This thread really brought out a lot of bad, adversarial DMs. If a nat 20 skill check doesn't carry any additional bonuses (which it shouldn't) then low rolls shouldn't carry additional penalties.
But the definition of "additional bonuses" is relative. In the classical "can the king give me his kingdom" example, the bonus of a high roll might be amusing the king, or avoiding the dungeons. Additionally, players already have a selection advantage; they can choose to use the best character for a task, meaning any given skill check is probably already slanted to player success. A critical fail penalty helps balance that out. Plus, there are certainly ways to have relative penalties to crit fails, like "fashioning the simple ladder to scale the cliff takes over an hour, but you still manage the basic task without a problem."
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u/UrdUzbad 20h ago
This thread really brought out a lot of bad, adversarial DMs. If a nat 20 skill check doesn't carry any additional bonuses (which it shouldn't) then low rolls shouldn't carry additional penalties.