for my allies. Because most of my powers move the enemy, this means I can't focus fire on the back-rank artillery. I can pre-position my familiar into where I think I'm going to put the enemy, but then I'm likely to miss with my attack and not get to move the enemy anyway. Or I can put the familiar out into position so my allies could flank if they get there, but then if I hit and move the enemy closer to my allies, I leave the familiar behind. So I have to put the familiar into a position where it already flanks with one of the other party members, usually on the front-line brutes (the enemies I'm less worried about-- my job is to muck up the artillery and controllers), and then attack that enemy and hope I hit. Does anyone else play a controller in a game with this house rule? What tactical changes have you made to accommodate it? What do you recommend for tactics and choices? Besides ragequitting, of course-- dice rolls are not worth ragequitting over. If it bothers me enough, I'll switch to using powers that limit the number of d20's I have to roll and stop bringing good beer for the DM.
#2 magikot9 Apr 21, 2011 17:57:28	There are two options you can discuss with the DM regarding this rule. The first is that if you use a power that has more than 1 target, roll all your attacks at once, if there is a 1 rolled the spell fizzles and the attack fails but you still get your move and minor. The other is roll all the attacks at once, if there is a 1 the spell takes more energy than normal to cast making you loose any other actions you have that round, but the hits still stand and you get to roll damage as normal for the hits that succeeded. I think these are a fair compromise because first it respects the DM's house rule on critical failures, and secondly it balances the rule for wizards (and anyone else with multiple to-hit roles in a single power). If your DM says "too bad" then I would suggest either finding a new group, reroll to a single target controller, or use the few single target spells a wizard has.
#3 salla Apr 21, 2011 18:06:14	Don't 'ragequit'.  Quit calmly and politely.  Quit because you are being treated unfairly, which is the real power you have as a player.
#4 mortaine Apr 21, 2011 18:42:46	There are two options you can discuss with the DM.... The other is roll all the attacks at once, if there is a 1 the spell takes more energy than normal to cast making you loose any other actions you have that round, but the hits still stand and you get to roll damage as normal for the hits that succeeded. The second one (where your other attacks still hit) is how the rule is written and how we play, so at least I'm not 100% screwed. It still sucks because I lose any other actions I haven't taken, *and* I'm the character most likely to be affected by the rule.
#5 mortaine Apr 21, 2011 18:50:03	Don't 'ragequit'.  Quit calmly and politely.  Quit because you are being treated unfairly, which is the real power you have as a player. Actually, I had a slew of questions for him about the rule (mostly about rerolls and secondary attacks) which, if the answers hadn't been "yes, that still works... yes, that works... yes, that undoes the failure," my answer would probably have been "Ok, sorry, but I won't play anymore." It's not a good rule, but I can live with it and am now just looking to see how other people have adapted their strategies when faced with this rule. It's a house rule suggested in the DMG, so I'm sure other groups have played it. I understand what he's trying to do with it (inject an "oh sh**" feel to the game), and I believe that DMs have the power to institute house rules. But I honestly think he's trying too hard. This is a VERY gritty campaign even without any help from my sucky dice rolls. I have a friend who would not play in any campaign with such a rule. But his ratio of 1's to other numbers is WAY more than 1:20.
#6 magikot9 Apr 21, 2011 19:36:38	So, you have ways to undo the failures? Riders and secondary effects still happen? You still get to keep the hits that you generated on an AoE? And everyone looses their additional actions on a 1? What's the issue with the rule then? A third option I just thought of is roll once and have that roll count agaisnt all the enemies, that way you are effected the exact same way as everyone else on the team. As for tactics, look for advantageous positions to stand where enemies can't get at you without wasting several turns. Bottle neck the enemies between zone spells and difficult terrain funneling them to your melee team mates. White lotus hindrance and white lotus master hindrance. Use your standard actions last so you still get all your actions in the round and action points only after using all 3 of your actions. The crit failure rule really only hurts those that are taking their standard actions first.
#7 salla Apr 21, 2011 19:49:54	A game that uses critical fumbles might be the one game in which I would play one of those Warlords that never makes his own attack rolls ...
#8 magikot9 Apr 21, 2011 19:53:13	A game that uses critical fumbles might be the one game in which I would play one of those Warlords that never makes his own attack rolls ... WTB like button...
#9 Timmeh Apr 21, 2011 19:56:40	State that it affects you more than everyone else and ask that a corresponding bonus be applied to critical hits to make up for it.
#10 lady_ishtar Apr 21, 2011 22:57:24	You could always retrain to single target powers.
#11 salla Apr 21, 2011 23:37:40	You could always retrain to single target powers. Which pretty much washes him up as a controller and prevents him from doing his job.
#12 Nezkrul Apr 22, 2011 1:16:14	id say retrain your character to a controller that single targets, or doesn't have to roll attack rolls; or start looking for ways to captialize on rolling natural 1's, or such.. for instance, is there a PP or ED that has to do with if  you roll a natural 1 good stuff still happens to you/your party?
#13 Krusk Apr 22, 2011 9:50:24	I would seriously ask for the ability to never crit (Nat 20 doesn't do anything) in exchange for never crit failing. Provided you are too devoted to the game to walk. You could also argue for the "Make one attack roll per attack, and use the result vs all targets" house rule lots of DMs use to speed things up. If no, consider retraining to the single target debuffs and being an orb wizard. Ignore minions and mobs, and basically just dominate a single target (the solo, or elites) each fight.
#14 rian_king Apr 22, 2011 13:00:27	Don't 'ragequit'.  Quit calmly and politely.  Quit because you are being treated unfairly, which is the real power you have as a player. ragequitting is the only way out
#15 Baphogoat Apr 22, 2011 14:21:04	I had a DM that had a rule similair to this one, but it was only for arcane attacks and if you rolled a '1' you had to roll on the dreaded table to see what happened, and there was some pretty bad stuff.  I convinced him (not wanting to ask it to nix the rule completely) if this could only count for the very first attack of any power, because there was just to much of a chance for it to happen when you are making 3+ attacks for each power.  What might help is if you keep a record for the whole party on how often this affects each player and when you show him that the wizard gets screwed much more often than other party members maybe he will change.
#16 mortaine Apr 22, 2011 15:48:21	I convinced him (not wanting to ask it to nix the rule completely) if this could only count for the very first attack of any power, because there was just to much of a chance for it to happen when you are making 3+ attacks for each power.  I really like this suggestion, actually. I will do some tracking of the actual die rolls and then propose this solution in a few weeks.
#17 robertread3 Apr 22, 2011 18:12:31	what a lame rule that has no fun whatsoever.  dont do passave agressive stuff though no one likes it and its not giving you any real power.
#18 navar100 Apr 22, 2011 19:02:52	It took "forever", but finally my DM has seen the light and no longer uses critical fumbles.  The worse that could happen was you drop your weapon, but he finally saw how annoying this was for warrior players, especially when they're supposed to be heroic high level characters, and does absolutely nothing for spellcasters.  He at one point did implement a critical hit/fumble for spellcasting while having spell DC be set at d20 + modifiers, but that just made things worse.  Now, a Natural 1 is just a miss and combat runs a lot smoother.  Spellcasting is back to normal.
#19 CCS Apr 24, 2011 20:26:57	Every time I read some post about problems concerning crit fumbles I laugh. Because very few people ever have a complaint about crit success. So if rolling a natural 20 is so golden....  "Yay, + all kinds of damage, special effects, etc!" - all for getting a result that will occur 1:20 of the time. Why shouldn't rolling a natural 1 be the oppisite? Same odds. Instead all too often all you get is ..... a miss.  The same as you would if you'd rolled only 1 under the target. And so in the game I'm currently running I've changed the crit system. ANY hit or miss could become a crit. H/M, you roll again to confirm it.  Missed? Another 1 = crit.  Hit? Normal threat range on the second roll = crit. It's added a step to each attack but it hasn't slowed anything down.   What it has done is almost eliminated crits - wich I'm OK with - while maintaining the appearance of their possibility (wich is important to a few of my players).
#20 Cohen95 Apr 24, 2011 21:03:00	Generally speaking, the point of the game is to have fun. Getting that 1:20 chance of doing extra damage and really hurting the bad guy is fun. Getting that 1:20 chance of the bad guy hurting you is the balance on that. Having the bad guy have a 1:20 chance of dropping his "claws" or "teeth" that he's attacking with? Kind of pointless and silly. Having a 1:20 chance of dropping your sword or implement? Also not helping the fun. Especially if you're a swordmage, at which point dropping your weapon means you lose your warding until you pick it back up. Which could take an extra round or an AP if I just critically fumbled on a charge. No, thanks, I'll keep the part that's balanced fun and not use the part that's extra work, may or may not slow down combat, may make things potentially even harder on the PCs, and generally does nothing to enhance my fun. You can go ahead and have fun with it for both of us, though, that's cool.
#21 johnnii Apr 24, 2011 21:24:08	There is a way to make the rule more balanced. When making an attack that involves multiple attack rolls, the critical failure effect only takes place on the first attack roll; all rolls afterwards which comes up as natural 1s is considered misses with no additional effect. Another thing is to make the critical failure an optional choice with benefits to counter the drawbacks. See Dark Sun for an excellent implementation of this.
#22 jhanzur Apr 25, 2011 6:07:44	I play a wizard. I roll about 3 to-hit rolls per round. Yeah. You can imagine how thrilled I was last game session when I lost both my move and minor actions just because I decided to open with my attack. Rolling three 1's in a row (2 attacks, 1 save) didn't make my evening any better, either. I have talked to the DM about this rule and told him it sucks. I've been really clear about why it punishes me more than the other players. It even says in the description of the rule that this is a frustrating rule for wizards. He doesn't care. He has decided the rule stands. That's fine. It just means it's a personal challenge to me to play smarter/tougher in his game. And find my own way to wreak vengeance (oh, you had a wide-ranging adventure prepped? Aw, too bad. We're going to go over here instead....) I know it's petty, but screwing up your carefully planned adventure is the main form of player empowerment. Yeahhhhhh.... That right there is what turns good players bad. I understand that you're frustrated. You invested time in your character, and things are working the way you expected because the rules were changed after the fact. But remember one thing, if your DM is running a long range campaign, take the amount of time you've invested in your character and double it. That's likely the MINIMUM amount of time your DM has committed to just creating that campaign. Not to mention the fact that you're punishing the other players unjustly. The rules changed, you have a case to rework your character. If the DM won't let you, then calmly explain that you won't be returning for the next session.
#23 crowscape Apr 25, 2011 6:41:22	Every time I read some post about problems concerning crit fumbles I laugh. Because very few people ever have a complaint about crit success. So if rolling a natural 20 is so golden....  "Yay, + all kinds of damage, special effects, etc!" - all for getting a result that will occur 1:20 of the time. Why shouldn't rolling a natural 1 be the oppisite? Same odds. Instead all too often all you get is ..... a miss.  The same as you would if you'd rolled only 1 under the target. Because critical hits do not put a stop to the action, and the critical hit mechanic does not turn class benefits into class penalties. Plus, critical hits actually do improve as levels increase (at the least, more damage is done, but they can also be more frequent and have more effects added). Meanwhile, with critical failures, your 19th level fighter is still a complete piker who drops his weapon just as much as he did when he was first given a stick and told to pretend it was a sword.
#24 salla Apr 25, 2011 6:54:35	And additionally, symmetry for the sake of symmetry is pretty bass-ackward.
#25 Krusk Apr 25, 2011 8:17:12	Every time I read some post about problems concerning crit fumbles I laugh. Because very few people ever have a complaint about crit success. I'm not crazy about them. If I were writing a game, I would probably cut them out if not for the majority that does seem to like them.
#26 gorkythatcher Apr 25, 2011 9:57:44	There is a way to make the rule more balanced. When making an attack that involves multiple attack rolls, the critical failure effect only takes place on the first attack roll; all rolls afterwards which comes up as natural 1s is considered misses with no additional effect. Another thing is to make the critical failure an optional choice with benefits to counter the drawbacks. See Dark Sun for an excellent implementation of this. This is what I was going to suggest and the route I would push for.
#27 mortaine Apr 25, 2011 17:57:30	Yeahhhhhh.... That right there is what turns good players bad. I understand that you're frustrated. You invested time in your character, and things are working the way you expected because the rules were changed after the fact. But remember one thing, if your DM is running a long range campaign, take the amount of time you've invested in your character and double it. That's likely the MINIMUM amount of time your DM has committed to just creating that campaign. Not to mention the fact that you're punishing the other players unjustly. The rules changed, you have a case to rework your character. If the DM won't let you, then calmly explain that you won't be returning for the next session. Heh. I'm a DM. Believe me, I know how long it takes to create a world and run a campaign.  I also know that neither the DM nor the other players minds when the narrative veers off course. We have spent probably 3 weeks just figuring out which direction we want to ride in next.  Our DM gets a massive storytelling crush on me every time I come up with a new direction for our story to go-- he's not a bad DM and happily hands narrative control over to the players. I do not view this campaign as "his" story, but rather "ours." Last week, my character became a good-aligned cleric of Asmodeus. Not something the DM expected, but man, is he thrilled by all the possibilities. So saying "oh, yeah? We're going over *here* next" isn't punishment for the DM or other players. Punishment for everyone would be me being a priss and taking my dice and going home. I'm amazed at how many people think I should do exactly that-- and I considered it, myself. In the end, I decided that the rule wasn't quite punitive enough to ragequit over. I *do* understand where it's coming from-- the DM is trying to build a very specific flavor in his campaign-- we're heroes, but we're heroes fighting a fight that's stacked against us. I'm just struggling with the deck being even more stacked against *me* in particular. Mostly, I wondered how many other people play in a campaign with this rule, and what kinds of changes they've made in their own style, to still be effective as a controller. I'll be honest, I've been a bit disappointed by most of the responses so far in this thread. Some things are clear: most people don't play with crit fails, and many people have no problem walking away from a good story, if they disagree with a single house rule. Role-playing-wise, my friends and I envision going to wizard school and setting up a combat round for practice, then having your teacher step in and say "now, Mortimer, be careful-- you opened with your attack instead of using your utilities first. That's a rookie mistake. I know you can do this spell in your sleep, but you know there's always the chance you'll lose control of it and be a little dazed. You don't want that, so try again....."
#28 gorkythatcher Apr 27, 2011 10:42:24	He doesn't care. He has decided the rule stands. That's fine. It just means it's a personal challenge to me to play smarter/tougher in his game. And find my own way to wreak vengeance (oh, you had a wide-ranging adventure prepped? Aw, too bad. We're going to go over here instead....) I know it's petty, but screwing up your carefully planned adventure is the main form of player empowerment. I don't think it was clear (at least to me) based on this statement that you were ok with the change and not looking to get out of crit failures or at least ease the burden on your character. I think you're already on the right path- adjust tactics to roll at the end and possibly swap powers or classes to roll less.
#29 Draco_Whitewind Apr 27, 2011 15:26:18	I'd quit because this DM has no idea what he's doing, no understanding of the system and how badly it screws you over. If anyone there has the skills to DM (or if you do) I'd just up and steal the game and pack away that terrible DM logic and show him how wrong he is. And CCS, don't do that. You have in your brain every reason why special effects on a 20 is okay, but an automatic miss on a 1 is perfectly fine, works as intended, and not in anyone's version of reality needs a change.
#30 RPJesus Apr 28, 2011 5:13:01	I'd quit because this DM has no idea what he's doing, no understanding of the system and how badly it screws you over. If anyone there has the skills to DM (or if you do) I'd just up and steal the game and pack away that terrible DM logic and show him how wrong he is. I prefer the passive agressive method. Retrain if necessary, then CAST MAGIC MISSILE! All the time.
#31 slobo777a Apr 28, 2011 8:41:32	I'd quit because this DM has no idea what he's doing, no understanding of the system and how badly it screws you over. If anyone there has the skills to DM (or if you do) I'd just up and steal the game and pack away that terrible DM logic and show him how wrong he is. Over a single, perhaps misguided, house rule this reaction seems like overkill. In practice, for most people most of the time, quitting a group and finding or forming another are enough effort that they need to be balanced against just how bad things actually are. The OP appears to be having a good time in general, and is effectively going to end up losing actions maybe twice as often as his peers in the same game. Possibly the rule is going to crop up for his character once per hour of play, and then not always in a manner which makes a noticeable difference to the current encounter. Personally, I would say this isn't a game-breaker, unless it's indicative of the same DM in all aspects of play, which would imply lots more was house ruled in odd ways and he had some hang-ups on the story-telling side too. I think that's unlikley. You can set your tolerance for this kind of thing lower if you like, but no DM runs a perfect game - if you are looking for niggles at this level of annoyance, you will find them in many many places.
#32 Ctenophore718 May 04, 2011 0:26:34	I would have to agree with slobo -- a bad houserule, but not something to get into a real twist over. As a DM, I have a similar houserule with critical failures, but I dial it down way more. Instead of having to end your turn immediately on a natural 1, I instead have them reroll on a 1. If the second result is a 1 as well, then it's a critical failure, in which case I improvise something appropriate for the situation (like accidentally hitting an adjacent ally instead for a melee attack). The way I figure, the PCs are heroes, above and beyond the the skills and abilities of most other people. They shouldn't critically fail 5% of the time. Instead, they should only critically fail .25% of the time. After all, we all make really bad mistakes.
#33 albull May 04, 2011 7:38:31	I have players who seem determined to roll 1s at every chance so in my game a crit fail equals an automatic miss and a spin on the iphone Wheel of Fate app (free). Anyways here is what everyone is thinking but are all too polite to say: Buy new nice, the ones you have obviously don't like you.
#34 congzilla May 06, 2011 12:42:35	screwing up your carefully planned adventure is the main form of player empowerment. That is being an jerk off to everyone at the table.
#35 mortaine May 09, 2011 17:45:42	Wanted to update everyone: The party suffered a TPK 2 weeks ago (we were off this past week). I won't say what I think about the scenario, except that it was "a challenge inappropriate to character level." Crits came up for me only twice in the session-- for the most part, I was rolling between 2 and 19. However, I crit hit and crit failed on the same area attack. The crit fail ended my turn, of course. The power in question did no damage, so the crit hit did no additional benefit.  It was the clearest example of why the crit fail rule punishes controller wizards that I can possibly think of. Honestly, in the moment, I just shrugged it off and carried forward. That was about 10 minutes before my character died, and the crit fail didn't make a big difference (I lost a minor action, which I probably wasn't using anyway). It is extremely likely at this point that I won't be returning to this campaign. The DM doesn't know what to do next about the situation, and I think he's burned out. So I don't think I want to bring a new PC into the group and will instead reclaim my Thursdays.