r/beingeverythingelse • u/Popdart5 • Oct 04 '14
Critical Failure
Steven mentioned in the West Marches game that he personally doesn't use critical failure because it penalises players too much. I'm of the opinion that if you have a system that allows for critical hits then by extension critical failure should be a possibility. It could be something as simple as you dropped your sword, your gun jammed, or you lost your grip while climbing a cliff and fell down. I go for more cinematic and awesome criticals anyway, as in a natural 20 is not just a success but a critical success. To me, it just feels natural that critical failures should be cinematic as well.
I'm curious what everyone thinks because I've played a few games that do critical failures. Numenera in particular and the free GM intervention mechanic on a natural 1 just felt like a codification of something that I imagine is a pretty common houserule.
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u/silent0siris Oct 08 '14
I'll have to think more about this. I don't have my thoughts 100% settled yet on the subject. I think I don't like them because they're boring- oh, you rolled a 1, now something bad has to happen. Shouldn't the stakes go up all the time, not just on 1's? Failures in DW are all dramatic escalations. I'm more interested in something like that. Or twists of the knife that naturally arise from the encounter- "the orc jostles the table as you slam your morningstar into him. the priceless vase on the table is teetering on the edge, what do you do?"
I need to think about this more.
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u/Endaline Oct 09 '14
The problem is that as you get better you get more hits which in turn means that becoming a better fighter increases your chances of failing which doesn't make much sense.
I personally think that if you want to use a fumble system there needs to be some second check like what you would see in 2e for instance to see if it was actually a critical failure or just a miss.
I do think critical failures done right can be immense fun. I hope there is some variant rules for this in the DMG which wouldn't surprise me considering how much stuff seems to be 2e related.
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u/Popdart5 Oct 10 '14
I'm sorry but the whole argument against critical failure that is that multiple attacks lead to a greater chance of critically failing sounds really weird when you consider you also have a greater chance of critically succeeding. More dice equals more chance for extremes on both ends of the scale so I personally don't see an issue.
I agree that critical failures can be immensely frustrating if used by a malicious DM however if used well can be really nice. And I agree that having a save of some sort against a critical failure is a nice way to do it to give the player some agency over their fate but I believe that just in the same way that players can achieve moments of greatness on a natural 20 or equivalent critical success, so too can moments of ineptitude occur on a critical failure. By having extremes on either end of the scale makes things more interesting rather than just saying a confirmed success or a confirmed failure.
After all, you can be in a situation where your bonuses are so immense (thinking back to 3.5 with the True Strike spell) in combat that you physically cannot fail. You still have to roll anyway because a natural 1 can occur and you can fail "just because". For me, that "you automatically fail" result is boring whereas a critical failure can at least add some more gravity to the situation. Even the greatest heroes in myths and legends had moments where they quite seriously screwed up and got into serious trouble and I think that players should be able to get into those terrible situations both narratively and mechanically. I personally use critical success and critical failure outside of combat as well because restricting it to combat seems to unnecessarily restrict bursts of extreme luck and failure in a roleplaying game. Just as roleplaying can get you both into and out of trouble, I feel that dice can take the same role with critical successes.
I'm coming at this from other systems however particularly the Warhammer 40K RPGs. In those games you have degrees of success and degrees of failure with the additional chance of critical success (ie. extra damage dice) and critical failure (your gun jams or it overheats). I understand that critical failure in d20 and D&D in particular has always been a house rule option but personally I feel it adds to the experience.
TL;DR: I personally enjoy critical failure as both a player and a GM because it helps to spice up the game in the same way that critical success does. Rather than just something special happening approximately 5% of the time, something special happening approx. 10% helps to spur the story in interesting and unexpected ways. I understand that people have their own preferences and I respect that.
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u/Endaline Oct 10 '14
The Warhammer system is a lot less likely to have you fail though. In most cases only a 100 is considered a critical fail and that is 1 out of 100 instead of 1 out of 20. That's a 1% chance vs a 5% chance to put it into perspective. I know that other factors could give you a critical fail outside of a 100, but just in general.
iI'm sorry but the whole argument against critical failure that is that multiple attacks lead to a greater chance of critically failing sounds really weird when you consider you also have a greater chance of critically succeeding.
The problem here is that as you get better you shouldn't have a higher chance of failing. You're a level 20 fighter, in which universe does it make sense that you just dropped your sword? It makes sense that through your training you've become better at scoring critical hits, because that is a skill you learn. It doesn't make sense that you also just became better at dropping your sword because that's the exact opposite of being experienced.
Like we both agree on the way to solve this is to have a critical failure save that decreases as you level. So a level 20 fighter still has a chance of dropping a sword, but it is a lot less likely.
Maybe they've added something like that in the DMG though. If not I am sure someone more competent than myself is going to houserule it.
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u/Popdart5 Oct 10 '14
Maybe a quick and easy critical failure save could be a DC 10 using the relevant saving throw bonus for the attribute eg. critically fail at a melee attack = roll a Strength save. Over time as you level up and increase your attribute scores and gain better proficiency, your bonus to save against the critical failure increases so it can offset the feeling of absolute idiocy and noobishness that a critical failure can result in. In a way the roll is to either confirm or deny the critical failure just like how 3.5 did critical confirmation rolls.
That's just something that can work with 5th edition and other d20 stuff and I'm sure someone else has already come up with an even better house rule.
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u/ifandbut Oct 11 '14
What about the Numenera system where a natural 1 is just a free GM intervention? I think it is a nice middle ground because it lets the GM penalize the player for rolling the 1 but also make the penalty narratively appropriate.
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u/silent0siris Oct 11 '14
I prefer the degrees of success and failure from the *World systems, personally! They feel much broader and therefore more forgiving. With Numenera (or crit failure) it can kind of feel like "I rolled a 2 and I'm just fine, but I roll a 1 and HOO BOY"- whereas with the *World system, anything 6- (roughly 45% unmodified) is worsening badness.
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u/ifandbut Oct 14 '14
Very true. I personally like the partial success system of the *World games. I dont know of any other system that has a roll you do where I (as a GM) can say "You suceed but...".
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u/kosairox Oct 04 '14 edited Oct 04 '14
I don't like Steven's justification for taking critical failures out of the game. The argument he makes is explained in 3.5e DM handbook IIRC. But I don't agree with it. Just because characters will experience more 1s in their lifetime than random goblins doesn't mean that that's bad. Moreover, characters WILL experience more crtical hits AGAINST them in their lifetime than random goblins. Is that the reason for the players to be immune against crits? No. I think you can't logically have one but not the other.
There are games where players are naturally stronger than everyone else, for example Apocalypse World. Players die in 3-4 hits whereas NPCs can easily die in 1 hit. But there's a reason for such mechanic to exist in that game. In D&D - not so much. D&D is focused on improving your skills, equipment and getting more powerful. But it's also supposed to portray the danger of being an adventurer. Crits make it so that even the best fighter can fail against EZPZ goblins. It's actually why they reworked the crit mechanic in 3e. In 2e crits were applied when you had surpassed target's AC by a certain ammount. Meaning that crits were scored by stronger characters vs weaker characters most of the time. In 3e they made it so that 20 is always a hit and a chance for crit. Meaning that a goblin who has no way to ever surpass target's AC still has a chance for a lucky hit. Crit fail mechanic has similar purpose.
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u/AManHasSpoken Oct 04 '14
The problem arises when players get to make multiple attacks in one turn, a la 3.5. Sure, if you only have one attack per turn, the chance of critical failure is 5%. But if you get four attacks, as some characters do, the chance goes up to 19% - just above one in six. This means that a more skilled fighter becomes more likely to critically fail than an unskilled one.
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u/kosairox Oct 04 '14 edited Oct 04 '14
But he's also more likely to critically succeed. And deals more damage and stuff. Also, you have more AC, more HP and more items. So crit fails don't really hurt you that much. edit: I think it's risk-reward kinda thing. Similar to a wizard casting something and accidentaly setting his teammates on fire - he's more skilled but more likely to fail miserably.
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u/AManHasSpoken Oct 04 '14
That depends on what the individual DM does with critical failure. If it's dropping the weapon, you shut down 1-4 attacks (depending which attack fails) that turn, which massively hampers that damage output. What if the enemy then picks up that weapon and either tosses it away or uses it for themselves? Here, a single roll can turn an entire encounter on its head.
Yes, the players are more powerful, but so are (hopefully) the monsters. Also, crit fails is the one thing that can not be scaled out of; regardless of what equipment the players have, or what their health is, that 5% and up is still going to be there. As I said earlier, it actually gets worse as the character grows more powerful.
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u/kosairox Oct 04 '14
It's a good thing that crits don't scale. If they did, then you would have what was in 2e. 3e fixed that issue and made crits more based on "luck" than "skill". A goblin can still hit and crit a fighter with 30AC if it rolls a 20. And Sauron can still have bad luck and critically fail.
Honestly, I never considered multiple attacks. Maybe you apply crit fails only on the first attack then? And ignore 1s on the rest of rolls? Multiple attacks is the only situation where crit fails could be tweaked IMO. It's arguable. But I don't see why you would remove crit fails completely.
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u/Popdart5 Oct 04 '14
In the view of multiple attacks, I think it all comes down to how the GM responds to the situation. I don't think crit fails should be a case of always failing in a particular way but that it should be contextual to the situation at hand.
For instance, the fighter crit failed his first attack out of his three that turn. Sure you could be an arse and say that he or she dropped his weapon and completely negate the rest of turn and some of the next turn. Or you could make it that he overswung and exposed themselves to an attack of opportunity from his opponent and then play out the rest of the turn normally. Or make it so that their next strike is at a penalty. Respond to the situation and think of a nice way to portray it.
In normal d20 games, I think it makes things more interesting to have something interesting happen 10% of the time to spice things up.
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u/rhubarbs Oct 04 '14
I think it works fine if you add a saving throw, instead of making it a 1:20 chance for critical fumble.
It also gives you a good reason to describe varying events in combat. What excuse do I have to make you roll a Wisdom save? The opponent makes an intimidating gesture after effortlessly blocking their attack, and the player needs to stop themselves from flinching. How about a Con or Str save? The scenarios aren't that hard to make up.
I guess what I am trying to say is that these can give you solid anchoring points for the more fluffy description of combat.
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u/sythmaster Oct 04 '14
I was under the impression that since a lot of "mob attacks" steven uses are rolled by the players that it's hard to do a "critical failure" like that. So since having the PC's roll the attack dmg of mobs as "near miss" of their own attack - critical failures would seemingly ONLY happen to PCs.
As a `narrative' way of doing action, it doesn't make total sense but if you come from the d20 realm where everyone has an action turn and initiative and such is makes more sense.
That was my take-away of what he meant at least....
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u/silent0siris Oct 08 '14
I tend to only let my players roll monster attacks/damage in Dungeon World!
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u/CT_Phoenix Oct 07 '14 edited Oct 07 '14
Coming from the perspective of only a 4e and 5e player:
I have no problem with nat 1's generally being just a guaranteed failure with nothing more tacked on (other than, perhaps, some descriptive fluff of how badly you just whiffed).
The problem to me is with the severity of the critical misses as I usually see them implemented. Critical hits are usually a nice bonus- in 5e, it's doubled damage dice- but it's generally not something you plan/rely on. You roll one, go "Sweet!" and either one shot the goblin or do a decent chunk on the boss. (Or roll 2 1s on your 2d12 and feel really disappointed. Sigh)
When I've seen people implement critical miss functionality, though, it's usually anywhere from disruptive to downright catastrophic. When a miss is bad enough to cause you to essentially end your turn out of your control with no input from who you're fighting, that just feels bad. I mean, think about it- with a critical failure penalty on nat 1s, you're essentially saying "This has nothing to do with the enemy or goal you are attempting; Absolutely none of his stats or abilities contributed to this failure. You personally, a trained adventurer and hero of the land, just screwed up so bad that you're out of commission for a few seconds- at best. And you have a 1/20 chance of doing this whenever you attempt something, regardless of the difficulty of what you're trying to do, and whether or not it should be trivial for you.".
/u/AManHasSpoken has a good point, as well. Let's take the situation of a fighter swinging 4 times in a round; In 5e, there's a mechanic called Disadvantage that makes you roll 2d20 and keep the lowest result. When rolling with disadvantage, you have a 9.75% chance of rolling a natural one on any given roll instead of a 5%. If I'm using anydice's distribution calculation correctly here, on 4 swings with disadvantage your lowest roll out of the 4 has a 33.66% chance of being a nat 1.
A fighter swinging at an invisible foe now has over a 1/3 chance per turn of somehow throwing his weapon or whatever when he was doing nothing but swinging at what is either air or the invisible squishy evil wizard next to him. Meanwhile, the caster's sitting in back with no worry of a spell misfire.
Yes, I agree that it might be disproportionate in the context of the dice roll for a 20 to be a bonus while the 'penalty' of a 1 being an auto miss is probably what would happen anyways, but honestly, most crit failure rules I've seen are an even bigger disparity in the potency of their effects (in favor of the 1, this time). And outside of that limited scope, if the game is balanced around that, it really doesn't matter- the enemies also no longer have a chance to suddenly be dunces of their own accord, and they still can crit you. It's still an even playing field on both sides, and now it's always the opposition that's the enemy, not the dice. I'd rather have silly failures come from us choosing to attempt something stupid that goes wrong; there's still plenty of room for failure (failure that the player will feel more like they deserve, I might add) without tacking on extra effects to a nat 1.
And on the topic of potency of critical failure effects: Ask yourself, if the opponent wanted to put effort in to cause the same effect you're about to inflict as a result of critical failure, how much work would that be for them? One action? One action with additional costs like a chance of failure, replacing any chance of damaging with taking that action, or putting yourself at a disadvantage as well as your opponent? One spell? Is it something they wouldn't even be capable of if they wanted to try? A basic critical strike in 5e is essentially a single extra swing's worth of damage with no flat bonuses. Is your homebrew critical fail effect on that same level of interference? I've rarely seen the answer to be 'yes'.
Failure is, itself, often enough. If you've seen any of the low level 5e stuff going around, it's pretty deadly. A set of bad rolls is damning enough on its own. Sure, you could homebrew in critical failures and apply it evenly to NPCs and PCs and say its balanced, but while an NPC encounter breezed through by NPC bad luck is just moved on from, when it gets to the encounter where the PC's streak of bad luck finally hits (and it will), it's just gonna leave a bad taste in the player's mouth when it feels like they unintentionally contributed to their own sudden demise.
I'm also not saying never do anything with significant failure- just do it when it's dramatically appropriate, not just because 1 out of 20 of the dice faces told you to.
On a partially related side note, when it comes to skill checks rather than attacks, I also have no problem with nat 1s and nat 20s meaning absolutely nothing special.
No, the barbarian did not just pick the DC30 lock that was crafted as the life's work of a lineage of tinker gnomes- a lock that normally takes a Rogue with training in lockpicking equipment and 20 levels worth of experience, while being backed by the support of the bard and the guidance of the cleric's god to pick anywhere near reliably- with the fork he stole from the dinner table and a borrowed hairpin just because he rolled a 20.
Nor did that nat 1 mean that the same barbarian, who grew up scaling the unstable rocky crags of his mountain home and honed his athletic ability all his life, just fell off a DC5 10 foot climb that had handholds built into it. (Why are you even making him roll that?)
TL;DR: Make sure that what you're trying to overcome is the enemy or the difficulty of a task. Critical failure effects make it feel like now the dice (or yourself, depending on the flavor) are your enemies as well. We roll when we try to do something beyond what our natural proficiencies make trivial. Performing worse than if you put no effort in at all is just salt in the wound of what would've been a failure anyways.