Everyone's lying about Crit FAILS!

[@awells444]

I like the idea nat 1, with enough bonuses to meet the DC, being a success but something fun happens. For example, you got the noble to agree to the deal but you now have to do an act at his children’s birthday party.

[@justicerainz]

That's a really fun way to do it!

[@urktheturtle2988]

This is how I rule it, failing upwards.

[@TheSpencermacdougall]

Yes, and meets yes, but.

[@WalkinStereotype]

Precisely! DnD is a game, and so you should make it fun for the players! Successful nat 1s can add such tension relieving silliness. This can extend to low AC ooze enemies in attacks too! You hit the ooze, but its slime causes you to slip and fall cartoon-style

[@LugborG]

That’s how I run them. 1s and 20s are treated as a modifier. The roll ends up better or worse than normal whether you succeed or not.

[@ThoranTheGamer]

I personally handle crit fails as the enemy doing something really cool. The fighter doesn't fling the spear into the sun or his ally's chest cavity, instead the orc he was aiming at catches the spear, does a cool spin, plants the spear into the ground and stares down the fighter. Two monks throwing nothing but nat 1s at each other suddenly looks less like a wet noodle fight and more like something out of the matrix. I also let the player describe something just as cool when they get a nat 20. Basically PCs are never lame, the enemy was just cooler in that moment.

[@comet9864]

all of a sudden, I like the idea of crit fails again

[@jin11779933]

Yo, why haven't I thought of this?? I'm yoinking this for later.

[@KazisCollection]

Love this

[@robsonclark9678]

This is excellent!

[@roman_dimaggio]

Wow, this is some next level "I don't need to put down something to praise something else". I don't like it, the enemy doing something really cool sounds like them getting a critical success. Two monks throwing nothing but nat 1s at each other should look like nervous children playing pretend Larping Tiger Cringe Dragon , miscalculating their movement and falling prone with every kick they throw, sometimes managing to hurt themselves if they roll a 1 in a d3 after the failure. Getting a nat 1 and making it look as if it wasn't your incompetence, more like the extreme competence of your enemy is like a Trump move, even more pathetic than failing in on itself. Is failing AND making up an excuse. No Johns man. If you're not gonna let them critical fail might as well not throw any dice at all, that way you can always tell them their characters are looking cool, and being cool, and acting cool, and man... they're so cool they're giving me chills

[@aurynvrvilo6683]

I love Larry Moore and everything around this character and how Zee portrays the relationship. Cracks me up everytime.

[@nickfrancalangia9586]

he's the best

[@variancytphul]

There is a friend of mine who is very much like Larry. And I mean not just occasional similarities but totally resembles him.

[@posadistpossum]

@@variancytphul There are many Larries in the ttrpg world, the portrayal is uncannily accurate

[@GnarledStaff]

@@posadistpossum Or maybe y'all just know the same guy?

[@deplorabledegenerate2630]

I am not Larry. But I am Larry lite.

[@segevstormlord3713]

It's worth noting that even in 3.5, _skill checks_ did not automatically fail on a 1, nor automatically succeed on a 20. In fact, the only thing that did autofail/autosucceed on 1/20 in 3.5 that doesn't in 5e are saving throws.

[@Mathadar]

I usually still had the 1's give some drawback even if it succeeded. Like one time a character made a move silently roll and rolled a 1 since they couldn't take a 10 at the time. They did still succeed, (halfling shadow dancer/rogue), but stepped onto leaves, so the next time they moved, they knew they would make sound. They used that to their advantage, moving into cover and the sound drew the enemy to check it out. So then they ambushed them, doing sneak attack and dropping them, before dragging the body behind cover and continuing their recon.

[@monsieurdorgat6864]

Honestly, not a bad idea for 5e since saves are a little gimped in 5e.

[@chowdaire7343]

I actually really liked that about 3.5. To me, skills defined characters, so when a rogue invested the points into a skill he/she would inevitably get to a point where they almost couldn't fail which seemed like a nice reward for their effort. I also don't like the idea of a wizard critically succeeding on a task they have never trained to do just because they got lucky and had a 5% chance of doing so. A player's skill choices are as character defining as core class abilities. imagine if a barbarian could chuck a fireball so long as they rolled a nat 20. The barbarian never trained to do that in the first place so why should they be given a 5% chance to succeed on an impossible task?

[@CantFaketheFunk]

I think Nat 20s should still autosucceed on saves in 5e. The idea that there's an ability or spell that goes off and there's just nothing you can do, you're fucked, rankles me. There should always be the chance for one heroic effort.

[@insertname3977]

@@chowdaire7343 That actually sounds pretty awesome.

[@goldenreflection2811]

Seeing Zee offer up the Polterdie at the end with "you need the right dice" is quite a cool piece of story telling.

[@EtherealAuthor]

If you used tongs or gloves to slip the polterdie into someone else's dice bag, what would happen?

[@mrcarter7911]

@@EtherealAuthor will id guess weird looks and the passing of the curse

[@erikkennedy8725]

All my dice are cursed. Except the one set that I use as DM dice, and only as DM dice. Every other set rolls average to low.

[@atsukana1704]

@@erikkennedy8725 my D6 rolls extremely high for all of the stats except one, which ends up being a 5 or 6. So my rogue ends up with an 18 Dex baseline (+another 2 as an elf gets to max) while their strength is 5. They were made for but one thing. Its like my dice are forcing me ton minmax 😂

[@tank7737]

I like how it's now August and he still has the new episodes every Thursday through June message at the end

[@trexdrew]

Lol there is a flash of text that said “September 4th”

[@CaptainJohnKeel]

I love this because for some reason that minotaur speaking is incredibly satisfying to me.

[@jongameaddict]

He's got 30 something episodes planned for us kappa

[@trexdrew]

@@jongameaddict that’s insane

[@themecoptera9258]

In my mind rolls are for resolving situations where the outcome is in doubt. You don’t need to roll to walk down the stairs because there isn’t even a 5% chance of failing at that task, likewise you can’t roll to grow wings and fly away because there isn’t a 5% chance of that happening. If there is no question about the outcome I don’t let you roll. A thief with +10 for lockpicking a door will never fail at opening a simple lock (with a DC of 10) so they don’t roll to try. I just say they succeed and move on. A bard with -3 to athletics can’t jump over a river with a DC of 20 if they try they fall into the water no roll required. Because I only ask for rolls when outcomes are in doubt, a 1 on an ability check is always a failure and a 20 is always a success.

[@OriasRofocale]

In the first game I played in, the DM had my cleric break both his wrists rolling to open an unlocked door because I rolled a one both times. I still hate that guy and hope he died in a fire.

[@DreamFireNostalgia]

i agree , except you underestimate my ability to fall both up and down stairs frequently. XD

[@OzixiThrill]

I don't exactly agree with the idea of not asking for rolls on guaranteed outcomes. Sometimes, it's worth letting the players sweat, as it builds tension, which can give cathartic release when they succeed. They don't need to know that they can't fail the roll, all they do need to know is that they might fail it.

[@macmusial3644]

@@OzixiThrill I agree that it can be nice to make players roll even if they don't have a chance of failure, especially if they happen to roll badly and they get a really tangible moment where having invested in a skill pays off for them and saves them from the dice

[@stumbling_]

A bard, even with a minus 3 will still at higher levels have a +5 or something crazy

[@hamadul-shattan8899]

Welcome back! I offer one area in 5e that is affected by the scope of crit fails - character development. At certain levels, rogues and bards and certain subclasses get the no less than 10 on proficient skills if less than a 10 is rolled. The deliberate build choices ensure that the skill monkeys in the party can never catastrophically fail their proficient skill checks, which is very handy in complicated situations like heists, confidence scams, or survival mode games.

[@BioroidPilot]

Plus it makes Halflings feel better, adds fun to the Lucky feat, Diviner Wizards and more.

[@domicci4460]

@@BioroidPilot I don't thing those need to be better when their already the best on slot like luck is broken sorry but turning disadvantage into super advantage and div is very good on dms that are long rest happy and halflongs have always been good so no we don't need the already good and broken stuff better

[@BioroidPilot]

@@domicci4460 Who crapped in your salad holy fuck. Dms are not vs the players we facilitate and have fun. None of those things are broken in any way that a competent Dm cannot easily handle. Just cause a species is mechanically good enough doesn't make them fun, the risk of bad luck crit failing makes Halflings feel cooler for players to be able to avoid such things. Diviners are good whether the Dm is stingy on long rests or not, cause for one thing if a Dm is hyper stingy on long rests at a certain point the wizard will literally refuse to progress since you know, they get their spells by and large back on long rests. And Lucky is just literally a fine and balanced feat, It does not change their bonuses so their odds are left alone, it just lets them mitigate a bit of bad luck on rolling. All of these things can make the game more fun (Which is the whole point) And are easy as fuck to balance having in your game without even needing dang near any adjustment.

[@PVPTawa]

I had a DM that ruled it a crit fail even for a rogue with reliable talent if the original roll was a 1. Pretty sad.

[@Yurt_enthusiast7]

And also very boring 😴

[@ooccttoo]

There's something threatening about the vagueness of "Do you like these ideas? Do you subscribe to these sorts of notions?" Like... Zee, I don't know what to say. I mean, yes? But I also feel like there will be consequences if I answer wrongly. Great vid btw! Love the interjections from the grognard customer.

[@rodlimadiniz]

I like how Savage Worlds deals with this. Basically, a 1 on both your rolled die means something weird / bad happened. You CAN re-roll those dice with the equivalent of Inspiration, but the bad thing STILL happens, even though you might pass the check. So, it's something like... you roll a crit fail, and the DM says you'll drop your weapon. You use the inspiration resource (bennies), and re-roll for a hit (maybe even a high roll!). So, you swing your sword, it slips your grasp, but still hits the zombie right in the face.

[@Michael-bn1oi]

You explicitly cannot re-roll snake eyes. You are stuck with the negative effect and the failure. You can re-roll single 1s however. Play tested SWADE and ran SW for over 6 years now. Older editions let you do as you say, but that's like trying to use 3e rules in 5e.

[@sintanan469]

@@Michael-bn1oi As someone interested in SWADE, do you have any suggestions for variant rules for magic to make magic feel... well.. fantastical? The base rules make magic so very bland.

[@JAY-gl5xd]

Something I learned only this year about Nat 1s in 3.5: if you roll a Nat 1 on a save against a damaging spell, your gear takes damage. They even have a chart on what takes damage first. Suddenly your shields HP comes into play for something other than sunder attempts. And a lightning bolt or breath weapon can end your career. Even if you can take the damage it can destroy 2 of your treasured armors or items. So much math.

[@alicebnuuy6155]

i love how pathfinder 2e makes it so that you get a critical success if you roll 10 or more above the dc, or a crit fail on a 10 or more below it. for one, more crits is fun, but it also means that since they're more common, way more stuff can have effects for if you crit succeed or crit fail

[@roxythelipstickpixie72]

That +16 in your favourite skill is about to get all the more exciting.

[@martingelinas1721]

I remember my old group using critical fumble rules while I was playing a monk with flurry of blows. It was not fun injuring myself more often than my enemies.

[@Quintuplin12]

Ah, the bottomless pit of bizarre design choices that is the DMG's "things you might do" category

[@jonathansikora]

I feel like the big question with crit fails for skill checks is basically how much Mr. Bean you want there to be in your campaign. The game is swingy enough with skills (particularly at low to mid levels) that I personally don't care for characters to be THAT incompetent that often. Of course that also brings in the question as to how often you are having characters make skill rolls - some folks really overdo that as well and that leads to the same Mr. Bean/Three Stooges factor.

[@Sage_6reen]

It's me. I'm the whole table going "AHHHH!"

[@Yukiwodashite]

I actually really like that idea of crit hits and doing more than half health. Makes crits seem a lot more epic.

[@Golddudes199]

He flashed that dice and I immediately opened an new tab and started looking at dice

[@The.eternal.sillyness]

I have a luck die rule, when you get a critical roll you role "THE LUCK DIE" I have a big d6 for that, based on your number it changes how bad/good it is A nat 1 and a 6 can be you deal 2x damage but your weapon gets suck, or a 20 and a 1 can be the same but 3x damage It's really just fun improv and makes every 20 and 1 EXPONENTIALLY more hype

[@gutigerpj]

As someone who's lost around 6-7 characters to crit fails on death saves I was a little surprised to see them omitted. I even switched to playing a Halfling in one campaign after losing 3 characters to Nat 1's in the space of 5 sessions so that I would have a better chance of not dying to appalling die rolls.

[@techbeef]

Change your play style, holy crap. 3 characters in 5 sessions?!

[@drchicken2477]

Do you mean that you died instantly on a 1, regardless of number of failures?

[@jeremiahsnelson5644]

@@techbeef From what was said, this isn't a matter of playstyle. It was a matter of luck.

[@TheInfiniteAmo]

Proficiencies working towards saving crit fails on Ability checks is so good to prevent the annoying swing dice nature of things your character is literally built around being good at.

[@Kohdok]

I apply what I call a "Mishap" on a nat 1 during an attack. Nothing spectacular; they swing bad and drop their weapon(Can be picked up again as a Bonus or part of a Move, but an attack string is over), their bowstring breaks(Can be fixed as a bonus, again attack string over), their firebolt strikes a nearby pile of hay (Which might become a problem if ignored), just something to make the fight more complex and interesting while increasing suspense. In your artifact example, the thing misfires and needs a turn to be fixed to try again. This has resulted in some great stuff, like the players accidentally burning a house down while fighting Vampire Spawn, Blowing a hole in the side of their folding boat or, (in a bit of a "Cool DM" moment) a slipped weapon lodged itself into what turned out to be a secret door. The goal is to keep things interesting. And I'm fair. Not only are enemies subject to the same rules, but I also have enemies panic in proper situations, such as a Werewolf being de-wered by Moonbeam, or a guard seeing his buddy cleaved in two in one go.

[@fuzzheadwriter]

love this one! at a few tables I've played at nat 1's got what was called the "tom and jerry effect" where the fail can be harmful and comical to the rolling character

[@kuriea552]

Thanks for bringing back flashbacks of when I rolled 3 consecutive 1's on a save from a monster 10x my size. I am pretty sure our mage was wiping my nards off of his face when he finally blew it up.

[@JPEight]

2:21 Aaaggh, get out of my earholes!

[@jamzee_]

Me, a 3.5e dm: Hehe u spontaneously combust.

[@ThePCguy17]

I always preferred the old way, I think in 3.5, where if you roll a crit fail or a crit success you have to confirm it by matching or failing the DC on a second roll. Mostly because I got to watch as a poor newbie player didn't even change which die she rolled as she desperately tried not to kill her character but rolled a triple crit fail instead. I think it was a house rule that crit fails saw you make a normal damage roll on yourself when they were attack rolls. Her character...did not have the health to survive even a low double-crit roll from her weapon, but by grace of the DM she was merely knocked unconscious and 'unusually difficult' to revive once the battle was over.

[@Bigfoot42]

This is my preference, too. Kept as the "Critical Threat" in Pathfinder, it gives a justification for attacks to be fantastic or catastrophic (or both) because of your roll. Crit fail but don't confirm, you miss & maybe get your weapon stuck until next turn. Crit fail & confirm, you accidentally commit harakiri. Crit fail followed by crit success & confirm, you lose grip on your sword which flies out and chops the enemy's head off.

[@ThePCguy17]

@@Bigfoot42 Never saw that last one happen at a table. Most of what I remember is that while I was grateful I'd rolled a 20, I was disappointed that my confirmation roll failed so I wasn't actually critting.

[@justanotherimperialfist]

My table has been playing a heavily homebrewed format of DnD that involves a special Weapons Crafting system. You can pick Bonuses and Banes on that weapon so long as the total value of each one leads to a total of Zero or Greater. These include such wonderful features as an Increased Crit Threshold... and an increased Crit FAIL threshold... and catastrophic results of crit failing while on an attack roll such as your weapon detonating in your hands. Fun times!

[@GodofFreedom]

So, I like to borrow from Chronicles Of Darkness for this one: Whenever someone rolls a nat 1, I look at them and ask, "Would you like to make that a Critical Failure?" If they say yes, I do something spectacular with it and give them a Critical Inspiration Die. Couple interesting things: If they would succeed anyway, due to bonuses or because they're a Halfling, then they still succeed but it comes with a drawback. Like, they stabbed the dragon so hard their sword got stuck in its scales and now you're disarmed. Critical Die may be spent like a Bard's Inspiration Die, it scales to your level as it would a Bard, and Bards specifically have the ability to pass theirs around. You may also spend a Critical Die to turn a nat 20 into a Critical Success, adding some extra effect. You spend *two* Critical Die to turn someone else's nat 1 into a Critical Failure but then that character gets a CD. You may also spend two CD's in order to reap the benefits of a short rest as a full-round action and four die to do so as a reaction. Eight CD lets you gain the benefits of a long rest over a minute and *sixteen* to do so over a turn. Prices can be adjusted for taste.

[@SuperPoopatron]

One thing my GM does is called "The Homer Rule" If you roll a 1, then you roll another d20. If it is 1-9, then it is a botch; a fumble; an exaggerated fail. If it is a 10-19, then it is just a missed roll; no exaggerations. However, if it is a 20, the somehow, you fail so hard you accidentally succeed. The GM would usually need to be creative on how slipping on the banana peel would actually make things work out for you.

[@mastermenthe]

Tha animation really improved this video. Good work on the timing!

[@brningpyre]

"Everyone's lying about Crit FAILS!" Oh, did I miss something? I know it's an optional rule, but maybe there's something else? "It's an optional rule in the DMG." Oh... so... they're not lying?

[@PWaldo-lw2ds]

The lie is, people say that the rule doesn't *exist* in 5e. Full stop. It does, but it's an optional modifier to the game by the DM.

[@samuelcooper3664]

The optional rule doesn't even say you automatically fail on a nat 1 or 20. It just states that something extra can happen if you do.

[@uninvitedguest471]

How my group does it is 1 no matter the roll you fail, but a crit is given a whole bunch of gravitas and will lead to some swanky bonus. Like if the enemy didn't die his armor is now chipped or brocken and his AC is lowered and other fun stuff like that

[@Fallkhar]

Personally I like attacks as is, 1 always misses 20 always hits (crit). But as for ability scores I consider the rolls to be a scale of how well the character performed relative to the best they can do. So 1 is not an automatic failure and a 20 is not a success. Like a bear totem barbarian with 20 strength doesn't need to roll a strength check to pick up a crate. They can literally lift like a 1000lbs from their features and strength. And if a crate is heavy enough, no matter what they roll a hafling wizard with 9 strength just can't lift it. Unless, there is a way they might get lucky trying.

[@___i3ambi126]

I use carrying capacity when theyre lifting objects. It's very consistent.

[@___i3ambi126]

@Mehnbuhn Kneckbeerd Sometimes you might not realize a character's minimum is a 12 before asking for a roll.

[@Jerricola2]

My DM has this stack of cards for nat 20's and nat 1's and honestly it keeps things pretty interesting. Rolled two Nat 1's in a row and now my cleric has sworn off weapons after pulling a muscle and breaking their mace.

[@calvingaster5180]

For crit fails on attacks, you can offset the multiattack punishment by requiring every attack that round to also fail (but not necessarily nat one)

[@Realeeryan]

Hey, amazing video! Small note, Larry has a small white pixel on the right of his head and since it looks like you use rigs, I figured I'd let you know so it doesn't carry forward into future episodes. It's super minuscule. It's such a minor detail that does not blemish what is a spectacular video and insight in gameplay. Just thought I'd give you a heads-up.

[@carlcarlington7317]

I had a dm who did “crit confirmation” if you rolled a one you’d have to roll again, if you roll high enough to succeed with bonuses on the second then that’s treated as your true roll but if you fail on your second roll it’s a crit fail. He did the same thing for nat 20 but reversed, if you succeed at the 2nd roll it’s treated as a nat 20 if you fail the roll is taken down to a 15 with bonuses

[@Barnabell]

Ever since my group tried out open legend, we have imported the Rule of cool that is Exploding dice; If you crit you roll again until you don't crit anymore. That include ALL dice but the down side is that npc's and enemies can also explode. it has been really fun to see every now and then the Godly Roll which sees a pc Annihilate a threat.

[@Mr_Maiq_The_Liar]

ironically: The proposal of improvement to crit that you suggests. Does NOT fix the fact that crit fails disproportionately punish characters that either don't frequently attack with advantage or who make more frequent attacks. It actually makes it worse! The king of never rolling nat 1s, the one attack per turn always at advantage rogue, benefits from the rule the most since they can down the biggest things when they crit, which they do just as frequently as any non-advantage fishing ranger or paladin while the king of having a 14.2% (or higher) chance of getting at least one nat 1 each turn and subsequently falling on their ass, the monk, has the lowest crit damage due to their small, d4 or d6, which are smaller than their modifiers at those levels! If one crit is more than half of the health of a target, then simply having more than half of your 3-4 attacks hit at all would likely have killed that target anyway.

[@NotaWalrus1]

A homebrew rule I like is that a crit fail on an attack causes a negative outcome that can be averted with a DC10 saving throw of an appropriate ability. For instance, make a strength saving throw to avoid the enemy parrying and knocking your weapon off your hand, or make a dex saving throw to avoid slipping on the rough terrain and falling prone. This way characters with a lot of attacks don't suffer nearly as much because they'll also tend to have to have good bonuses to saving throws.

[@chekote]

Oh shit! I had no idea there was another Humblewood Kickstarter! ❤️

[@TildeAmpersandCaret]

Crit hits/misses are great as it allows rule of cool for when you want to have a player do something just.....that impossibly great and look good doing it, or go out in a blaze and at least making the failure memorable and not let people linger on it like it was a major bummer of a roll. A house rule we got here is 'the homer roll', where if you do roll a 1, you roll again. 1 and you're just.....so unlucky the worst thing happens. But if you get a 20, then your fail SOMEHOW works in your favor in a way (either bailing you out from being too screwed over or accidently pulling something off and it was just the will of the force that your mess up became an accidental success). Sometimes you swing a sword and it snaps but the end flicks up and lodges it into a guys throat and kills 'im, other times your watching a teammate fail miserably and explode but take out a half dozen people~ It adds a bit of a layer to lucky rolls like that.

[@aurtosebaelheim5942]

When making my Pathfinder house rules document I had some serious thoughts about fumbles. IIRC, statistically speaking, having fumble rules benefits the players while crit rules disadvantage them, but players hate fumbles and love crits. The big problem with fumbles is that they can subvert the tone of a scene and make characters feel incompetent. The dramatic final confrontation suddenly becomes a slapstick mess when someone botches a jump and trips down the stairs while the archer is accidentally shooting his buddy in the back. In my mind, fumble confirmation solves these issues. If you roll a nat-1, reroll at full BaB (or in 5e I guess I'd go with no advantage or disadvantage), if that reroll is a miss/failure, the attack/check is a fumble. This means that multiattackers get more nat-1s, but because they have the highest attack bonus they're less likely to fumble them, even going so far as it sometimes being impossible for them to fumble against non-boss enemies. Tonally it feels more like the enemy's skill/the difficulty of what you're attempting is throwing you off instead of random chance screwing you. This also adds more benefits to pumping AC, it's minor, but players feel good when their high AC makes an enemy fumble. In terms of effects, I have one hard rule and a few guidelines: ALWAYS tell players if a fumble would friendly-fire. Most of the time it's obvious: shooting past an ally, swinging an axe at an enemy next to an ally, etc. But it never hurts to warn beforehand. Opportunity attacks are always a good fumble. You miss the enemy and they counterattack is always tonally appropriate and rarely overly punishing. Throwing in disarm, trip or grapple attempts instead of attacks can be a nice twist on that. Environmental effects can be fun. "Making that swing unbalances you and you slip into the sewage" or "your gunshot dislodges the snow on the tree you're under" add new considerations to the battle. Extra damage from ongoing effects can work well. "Your swordswing catches the Witchbolt and it damages you again" for example. Dropping weapons, hurting yourself or falling over without any environmental cause or enemy interaction is always horrible and negatively impacts people's vision of their character. If it's the only reasonable fumble, attribute it to something other than the character's skill. "The bottle of alchemist's fire was badly made and it shatters in your hand" feels better than "you butterfingers the bottle and smash it on your face".

[@kriswithadagger]

We don't use the 'F' word at my table. I just hilariously narrate how spectacularly you missed the mark.

[@FUMOFFU666]

for stealth, when i dm, if you nat 1 but still pass due to bonus, you manage to be sneaky but by doing so you also make some quirky sound or break a vase or some other stuff like that, it's just that the guard are too braindead or too focus on something else to realise, but it can become important later with a change of guards and the new ones see the shatered vase for exemple.

[@chillchinna4164]

I actually like the book tools for crit fails. ‘Attacks miss no matter what, but skills still succeed if your bonuses are good enough’ works just fine for me. One is about the thing you’re trying to hit getting a good block off, and the other is just you suddenly being incompetent for some reason.

[@rhinox0110]

Different classes get treated somewhat differently for my groups, generally a nat 20 (or 19-20 for some melee classes/sub classes) even if the player doesn't actually "hit" the intended target is still a spectacle. As an example one of my players threw an improvised explosive at a miniboss who the turn before had been drenched in oil, so of course due to circumstances vs AC (AC was 24 and the player had a +3 and rolled a nat 20) the BBLF (Big Bad Little Fella) erupted in flames and began to flail wildly taking out its minions and almost taking out the party's tank in the process...Their rouge evaded being splattered against the cavern wall too. Same goes for nat 1s, it will be a spectacle usually with the least punishing crit fail being dropping a weapon or shield or you spell failing to hit (with a percentage chance to hit a party member) and the most punishing being another spectacle to behold... As an example one of my players is now banned from a major city because the blew up a religious temple by accident and set the nicer part of the city ablaze in the process ...while the local constabulary was standing ...right...next ...to...them...But they stopped the bad guys...

[@razrboy20]

You keep that dice away from me Zee Bradshaw.

[@toboraton]

2:52 Hell yeah! New eps every week until June!? Heads up everyone, Zee just promised ten months of videos! I don't know how Zee did it, but I'm sure he would agree any thing short of ten months of uninterrupted videos would be a slap in the face to his viewers. 😉

[@zm467]

Love your content as always, and it's great that I'm not the only one who looses track of what month it is

[@Azerinth]

We play with the rule that a natural 1 on an attack fails in such a manner as to leave character open to retaliation, they stumble, overswing, etc. They botch the attack in such a way as to provoke opportunity attacks from eligible characters, though these reactions are resolved after the full attack concludes. (a 1 on the first attack doesn't give the party the opportunity to kill the enemy before he finishes swinging on that low health party member)

[@KyleAlexJohn]

One way I'd like to play Nat 1s is by letting then roll a "Critical Recovery." In essence, if you roll a 1 you fail that roll, no argument. However, if you roll again and succeed on said roll, the action is treated as having succeeded, but with a consequence. Grabbing the guard's keys? You snag them, but you fall prone. Trying to get the killing blow? You hit the beast, but your blade is now stuck. Inversely, you can treat it as you fail the action, but you don't suffer for it, a la you miss the keys but manage to catch yourself before you fall over, staying hidden. The idea is you treat 1s as a reroll instead of a failure, but it still gives the DM the option to monkeywrench it for flavor.

[@linear5695]

I would like an episode or two featuring The Castle of Larry Moore some time in future. I think that'd be fun

[@GryphonBlazier]

I use the 'confirmed fumble' rule, on attacks and skill checks both. If you get a 1, you roll a d20 once more. If that is also 1, something catastrophic happens - your weapon breaks, you hit a friend, you're certain that you only need a taste taste to identify if the potion is poison. Otherwise it's just a normal miss.

[@Solhai]

Homebrew Rule! We bought a special d6 that has two + sides, two - sides, and two blank sides. We call it the Fate Die. When someone rolls a natural 1 or natural 20 they get to roll the Fate Die! Natural 1 a + means it's not as bad as it could be, maybe avoid a debuff or roll some other kind of escape for example. Blank is just plain fail as is in the book. - means oh it's gonna hurt. Natural 20 is the same just the other way around. It's fun to roll the dice and it takes a little pressure of the DM having to choose when. Otherwise it's always good to make the failure come from the powers that be and not from the character itself. The floor gives out, the tree falls, an arrow breaks. It's bad luck, not being inept. Unless it's funny. Fun is winning the game.

[@ajaafive1384]

A neat thing I saw someone talk about was, on a nat 1 the player rolls 2d10 at advantage or disadvantage, player's choice, and based on the number rolled is "on a scale of 1 to 10" how bad it was. 1 being catastrophic 10 being not-bad/fail-forward. Alternatively you could just call for 1d10 roll.

[@RaggedLands]

I like to ignore crit failures and crit successes on ability checks and saves for two major reasons: For saves, I think it tends to hinder the players more than it helps them, and I like to play player-friendly. For abiity checks, I kinda already do degrees of success for the most part (where applicable) with DC +5 or +10, or DC -5 or -10, so there really isn't much a of a reason to do crit success or crit fails. For example, a barbarian of our party tried to seduce a female scout in a tavern in triboar last session. He had a total of 0 (1 minus 1 charisma). The degree of failure? She stayed and KINDA held small talk for a while (but didn't really engage with him), and it was obvious that she just stayed for courtesy's sake, to not hurt the barbarian's feelings. That in turn actually hurt the barbarian more.

[@Florkl]

As long as crit fails don’t result in anything catastrophic- particularly friendly fire. It feels particularly dumb if a lv 20 fighter has a 1/5 chance of tagging their friends every round. Especially when friendly fire is somehow an auto-hit no matter what the ally’s AC is. The best compromise I’ve had was a DM who would let us roll to see if we hit our friends on a Nat 1, and we didn’t have to add our proficiency because being proficient in stabbing friends is dumb.

[@1forge2rulethemall88]

One rule I like for folks who dont like crit fails is the opt in/out rule. Simply put upon rolling a nat 1 a player may choose to let the failure be critical and in return they get an inspiration point. It means players who hate crit fails can opt out, and during campaign defining moments anyone can opt out, but when the stakes arent world ending someone can opt in take the fumble and get some free advantage later.

[@FlamingMoose42]

Are we starting a Zee cinematic universe where the instigating McGuffin is that cursed die

[@Aaron-oe8xw]

Everyones got their own way to play and thats cool. I like crit fails and successes, it adds that little bit of chance something goes awesome or horribly wrong. For me, it adds more to the game especially with a good DM and some good balance. I REALLY like this system of 50% total hp damage = instakill Probably going to do that in the future. I love these series but please bring back more spooky demon stuff. You forgot to mention how if you roll 2 nat 1s consecutivley your now cursed by the dice gods for the next year and to stop it you need to find the heart of the d20, the 0 from a d10, the wood of a dicetower, and the tears of a creator. Take them all and put them in a couldron, boil at 600 degrees, any higher and the entire room will explode with snakes. 600 degrees at 10 mins. Let cool, and pour into a frogskin pouch with the tail of a rat and bloodstone. Shake that pouch until its nice and even. Then you spread the cooled gel all over the game table and roll your dice and yourself in it. It worls better if everyone is there yelling "what are you doing?" And "hey thats my game tables!". Their fear and qnger moves the spell along faster. depending on the people there itll take anywhere from 2 - 5 minutes. Only way to break the curse. Unless of course you like rolling below 11 90% of the time. By all means DONT appease the dark lords who have fulfilled the essence of chance and brought forth the gods of snacks and theater.

[@happytrees6484]

I use a fumble chart for nat 1s in combat. Found it online, any time someone rolls a 1, they roll a d100 and something happens based on the table. Makes 1 rolls fun even if they are all negative effects

[@Shaderox]

The way my group usually do it is nat1s don't really carry any mechanical weight, but narrative they're a screw up or fumble or something that probably makes the character a bit embarrassed. Like they might trip during the performance check or a sudden sneeze during a intimidation check. Not sure if we add bonuses or not since so far our modifiers have been too low for it to ever matter.

[@nyotamwuaji6484]

I deal with fails by rolling a d20 to determine how severe of a fail it is. 1 is "you whiffed it" to 20 being "you chain lightning killed your entire party"

[@cameronphenix2096]

I've always made it so when a player rolls a 1, they fail, but they then take another roll to see how _badly_ they fail. The lower the second roll, the more of a inept buffoon I make their character look. Roll a 15 on your second die? Eh, the sun got in your eyes and you manage to slice open the enemy's shirt. Hit two 1's in a row? You manage to fall on your own sword and take damage. My favorite critical fail possibility is in 40k, where your psyker has a chance to accidentally tear open a rift into hell and a daemon slips through (note that a daemon will wreck anything but the highest level parties)

[@connarcomstock161]

Queso Crit Fails come from the olden-days ( aka PF1e or 3.5 or earlier ) where you'd not only have to roll a Nat 1, but then roll again to confirm the critical failure. IE. DC15 check. Bonus to whatever the check is is 5, let's say. Roll a Nat 1. GM asks for another. You roll a...9. The total roll, with bonuses, is 14. That's a Crit Fail. If you rolled say a 10 or above, it'd be just a regular old fail (meets it, beats it) and you just don't do the thing. All a Nat 1 did was mean you for sure don't do the thing, the secondary roll was to confirm weather or not it'd be considered "critical" or not. Incidentally, I've had players roll Nat 1's on Nat 1s and I have them roll again to determine just how bad the failure actually would be. Given how 5e doesn't have the confirmation mechanic, penalizing players 5% of the time is, to my mind, what I call "some shit".

[@thefallenmonk605]

Adventures live very brief very memorable lives. Crits hits or fails are the best

[@rabblerouserorc8649]

I love playing with No Confirms Criticals. A Nat 20 or Nat 1 will succeed (barring skill checks attempting to do something astronomically improbable). To offset the dread multiattack crit failure, I give every Martial/Hybrid class with MA a class feature at character level 10 which simply makes them immune to critical failures when using the Attack action. They can still crit fail using a magic item, or a skill check; but at that level, I always say they have mastered their weapon styles to a degree that they are pretty much one with their weapons.

[@mumbles4763]

The best idea I have for nat 1s is its additional d20 roll. 2-10 determine outcome at DMs choice (from throwing weapon and disarming themselves or trip fall prone), 11-19 default to a simple. Forefit all actions, can't make AoOs till your next turn and you're flat footed (Dex bonus mod set to -5 and open to sneak attacks) 1s and 20s are something you don't want on this roll. 1s is the same as DMs choice but self inflicted harm or thrown into bad positioning. 20s I give a 50/50 chance of breaking used equipment. For monks thats breaking your own limb and all the banes of the 11-19. If my system sounds complicated or underdeveloped. I have several rules that work with each other. This is just part of my spider web.

[@Punmaster9001]

From what I've observed, some people carry over how things worked in other games into 5E, like critical failures. I will have to double-check with Pathfinder's rule books, but I think that one did use crit fails for combat, I remember my DM's coming up with what happened on those failures, like throwing weapons, or a slight bend in a sword, etc. And I know that translated over to a couple 5E games I played, where the DM was forgiving but clearly missed it being a simple miss.

[@karatos]

For crits I do max+roll (so a stab of 1d6+3 damage when crit would be 1d6+6+3), none of that double it crap where you can crit and end up with less than average damage. I also have coup de grace rules on helpless targets that basically equate to a miss is a hit, a hit is a crit, and a crit crit is instant death. I don't do the massive damage kills rule but I do have the massive damage wounds rule, and that rule also applies to the player characters. On a 1 if there is something that in the moment I think is narratively more dramatic (or funny, depending on theme) then I will do it. Otherwise, usually no extra consequences. And the 1 might not even be a total failure in some ways. For instance, someone rolled a 1 while trying to make a bomb. It did not explode right then and there, that would be boring. The players assumed that it was a dud instead and many of them meta inspected the device to check it for problems and always I informed them there were no apparent problems. The consequence was it was about 5 times larger of an explosion than they anticipated. When they expected a dud. And had planned for a dud. I got three out of five with that one. The meta gaming little jerks.

[@zichithefox4781]

I have a homebrew rule that critical successes and failures don't mean automatic success or failure except for saves. Instead, for attacks and skill checks, a 1 or 20 will give the player disadvantage or advantage respectively. For example, a character rolls a 20 on an intelligence check to remember something or someone. Their next intelligence check to remember that thing or person will have advantage since they seem to have a very clear recollection of it/them. The rest follow a similar logic.

[@TheRedKnightOfPain]

I tend to DM on a fairly forgiving way b/c most monsters CR are balanced to a party of 4 but ive got a party of 3. So if an enemy nat 1s they tend to drop their weapon/loose grip and yeet it into a bush, while if a PC nat 1s they miss their intended target and roll the d20 to see if they still could hit a different enemy, or are unlucky and hit a party member or worse. Also go with tied AC/rolls to hit/etc as tie goes to the player. I build the danger elsewhere with the iminate threat of not having enough skills, hp, enemies that can curse them, etc.

[@BenReilly803]

I roll attack fails as "you miss" unless you have an ally within range of you attack. If you do, roll again, if it hits their AC you accidentally hit your friend. Most of the time it doesn't hit or does tiny damage, but I did have a case where someone Nat 1 into a Nat 20 and nearly killed their friend by rolling max damage.

[@PsRohrbaugh]

We only have a self injurious "crit fail" when you get dual nat 1s with advantage.

[@warhorse03826]

Rolemaster from Iron Crown Enterprises had the BEST fumble charts. we still use them.

[@gregorymckenzie7511]

I once rolled 3 nat 1s per turn in a row, then a nat 20. Up until that 20 it was a painful battle, where I had been reduced to 5% of my health. That nat 20 brought my enemy within 1 menial hit of being knocked out, and... I lost. The dice gods had humbled me.

[@konnii1]

My favourite crit fail, i play ranged artificer, i only had time to grab my buckler, I punched out and accidentally pressed attack, two damage.the wolf bit my shield and I pulled back, smacking myself in the face for the two damage. Was awesome

[@jamesroach5192]

Hey can I just say I love his animation and art style it is literal eye candy

[@sutoriimmortal2177]

I like doing either just extra damage (I use x2 with my players) and/or "special" damage, where a creature is injured in some way that goes beyond raw numbers and hinders them in the fight going forward. This works for crit failures or receiving crits as well on the player's end too. Crit fail that Fireball dex save? You take double the damage that fireball would've normally done. You crit that Goblin and turn it into fresh pink mist? All his buddies are now terrified and are going to take a bit to regroup. You get crit by that weird sand sword shark(I like homebrew monsters too :) )? You could be losing something important from your items or even a limb if it hurt bad enough.

[@lastbaumstanding1802]

You can always use confirmend crits: When your a Fumble or Critical Success, if you fail again (Fumble) or if you succeed again (Critical Success) it is a Fumble or Critical Success. If not, it is just a normal failure. I don't play 5E, but this worked very well for every D20 system I played so far.

[@quadconjures]

I run crit fails only on attack spells, to A: get the cool crit fail vibe, B: enforce lore, magic be dangerous yo, and C: it sort of soft-nerfs offensive magic once casters start outscaling martials

[@WannaComment2]

A much easier workaround for multi-attacks is to rule that only the first attack of your turn can crit fail.

[@2reinrein]

I as a player like to make up the crit fails. I was playing a no strength Rouge and was trying to stealth crawl through a pumpkin patch. Since I got the nat 1, I treated it as me being bound by the vines as though they were rope since my STR Stat was 8. Lasted 3 escape checks but I managed to free myself before combat.

[@bluedwarf1699]

Crit fails have always been one of the ways i balance spell casters with their more mundane brethren, the fighters ( not the class ). On a crit fail, a fight will trip, stumble, catch a branch, drop a weapon, etc. usually something that does no damage. But if a spell caster crit fails on a spell cast, it means the spell backfires! What does that mean? They then have to make a DC check to take half damage, or take full damage! What about spells with a spell save? Well, those ARE safer for the player, though if the target rolls a nat 20, they take no damage.

[@soltydog]

As long as you train your dice properly, and I do, you never have to worry about rolling 1s. Ever. That's just science.

[@Azurand]

In my game, crit fails are only for if you roll a negative result, that way they are much more rare than just a 5% chance but likewise they can be more serious without ruining things a character should be good at

[@mikev8551]

My group uses crit failure and success on saving throws too. For example on damage spells/effect if you crit fail your save you become vulnerable to that damage type for 1 minute, if you crit succeed you take no damage instead of half and gain resistance for 1 minute. With non damage spells/effect our DM tends to vary it depending on the spell,/effect like if you crit succeed on a save vs a charm effect of some kind you become immune to similar effects from that creature. It has made for some very interesting events in the past.

[@xczechr]

You've just described the four degrees of success in Pathfinder 2e. For example, this is Phantasmal killer (4th level): Critical Success: The target is unaffected. Success: The target takes 4d6 mental damage and is frightened 1. Failure: The target takes 8d6 mental damage and is frightened 2. Critical Failure: The target is so afraid it might die. It must attempt a Fortitude save; if the target fails, it dies. On a successful Fortitude save, the target takes 12d6 mental damage, is fleeing until the end of its next turn, and is frightened 4. This effect has the incapacitation trait.

[@mikev8551]

@@xczechr I'm not surprised it exists elsewhere. I'm not sure where my DM got it from but he likes to use alot of oddities.

[@Aedi]

for 5e, my preferred honerule is a mat 1 gets you a problem, but your total result is still used for if you met your goal. nat 20s go the other way, outside of attacks where there's a set outcome, you get a bonus/the best result you could get, but not necessarily succeed so like, a nat 1 on an easy climb is you climb successfully, but you didlodge a rock and make noise, or maybe you roll an ankle and take a little bit of damage. Base it on what would be appropriate to the context, minor downsides but they help keep it interesting when a character who otherwise couldn't fail has to roll, and a bit more risk with every other roll. A nat 20 on something you're flat out not capable of climbing, on the other hand, may have you take reduced fall damage, or see something before you fall that helps you find a way around it, instead of over. since everything is minor, it slots right into existing mechanics without being large enough to interfere, adds more variance, and since the effects are minor, i can be highly thematic or humorous without worrying about things being broken. A nat 1 on an easy search may have the character trip over the thing they're looking for, to no mechanical effect but a quick gag. a 20 on a fairly safe failure may have the player get to show off some aspect of their character (i particularly like giving people the results and letting them describe how their character would get there. Say they climbed something, as its apparently my goto example, a barbarian might use brute force, leaving hand marks in the tree behind them as they physically dent the wood, while a ranger or mobk might acrobatically leap from limb to limb, or whatever other way a player wants)

[@Aedi]

A few of the more common questions i get from players when I introduce the system, and my answers. Feel free to ask any others you have. "what if theres no appropriate downside or benefit?" then I'll use something generic, like a gag, a chance to show off, or like some coins or 1 damage or something. "what about when the roll doesn't matter? why take extra time?" if the roll doesn't matter, why are you rolling? if my players ever find themselves in a situation where, statistically, they're going to pass the challenge without any risk of notable upside or downside, they just pass. I don't have my players roll to cross the rickety bridge when they have hours of spare time to do so carefully without risk, i do have them roll when they're in a rush or when that bridge is over a ravine that'll hurt them or send them far off track. And upsides and downsides work great there, and can add a lot more tension to this sort of encounter too, maybe a nat 20 has then find a sturdy plank, reducing the DC for future characters as they have more certain footing, while a nat 1 has them break a plank, raising the DC as theres less places to step. "but then i wont know what to expect from a roll" thats... kind of the point of rolling. you never know how the dice will turn up, and whilst I totally understand wanting to do whats safe for your character and play to their strengths, that can get boring fast if they get too good. a little randomness even for an expert who can confidently challenge much harder tasks makes games far more compelling IMO. plus, it lets these easy challenges stick around as parts of larger encounters much longer. A lock in the middle of a fight is always going to be the same if you scale its DC appropriately, but throwing an easier lock in to make opening it more certain, but keeping the variance of you may still lose, or you may get an upside or downside, even if you're guaranteed to pass, can be interesting. Plus it gives me a much better excuse for why players roll if i forget just how good their bonuses are. "oh, you passed on a 3? well yknow, you couldve rolled a 2, or worse, a 1" which i mean, im totally open with my players, if i forget how high someone's stats are, im not going to pretend i actually planned it all with those stats in mind, but it means the players still did have something at risk, and something to gain, even from an otherwise meaningless roll

[@ace4605]

My group runs crit fails as a guaranteed fail, but we also do a d100 roll for severity, with the higher it is, the worse it is. I like it that way because it makes it so that not every crit fail is crippling, and the ones that are dramatic much more intense. It also makes whatever happens feel more justified, and not necessarily just the dm being either evil or too merciful.

[@thosesguys6489]

Oh my goodness! A new video every Thursday till June. That’s like 10 months of weekly videos!!!!

[@thosesguys6489]

Yes I am illiterate

[@josephhawkins7974]

I've taken up a system where I roll a d100 after players crit fail. 75+ their bad luck turns to good luck and something nice comes out of their failure. 25 or less, some medium to small problem comes up for them. Middle is just a regular ol failure that they got a little tense about.

[@AvTheWolf]

I remain enamored with Crafty Games' Action Dice, where activating a critical hit requires the expenditure of an action die from the player, and likewise the GM must spend one (or more to increase the severity) of their own action dice to activate a critical failure. That adds a lot of variability to critical failures, as they depend not only on a limited resource, but also the GM can spend more of that resource to make the failure more consequential. I also personally rule that the use of action dice for any reason by anyone increases the dramatic tension of the scene to make things more interesting. Though ultimately, critical failure is like any other RPG failure: it should only be employed if it makes the situation more fun, interesting, or consequential.

[@smarttarts]

Crit failures and crit successes are one of the things I like most about Pathfinder 2e. Most things have specific rules for those outcomes. Crit fails on attack roles don't exist RAW, but you can use them to make silly or minor inconvenient things happen.

[@TheClosetExtrovert]

I've played a fair amount of Powered by the Apocalypse games, and really like when they have the option to view failed rolls as a matter of more limited options, achieving the goal but with a bigger cost, making an opening for enemies, etc. Heck, there's one PbtA game called Madcap that lets the GM make things go horribly RIGHT if your 2d6 with modifiers reaches 13 or higher, I'd love to incorporate something like that into other games or systems

[@PantherAssaultCannon]

Used to play under a DM who *loved* crits and fumbles. Personally I prefer to lean into the narrative of success and failure rather than have it born out in the mechanics. Describe a miss on a 1 as being a hilarious loony toons event in terms of what happens but still have the functional effect of being a normal miss.

[@gcleeman]

I replaced the base crit fail in my games with a -10 if you would still succeed with having rolled a -10 then none of the crit failure things happen but if you would still fail/miss. Then we go with that. It always felt really bad when the rogue with +30 to stealth would fail a stealth check to a random goblin or the high level fighter missing an attack on some random unarmed minion.

[@nealjustus9500]

the best way to make crits better for those with multi attack is to have it so that they just miss on the first nat 1, and if they get like 2 or 3 in a row (that should be hard to do) then they get a crit fail were somethign bad happens. now if they roll and by some off chance that they get a 0 (though curses and negative stats) that is the only time an instant crit would come into effect.

[@Johnny-vi7oq]

I keep crit successes / fails almost out of default, just because of how I view dice rolling in general. If they can't succeed or if they can't fail, I'm just not going to call for a roll, nothing would change so why waste our session time. So, each roll has at least a 5% chance for either success or failure, meaning that how those results came about has to be fairly remarkable. Plus, having 1 in 10 rolls not require any further math helps keep things moving and crits in either direction can be a lot of fun.