When the DM calls for an ability check, there should to be a chance of success or failure. If there isn't, then they're just wasting time. They're either padding egos or throwing their players up against literally impossible tasks. The DM can, and should, refrain from calling for die rolls when the outcome is already predetermined. So the critical failure/success rule shouldn't matter here. If it does, then all it does is encourage rolling more dice. Failures suck, but they aren't the end of the world. We can still learn something in our failures. And a success doesn't mean we get what we want. It means we get the best possible outcome. Attempting to seduce the dragon doesn't have to mean you actually seduce the dragon. It can just mean they find you amusing and won't eat you.
Attacks and saving throws are different. Those are forced by actions. There's no avoiding them; the DM can't just waive them. And because there's no choice, the solution should be painfully obvious. I get that y'all don't like it, but that's only because of perceived weakness. The die roll needs a consequence. Bringing up Legendary Resistance is a cop out. That's a finite resource the DM decides when to use. They don't have to use it on the first failed saving throw. Or the second. Or the third.
The best solution is probably something to take that edge off. I suggest shifting the Inspiration awarded for a Nat20 to the Nat1. The Nat20 is already a guaranteed success. It doesn't need a cherry on top. And learning something from a failure, pushing yourself to do better next time, makes sense.
I say the best solution is to use the 5E rules that have been working for nearly a decade, where a nat 1 and 20 do not give auto fail or successes. It is perfectly fine for someone to be able to guarantee a roll. If it wasn't, then why did it go so well for my group? Being able to no-sell mind blasts actually enhanced the experience for my group. Fact is, being able to succeed on a nat 1 is not bad design and it works for a number groups, always has, and I say this as someone who has experienced both and failing on a nat 1 when your modifier would otherwise let you succeed on a nat 1 did not feel fun at all. Some people may find it fun, but not all, and it is not a case of D&D not being the game for them.
Not all dice rolls need a chance of failure. It is fine to say that someone just succeeds because their modifier is high enough. After all, they have other rolls that have a chance of failure and they can still fail if the DC is high enough that they can't succeed on a nat 1.
Fact is that there are groups that switched from Nat 1/20 auto fail/success and found it to be a superior experience, this includes being able to guarantee success on certain rolls. it is not a case of taking the edge off, it is being able to put the effort and investment into achieving something and not seeing it auto fail 5% of the time. People are not wrong for seeing it that way; their way of playing D&D is not wrong.
When you optimize, you must exclude suboptimal choices.
Any time you build a character, you have to exclude a lot of choices, because there's a limit to how many you can put on your character. Excluding an option because it's inefficient is not different in kind from excluding an option because it doesn't fit your backstory or you just want another option more.
Here is the problem and how it limits. Wizard doesn't have lockpicking skill some think they can never try. Of course they can. It will be harder but of course they can try. Don't have tavern brawler? You can still pick up a chair and hit someone over the head with it. Anyone can pick up a sword and swing it. Anyone can lie List goes on. DC may change though. People specialize and see it on their character sheet and then only see the things they are good at. That limits options. Then of course there is the problem of some people thinking the Wizard hanging out with a Rogue can't learn how to pick a lock without multiclassing
None of that has anything at all to do with optimization. Optimization is just building your character to be good at whatever you want your character to be good at.
Having played most of my DnD career (40+ years) with a Nat 1 being not only a fail but a critical fail and a Nat 20 being a critical success I don’t have a problem with the rule. Not having DM crits is going to make party survival much more likely much of the time but I know several ways to deal with that. What having crit fails and hits does is indeed remove the “ you can’t make the roll needed so don’t bother trying”. That can slow play somewhat but typically doesn’t and when you get a chain of crits it makes the result truly memorable and game/character changing. The longest one I ever saw was a crit hit followed by 10 crit fails in a row.
I’ve seen tables played that way and I acknowledge that it is somewhat of an unofficial sacred cow, but it has never made sense to me. Why should someone unskilled in, say, stealth have the exact same chances of a critical failure and a critical success? It makes more sense to me to say that if you exceed the target number by 15 (for example) then you get a critical success and if you miss the target number by 15, you get a critical failure.
When the DM calls for an ability check, there should to be a chance of success or failure. If there isn't, then they're just wasting time. They're either padding egos or throwing their players up against literally impossible tasks. The DM can, and should, refrain from calling for die rolls when the outcome is already predetermined. So the critical failure/success rule shouldn't matter here. If it does, then all it does is encourage rolling more dice. Failures suck, but they aren't the end of the world. We can still learn something in our failures. And a success doesn't mean we get what we want. It means we get the best possible outcome. Attempting to seduce the dragon doesn't have to mean you actually seduce the dragon. It can just mean they find you amusing and won't eat you.
Attacks and saving throws are different. Those are forced by actions. There's no avoiding them; the DM can't just waive them. And because there's no choice, the solution should be painfully obvious. I get that y'all don't like it, but that's only because of perceived weakness. The die roll needs a consequence. Bringing up Legendary Resistance is a cop out. That's a finite resource the DM decides when to use. They don't have to use it on the first failed saving throw. Or the second. Or the third.
The best solution is probably something to take that edge off. I suggest shifting the Inspiration awarded for a Nat20 to the Nat1. The Nat20 is already a guaranteed success. It doesn't need a cherry on top. And learning something from a failure, pushing yourself to do better next time, makes sense.
I say the best solution is to use the 5E rules that have been working for nearly a decade, where a nat 1 and 20 do not give auto fail or successes. It is perfectly fine for someone to be able to guarantee a roll. If it wasn't, then why did it go so well for my group? Being able to no-sell mind blasts actually enhanced the experience for my group. Fact is, being able to succeed on a nat 1 is not bad design and it works for a number groups, always has, and I say this as someone who has experienced both and failing on a nat 1 when your modifier would otherwise let you succeed on a nat 1 did not feel fun at all. Some people may find it fun, but not all, and it is not a case of D&D not being the game for them.
Not all dice rolls need a chance of failure. It is fine to say that someone just succeeds because their modifier is high enough. After all, they have other rolls that have a chance of failure and they can still fail if the DC is high enough that they can't succeed on a nat 1.
Fact is that there are groups that switched from Nat 1/20 auto fail/success and found it to be a superior experience, this includes being able to guarantee success on certain rolls. it is not a case of taking the edge off, it is being able to put the effort and investment into achieving something and not seeing it auto fail 5% of the time. People are not wrong for seeing it that way; their way of playing D&D is not wrong.
You keep saying die rolls don't need a failure chance. All I'm seeing is someone advocating for consequence-free play. You want all the reward with none of the risk. If a die roll doesn't have a chance of failure, then don't roll the die. If the die roll doesn't have a chance of success or some other benefit, then don't roll the die. The problem, and I've been saying this for a while to deaf ears and blind eyes, is we aren't always given that choice. Sometimes that roll is forced, and when that happens there needs to be a consequence. Don't force an exercise in randomness with a fixed outcome.
It's inconsistent to selectively apply the critical success and failure rule. It's wasteful and, worse, deceitful. Every inconsequential die rolled is a lie the DM tells their players. And if a roll is forced, there needs to be a chance of failure. Otherwise, there's no reason to forcing the roll in the first place.
Vernacular has changed a bit, and that could be a source of confusion. There have been a critical success and failure with the d20 since at least 2002. It was a variant rule found on page 34 of the DMG, and it worked differently than this UA proposal. You had to roll again, either success or failure, to confirm. And if confirmed, then something extra─good or bad─would happen. And, like I said earlier, this UA proposal doesn't really impact ability checks. Those happen because the DM calls for them, so the DM has already made the determination the check can succeed or fail. Some tasks can just be that routine and no roll is necessary.
But back in 3.5, both attack rolls and saving throws were subject to automatic successes and failures. If you rolled a natural 20, you passed. And if you rolled a natural 1, you failed. And that makes sense because they're not entirely in the DM's hands. The player can decide to attack or [Tooltip Not Found], for example, and they don't need the DM's permission. Combat is its own mini-game with special rules. Sometimes an action might even call for both an attack and saving throw; like with the wolf's bite.
I mean, for crying out loud...
Saving Throws
A saving throw — also called a save — represents an attempt to resist a spell, a trap, a poison, a disease, or a similar threat. You don’t normally decide to make a saving throw; you are forced to make one because your character or monster is at risk of harm.
How can you read that and think there shouldn't be at least a 5% chance of failure? If you're forced, then you need to be at risk of harm. If there's no risk, then there's no saving throw. But because a saving throw is forced, you must have that change, however minute, of failing and suffering harm.
So would people feel the same if it was on a percentile die and you only have a 1% chance of failure? What percentage failure is Ok with you? It can't be zero.
Sure it can. Most of the time it isn't. If you've got a modifier of +5 and you want to succeed on something that's DC 20, you have a 70% chance of failure.
Thing is... You know in advance that you're trying something that's difficult for your character and that they're not (yet) very good at.
That's very different from, say, being asked to make a roll for a check that you should, in 5e RAW, succeed on with just your passive score because your DM has decided that there should always be a chance for failure and getting screwed out of succeeding on something that your character specialises in by rolling a 1. (Especially if some other party member who isn't even proficient at that thing then succeeds by rolling a 6 or something).
If you are rolling a die to determine an outcome at something then there should be a fear of failure.
I don't think it's fair to say that there should be fear of anything, ever. There can be. That kind of suspense can even be fun and exhilarating. But I wouldn't decide for others that they need to go through that as a rule. (But then, I actually have an anxiety disorder, so I know first hand that there are people for whom even 'fun' low stakes fear can cause panic attacks even when, intellectually, they know it doesn't really matter.)
I don't understand the feel bad argument. If that is the case then just let everyone succeed at everything. Can't have anyone feel bad.
It's not just 'feeling bad'. It's a specific kind of feeling bad. It's the fact that something about human psychology makes failing feel much worse if you had no agency in it. If you weren't allowed to do anything to prevent it. In D&D's case, modifiers are what allow you to have some agency to affect the randomness of your rolls.
Also... Do you hear yourself? If playing a game that's supposed to be enjoyable makes people feel bad instead, that's a frickin' problem.
Instead of thinking how bad it is your big high level perfect character should never fail think of it as a role-playing opportunity. Let's say your character has a +19 to fear roles and the DC is 20. You're going to suceed 95% of the time. Willing to bet it comes up so rarely that you're going to succeed the more than that (meaning you are rolling fear roles so rarely that you're going to succeed). You roll a 1. So now this character who rarely feels fear suddenly is afraid. What do they do?
That depends pretty heavily on context. If failing that save just causes you to be frightened for one turn before you get to roll the save again and you succeed and finish the combat, then sure, that'll give you a nice role play moment afterwards. But if it's a save against a Legendary action by the BBEG just as he's about to complete his grand ritual to end the world and spending a round Frightened causes you to not be able to move to where you need to to stop the ritual? That retroactively turns the entire campaign you just played into a pointless exercise. All the work the entire party did to get to that moment... The entire climax of the story... Ruined because someone decided you should always have at least an arbitrary 5% chance to fail anything you try.
And it doesn't matter that maybe only one in a thousand groups playing the game ever experiences that kind of situation once in their entire time playing D&D. Because what matters is that it can happen and it doesn't have to.
It is simple. If you are bringing an element of chance into the game there needs to be a chance of failure.
Sure, but this rule does that in reverse. Rather than bringing an element of chance into the game, it brings a chance of failure into the game that in turn brings an element of chance into everything. Or at least into anything that can be rolled for. It makes it so that anything that can be rolled for, has to be rolled for, because there is always a chance for failure.
Oh as the above poster brought of White Wolf, we played Vampire when it first came out. We had no problem with the die rolls. Sure even the most powerful may, on occasion, fail. We just went with it.
Great for you, I guess? White Wolf disagreed, because that rule was actively losing them players (who also disagreed) which is why they axed it.
If failing that save just causes you to be frightened for one turn before you get to roll the save again and you succeed and finish the combat, then sure, that'll give you a nice role play moment afterwards. But if it's a save against a Legendary action by the BBEG just as he's about to complete his grand ritual to end the world and spending a round Frightened causes you to not be able to move to where you need to to stop the ritual? That retroactively turns the entire campaign you just played into a pointless exercise. All the work the entire party did to get to that moment... The entire climax of the story... Ruined because someone decided you should always have at least an arbitrary 5% chance to fail anything you try.
And it doesn't matter that maybe only one in a thousand groups playing the game ever experiences that kind of situation once in their entire time playing D&D. Because what matters is that it can happen and it doesn't have to.
Tell us you haven't played Curse of Strahd without saying you haven't played Curse of Strahd. I've run it to multiple TPKs.
Failing to stop the BBEG doesn't mean the entire campaign was ruined or a pointless exercise. Stories are allowed to end on a dour note. Nobody owes you the win.
Can someone explain to me why a character with +12 on their save should have the same chance of critical failure as someone with a +2?
There's no such thing as critical failure.
There was a rule I recall from somewhere, I think something third party, where a 20 was only a critical success if it would have been a success normally.
When the DM calls for an ability check, there should to be a chance of success or failure. If there isn't, then they're just wasting time. They're either padding egos or throwing their players up against literally impossible tasks. The DM can, and should, refrain from calling for die rolls when the outcome is already predetermined. So the critical failure/success rule shouldn't matter here. If it does, then all it does is encourage rolling more dice. Failures suck, but they aren't the end of the world. We can still learn something in our failures. And a success doesn't mean we get what we want. It means we get the best possible outcome. Attempting to seduce the dragon doesn't have to mean you actually seduce the dragon. It can just mean they find you amusing and won't eat you.
Attacks and saving throws are different. Those are forced by actions. There's no avoiding them; the DM can't just waive them. And because there's no choice, the solution should be painfully obvious. I get that y'all don't like it, but that's only because of perceived weakness. The die roll needs a consequence. Bringing up Legendary Resistance is a cop out. That's a finite resource the DM decides when to use. They don't have to use it on the first failed saving throw. Or the second. Or the third.
The best solution is probably something to take that edge off. I suggest shifting the Inspiration awarded for a Nat20 to the Nat1. The Nat20 is already a guaranteed success. It doesn't need a cherry on top. And learning something from a failure, pushing yourself to do better next time, makes sense.
I say the best solution is to use the 5E rules that have been working for nearly a decade, where a nat 1 and 20 do not give auto fail or successes. It is perfectly fine for someone to be able to guarantee a roll. If it wasn't, then why did it go so well for my group? Being able to no-sell mind blasts actually enhanced the experience for my group. Fact is, being able to succeed on a nat 1 is not bad design and it works for a number groups, always has, and I say this as someone who has experienced both and failing on a nat 1 when your modifier would otherwise let you succeed on a nat 1 did not feel fun at all. Some people may find it fun, but not all, and it is not a case of D&D not being the game for them.
Not all dice rolls need a chance of failure. It is fine to say that someone just succeeds because their modifier is high enough. After all, they have other rolls that have a chance of failure and they can still fail if the DC is high enough that they can't succeed on a nat 1.
Fact is that there are groups that switched from Nat 1/20 auto fail/success and found it to be a superior experience, this includes being able to guarantee success on certain rolls. it is not a case of taking the edge off, it is being able to put the effort and investment into achieving something and not seeing it auto fail 5% of the time. People are not wrong for seeing it that way; their way of playing D&D is not wrong.
You keep saying die rolls don't need a failure chance. All I'm seeing is someone advocating for consequence-free play. You want all the reward with none of the risk. If a die roll doesn't have a chance of failure, then don't roll the die. If the die roll doesn't have a chance of success or some other benefit, then don't roll the die. The problem, and I've been saying this for a while to deaf ears and blind eyes, is we aren't always given that choice. Sometimes that roll is forced, and when that happens there needs to be a consequence. Don't force an exercise in randomness with a fixed outcome.
It's inconsistent to selectively apply the critical success and failure rule. It's wasteful and, worse, deceitful. Every inconsequential die rolled is a lie the DM tells their players. And if a roll is forced, there needs to be a chance of failure. Otherwise, there's no reason to forcing the roll in the first place.
Vernacular has changed a bit, and that could be a source of confusion. There have been a critical success and failure with the d20 since at least 2002. It was a variant rule found on page 34 of the DMG, and it worked differently than this UA proposal. You had to roll again, either success or failure, to confirm. And if confirmed, then something extra─good or bad─would happen. And, like I said earlier, this UA proposal doesn't really impact ability checks. Those happen because the DM calls for them, so the DM has already made the determination the check can succeed or fail. Some tasks can just be that routine and no roll is necessary.
But back in 3.5, both attack rolls and saving throws were subject to automatic successes and failures. If you rolled a natural 20, you passed. And if you rolled a natural 1, you failed. And that makes sense because they're not entirely in the DM's hands. The player can decide to attack or cast a spell, for example, and they don't need the DM's permission. Combat is its own mini-game with special rules. Sometimes an action might even call for both an attack and saving throw; like with the wolf's bite.
I mean, for crying out loud...
Saving Throws
A saving throw — also called a save — represents an attempt to resist a spell, a trap, a poison, a disease, or a similar threat. You don’t normally decide to make a saving throw; you are forced to make one because your character or monster is at risk of harm.
How can you read that and think there shouldn't be at least a 5% chance of failure? If you're forced, then you need to be at risk of harm. If there's no risk, then there's no saving throw. But because a saving throw is forced, you must have that change, however minute, of failing and suffering harm.
I am not advocating for consequence free play, stop trying to attach falsehoods to my words; I already stated that I am fine with failing if the DC is high enough. I also stated I am fine with failing in other rolls that I did not specialize in. Stop trying to make me out as someone who wants to be able to automatically succeed on every single roll because that is not the case. It takes effort and investment to get a character to the point where they can succeed on a save with a nat 1; it sucks to have that effort and investment negated 5% of the time. If someone actually optimized their character to get to that point, they should be allowed to take full advantage of it and not have it be negated on them 5% of the time.
Saving Throws
A saving throw — also called a save — represents an attempt to resist a spell, a trap, a poison, a disease, or a similar threat. You don’t normally decide to make a saving throw; you are forced to make one because your character or monster is at risk of harm.
I can read that description of Saving Throws and think there shouldn't be at least a 5% chance of failure because it takes investment and effort to reach that point. Plus there is still a risk of harm if the effect has an effect on a successful save, usually half damage. Just because there is no chance of failure doesn't mean there is no saving throw. It has been working this way since 5E was released and it has been working fine. If it wasn't, then groups wouldn't be using the rule and having fun with it. I believe it is possible for someone to train themselves to trivialize a task to the point where it is akin to breathing to them.
In fact, I'll say it again. It is fine for a Saving Throw to have a 100% chance of success if the player has put in the effort made the necessary investments to optimize their saving throw to the point where they can succeed on a Nat 1.
5E's current rule for Nat 1/20 is not bad design. I'd honestly say it is good design.
If failing that save just causes you to be frightened for one turn before you get to roll the save again and you succeed and finish the combat, then sure, that'll give you a nice role play moment afterwards. But if it's a save against a Legendary action by the BBEG just as he's about to complete his grand ritual to end the world and spending a round Frightened causes you to not be able to move to where you need to to stop the ritual? That retroactively turns the entire campaign you just played into a pointless exercise. All the work the entire party did to get to that moment... The entire climax of the story... Ruined because someone decided you should always have at least an arbitrary 5% chance to fail anything you try.
And it doesn't matter that maybe only one in a thousand groups playing the game ever experiences that kind of situation once in their entire time playing D&D. Because what matters is that it can happen and it doesn't have to.
Tell us you haven't played Curse of Strahd without saying you haven't played Curse of Strahd. I've run it to multiple TPKs.
Failing to stop the BBEG doesn't mean the entire campaign was ruined or a pointless exercise. Stories are allowed to end on a dour note. Nobody owes you the win.
While yes no body owes you the win, losing to that 5% when without the auto fail rule you would have won, just sucks. It's anti-climatic and just feels like victory was stolen from you. If your actions directly lead to the lost then it would be fine, but in that situation it was just a 5% RNG screwing you over regardless of what you did. The issue is that 5% can just outright negate any and all preparation, it takes agency away from the player.
Also, I am pretty sure just because they think that way doesn't necessary mean they haven't played Curse of Strahd, at least the 5E version anyway.
Can someone explain to me why a character with +12 on their save should have the same chance of critical failure as someone with a +2?
Really, if that could be explained in a way that made sense to me, then I would feel better about this rule.
+12 represents their skill.
Dice rolls represent their luck.
The idea being no matter how skilled someone is, there is still a chance for an unlucky happenstance to befall them - and vice versa, there is a chance an unskilled person can get very lucky every now and again.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Can someone explain to me why a character with +12 on their save should have the same chance of critical failure as someone with a +2?
Really, if that could be explained in a way that made sense to me, then I would feel better about this rule.
+12 represents their skill.
Dice rolls represent their luck.
The idea being no matter how skilled someone is, there is still a chance for an unlucky happenstance to befall them - and vice versa, there is a chance an unskilled person can get very lucky every now and again.
Someone being able to succeed on a nat 1 goes beyond skilled; at that point the task at hand should be akin to breathing for them. Furthermore 5% is too high for a unlucky happenstance.
Someone being able to succeed on a nat 1 goes beyond skilled; at that point the task at hand should be akin to breathing for them. Furthermore 5% is too high for a unlucky happenstance.
A natural one is Beetoven missing a key or Luciano Pavarotti missing a note. No matter how natural their talent is; yes, it can still happen.
Whether 5% is too high; well I happen to agree; hence I'm more of a fan of such things being specifically tied to disadvantage rolls as opposed to standard rolls as well as other variant options that decrease the % such as threat/confirmation or use of 2d10 even.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Tell us you haven't played Curse of Strahd without saying you haven't played Curse of Strahd. I've run it to multiple TPKs.
Failing to stop the BBEG doesn't mean the entire campaign was ruined or a pointless exercise. Stories are allowed to end on a dour note. Nobody owes you the win.
Ok, so first off:
I'm a DM, pretty much exclusively, so my win condition is when my players enjoy the game I run`and my fail condition is when they get discouraged or frustrated and don't feel like playing anymore.
Secondly:
Really? Your counterpoint to the idea that a random bad roll screwing you out of defeating the BBEG can make an entire campaign feel ruined is to cite the one adventure for 5e that is specifically designed to be randomised every time you play it so that, win or lose, you can go back to play it again in a little while without having to do the exact same thing all over again?
Look... I've run straight up meat grinder one-shots in the past, but the core there is that the players knew in advance that the goal of that one-shot wasn't to win, but to see how far they could get. And that's still different from getting shafted by an arbitrary auto-fail.
Someone being able to succeed on a nat 1 goes beyond skilled; at that point the task at hand should be akin to breathing for them. Furthermore 5% is too high for a unlucky happenstance.
A natural one is Beetoven missing a key or Luciano Pavarotti missing a note. No matter how natural their talent is; yes, it can still happen.
Whether 5% is too high; well I happen to agree; hence I'm more of a fan of such things being specifically tied to disadvantage rolls as opposed to standard rolls as well as other variant options that decrease the % such as threat/confirmation or use of 2d10 even.
I'd argue that being able to succeed on a Nat 1 goes a bit beyond that. You are quite literally trivializing the task at hand to an insane degree. I'd argue that Beetoven missing a key or Luciano Pavarotti missing a note just means they didn't have the modifier to succeed on a Nat 1.
Under normal circumstances, without any additional boosts, a character maxes out a modifier at +11. That is having proficiency and maxing out a stat to 20, which is described as the mortal limit in 5E. Going beyond 20 in a stat means you are exceeding what a mortal should be capable of. +11 is essentially the normal mortal limit and you are among the best of the best if you have a modifier that high. Granted, D&D math never fully translated into real world analogies too well. However, I do feel that when you are approaching the absurdly high modifiers like +17, you are essentially Super Human at that task.
Something to keep in mind with these new rules is reroll mechanics are in growing increasingly common so in practicality it's not 5% chance ofa critical failure it's .25% or even .013% with minimal planning.
I'm working on a script to figure out how the changes the inspiration are going to directly impact these rules for 1/20.
Is that fully calculatable though? Because you aren't always going to have that inspiration and it depends a lot on what happened with previous actions. I feel like there are way too many factors at hand for that.
The other issue with the Nat 1/20 Auto Fail/Success rule is that if you are going to enforce that 5% fail chance, you are going to be slowing the game down. Every time someone could succeed on a nat 1, you can just skip the actual roll, which can speed the game up a decent amount. Sure each roll is a small amount of time, but with how often you roll, that amount of time can add up.
Making a specific post to address this particular bag of manure...
My dude, you don't seem to know the meaning of the word 'consequence'.
In narratives a consequence is the (usually, but not always, bad) result of a choice or action. A negative result from a die roll isn't a freaking 'consequence' , it's just bad luck.
If the party rocks up to the local king and starts insulting him to his face and he orders their execution, that is a consequence.
If the party approaches the local king and the party face respectfully requests an audience and he rolls a 1 and auto-fails on his DC 10 persuasion check despite having +12 to Persuasion, that's not a consequence, that's just random bullshit.
I'm going to offer some perspective from a different game:
Anyone who recognises my avatar probably already knows which one, but for the rest: Vampire the Masquerade.
Now... Rolling dice in VtM works very differently from D&D. Instead of rolling a single d20 and adding a modifier, the Storyteller System works with dice pools where you roll a pool of d10s determined by one's stats and any relevant bonuses and try to beat a difficulty set by the gamemaster (Storyteller or ST in the system's parlance). Various version of the game had different ways for determining said difficulty. Early on it was the number you had to roll on the die to make it count as a success (an easy task might require a 4 on a d10 for a success, an almost impossible task might require an 8) with any success on a single die meaning the action succeeded and the number of successes determining the magnitude of that success. Later on it moved to making the number required for a success static (a 6 or above) and making the difficulty determined by a minimum number of successes required.
In early versions of that system had a rule that regarded a '1' on a d10 to be a critical failure, which wouldn't simply not be a success on that die, but also negate one success on another die. The exception being a 10. A 10 was a guaranteed success that couldn't be negated by a 1 (so if you roll four dice and the results are 9,9, 1,1 you fail, because the two 1s cancel out the two 9s, but if you roll 10, 1, 1, 1 you succeed, because the three 1s can't cancel the automatic success of the 10).
So why does this matter?
That system was changed intentionally, because it felt bad to play with. Initially people couldn't really put into words why it felt bad, just that it did. So White Wolf did a lot of playtesting and gathered a lot of feedback and ultimately they reached a conclusion: Having any result on a roll be an automatic failure was more frustrating than it was beneficial.
The main way that a character would get stronger was to increase stats in order to increase the dice pool and therefore increasing the chance of getting at least one success in the roll.... But increasing dice pools also increased the chance of getting at least one 1. As your dice pool increased, the chance of succeeding did statistically increase, of course. But the psychological effect of knowing that a fluke could still ruin everything meant that it didn't feel like your character was getting stronger. The system had another mechanic for generating automatic successes, the willpower stat, which would grant you a limited pool of points you could spend to get one automatic success on a test that couldn't be negated by rolling a 1. And in playtesting they found that despite being far more expensive to raise than the stats that determine dice pools, most players would prefer to save up their xp points (VtM works on a system where instead of getting stat increases across the board when reaching a certain xp threshold, xp points can be spent directly to raise one's statistics) to buy more willpower.
Because with the looming spectre of your dice screwing you and causing you to automatically fail at something your character was supposed to be really, really good at, most players would prefer increasing their ability to enjoy the safety of that single, unspectacular success rather than making their character actually good at things.
Ultimately it was discovered that having the possibility of rolling 1s and negating their successes has a psychological effect far beyond the likelihood of it actually happening... Because when it did happen it felt so bad, because people felt cheated out of a success, that it outweighed the numerous instances where it didn't in the minds of the players. It made players afraid to roll their dice, because the mere chance that a straight roll could result in a complete failure even on a maximum dice pool felt so off puting that many players would just default to 'I spend a willpower, I'm not even going to bother rolling, tell me what my one success gets me'... And VtM already had far less emphasis on rolling than D&D does.
So they changed it. They still wanted to have the possibility of critical failures, because VtM is a drama game and nothing generates drama like an unmitigated failure. And when I say 'they' I don't just mean the designers. I mean the players as well. The players wanted a possibility of critical failure, just not the one they had. So they made it so that instead of subtracting successes from the rest of the roll, a 1 didn't matter if you rolled any successes, but triggered a critical failure if you didn't get at least one success.
And that felt a lot better. Because, sure, rolling a 1 could still be bad, but it would only be bad if the roll was a failure anyway. You were no longer 'cheated' out of a success by randomly rolling a 1. So rolling a 1 on a failure became almost as exciting as rolling six successes (VtM's version of a critical success).
Because the problem was never that a 1 could cause you to fail in and of itself, it was that rolling a 1 could turn what would otherwise have been a success into a failure.
The same is true for D&D. If you have a high enough modifier to succeed on a check regardless of what you roll then getting 'cheated' out of that success by rolling a 1 feels far worse than if you fail the check when you only had a middling chance to succeed in the first place.
Beyond that, though, there's another reason to keep '1 is critical miss, 20 is a critical success' only on attack rolls:
Failing a save is often far, far more devastating than failing an attack roll. With the exception of a desperate, hail-Mary attack on a creature that is close to death, but also about to wreck the party's sh... erhm poop, failing on an attack roll doesn't often have direct character ending consequences. You just... Miss one attack and did a little less damage a little less quickly this combat than if you'd succeeded. You'll make another next turn... Or if you have more than one attack per turn, you'll make another one right after (or made one already before on this turn).
But a save? Failing a save can be the difference between taking a lot of damage and taking an instantly lethal amount of damage. It can lead to a character suffering a debilitating condition that effectively takes them out of the running for the rest of the fight. A single failed save can result in widespread consequences that lead to a TPK in a way that a single failed attack almost never will.
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, suffering a TPK because one player failed a save due to getting an automatic failure by rolling a 1 on a roll that they would have succeeded at had they rolled any other number... including a 1 if that hadn't been an automatic failure... is the kind of utterly demoralising situation that can lead to the entire group just straight up giving up on the game.
Sure, objectively speaking it's just a fluke. It's not very likely to happen. But the fact that it can happen? That it does happen? That knowledge alone is enough to lead to people having anxiety attacks about a game that is, ultimately, supposed to be about telling a fun story with your friends (or, sometimes, people that you somewhat tolerate because they're the only people around you can play with).
I love the storyteller system, but, the difference between that and the D20 system is the reason why I feel you don't need 1's to fail in storytelling but you do on a D20.
In the storytelling system the binary success failure is more evened out to a degree of success and failure in that there is no such thing really as a definite pass. Even if the storyteller sets the pass at 1 dice and your rolling 5 you still have the chance of a failure. The rule of 1 meant that failure was more skewed then success which is why the system didn't work.
With a D20 system you make a choice, either players reach a point where they never have to roll for certain things because their stats are so high that they always auto succeed, something that can start to happen by level 9 or 10. Or you say that, yes, your character is amazing at a thing but, there is a chance that sometimes even they will make a mistake. For me the 2nd makes sense, the greatest sportsmen in the world, people who would be a +15 or 20 in a game of DnD sometimes still whiff. DnD however allows for that as well, there are so many ways a character can get advantage on a roll anyway that suddenly rolling a 1 becomes far less likely. But also, if a character can auto succeed, whats the point in disadvantage. If a player is trying to do that thing they have +15 to in the dark, and the DC is 16 and they should get Disadvantage, well, suddenly they are just as good in the dark as in daylight.
I understand the point you are trying to make but the D20 system by definition needs a chance of failure, I have been running this on my own table for years, in fact, and my players are totally happy with this, I do auto failures on a 1, but not auto success on a 20. It works really well and ensures there is always a sense of fallibility.
When the DM calls for an ability check, there should to be a chance of success or failure. If there isn't, then they're just wasting time. They're either padding egos or throwing their players up against literally impossible tasks. The DM can, and should, refrain from calling for die rolls when the outcome is already predetermined. So the critical failure/success rule shouldn't matter here. If it does, then all it does is encourage rolling more dice. Failures suck, but they aren't the end of the world. We can still learn something in our failures. And a success doesn't mean we get what we want. It means we get the best possible outcome. Attempting to seduce the dragon doesn't have to mean you actually seduce the dragon. It can just mean they find you amusing and won't eat you.
Attacks and saving throws are different. Those are forced by actions. There's no avoiding them; the DM can't just waive them. And because there's no choice, the solution should be painfully obvious. I get that y'all don't like it, but that's only because of perceived weakness. The die roll needs a consequence. Bringing up Legendary Resistance is a cop out. That's a finite resource the DM decides when to use. They don't have to use it on the first failed saving throw. Or the second. Or the third.
The best solution is probably something to take that edge off. I suggest shifting the Inspiration awarded for a Nat20 to the Nat1. The Nat20 is already a guaranteed success. It doesn't need a cherry on top. And learning something from a failure, pushing yourself to do better next time, makes sense.
When it comes to Saving throws my biggest issue with Not allowing a nat 1 is that as a DM it then instantly makes me meta game my own monsters and traps. But also, not allowing a nat 1 means that some classes are skewed to have better survivability when it comes to saving throws. Dex saving throws make up a vast majority of Trap saving throws, followed closely by Con. Is it right that the party rogue need never again be concerned about a trap because they will auto succeed the saving throw. I will also say that adding in that chance of extra failure isn't going to break the game. One of the biggest complaints from pretty much every DM is that Characters have it far too easy, the CR system in broken, characters can yoyo in combat, it is really difficult from level 6 or 7 onwards to really put the party in peril.
Those same DM's are now complaining that we are adding in an extra little bit of risk for those players who have made themselves literally bomb proof. Wizards have no risk of dropping concentration unless you attack them with monsters that are going to hit hard enough to do real damage for instance. Make up your mind, either you want the system fixed to make it a bit more balanced and give players a real challenge, or you are happy as is with your players just walking through high level dungeons with no real fear of actual death.
In a Binary D20 system, where all you have is success or failure removing the chance of failure makes the game really boring at times.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I say the best solution is to use the 5E rules that have been working for nearly a decade, where a nat 1 and 20 do not give auto fail or successes. It is perfectly fine for someone to be able to guarantee a roll. If it wasn't, then why did it go so well for my group? Being able to no-sell mind blasts actually enhanced the experience for my group. Fact is, being able to succeed on a nat 1 is not bad design and it works for a number groups, always has, and I say this as someone who has experienced both and failing on a nat 1 when your modifier would otherwise let you succeed on a nat 1 did not feel fun at all. Some people may find it fun, but not all, and it is not a case of D&D not being the game for them.
Not all dice rolls need a chance of failure. It is fine to say that someone just succeeds because their modifier is high enough. After all, they have other rolls that have a chance of failure and they can still fail if the DC is high enough that they can't succeed on a nat 1.
Fact is that there are groups that switched from Nat 1/20 auto fail/success and found it to be a superior experience, this includes being able to guarantee success on certain rolls. it is not a case of taking the edge off, it is being able to put the effort and investment into achieving something and not seeing it auto fail 5% of the time. People are not wrong for seeing it that way; their way of playing D&D is not wrong.
None of that has anything at all to do with optimization. Optimization is just building your character to be good at whatever you want your character to be good at.
I’ve seen tables played that way and I acknowledge that it is somewhat of an unofficial sacred cow, but it has never made sense to me. Why should someone unskilled in, say, stealth have the exact same chances of a critical failure and a critical success? It makes more sense to me to say that if you exceed the target number by 15 (for example) then you get a critical success and if you miss the target number by 15, you get a critical failure.
You keep saying die rolls don't need a failure chance. All I'm seeing is someone advocating for consequence-free play. You want all the reward with none of the risk. If a die roll doesn't have a chance of failure, then don't roll the die. If the die roll doesn't have a chance of success or some other benefit, then don't roll the die. The problem, and I've been saying this for a while to deaf ears and blind eyes, is we aren't always given that choice. Sometimes that roll is forced, and when that happens there needs to be a consequence. Don't force an exercise in randomness with a fixed outcome.
It's inconsistent to selectively apply the critical success and failure rule. It's wasteful and, worse, deceitful. Every inconsequential die rolled is a lie the DM tells their players. And if a roll is forced, there needs to be a chance of failure. Otherwise, there's no reason to forcing the roll in the first place.
Vernacular has changed a bit, and that could be a source of confusion. There have been a critical success and failure with the d20 since at least 2002. It was a variant rule found on page 34 of the DMG, and it worked differently than this UA proposal. You had to roll again, either success or failure, to confirm. And if confirmed, then something extra─good or bad─would happen. And, like I said earlier, this UA proposal doesn't really impact ability checks. Those happen because the DM calls for them, so the DM has already made the determination the check can succeed or fail. Some tasks can just be that routine and no roll is necessary.
But back in 3.5, both attack rolls and saving throws were subject to automatic successes and failures. If you rolled a natural 20, you passed. And if you rolled a natural 1, you failed. And that makes sense because they're not entirely in the DM's hands. The player can decide to attack or [Tooltip Not Found], for example, and they don't need the DM's permission. Combat is its own mini-game with special rules. Sometimes an action might even call for both an attack and saving throw; like with the wolf's bite.
I mean, for crying out loud...
How can you read that and think there shouldn't be at least a 5% chance of failure? If you're forced, then you need to be at risk of harm. If there's no risk, then there's no saving throw. But because a saving throw is forced, you must have that change, however minute, of failing and suffering harm.
Sure it can. Most of the time it isn't. If you've got a modifier of +5 and you want to succeed on something that's DC 20, you have a 70% chance of failure.
Thing is... You know in advance that you're trying something that's difficult for your character and that they're not (yet) very good at.
That's very different from, say, being asked to make a roll for a check that you should, in 5e RAW, succeed on with just your passive score because your DM has decided that there should always be a chance for failure and getting screwed out of succeeding on something that your character specialises in by rolling a 1. (Especially if some other party member who isn't even proficient at that thing then succeeds by rolling a 6 or something).
I don't think it's fair to say that there should be fear of anything, ever. There can be. That kind of suspense can even be fun and exhilarating. But I wouldn't decide for others that they need to go through that as a rule. (But then, I actually have an anxiety disorder, so I know first hand that there are people for whom even 'fun' low stakes fear can cause panic attacks even when, intellectually, they know it doesn't really matter.)
It's not just 'feeling bad'. It's a specific kind of feeling bad. It's the fact that something about human psychology makes failing feel much worse if you had no agency in it. If you weren't allowed to do anything to prevent it. In D&D's case, modifiers are what allow you to have some agency to affect the randomness of your rolls.
Also... Do you hear yourself? If playing a game that's supposed to be enjoyable makes people feel bad instead, that's a frickin' problem.
That depends pretty heavily on context. If failing that save just causes you to be frightened for one turn before you get to roll the save again and you succeed and finish the combat, then sure, that'll give you a nice role play moment afterwards. But if it's a save against a Legendary action by the BBEG just as he's about to complete his grand ritual to end the world and spending a round Frightened causes you to not be able to move to where you need to to stop the ritual? That retroactively turns the entire campaign you just played into a pointless exercise. All the work the entire party did to get to that moment... The entire climax of the story... Ruined because someone decided you should always have at least an arbitrary 5% chance to fail anything you try.
And it doesn't matter that maybe only one in a thousand groups playing the game ever experiences that kind of situation once in their entire time playing D&D. Because what matters is that it can happen and it doesn't have to.
Sure, but this rule does that in reverse. Rather than bringing an element of chance into the game, it brings a chance of failure into the game that in turn brings an element of chance into everything. Or at least into anything that can be rolled for. It makes it so that anything that can be rolled for, has to be rolled for, because there is always a chance for failure.
Great for you, I guess? White Wolf disagreed, because that rule was actively losing them players (who also disagreed) which is why they axed it.
Tell us you haven't played Curse of Strahd without saying you haven't played Curse of Strahd. I've run it to multiple TPKs.
Failing to stop the BBEG doesn't mean the entire campaign was ruined or a pointless exercise. Stories are allowed to end on a dour note. Nobody owes you the win.
Can someone explain to me why a character with +12 on their save should have the same chance of critical failure as someone with a +2?
Really, if that could be explained in a way that made sense to me, then I would feel better about this rule.
Well, critical failure is just failure, not anything special or extra-bad. And those characters do not have the same chance of failure, clearly.
There's no such thing as critical failure.
There was a rule I recall from somewhere, I think something third party, where a 20 was only a critical success if it would have been a success normally.
I am not advocating for consequence free play, stop trying to attach falsehoods to my words; I already stated that I am fine with failing if the DC is high enough. I also stated I am fine with failing in other rolls that I did not specialize in. Stop trying to make me out as someone who wants to be able to automatically succeed on every single roll because that is not the case. It takes effort and investment to get a character to the point where they can succeed on a save with a nat 1; it sucks to have that effort and investment negated 5% of the time. If someone actually optimized their character to get to that point, they should be allowed to take full advantage of it and not have it be negated on them 5% of the time.
I can read that description of Saving Throws and think there shouldn't be at least a 5% chance of failure because it takes investment and effort to reach that point. Plus there is still a risk of harm if the effect has an effect on a successful save, usually half damage. Just because there is no chance of failure doesn't mean there is no saving throw. It has been working this way since 5E was released and it has been working fine. If it wasn't, then groups wouldn't be using the rule and having fun with it. I believe it is possible for someone to train themselves to trivialize a task to the point where it is akin to breathing to them.
In fact, I'll say it again. It is fine for a Saving Throw to have a 100% chance of success if the player has put in the effort made the necessary investments to optimize their saving throw to the point where they can succeed on a Nat 1.
5E's current rule for Nat 1/20 is not bad design. I'd honestly say it is good design.
While yes no body owes you the win, losing to that 5% when without the auto fail rule you would have won, just sucks. It's anti-climatic and just feels like victory was stolen from you. If your actions directly lead to the lost then it would be fine, but in that situation it was just a 5% RNG screwing you over regardless of what you did. The issue is that 5% can just outright negate any and all preparation, it takes agency away from the player.
Also, I am pretty sure just because they think that way doesn't necessary mean they haven't played Curse of Strahd, at least the 5E version anyway.
+12 represents their skill.
Dice rolls represent their luck.
The idea being no matter how skilled someone is, there is still a chance for an unlucky happenstance to befall them - and vice versa, there is a chance an unskilled person can get very lucky every now and again.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Someone being able to succeed on a nat 1 goes beyond skilled; at that point the task at hand should be akin to breathing for them. Furthermore 5% is too high for a unlucky happenstance.
A natural one is Beetoven missing a key or Luciano Pavarotti missing a note. No matter how natural their talent is; yes, it can still happen.
Whether 5% is too high; well I happen to agree; hence I'm more of a fan of such things being specifically tied to disadvantage rolls as opposed to standard rolls as well as other variant options that decrease the % such as threat/confirmation or use of 2d10 even.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Ok, so first off:
I'm a DM, pretty much exclusively, so my win condition is when my players enjoy the game I run`and my fail condition is when they get discouraged or frustrated and don't feel like playing anymore.
Secondly:
Really? Your counterpoint to the idea that a random bad roll screwing you out of defeating the BBEG can make an entire campaign feel ruined is to cite the one adventure for 5e that is specifically designed to be randomised every time you play it so that, win or lose, you can go back to play it again in a little while without having to do the exact same thing all over again?
Look... I've run straight up meat grinder one-shots in the past, but the core there is that the players knew in advance that the goal of that one-shot wasn't to win, but to see how far they could get. And that's still different from getting shafted by an arbitrary auto-fail.
I'd argue that being able to succeed on a Nat 1 goes a bit beyond that. You are quite literally trivializing the task at hand to an insane degree. I'd argue that Beetoven missing a key or Luciano Pavarotti missing a note just means they didn't have the modifier to succeed on a Nat 1.
Under normal circumstances, without any additional boosts, a character maxes out a modifier at +11. That is having proficiency and maxing out a stat to 20, which is described as the mortal limit in 5E. Going beyond 20 in a stat means you are exceeding what a mortal should be capable of. +11 is essentially the normal mortal limit and you are among the best of the best if you have a modifier that high. Granted, D&D math never fully translated into real world analogies too well. However, I do feel that when you are approaching the absurdly high modifiers like +17, you are essentially Super Human at that task.
Is that fully calculatable though? Because you aren't always going to have that inspiration and it depends a lot on what happened with previous actions. I feel like there are way too many factors at hand for that.
The other issue with the Nat 1/20 Auto Fail/Success rule is that if you are going to enforce that 5% fail chance, you are going to be slowing the game down. Every time someone could succeed on a nat 1, you can just skip the actual roll, which can speed the game up a decent amount. Sure each roll is a small amount of time, but with how often you roll, that amount of time can add up.
Making a specific post to address this particular bag of manure...
My dude, you don't seem to know the meaning of the word 'consequence'.
In narratives a consequence is the (usually, but not always, bad) result of a choice or action. A negative result from a die roll isn't a freaking 'consequence' , it's just bad luck.
If the party rocks up to the local king and starts insulting him to his face and he orders their execution, that is a consequence.
If the party approaches the local king and the party face respectfully requests an audience and he rolls a 1 and auto-fails on his DC 10 persuasion check despite having +12 to Persuasion, that's not a consequence, that's just random bullshit.
I love the storyteller system, but, the difference between that and the D20 system is the reason why I feel you don't need 1's to fail in storytelling but you do on a D20.
In the storytelling system the binary success failure is more evened out to a degree of success and failure in that there is no such thing really as a definite pass. Even if the storyteller sets the pass at 1 dice and your rolling 5 you still have the chance of a failure. The rule of 1 meant that failure was more skewed then success which is why the system didn't work.
With a D20 system you make a choice, either players reach a point where they never have to roll for certain things because their stats are so high that they always auto succeed, something that can start to happen by level 9 or 10. Or you say that, yes, your character is amazing at a thing but, there is a chance that sometimes even they will make a mistake. For me the 2nd makes sense, the greatest sportsmen in the world, people who would be a +15 or 20 in a game of DnD sometimes still whiff. DnD however allows for that as well, there are so many ways a character can get advantage on a roll anyway that suddenly rolling a 1 becomes far less likely. But also, if a character can auto succeed, whats the point in disadvantage. If a player is trying to do that thing they have +15 to in the dark, and the DC is 16 and they should get Disadvantage, well, suddenly they are just as good in the dark as in daylight.
I understand the point you are trying to make but the D20 system by definition needs a chance of failure, I have been running this on my own table for years, in fact, and my players are totally happy with this, I do auto failures on a 1, but not auto success on a 20. It works really well and ensures there is always a sense of fallibility.
When it comes to Saving throws my biggest issue with Not allowing a nat 1 is that as a DM it then instantly makes me meta game my own monsters and traps. But also, not allowing a nat 1 means that some classes are skewed to have better survivability when it comes to saving throws. Dex saving throws make up a vast majority of Trap saving throws, followed closely by Con. Is it right that the party rogue need never again be concerned about a trap because they will auto succeed the saving throw. I will also say that adding in that chance of extra failure isn't going to break the game. One of the biggest complaints from pretty much every DM is that Characters have it far too easy, the CR system in broken, characters can yoyo in combat, it is really difficult from level 6 or 7 onwards to really put the party in peril.
Those same DM's are now complaining that we are adding in an extra little bit of risk for those players who have made themselves literally bomb proof. Wizards have no risk of dropping concentration unless you attack them with monsters that are going to hit hard enough to do real damage for instance. Make up your mind, either you want the system fixed to make it a bit more balanced and give players a real challenge, or you are happy as is with your players just walking through high level dungeons with no real fear of actual death.
In a Binary D20 system, where all you have is success or failure removing the chance of failure makes the game really boring at times.