I am not new to D&D (four years under my belt), but I am new to DMing. As a player, I usually enjoy crit fail/success consequences, provided they weren’t too outrageous. My players also enjoy them. My problem is, I have trouble coming up with creative-but-not-lethal ideas while I’m in the middle of the game. I live with several severe autoimmune disorders, which make sitting at a table very painful, which in turn makes focusing and improv difficult. As I build up my stamina over the months to come, it will get much easier (I grew up a theatre kid, with a particular affinity for improv), but in the mean time, I need help.
I don’t want to use a fumble chart, if I can avoid it. The penalties are too severe, and put fighter-type classes at an unfair disadvantage. I am considering making a couple of house rules: a character can only suffer a penalty from a crit fail once per 1-3 turns, and a spellcaster suffers a crit fail if a creature rolls a nat 20 on a saving throw against the caster’s spell. Will these help, make it worse, or not really affect anything?
I want ideas. What has worked for you in the past, what hasn’t, and why? What are some low-impact but funny penalty ideas? I appreciate your help!
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I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
Here's what we do in my current campaign... if a character gets a crit fail from a melee attack against a target, they leave themselves open to an attack of opportunity from that creature. Even if a player gets multiple crit fails in a single round (like a fighter), it still consumes the target's reaction to attack them... this can even lead to some tactical options for a player... once an enemy spends their reaction, it opens up the option to move since the character doesn't need to disengage to move anymore.
A ranged attacked with a crit fail destroys the ammunition used so it can't be recovered after the battle. I don't do crit fail punishments for leveled ranged spells... because the punishment is wasting a spell slot. For Cantrips it's a little harder to come up with ideas, but I generally just have the player do some collateral damage of some kind, although I generally avoid having spells accidentally hit allies.
I like to use the crit fail for the hilarity options.
Roll a 1 on initiative? You’re busy admiring a bird or a flower while the party is getting attacked.
Roll a 1 on a ranged attack? Your arrow just glances off the biggest, meanest looking orcs armor and now he sees you...
Roll a 1 on a melee attack? This one is tricky, because you don’t want to unfairly disadvantage a player, so, what I do is say “disadvantage or drop your weapon?” If they say “disadvantage” then next round they have disadvantage on an attack, they can drop the weapon and draw another one, if they have one, and that means no disadvantage.
Roll a 1 on Investigation? You found that guy in the pub who talks about everything as though he knows all about it, yet doesn’t actually know anything.
those are a few examples, lots of times I just make rolling a crit fail a funny moment, as well. Good luck!
In combat I will sometimes use a Nat 1 to tell a player in melee combat that not only did they miss but they accidently stabbed, thwacked, sliced or otherwise hurt themselves in the process of missing, dealing 1d4 damage at lower levels and increasing it later. This has lead to some players never forgetting the incident, like the time a warrior of mine managed to cut off his pinky toe. Should that only deal 1d4 damage? How did that happen through his boots? These are questions no one asked or cared about because it was funny and talked about for the rest of the campaign.
Other times if I know a player has other weapons at their disposal, I will use it as a chance to make it so that that particular weapon broke, be it a blade or bow. Magical items I have sometimes had temporarily lose one or more properties.
If I'm feeling particularly cruel I will strait up have a Nat 1 on an attack roll not only miss but hit a different nearby Player with the full brunt of the attack, although normally only if I'm relatively sure they can take the hit...or if it's just really funny. Or likewise, if a friendly NPC is nearby, like a person they are trying to rescue and they miss, I'll have them accidentally hurt or murder the NPC. It can really throw a wrench in my plans but it's always unexpected, funny, memorable, and makes the characters really feel that their presence and actions have weighty consequences, even if they didn't intend it.
A good way to prevent it being overly taxing to classes with extra attack(s) is to only allow crit fails on the first or last attack the turn. That means that a level 5 Monk doing FOB gets 4 attacks, but still only has the same risk of crit failing as the wizard with their single cantrip roll.
For players, there is plenty of stuff you can do that is flavor only (or minorly mechanical). My favorite is if a player crit fails their warhammer attacks, they accidentally hit themselves in the toe and take 1 bludgeoning damage. Other things have included a sword getting stuck in a wooden pillar, thus costing them one of their attacks on that turn as they pull it out, or a bowstring snapping and forcing that martial into melee.
With enemies, I am open to doing a lot more. A goblin crit fails while fighting alongside a bugbear, so the bugbear mistakes their inaccurate swings as being attacked, and uses their next action going after the goblin rather than a PC.
I've had players break their weapons during fights on Nat 1s, but afterward gave them the option to visit the blacksmith to upgrade their weapons to prevent that failure in the future. Now the druid's quarterstaff has a metal core to prevent it from snapping. Gave them something cool to go shopping for.
I don't usually apply critical failures to skill checks, but I did have a player take a 120 ft fall from a 1 on an athletics check. Another time a player tried an insight check on the town council during a meeting, rolled a 1, and was convinced that the party was being betrayed and guards were coming around the corner to get them.
Heh. I like these ideas. I’m glad you pointed out the spell slot thing, @TransmorpherDDS. I hadn’t thought of that.
I like the idea of having my players help to describe their own crit fails. A couple of them are too shy to enjoy trying to come up with something funny on the spot, but the other three will eat it up! Maybe I’ll have them take turns describing the crit fails of the other players.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
When a player rolls a nat 1 on a skill check, I usually narrative a humorous scenario but don't enact any additional consequences on them. For example, when a sorcerer rolled a nat 1 on perception, I narrated how she failed to notice the helmed horror hovering towards her, but did notice a very cool-looking cloud.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
+1 for narrative over mechanical effects. Being distracted by a cool bug, drawing the attention of the enemy, hitting them with the flat of the blade by mistake, angering them, thinking you hit them but then realizing they have a wooden leg and that's what you hit, causing collateral damage to the surrounding area, all these things sound good to me.
Hitting friendly characters, damaging or losing your weapons, having disadvantage on your next attack - these I would reserve for if someone manages to get 2 critical failures in a row. That's the fates saying "no, they really screwed up here", and the chances are a lot slimmer of it happening. It also makes for brilliant narrative on the rare occurrence it happens - A fighter who crit-misses twice (beit both in one turn or 2 consecutive turns) might hit a lantern on the wall with their first swing, then lose their grip as the lamp-oil runs down their weapon on the second swing. They might hit a pillar they didn't see, then with their next attack find the sword is stuck, try to pull it out and fall over as it comes loose. I would still avoid hitting another character for the most part, though they might be put-off by your wild swinging and flailing, which can be used to explain it narratively if their next attack fails.
+1 for humor in skill checks but in combat they tend to hit someone else nearby, specially with ranged weapons. I had a dragonborn who failed a stealth check being too busy explaining to a child npc the importance of discretion as adventurers to pay attention to what they did. In a previous mission they were fighting rats and they were hit twice by a dwarf with a club while trying to get them off their head.
Then therr was the time the halfling rogue was arm wrestling in a bar with a drunk by contested strength checks. The NPC rolled a 1 so I described how he almost won the match but then saw a tank of ale, considered it, then tried to reach for it and the distraction costed him all the progress made. Our wizard rolled a 1 for recognising what a Nothic was so his master never told him about them because they saw their students as disposable. The dragonborn rolled a one in a history check about the cult of the dragon so while he didn't know what their deal was he was convinced they couldn't be bad guys with a name like that.
In another occasion they were searching for a mimic so they decided to start breaking stuff with their axe. Rolled a 1 in their first attack roll and their axe went flying after slipping, one of the gnomes with them shouted "the axe is the mimic!" And had about twenty gnomes raining magic missiles down the halfway the axe went flying to.
I'll make a little table for you, so you can pick ideas or roll them :) They will go from punishing to actually helping, basing on the second result. Just for fun.
Player accidentally hits himself or a friend
Player rediscovers the moral ambiguity of solving problems with violence, and now feels the need to end the fight peacefully or take 1d6 psychic damage
Player misses an extremely easy attack. Everyone laughs at the blunder, character gets 1d4 psychic damage
Player loses grip on weapon, which flies off in a straight line. You can choose where the weapon lands, and if it hits someone in the process
Player gets blinded by a reflection on his weapon until the end of the turn
Player gets distracted by the mystical sight of his deity/patron/lover. Foes in range are confused about their sudden ecstasy as well, so they do not take the opportunity attack
Player bounces off the enemy, effectively disengaging him
Player rips a sleeve (or their buttocks). Now their clothes will need some mending, or they might get disadvantage on charisma checks in a formal context
Player accidentally hits the enemy in a vital part of its body in a completely unintentional way. Roll crits
On an attack roll of a 1, narrate something that's very particular to the situation that the players are in. Use whatever is in the environment, including features of the enemy creatures, e.g. getting distracted by the exquisite beard of the dwarf king, or they can't bring themselves to hit the cute pixie. But narrate it and move on - don't apply anything that has an actual in-game impact. There's a 1 in 20 chance of getting a nat 1, making the chance something not far off 20% for a high level fighter (or a level 5 action surging fighter) attacking 4 times. More attacks shouldn't increase the chance of detrimental things!
I'll make a little table for you, so you can pick ideas or roll them :) They will go from punishing to actually helping, basing on the second result. Just for fun.
Player accidentally hits himself or a friend
Player rediscovers the moral ambiguity of solving problems with violence, and now feels the need to end the fight peacefully or take 1d6 psychic damage
Player misses an extremely easy attack. Everyone laughs at the blunder, character gets 1d4 psychic damage
Player loses grip on weapon, which flies off in a straight line. You can choose where the weapon lands, and if it hits someone in the process
Player gets blinded by a reflection on his weapon until the end of the turn
Player gets distracted by the mystical sight of his deity/patron/lover. Foes in range are confused about their sudden ecstasy as well, so they do not take the opportunity attack
Player bounces off the enemy, effectively disengaging him
Player rips a sleeve (or their buttocks). Now their clothes will need some mending, or they might get disadvantage on charisma checks in a formal context
Player accidentally hits the enemy in a vital part of its body in a completely unintentional way. Roll crits
The early numbers on this table are a good example of what not to do. PCs that take actions to attack monsters should never, ever, find themselves disadvantaged for having done so because as stated above, the higher the number of attacks you make, the greater the chance of harming themselves. Similarly, giving benefits for having rolled a natural 1 is counter intuitive since it turns rolling a 2 into the worst number to roll.
You could make Natural 1s do something fun, but not "cool" sort of like Jack Sparrow appearing to bumble his way through combat encounters.
You could ask the player, "how did this action go wrong", and how bad they make it determines how much of a dumb-luck boon you add to it.
For a weapon attack, maybe the player is cautious and decides the swing misses and just throws them off balance, so they have a minus 1 AC against the next attack. But if the player is bold to say they accidentally throw their melee weapon, you may give them an extra attack roll against the target, hitting for 1/2 damage before the weapon lands on the ground.
Eh, what I'm going to say next is going to really depend on the spirit of the table but nat-1 consequences are rarely fun for the player, and often serve to cast the characters as incompetents rather than fantasy heroes. As others have alluded to, this is especially egregious for a high-level fighter who is just mechanically going to roll plenty of nat 1s on attack rolls by nature of making more attacks. These mechanics also bias the game even further against non-casters, as spellcasters more often attack by forcing a saving throw, which doesn't expose them to nat-1 shenanigans.
If your players are up for some nat-1 rules, they should truly be inconsequential.
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I am not new to D&D (four years under my belt), but I am new to DMing. As a player, I usually enjoy crit fail/success consequences, provided they weren’t too outrageous. My players also enjoy them. My problem is, I have trouble coming up with creative-but-not-lethal ideas while I’m in the middle of the game. I live with several severe autoimmune disorders, which make sitting at a table very painful, which in turn makes focusing and improv difficult. As I build up my stamina over the months to come, it will get much easier (I grew up a theatre kid, with a particular affinity for improv), but in the mean time, I need help.
I don’t want to use a fumble chart, if I can avoid it. The penalties are too severe, and put fighter-type classes at an unfair disadvantage. I am considering making a couple of house rules: a character can only suffer a penalty from a crit fail once per 1-3 turns, and a spellcaster suffers a crit fail if a creature rolls a nat 20 on a saving throw against the caster’s spell. Will these help, make it worse, or not really affect anything?
I want ideas. What has worked for you in the past, what hasn’t, and why? What are some low-impact but funny penalty ideas? I appreciate your help!
I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
Here's what we do in my current campaign... if a character gets a crit fail from a melee attack against a target, they leave themselves open to an attack of opportunity from that creature. Even if a player gets multiple crit fails in a single round (like a fighter), it still consumes the target's reaction to attack them... this can even lead to some tactical options for a player... once an enemy spends their reaction, it opens up the option to move since the character doesn't need to disengage to move anymore.
A ranged attacked with a crit fail destroys the ammunition used so it can't be recovered after the battle. I don't do crit fail punishments for leveled ranged spells... because the punishment is wasting a spell slot. For Cantrips it's a little harder to come up with ideas, but I generally just have the player do some collateral damage of some kind, although I generally avoid having spells accidentally hit allies.
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I like to use the crit fail for the hilarity options.
Roll a 1 on initiative? You’re busy admiring a bird or a flower while the party is getting attacked.
Roll a 1 on a ranged attack? Your arrow just glances off the biggest, meanest looking orcs armor and now he sees you...
Roll a 1 on a melee attack? This one is tricky, because you don’t want to unfairly disadvantage a player, so, what I do is say “disadvantage or drop your weapon?” If they say “disadvantage” then next round they have disadvantage on an attack, they can drop the weapon and draw another one, if they have one, and that means no disadvantage.
Roll a 1 on Investigation? You found that guy in the pub who talks about everything as though he knows all about it, yet doesn’t actually know anything.
those are a few examples, lots of times I just make rolling a crit fail a funny moment, as well. Good luck!
Some of the ideas I've used:
In combat I will sometimes use a Nat 1 to tell a player in melee combat that not only did they miss but they accidently stabbed, thwacked, sliced or otherwise hurt themselves in the process of missing, dealing 1d4 damage at lower levels and increasing it later. This has lead to some players never forgetting the incident, like the time a warrior of mine managed to cut off his pinky toe. Should that only deal 1d4 damage? How did that happen through his boots? These are questions no one asked or cared about because it was funny and talked about for the rest of the campaign.
Other times if I know a player has other weapons at their disposal, I will use it as a chance to make it so that that particular weapon broke, be it a blade or bow. Magical items I have sometimes had temporarily lose one or more properties.
If I'm feeling particularly cruel I will strait up have a Nat 1 on an attack roll not only miss but hit a different nearby Player with the full brunt of the attack, although normally only if I'm relatively sure they can take the hit...or if it's just really funny. Or likewise, if a friendly NPC is nearby, like a person they are trying to rescue and they miss, I'll have them accidentally hurt or murder the NPC. It can really throw a wrench in my plans but it's always unexpected, funny, memorable, and makes the characters really feel that their presence and actions have weighty consequences, even if they didn't intend it.
A good way to prevent it being overly taxing to classes with extra attack(s) is to only allow crit fails on the first or last attack the turn. That means that a level 5 Monk doing FOB gets 4 attacks, but still only has the same risk of crit failing as the wizard with their single cantrip roll.
For players, there is plenty of stuff you can do that is flavor only (or minorly mechanical). My favorite is if a player crit fails their warhammer attacks, they accidentally hit themselves in the toe and take 1 bludgeoning damage. Other things have included a sword getting stuck in a wooden pillar, thus costing them one of their attacks on that turn as they pull it out, or a bowstring snapping and forcing that martial into melee.
With enemies, I am open to doing a lot more. A goblin crit fails while fighting alongside a bugbear, so the bugbear mistakes their inaccurate swings as being attacked, and uses their next action going after the goblin rather than a PC.
I've had players break their weapons during fights on Nat 1s, but afterward gave them the option to visit the blacksmith to upgrade their weapons to prevent that failure in the future. Now the druid's quarterstaff has a metal core to prevent it from snapping. Gave them something cool to go shopping for.
I don't usually apply critical failures to skill checks, but I did have a player take a 120 ft fall from a 1 on an athletics check. Another time a player tried an insight check on the town council during a meeting, rolled a 1, and was convinced that the party was being betrayed and guards were coming around the corner to get them.
Heh. I like these ideas. I’m glad you pointed out the spell slot thing, @TransmorpherDDS. I hadn’t thought of that.
I like the idea of having my players help to describe their own crit fails. A couple of them are too shy to enjoy trying to come up with something funny on the spot, but the other three will eat it up! Maybe I’ll have them take turns describing the crit fails of the other players.
I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
When a player rolls a nat 1 on a skill check, I usually narrative a humorous scenario but don't enact any additional consequences on them. For example, when a sorcerer rolled a nat 1 on perception, I narrated how she failed to notice the helmed horror hovering towards her, but did notice a very cool-looking cloud.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
+1 for narrative over mechanical effects. Being distracted by a cool bug, drawing the attention of the enemy, hitting them with the flat of the blade by mistake, angering them, thinking you hit them but then realizing they have a wooden leg and that's what you hit, causing collateral damage to the surrounding area, all these things sound good to me.
Hitting friendly characters, damaging or losing your weapons, having disadvantage on your next attack - these I would reserve for if someone manages to get 2 critical failures in a row. That's the fates saying "no, they really screwed up here", and the chances are a lot slimmer of it happening. It also makes for brilliant narrative on the rare occurrence it happens - A fighter who crit-misses twice (beit both in one turn or 2 consecutive turns) might hit a lantern on the wall with their first swing, then lose their grip as the lamp-oil runs down their weapon on the second swing. They might hit a pillar they didn't see, then with their next attack find the sword is stuck, try to pull it out and fall over as it comes loose. I would still avoid hitting another character for the most part, though they might be put-off by your wild swinging and flailing, which can be used to explain it narratively if their next attack fails.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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+1 for humor in skill checks but in combat they tend to hit someone else nearby, specially with ranged weapons. I had a dragonborn who failed a stealth check being too busy explaining to a child npc the importance of discretion as adventurers to pay attention to what they did. In a previous mission they were fighting rats and they were hit twice by a dwarf with a club while trying to get them off their head.
Then therr was the time the halfling rogue was arm wrestling in a bar with a drunk by contested strength checks. The NPC rolled a 1 so I described how he almost won the match but then saw a tank of ale, considered it, then tried to reach for it and the distraction costed him all the progress made. Our wizard rolled a 1 for recognising what a Nothic was so his master never told him about them because they saw their students as disposable. The dragonborn rolled a one in a history check about the cult of the dragon so while he didn't know what their deal was he was convinced they couldn't be bad guys with a name like that.
In another occasion they were searching for a mimic so they decided to start breaking stuff with their axe. Rolled a 1 in their first attack roll and their axe went flying after slipping, one of the gnomes with them shouted "the axe is the mimic!" And had about twenty gnomes raining magic missiles down the halfway the axe went flying to.
I'll make a little table for you, so you can pick ideas or roll them :)
They will go from punishing to actually helping, basing on the second result. Just for fun.
Love this one. Great idea.
Bow = You let go of arrow rather than the string, it drops at your feet.
Thrown weapon you let go too early and it goes flying directly up, you dodge to the side and it does not hit your head.
Melee weapon = you think you hear someone sneaking up behind you and attack them, but no one was there.
Bow = you pull the string back too far and releasing the string takes your own ear off.
Melee = you stumble over an imaginary turtle.
(Thanks to Rolemaster!)
On an attack roll of a 1, narrate something that's very particular to the situation that the players are in. Use whatever is in the environment, including features of the enemy creatures, e.g. getting distracted by the exquisite beard of the dwarf king, or they can't bring themselves to hit the cute pixie. But narrate it and move on - don't apply anything that has an actual in-game impact. There's a 1 in 20 chance of getting a nat 1, making the chance something not far off 20% for a high level fighter (or a level 5 action surging fighter) attacking 4 times. More attacks shouldn't increase the chance of detrimental things!
The early numbers on this table are a good example of what not to do. PCs that take actions to attack monsters should never, ever, find themselves disadvantaged for having done so because as stated above, the higher the number of attacks you make, the greater the chance of harming themselves. Similarly, giving benefits for having rolled a natural 1 is counter intuitive since it turns rolling a 2 into the worst number to roll.
You could make Natural 1s do something fun, but not "cool" sort of like Jack Sparrow appearing to bumble his way through combat encounters.
You could ask the player, "how did this action go wrong", and how bad they make it determines how much of a dumb-luck boon you add to it.
For a weapon attack, maybe the player is cautious and decides the swing misses and just throws them off balance, so they have a minus 1 AC against the next attack. But if the player is bold to say they accidentally throw their melee weapon, you may give them an extra attack roll against the target, hitting for 1/2 damage before the weapon lands on the ground.
Eh, what I'm going to say next is going to really depend on the spirit of the table but nat-1 consequences are rarely fun for the player, and often serve to cast the characters as incompetents rather than fantasy heroes. As others have alluded to, this is especially egregious for a high-level fighter who is just mechanically going to roll plenty of nat 1s on attack rolls by nature of making more attacks. These mechanics also bias the game even further against non-casters, as spellcasters more often attack by forcing a saving throw, which doesn't expose them to nat-1 shenanigans.
If your players are up for some nat-1 rules, they should truly be inconsequential.