Could you please tell me critical fumble (nat 1) consequences?

Hi there, Midgardians!

So I'd like to ask you to tell me consequences that I can apply when my players make a critical fumble (natural 1). 

The funnier the better.

Thanks in advance! 😊

When it comes to combat, I would avoid using nat 1s to have an additional consequence to the automatic miss, although I play in a campaign where it's used. There the effects very from dropping your weapon, falling prone, hitting your friend, losing a potential additional attack (if you have multiple attacks per action), and so on. I'm not a huge fan of those.

Outside combat, there's no such term as "critical failure", but sure enough, there might be consequences for failure anyway. I'll throw in a few, but they're not guaranteed to be funny.

• Strength:
  • You fail to lift a heavy object. You drop it on your foot and break your toe.
  • A creature you're holding in a leash starts dragging you across the room. You fall face first and are dragged along.
• Dexterity
  • You're picking a lock and the lock-pick breaks inside the lock.
  • You're trying to impress people with a card trick, but you actually can't find the card.
  • You twist your ankle trying to breakdance.
  • You instinctively say "bless you" when a guard sneezes and you're trying to hide.
• Constitution
  • In a breath holding contest you accidentally swallow a mosquito when you draw in your deep breath and start violently coughing when the contest begins.
• Intelligence
  • You're confidently wrong trying to state facts about a given topic (just like ChatGPT). Your party might know you're being obviously wrong, but you're determined you're right.
    • E.g. try to put out an oil fire with water.
  • You walk into a room and immediately forget why you're there.
• Wisdom
  • You're tracking footsteps. They're your own.
  • You're confident a worg is just like a dog and you pet it. It bites you.
    • <insert any other creature> is just like <any other domesticated animal>. It attacks you.
• Charisma
  • You belch as you're sweet-talking someone.
  • You try to impose as someone else to that someone else.
  • You snap a string on your instrument while performing.
  • You talk to a person as you would talk to a puppy.

I would also say don’t use critical fumbles in combat, having played for several years in a campaign where the DM uses them despite me objecting. The biggest reason is they unfairly impact martial characters who are already at a disadvantage compared to spell casters. If you look at an 11th level Fighter he’s making three attack rolls a turn, four if he’s dual wielding, and seven on action surge. That’s seven chances for him to roll a nat1 and then you’re going to do something like disarm him and effectively take away his next turn. Meanwhile the Wizard has been spamming Fireball, every one of his attacks is a saving throw and it’s been six months since he last actually rolled a d20 in combat meaning he’s never going to experience your critical fumbles table and all you’re doing is penalising the Fighter for needing to roll.

Its a mechanic that seems like a good idea the first time you hear it but when you start breaking down the actual impact it’s insanely broken and unfair 

I was talking about using them during combat, but I loved your other examples outside combat. I'll definitely use those. 😂

Regarding "it's unfair because martial classes are more penalised", yeah, that's true. Life is tough, I guess. Nah, I'm joking. I've been thinking about using them now and then, not everytime they fail. But yeah, it's a fair point the one you made, CunningSmile.

On a side note, this is also a perfect opportunity to include your players in the narrative (know your players though). When my players very obviously fail a check (typically we're talking about nat 1-3), I ask them "how do you screw this up?". If your players have good improv skills, this takes some of the load off you and you don't have to think of everything yourself. The same principal could work for combat as well, but as mentioned: better to avoid critical fumbles in combat.

Example scenario.

Player: "I'm going to go talk to the guard, trying to distract them, while the rest of the group sneaks by."
DM: "Ok, sure. Give me a Deception check, please."
Player: "Oooph.. That's a nat 1."
DM: "You walk up to the guard and start talking to him/her. How do you screw this up?"
Player: "Ehm... while I talk to the guard I constantly keep looking past their shoulder and making these little urging gestures to my party to move faster."
DM: "The guard notices your gestures. You're not very subtle with them. He/she kind looks over their shoulder and notices your party tip-toeing their way around the grounds. They shout an alarm. Roll for initiative."

Quote from Scruvy >>

On a side note, this is also a perfect opportunity to include your players in the narrative (know your players though). When my players very obviously fail a check (typically we're talking about nat 1-3), I ask them "how do you screw this up?". If your players have good improv skills, this takes some of the load off you and you don't have to think of everything yourself. The same principal could work for combat as well, but as mentioned: better to avoid critical fumbles in combat.

Example scenario.

Player: "I'm going to go talk to the guard, trying to distract them, while the rest of the group sneaks by."
DM: "Ok, sure. Give me a Deception check, please."
Player: "Oooph.. That's a nat 1."
DM: "You walk up to the guard and start talking to him/her. How do you screw this up?"
Player: "Ehm... while I talk to the guard I constantly keep looking past their shoulder and making these little urging gestures to my party to move faster."
DM: "The guard notices your gestures. You're not very subtle with them. He/she kind looks over their shoulder and notices your party tip-toeing their way around the grounds. They shout an alarm. Roll for initiative."

That's interesting too! 😊

Quote from Scruvy >>

On a side note, this is also a perfect opportunity to include your players in the narrative (know your players though). When my players very obviously fail a check (typically we're talking about nat 1-3), I ask them "how do you screw this up?". If your players have good improv skills, this takes some of the load off you and you don't have to think of everything yourself. The same principal could work for combat as well, but as mentioned: better to avoid critical fumbles in combat.

Example scenario.

Player: "I'm going to go talk to the guard, trying to distract them, while the rest of the group sneaks by."
DM: "Ok, sure. Give me a Deception check, please."
Player: "Oooph.. That's a nat 1."
DM: "You walk up to the guard and start talking to him/her. How do you screw this up?"
Player: "Ehm... while I talk to the guard I constantly keep looking past their shoulder and making these little urging gestures to my party to move faster."
DM: "The guard notices your gestures. You're not very subtle with them. He/she kind looks over their shoulder and notices your party tip-toeing their way around the grounds. They shout an alarm. Roll for initiative."

I'll second this. #Nat1ExtraPenalties are not something I would impose on my players, but I've seen some people give themselves much worse failures that I would have thought of when given the chance to come up with it themselves. I think this is the only real way to do it, if you're going to do it at all.

If you are going to impose it as a DM, you'd better make sure your players know from session 0. It is not usually a fun thing to be surprised with if they haven't played that way before.

My players are actually fine with it. They said it's fun and creates funny situations. 

It's all good, then. The only other thing I would say is that a 5% chance of crit failing with extra consequences might actually be pretty high. You could have them roll something after the nat 1, and if that's a nat 1 (adjust the die to your %-chance liking) then go for the crit fumble. Rolling a d4 would put it at a 1.25% chance and rolling another d20 would put it at a 0.25% chance.

Also, I remember spending a non-healthy amount of time reading the crit tables in MERP. You might find some inspiration there, if you can find them.

Quote from sabin76 >>

It's all good, then. The only other thing I would say is that a 5% chance of crit failing with extra consequences might actually be pretty high. You could have them roll something after the nat 1, and if that's a nat 1 (adjust the die to your %-chance liking) then go for the crit fumble. Rolling a d4 would put it at a 1.25% chance and rolling another d20 would put it at a 0.25% chance.

Also, I remember spending a non-healthy amount of time reading the crit tables in MERP. You might find some inspiration there, if you can find them.

That's also a brilliant idea! Make them roll when they roll a nat 1 in order to see what happens 

Thank you for the help. 😊

Quote from JaimeVonCarstein >>

My players are actually fine with it. They said it's fun and creates funny situations. 

 

 

 That's all well and good, but keep your pulse on it with occasional check-ins because when the crit-fails start to pile up or have any lasting consequences, the feelings to them might sour. 

One of the questions I have is: why dropping your weapon is considered a penalty? I mean, you can pick it up and don't spend an action in the process, so I don't really see the punishment (unless it's a shield or two weapons). 

Quote from Erik_Soong >>

Quote from JaimeVonCarstein >>

My players are actually fine with it. They said it's fun and creates funny situations. 

 

 

 That's all well and good, but keep your pulse on it with occasional check-ins because when the crit-fails start to pile up or have any lasting consequences, the feelings to them might sour. 

I'll bear that in mind. 😊

Quote from JaimeVonCarstein >>

One of the questions I have is: why dropping your weapon is considered a penalty? I mean, you can pick it up and don't spend an action in the process, so I don't really see the punishment (unless it's a shield or two weapons). 

 In the case of my Fighter who ended up dying as a result of a critical fumble (and the main reason I did the maths and realised why they don't work) it wasn't just a dropped weapon but knocked out my hand and across the room.

Behind the Beholder.

Whose turn was next.

Who disintegrated me. 

Basically I had a pretty good chance to kill him if I'd had the rest of my turn but crit failed on my first attack so lost out on a further five attacks

"You miss." That's the consequence for rolling a 1 in combat. Anything more is arbitrarily punishing the player.

I used to use crit fails for combat. Then I realized that once martial reach lvl 5 their chances double which is completely unfair. So if I implement it, I say that by the time the party reaches lvl 5 they are experienced enough to avoid such foibles.

Have to say that teenagers love it though.

Quote from JaimeVonCarstein >>

My players are actually fine with it. They said it's fun and creates funny situations. 

 If everyone's on par with it, then be my guest. Remember to keep the ruling equal with enemies as well. If an enemy rolls a nat 1, they must get equal penalties. My prediction though is, that it's only fun for a certain amount of time before it turns into a very un-fun side effect. 

Quote from JaimeVonCarstein >>

One of the questions I have is: why dropping your weapon is considered a penalty? I mean, you can pick it up and don't spend an action in the process, so I don't really see the punishment (unless it's a shield or two weapons). 

 In the middle of an Attack action in the middle of the combat if you have only one or two attacks. You have one free item interaction per turn.

But let's say you're a martial class with multiple attacks per action. Consider you first draw your two-handed weapon with free item interaction. Then you fumble your attack and drop your weapon. A DM might allow you pick it up, but that's not per RAW. So, you've used your free item interaction and can't pick up your weapon. You've lost at least one attack or you must use an unarmed strike. Let's say you have the Interception fighting style, which requires you to be holding a weapon or a shield... which you are not doing. It's even worse if you are fighter with 3+ attacks per action and you fumble two of them.

There's situations when you literally cannot reach your weapon, such as dropping it off a bridge or a cliff.

There's also effects like an Oath of Devotion paladin's Channel Divinity: Sacred Weapon, which only work only while you are holding the weapon. If you drop it, the effect ends.

In other words, there's plenty of situations where dropping your weapon is very bad.