First, as a long time player, any statement that includes the words "nat" or "natural" puts my teeth on edge. Yes, I know it differentiates a roll with modifiers and one with out one, but hey that is just one of my pet peeves.
Second, as pointed out, a roll of 1 occurs 5% of the time on a d20. Which honestly is a lot. The rules, if you care about those, only indicate that the roll fails the attack it was making. Growing up, our groups had all sorts of critical failure rules and tables in games including D&D, but upon retrospection these procedures were anti-fun. Kind of like rules regarding hitting your party members in a melee. Given the fantasy background of the game, friendly fire shouldn't happen. So, no further impact for a 1.
I've never understood why a DM insists on adding this very unbalanced house rule to the table. A Nat 1 is a miss case closed. No self harm or teammates taking hits from you just so the DM can get a sadistic chuckle. There's no rule that allows for this. And when it is implemented by a DM they only seem to place it upon PC's, never the enemies when they rolled nat 1. Some advice to DM's thinking about or using this made up rule....just stop. It won't add any fun to the game at all.
This depends entirely on what is agreed upon in Session Zero. If my players unanimously agree that a roll of 1 on a d20 is to have some comedic/injuring/fatal penalty attached to it (NPCs included), then so be it. We can always reverse this if people get uncomfortable with it, because I want them to enjoy the game. However, if one person doesn't like it, I don't do it. I find they take more away than they add; even comedic penalties like trousers falling down I would say require an action to pull up (and maybe more to hold them up) during the intensity of a combat.
The thing is, more often than not a 1 means you've missed even with modifiers, so there's no further need for me to get a kick out of beating them while they're down. I do however run NPC encounters quite tough, so when they make a mistake I'll give the players a break by having them cock up by losing their weapon or whathaveyou.
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Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
I go for pure narration - though I have had the enemies interfere with one another for natural 1's. Oe good one was when two bugbears and a bloodhawk were ambushing the party. The bloodhawk was flying above a party member, and another PC shot the hawk and killed it. The bugbear went next and rolled a nat 1 on a club attack, so I ruled that they hit the falling hawk with their club instead of the PC, and sent it flying for a home-run.
However, I will "reward" bad rolls for bad decisions with bad results. Nat 1 to swing your sword is fine, because you've trained with it. Nat 1 to fire the ballista on the tower which took you a turn to work out how it worked? Yeah, something that shouldn't have been shot is getting shot. Not a player (that's just a sucky decision to hurt other PC's for nat 1's), but the supporting wall on the next tower now has a large hole in it, might be best to avoid that area from now on!
Personally, I let my players narrate their critical fails. Mechanically, the attack misses, and the player has total agency over what that looks like. I find the mood stays light-hearted when it's the player poking fun at their own character. And if the player is frustrated, they can make their miss sound cool.
I do penalties for critical fails. To help balance it the enemies also suffer misfortunes when they roll natural 1's. Generally the penalty is pretty benign - a dropped weapon or a broken bow string.
I think it adds an element of surprise to encounters that can otherwise seem like forgone conclusions. They also make for great story-telling. I had a fighter roll a nat 1 while battling a ghoul. I narrated it as the ghoul's stench was so overpowering that the character vomited on himself. After that he had disadvantage on CHA rolls until he could change and take a bath.
I also do penalties for skill checks. An atheist drow PC decided to do a religion check to pray to Lloth during a battle with a spider. Rolled a one, and the previously injured spider was healed back to full by a seriously annoyed Lloth. I let my players be creative with how they use skills to interact with the world, but there should be some kind of risk involved.
Our group has taken to a few things around Nat rolls. One campaign we roll a percentile to see if something BAD happened or simply something bad. Miss and stumble out of position, perhaps, costing your ally Flanking advantage, miss and your sword stick into a tree or post, which might mean a Str check on your next round to free it and make your attack (a fail might then cost an action to free your blade) The campaign I run, it depends solely on the table mood at the time it happens (and to an extent the state of the fight) Players are having fun and it's a decently challenging fight, someone drops a weapon, or a bowstring pops maybe. Tense atmosphere, uncertain fight with high risk, something amusing happens, the bow TWANGS and your arrow falls at your feet, you didn't nock it properly. Our 3rd campaign has 3 Halflings and a half-elf, so VERY few critical failures.
Also, in all 3, since we are a fixed group and always play together, a nat 1 costs $1. When we have enough in the pot, we buy minis or terrain pieces or something for the group to better enjoy our sessions.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Penalties on natural ones are simply not fun, in my experience. It totally breaks immersion when my experienced warrior drops their sword during one in twenty attacks. As mentioned, this is doubly true when more experienced characters with multiple attacks fumble and end up looking incompetent more often. If I were to implement a rule about nat 1 penalties, it would be to give an enemy an advantage of some sort, representing something other than staggering incompetence on the part of the PC. But I still wouldn't do that.
It's a miss. End of, move on to someone else's turn.
When people say that D&D combat is too slow, this is the kind of thing they're talking about. A natural 1 is caused by a single die being rolled, and it will happen one time in 20. And you don't need to narrate every single attack beyond saying "You draw back and hit it across the shoulder. Next attack?" If you want combat to be fun, make it fast. You should be able to get through a single turn for 6 players within about 12-15 minutes, including making your monsters attack.
For a level 17 Fighter, making 4 attacks per turn, on average there will be a natural 1 within the first 2 turns of any combat in which they use Action Surge. There's no need to make things more complicated than just missing.
It's a miss. End of, move on to someone else's turn.
When people say that D&D combat is too slow, this is the kind of thing they're talking about. A natural 1 is caused by a single die being rolled, and it will happen one time in 20. And you don't need to narrate every single attack beyond saying "You draw back and hit it across the shoulder. Next attack?" If you want combat to be fun, make it fast. You should be able to get through a single turn for 6 players within about 12-15 minutes, including making your monsters attack.
For a level 17 Fighter, making 4 attacks per turn, on average there will be a natural 1 within the first 2 turns of any combat in which they use Action Surge. There's no need to make things more complicated than just missing.
Added complexity =/= better.
Good point but I use B/X 1e rule set so you don't have this sort of structure, you almost never make more than one attack and most fights are done after 2-4 rounds, so there aren't that many "attack rolls" and their are generally fewer battles overall.
Note every method is good for every system.
Since this is a D&D Beyond forum, it's fair to expect everyone is talking about 5e, since that's what the site is entirely about. If you are using a different system (I don't even know what B/X refers to) then that's fine, but it's not really relevant here.
Story time. So I was having my players fight three werewolves, nothing special. Our bard rolls a one to hit, and he's already pretty banged up. Me being me, I gave the poor boy mercy. Sort of. Instead of him dealing damage to himself or another PC, I instead have him cut his belt with his dagger, making his pants fall down. This didn't have any actual effect on the combat (as he kept missing, he didn't have a good day), but was still pretty funny. So, how do you guys deal with a nat one in combat? Is what I did valid?
If you are trying to implement a critical fumble table then you will need to put in a critical hit table as well to balance it out. Most critical fumble tables are significantly stronger than most critical hits by 5E's rules. And a lot of players don't like the idea of a 1 giving bad effects like losing their sword or hitting another player. You are going to have to find a way to upgrade critical hits as well then.
I never liked the idea of just "always fails". A natural 20 is usually something spectacular, so a natural 1 should be something more than a certain miss.
I found a table online, which specifies what happens depending on the nature of the attack (melee, ranged, unarmed, spell) and a d10 roll. There is a simillar table for natural 20s. The thing is, some of the options on that table feel a little lucklaster, so you might want to pick another or improvise. Also, after a while you will get bored of the same ten options for each type of attack.
Even if you do not use such tables, just think what this major fumble could mean. Does the character trip and fall prone? Do they hit an ally by mistake? Do they loose their grip and drop their weapon? Do they set the buidling on fire by mistake? Do they break or dent their weapon? Do they end up doing something else?
The options are limitless. My only advice is that you do something creative. It is more fun and the players will love it. The natural 1s are the moments they will be talking and laughing about long after the campaign is over.
I never liked the idea of just "always fails". A natural 20 is usually something spectacular, so a natural 1 should be something more than a certain miss.
I found a table online, which specifies what happens depending on the nature of the attack (melee, ranged, unarmed, spell) and a d10 roll. There is a simillar table for natural 20s. The thing is, some of the options on that table feel a little lucklaster, so you might want to pick another or improvise. Also, after a while you will get bored of the same ten options for each type of attack.
Even if you do not use such tables, just think what this major fumble could mean. Does the character trip and fall prone? Do they hit an ally by mistake? Do they loose their grip and drop their weapon? Do they set the buidling on fire by mistake? Do they break or dent their weapon? Do they end up doing something else?
The options are limitless. My only advice is that you do something creative. It is more fun and the players will love it. The natural 1s are the moments they will be talking and laughing about long after the campaign is over.
There can be great stories tied to the Nat 1 events because they're usually things we provide to the story that go well beyond the "power" of rolling a Nat 20. We don't really narrate "big pile of damage" the way we narrate "cutting off your belt and pantsing yourself." And 9/10 times it's the "let's really describe this event together" that gets remembered.
That said, a player will roll a nat 1 on 5% of their combat rolls. Or, rather over 20 attacks you should expect at least 1 nat 1. Applying mechanical changes to the battle field to these can seriously shift balance if not done with a critical eye to it all.
Example: The character trips and goes prone. They're within melee of two enemies. Suddenly that's anywhere from 2 to 6 attacks (depending on level) that are now being rolled with advantage against the character. Almost certain hits with an increased chance of a similar 5% critical hit. As others have mentioned that can shift the flow of the balance.
Likewise having your sword fly across the room. Now you're spending move (provoking attacks) to retrieve it. Or maybe you're disengaging to get it. But if you're not a rogue that used your primary action for the turn. That again shifts the balance. Is that what you want?
I get it, we like the laughs and I'm all for a good story. But we should also be mindful of how that desire for a story can impact the general flow and nothing is more memorable than a TPK. Though not always in a good way....
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I never liked the idea of just "always fails". A natural 20 is usually something spectacular, so a natural 1 should be something more than a certain miss.
I found a table online, which specifies what happens depending on the nature of the attack (melee, ranged, unarmed, spell) and a d10 roll. There is a simillar table for natural 20s. The thing is, some of the options on that table feel a little lucklaster, so you might want to pick another or improvise. Also, after a while you will get bored of the same ten options for each type of attack.
Even if you do not use such tables, just think what this major fumble could mean. Does the character trip and fall prone? Do they hit an ally by mistake? Do they loose their grip and drop their weapon? Do they set the buidling on fire by mistake? Do they break or dent their weapon? Do they end up doing something else?
The options are limitless. My only advice is that you do something creative. It is more fun and the players will love it. The natural 1s are the moments they will be talking and laughing about long after the campaign is over.
There can be great stories tied to the Nat 1 events because they're usually things we provide to the story that go well beyond the "power" of rolling a Nat 20. We don't really narrate "big pile of damage" the way we narrate "cutting off your belt and pantsing yourself." And 9/10 times it's the "let's really describe this event together" that gets remembered.
That said, a player will roll a nat 1 on 5% of their combat rolls. Or, rather over 20 attacks you should expect at least 1 nat 1. Applying mechanical changes to the battle field to these can seriously shift balance if not done with a critical eye to it all.
Example: The character trips and goes prone. They're within melee of two enemies. Suddenly that's anywhere from 2 to 6 attacks (depending on level) that are now being rolled with advantage against the character. Almost certain hits with an increased chance of a similar 5% critical hit. As others have mentioned that can shift the flow of the balance.
Likewise having your sword fly across the room. Now you're spending move (provoking attacks) to retrieve it. Or maybe you're disengaging to get it. But if you're not a rogue that used your primary action for the turn. That again shifts the balance. Is that what you want?
I get it, we like the laughs and I'm all for a good story. But we should also be mindful of how that desire for a story can impact the general flow and nothing is more memorable than a TPK. Though not always in a good way....
Well, I do not believe that it is wrong to have some sort of mechanical changes, as you put it.
I mean a natural 20 is twice the damage dice, which could make all the difference in battle, for example if you have a powerful enemy down to its final hit points. And perhaps the balance should shift a bit if a natural 1 is rolled, too. I do not believe it is that bad. It could even be an opportunity for players to get creative.
I agree, though, that if we do not leave things to chance, we should be mindful of the effect we choose. Having the character fall among multiple enemies could be the death of them, so maybe choose another effect, but choose something. Otherwise natural 1s will be considered just another failed attack and nothing more. No reason to "fear" them more than a natural 3 or 5 or 10 depending on the enemy's AC.
Most of natural 1's are simply automatic miss, but i often have other effect, such as redirecting the attack to another target, dropping or breaking the weapon, causing condition such as dropping prone etc
Just a reminder that crits based on RAW are often not that great. Plenty of time its less damage than if a normal attack had rolled really well for damage. They rarely change the course of the fight unless it's a heavy-hitting monster critting a PC. As such, I don't think fumbles need to be worse in order to balance things out.
As others have brought up, at high levels you're rolling a lot more dice. A fighter is probably going to roll a 1 in nearly every combat. That's a lot of accidentally burned-down buildings in the wake of someone who is supposed to be good at this kind of thing. It makes it feel less competent than it was at lower levels.
Just a reminder that crits based on RAW are often not that great. Plenty of time its less damage than if a normal attack had rolled really well for damage. They rarely change the course of the fight unless it's a heavy-hitting monster critting a PC. As such, I don't think fumbles need to be worse in order to balance things out.
As others have brought up, at high levels you're rolling a lot more dice. A fighter is probably going to roll a 1 in nearly every combat. That's a lot of accidentally burned-down buildings in the wake of someone who is supposed to be good at this kind of thing. It makes it feel less competent than it was at lower levels.
To make matters worse, things aren't even at higher levels. A rogue critting will nearly double their damage for the attack, a fighter might only increase it by 25% since crits don't affect flat bonuses.
Just a reminder that crits based on RAW are often not that great. Plenty of time its less damage than if a normal attack had rolled really well for damage. They rarely change the course of the fight unless it's a heavy-hitting monster critting a PC. As such, I don't think fumbles need to be worse in order to balance things out.
As others have brought up, at high levels you're rolling a lot more dice. A fighter is probably going to roll a 1 in nearly every combat. That's a lot of accidentally burned-down buildings in the wake of someone who is supposed to be good at this kind of thing. It makes it feel less competent than it was at lower levels.
But a high level character should be better equipped to deal with the consequences. Everyone carries a back up weapon for a reason, right? And the monsters they're fighting with multi-attacks have a similar statistical disadvantage.
I haven't DM'd high level play, but my 5th - 8th level players with two attacks a round aren't running into this every fight. Combat tends to run five rounds so they're getting 10 attack rolls at most.
Just a reminder that crits based on RAW are often not that great. Plenty of time its less damage than if a normal attack had rolled really well for damage. They rarely change the course of the fight unless it's a heavy-hitting monster critting a PC. As such, I don't think fumbles need to be worse in order to balance things out.
As others have brought up, at high levels you're rolling a lot more dice. A fighter is probably going to roll a 1 in nearly every combat. That's a lot of accidentally burned-down buildings in the wake of someone who is supposed to be good at this kind of thing. It makes it feel less competent than it was at lower levels.
But a high level character should be better equipped to deal with the consequences. Everyone carries a back up weapon for a reason, right? And the monsters they're fighting with multi-attacks have a similar statistical disadvantage.
I haven't DM'd high level play, but my 5th - 8th level players with two attacks a round aren't running into this every fight. Combat tends to run five rounds so they're getting 10 attack rolls at most.
If you haven't DM'd at high level, then you also haven't run high level monsters that make 6 attacks per turn, or fighters making 8 attacks per turn with Action Surge, and presumably characters suffering Disadvantage a lot, which increases their chance of a natural 1 to over 10%.
10 attacks for a character with one Extra Attack, 8 attacks in a single turn for a Fighter who uses Action Surge. Plus maybe there are attacks of opportunity going on.
"A high level character is better able to deal with the consequences" is a logical error: you're suggesting that there should be added consequences for rolling a 1, but also that those consequences won't be important. So... they either are, or they aren't. Either you want there to be consequences, or you don't.
There's this thing in D&D where people think that 1s and 20s should be more special than they are. Yes, it feels great when you roll a 20, and comical when you roll a 1. But every 10 attacks, you'll roll a 1 or a 20. If you make crits do huge things and nat 1's do huge things, you're adding in additional randomness, which is not good for the game.
Dropping your weapon every one time in 20 when you attack? Hitting an ally? Falling prone? It's all completely over the top as a response to a random die roll after a character says, perfectly reasonable and fairly, "I attack the monster with my sword." It punishes the player for a 5% chance every time they move to do exactly what they should be doing.
And yeah, for an adult red dragon comically falling over or hitting itself 2-4 turns because it's making 5 attacks (using legendary actions) isn't going to make the combat more enjoyable for the DM. It's going to make it easier for the players, and mess with the encounter when it goes prone on a tail attack.
I would suggest not penalizing the player with a natural 1 in combat going that route penalizes characters with more attacks and higher-level characters. Your 11th level fighter that is dual-wielding will have a greater chance of something bad happening in combat than the level 1 character. The natural 1 penalty would affect melee characters more than casters over time, if you penalize a melee character with extra attacks that has a weapon on a roll of a 1, think about penalizing the caster character on any roll or save of 4 or below so it evens out to be fair to both parties.
However, I would say that if you want to go that way, make something bad happen on a 1 when the character has disadvantage only, that shows they are in a less than optimal position and something bad happening on a roll of 1 would be more understandable mechanically and thematically (slipping, losing a weapon, hitting an ally).
I will also add that anything you do to the players you should also apply to NPC's and enemies, and that then skews it in the players direction as the DM will roll far more D20's in attack then the players will, so far more nat 1's and combat problems affecting your enemies making it even harder to balance fights.
Personally a 1 always misses as per Raw, I always add flavour to combat and describe attacks so a 1 will have something comical happen (sometimes) but never anything that actually affects the fight, with 1 caveat, I once had a combat where the player just had awful luck and rolled a bunch of 1's, in that case after the 5th I did have him do 3 points of piercing damage to himself just because it fitted the tone of the table and what was happening.
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First, as a long time player, any statement that includes the words "nat" or "natural" puts my teeth on edge. Yes, I know it differentiates a roll with modifiers and one with out one, but hey that is just one of my pet peeves.
Second, as pointed out, a roll of 1 occurs 5% of the time on a d20. Which honestly is a lot. The rules, if you care about those, only indicate that the roll fails the attack it was making. Growing up, our groups had all sorts of critical failure rules and tables in games including D&D, but upon retrospection these procedures were anti-fun. Kind of like rules regarding hitting your party members in a melee. Given the fantasy background of the game, friendly fire shouldn't happen. So, no further impact for a 1.
I've never understood why a DM insists on adding this very unbalanced house rule to the table. A Nat 1 is a miss case closed. No self harm or teammates taking hits from you just so the DM can get a sadistic chuckle. There's no rule that allows for this. And when it is implemented by a DM they only seem to place it upon PC's, never the enemies when they rolled nat 1. Some advice to DM's thinking about or using this made up rule....just stop. It won't add any fun to the game at all.
This depends entirely on what is agreed upon in Session Zero. If my players unanimously agree that a roll of 1 on a d20 is to have some comedic/injuring/fatal penalty attached to it (NPCs included), then so be it. We can always reverse this if people get uncomfortable with it, because I want them to enjoy the game. However, if one person doesn't like it, I don't do it. I find they take more away than they add; even comedic penalties like trousers falling down I would say require an action to pull up (and maybe more to hold them up) during the intensity of a combat.
The thing is, more often than not a 1 means you've missed even with modifiers, so there's no further need for me to get a kick out of beating them while they're down. I do however run NPC encounters quite tough, so when they make a mistake I'll give the players a break by having them cock up by losing their weapon or whathaveyou.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
I go for pure narration - though I have had the enemies interfere with one another for natural 1's. Oe good one was when two bugbears and a bloodhawk were ambushing the party. The bloodhawk was flying above a party member, and another PC shot the hawk and killed it. The bugbear went next and rolled a nat 1 on a club attack, so I ruled that they hit the falling hawk with their club instead of the PC, and sent it flying for a home-run.
However, I will "reward" bad rolls for bad decisions with bad results. Nat 1 to swing your sword is fine, because you've trained with it. Nat 1 to fire the ballista on the tower which took you a turn to work out how it worked? Yeah, something that shouldn't have been shot is getting shot. Not a player (that's just a sucky decision to hurt other PC's for nat 1's), but the supporting wall on the next tower now has a large hole in it, might be best to avoid that area from now on!
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Personally, I let my players narrate their critical fails. Mechanically, the attack misses, and the player has total agency over what that looks like. I find the mood stays light-hearted when it's the player poking fun at their own character. And if the player is frustrated, they can make their miss sound cool.
I do penalties for critical fails. To help balance it the enemies also suffer misfortunes when they roll natural 1's. Generally the penalty is pretty benign - a dropped weapon or a broken bow string.
I think it adds an element of surprise to encounters that can otherwise seem like forgone conclusions. They also make for great story-telling. I had a fighter roll a nat 1 while battling a ghoul. I narrated it as the ghoul's stench was so overpowering that the character vomited on himself. After that he had disadvantage on CHA rolls until he could change and take a bath.
I also do penalties for skill checks. An atheist drow PC decided to do a religion check to pray to Lloth during a battle with a spider. Rolled a one, and the previously injured spider was healed back to full by a seriously annoyed Lloth. I let my players be creative with how they use skills to interact with the world, but there should be some kind of risk involved.
Our group has taken to a few things around Nat rolls. One campaign we roll a percentile to see if something BAD happened or simply something bad. Miss and stumble out of position, perhaps, costing your ally Flanking advantage, miss and your sword stick into a tree or post, which might mean a Str check on your next round to free it and make your attack (a fail might then cost an action to free your blade) The campaign I run, it depends solely on the table mood at the time it happens (and to an extent the state of the fight) Players are having fun and it's a decently challenging fight, someone drops a weapon, or a bowstring pops maybe. Tense atmosphere, uncertain fight with high risk, something amusing happens, the bow TWANGS and your arrow falls at your feet, you didn't nock it properly. Our 3rd campaign has 3 Halflings and a half-elf, so VERY few critical failures.
Also, in all 3, since we are a fixed group and always play together, a nat 1 costs $1. When we have enough in the pot, we buy minis or terrain pieces or something for the group to better enjoy our sessions.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Penalties on natural ones are simply not fun, in my experience. It totally breaks immersion when my experienced warrior drops their sword during one in twenty attacks. As mentioned, this is doubly true when more experienced characters with multiple attacks fumble and end up looking incompetent more often. If I were to implement a rule about nat 1 penalties, it would be to give an enemy an advantage of some sort, representing something other than staggering incompetence on the part of the PC. But I still wouldn't do that.
It's a miss. End of, move on to someone else's turn.
When people say that D&D combat is too slow, this is the kind of thing they're talking about. A natural 1 is caused by a single die being rolled, and it will happen one time in 20. And you don't need to narrate every single attack beyond saying "You draw back and hit it across the shoulder. Next attack?" If you want combat to be fun, make it fast. You should be able to get through a single turn for 6 players within about 12-15 minutes, including making your monsters attack.
For a level 17 Fighter, making 4 attacks per turn, on average there will be a natural 1 within the first 2 turns of any combat in which they use Action Surge. There's no need to make things more complicated than just missing.
Added complexity =/= better.
Since this is a D&D Beyond forum, it's fair to expect everyone is talking about 5e, since that's what the site is entirely about. If you are using a different system (I don't even know what B/X refers to) then that's fine, but it's not really relevant here.
If you are trying to implement a critical fumble table then you will need to put in a critical hit table as well to balance it out. Most critical fumble tables are significantly stronger than most critical hits by 5E's rules. And a lot of players don't like the idea of a 1 giving bad effects like losing their sword or hitting another player. You are going to have to find a way to upgrade critical hits as well then.
I never liked the idea of just "always fails". A natural 20 is usually something spectacular, so a natural 1 should be something more than a certain miss.
I found a table online, which specifies what happens depending on the nature of the attack (melee, ranged, unarmed, spell) and a d10 roll. There is a simillar table for natural 20s.
The thing is, some of the options on that table feel a little lucklaster, so you might want to pick another or improvise. Also, after a while you will get bored of the same ten options for each type of attack.
Even if you do not use such tables, just think what this major fumble could mean. Does the character trip and fall prone? Do they hit an ally by mistake? Do they loose their grip and drop their weapon? Do they set the buidling on fire by mistake? Do they break or dent their weapon? Do they end up doing something else?
The options are limitless. My only advice is that you do something creative. It is more fun and the players will love it. The natural 1s are the moments they will be talking and laughing about long after the campaign is over.
There can be great stories tied to the Nat 1 events because they're usually things we provide to the story that go well beyond the "power" of rolling a Nat 20. We don't really narrate "big pile of damage" the way we narrate "cutting off your belt and pantsing yourself." And 9/10 times it's the "let's really describe this event together" that gets remembered.
That said, a player will roll a nat 1 on 5% of their combat rolls. Or, rather over 20 attacks you should expect at least 1 nat 1. Applying mechanical changes to the battle field to these can seriously shift balance if not done with a critical eye to it all.
Example: The character trips and goes prone. They're within melee of two enemies. Suddenly that's anywhere from 2 to 6 attacks (depending on level) that are now being rolled with advantage against the character. Almost certain hits with an increased chance of a similar 5% critical hit. As others have mentioned that can shift the flow of the balance.
Likewise having your sword fly across the room. Now you're spending move (provoking attacks) to retrieve it. Or maybe you're disengaging to get it. But if you're not a rogue that used your primary action for the turn. That again shifts the balance. Is that what you want?
I get it, we like the laughs and I'm all for a good story. But we should also be mindful of how that desire for a story can impact the general flow and nothing is more memorable than a TPK. Though not always in a good way....
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Well, I do not believe that it is wrong to have some sort of mechanical changes, as you put it.
I mean a natural 20 is twice the damage dice, which could make all the difference in battle, for example if you have a powerful enemy down to its final hit points. And perhaps the balance should shift a bit if a natural 1 is rolled, too. I do not believe it is that bad. It could even be an opportunity for players to get creative.
I agree, though, that if we do not leave things to chance, we should be mindful of the effect we choose. Having the character fall among multiple enemies could be the death of them, so maybe choose another effect, but choose something. Otherwise natural 1s will be considered just another failed attack and nothing more. No reason to "fear" them more than a natural 3 or 5 or 10 depending on the enemy's AC.
Most of natural 1's are simply automatic miss, but i often have other effect, such as redirecting the attack to another target, dropping or breaking the weapon, causing condition such as dropping prone etc
Just a reminder that crits based on RAW are often not that great. Plenty of time its less damage than if a normal attack had rolled really well for damage. They rarely change the course of the fight unless it's a heavy-hitting monster critting a PC. As such, I don't think fumbles need to be worse in order to balance things out.
As others have brought up, at high levels you're rolling a lot more dice. A fighter is probably going to roll a 1 in nearly every combat. That's a lot of accidentally burned-down buildings in the wake of someone who is supposed to be good at this kind of thing. It makes it feel less competent than it was at lower levels.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
To make matters worse, things aren't even at higher levels. A rogue critting will nearly double their damage for the attack, a fighter might only increase it by 25% since crits don't affect flat bonuses.
But a high level character should be better equipped to deal with the consequences. Everyone carries a back up weapon for a reason, right? And the monsters they're fighting with multi-attacks have a similar statistical disadvantage.
I haven't DM'd high level play, but my 5th - 8th level players with two attacks a round aren't running into this every fight. Combat tends to run five rounds so they're getting 10 attack rolls at most.
If you haven't DM'd at high level, then you also haven't run high level monsters that make 6 attacks per turn, or fighters making 8 attacks per turn with Action Surge, and presumably characters suffering Disadvantage a lot, which increases their chance of a natural 1 to over 10%.
10 attacks for a character with one Extra Attack, 8 attacks in a single turn for a Fighter who uses Action Surge. Plus maybe there are attacks of opportunity going on.
"A high level character is better able to deal with the consequences" is a logical error: you're suggesting that there should be added consequences for rolling a 1, but also that those consequences won't be important. So... they either are, or they aren't. Either you want there to be consequences, or you don't.
There's this thing in D&D where people think that 1s and 20s should be more special than they are. Yes, it feels great when you roll a 20, and comical when you roll a 1. But every 10 attacks, you'll roll a 1 or a 20. If you make crits do huge things and nat 1's do huge things, you're adding in additional randomness, which is not good for the game.
Dropping your weapon every one time in 20 when you attack? Hitting an ally? Falling prone? It's all completely over the top as a response to a random die roll after a character says, perfectly reasonable and fairly, "I attack the monster with my sword." It punishes the player for a 5% chance every time they move to do exactly what they should be doing.
And yeah, for an adult red dragon comically falling over or hitting itself 2-4 turns because it's making 5 attacks (using legendary actions) isn't going to make the combat more enjoyable for the DM. It's going to make it easier for the players, and mess with the encounter when it goes prone on a tail attack.
I will also add that anything you do to the players you should also apply to NPC's and enemies, and that then skews it in the players direction as the DM will roll far more D20's in attack then the players will, so far more nat 1's and combat problems affecting your enemies making it even harder to balance fights.
Personally a 1 always misses as per Raw, I always add flavour to combat and describe attacks so a 1 will have something comical happen (sometimes) but never anything that actually affects the fight, with 1 caveat, I once had a combat where the player just had awful luck and rolled a bunch of 1's, in that case after the 5th I did have him do 3 points of piercing damage to himself just because it fitted the tone of the table and what was happening.