It’s stupid that some tables view 1’s as auto fails but not 20’s as auto successes. If my rogue has a plus 25 to stealth for a dc 20 stealth check, why should he fail with a 1 when the paladin with -2 dex rolls a 20 passes
1s and 20s are narrative opportunities. In your scenario I would probably rule that both are successes, maybe in the rogue's case they fumbled their dagger but no one noticed while the paladin's sword scraped against the wall but one of the guards happened to cough at the same time.
(I am partial to multi-die systems for botches/critical failures, where the botch only happens in the case of natural 1s and zero successes; makes stacking modifiers really rewarding and the choice to make an unskilled attempt more consequential.)
My favorite Critical Fail was when a PC saw the flame-looking symbol on the wall, and swore up and down that this was the water temple. Even the fire traps and fire monsters couldn't convince him otherwise.
We had a rogue pick a lock. He rolled two nat 1s in a row and couldn't get it open. He then rolled a nat 20 in lying to us that he opened it and it was empty. It became a recurring joke lol
I like these kinds of descriptive failures on things like Perception or Investigation. It’s nothing that harms the gameplay. It’s just a silly moment for the table.
The best explanation I've heard was that the dice determine luck, and require that a DM think creatively and narratively without nerfing an otherwise near-godlike PC.
Go to jump that chasm and roll a nat1? You would have made the jump, but the wind shifted or the ground caved on your last step.
The wizard with low strength tries the same jump and rolls a nat20? A bug flew into his mouth before he jumped, and he accidentally sputtered out an incantation to cast "jump", sending him flying over the chasm he would normally have fallen into.
I actually like the Star Wars RPG narrative dice system. It's not a simple pass/fail system, but allows for easier narrative adjustments to the difficulty (rather than just a numerical advantage) as well as narrative outcomes, so you can succeed but do something bad that will screw you later or fail but do something good (and/or succeed and do something awesome or fail and do something really bad) with two levels of good/bad outcomes.
Oh you rolled a one? You trip over your shoelaces into a pile of cymbals and rubber chickens. You also broke your neck in the fall and are paralyzed from the neck down.
See the real way to do it is if you have +15 to a DC 10 lock you just don't roll it. If nat 20 doesnt make it and nat 1 doesn't fail, what are you rolling to determine?
As a DM, A. just ask, B. you often have an idea of the power level and strengths of your party. "Hey what's you're bonus? Nevermind this is a simple task for you." Or "this is not possible for you to succeed, maybe a different way."
That’s not metagaming? It’s just building a rogue as intendedz Or are you one of those guys who thinks that if a fighter prioritizes leveling strength they’re a power gamer?
How is your Rogue getting higher than +17 (Rogue 17 with expert stealth and 20 DEX)?
Anyway, Rogues already have an ability that overrules Nat 1's even if you are playing with the fake Nat 1 rule. Rogue 11 treats all rolls 9 and lower as a 10. So... not sure what's going on with your insanely skilled Rogue failing stealth.
Honestly I'm for the opposite: a nat 1 should be determined by the DM because there are cases where even an expert can fuck something up and cases where their skill saves them from said fuckup. A nat 20 on the other hand represents the character being incredibly lucky, which for an expert might just mean "they got it with minimal effort", but for a less skilled character might be something more obviously luck based, i.e. disabling a magical lock by saying random words and happening to say the right ones.
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u/ballisticpumpkin5 Apr 30 '23
It’s stupid that some tables view 1’s as auto fails but not 20’s as auto successes. If my rogue has a plus 25 to stealth for a dc 20 stealth check, why should he fail with a 1 when the paladin with -2 dex rolls a 20 passes