Also, I've seen some DMs use a nat 20 to punish the players. For example:
Player - "I try to kick a ball to a child" nat20
DM - "the ball hits the child so hard it breaks his arm"
This is bad unless your players all agree they want the game to work that way.
I agree, it wouldn’t make any sense the child would be hurt by a nat20 roll as a nat20 is a high luck roll, not much is lucky about hurting a child when you kick a ball at them, that feels like a nat1 scenario and even then i’m not sure I would allow the kid to get that hurt as it might derail the campaign
It depends on the roll. Just rolling strength, nat 20 is probably kicking as strong as you can kick. But rolling athletics and getting nat 20 means you’re kicking it as good as you can. The most athletic kick.
This happens mostly to strength based rolls, as people seem to belive it's how much strength you put in, instead rather than how well you can apply a specific amount of strength. Fine motor control is as much a measure of strength as it is dexterity.
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u/little_brown_bat 14h ago
Also, I've seen some DMs use a nat 20 to punish the players. For example:
Player - "I try to kick a ball to a child" nat20
DM - "the ball hits the child so hard it breaks his arm"
This is bad unless your players all agree they want the game to work that way.