Ok, player venting about his GM.
I know the catechism, "If you don't like it, don't play at their table."

The thing is, he's a good GM most of the time, but I think he doesn't realize how unfair he's being.

Ok, 5th Edition, in combat, a nat 20 gets you double damage dice. That's it.

Last night, our fighter types rolled a couple of nat 1's; one had his bowstring burst, ruining the weapon (I pointed out it would just need a new bowstring, the  bow itself would be fine, but the GM ruled the entire weapon was ruined).

At another point, the Monk is going Flurry of Blows, gets a 1 on his first attack roll. GM rules his follow-up attacks are rolled with Disadvantage (which I wasn't really butthurt about); next round, the player is told ALL his attacks will have Disadvantage, as he broke his hand, and it won't go away till he's healed up.

OK, having the follow-up attacks being Disadvantaged didn't seem bad to me, but EVERY attack until he's healed up? Having to fish out a new bowstring and re-string the bow seems realistic, but having the weapon be destroyed?

Critical strikes are "nice", but critical fumbles are fucking disastrous.

I'm looking for some suggestions on how to approach him with this critique, where we can have a nice, adult conversation (I know I'm a little heated at the moment, since it happened last night.)

Imo, yes, that's fucking bullshit.

A 5% chance per Attack of gaining a long term disadvantage??

Might be helpful to run numbers on the chance of crit fail in a single encounter.

Yeah, that looks like he's being a dick about crit fails. "How not to break your hand while punching" should be like week 1, day 1 of unarmed combat training school, not a 1/20 chance for an experienced character. I can see something like "the bow snapped back too violently, and now the wood is too damaged to hold under stress", but again, seems excessive (Although much easier to solve).

As long as the DM is doing the same for monsters's critical fumbles it works out OK.  Though personally I find them more trouble and annoyance than they are worth.

Yeah, it's excessive.

I'm actually in the other camp. I tend to use a critical hit chart (so double damage is the minimum effect), and impose disadvantage on the next attack following the critical fumble (essentially because the attacker has thrown their balance off, or whatever).

My players are actually PREPARED for something HORRIBLE happening on 1s...but I think Disadvantage is good enough.

Critical fumbles should have exploding dice so that your campaigns can occasionally be riddled with Pink Panther pratfalls.





Ok probably not but that's the only premise I accept for critical fumbles!

Those examples sound excessive to me... but on the other hand I really like botch tables for magic fumbles, like in DCC... and some of those can lead to less than desirable and permanent fallout.
And... having a guy who fights with his hands/feet damage his 'weapons' doesn't sound all that implausible.

It's especially bad for the monk or any other character who is rolling more attacks. Extra attacks should be a good thing especially when it's given as a compensation for doing less damage.

I've got rid of critical fumbles from my game about four years ago and no one has missed them.

As many have already said, imposing harsh penalties for something that will happen every 20 rolls (on the average) on a d20 is nuts.

It's worth remembering a 1 is always a miss and a 20 is always a hit. Plus a 20 gets double damage.
As it stands it works fine.
I sometimes add some RP effect for a natural 20 or natural 1 if appropriate, but I wouldn't make a 1 roll (which the player has no control over) be something that will screw up the character in the medium or long term.

We had a critical miss table that included dropping your weapon, breaking your weapon and hitting an ally. Breaking a weapon was the only inevitably ongoing result but it also got a saving throw, depending on the weapon. Bows generally only lost a bow string, and other weapons usually suffered some sort of damage that made them not usable for the rest of the adventure but still salvageable for magical weapons once you got home. Most rolls of one were just an ordinary miss; inapplicable results also had no effect (so dropping your natural weapon didn't do anything). Break weapon with a natural weapon would do damage to the attacker on a failed saving throw. And the critical hit table was significantly more dangerous; disabled limbs could result from the opponent's critical hit (although not very frequent at all).

Too severe of results changes the feel of the game; it becomes likely that your character will die as a result of attacking or being attacked a certain number of times and all of the strategy turns into avoiding risking that circumstance. How adventurous can you be if your career is built around avoiding attacking anyone? So, we eventually abandoned the more severe results on the critical hit table in favor of mildly exploding damage (which could still kill you), and made the more unpleasant fumbles much more unlikely.

So, briefly, I guess I agree that this is not good GMing, although I like the concept of fumbles in a more restrained way.

Quote from: Ladybird;815992I can see something like "the bow snapped back too violently, and now the wood is too damaged to hold under stress", but again, seems excessive (Although much easier to solve).

Except that it doesn't happen.  Many years of experience in archery (both regular bows and crossbows), and I've never seen or heard of a bowstring break damaging the bow itself.  Maybe a snap could cause an inexperienced archer to stumble, jam the bow against something unyielding and break it that way, but the bow is supposed to snap back violently; that's how it works in the first place.  For an experienced archer, an every-rare-once-in-a-while bowstring break is worth cursing, and it's dangerous, but it sure as hell isn't a 1:20 deal, or no one would ever pick up a bow.

I agree the GM's being a tool, although a polite way to say so is a good idea.  If worst comes to worst, try offering him to forgo critical hits in return for critical failures going away.

I used to use a fumble check.
Roll a "1" then you have to your level or under on a d20 to avoid a random crit fumble.

This way 15th level fighters rarely crit fumbled. (1 in 80 chance)

However, now I don't bother even with that.

If i reintroduced it I would make it a save vs appropriate stat based on the circumstance defaulting to dex and apply it to all checks.

It would be a damn sight strange if a critical fumble was *better* than a critical hit, no?

Somebody had to say it...

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;816026It would be a damn sight strange if a critical fumble was *better* than a critical hit, no?

Somebody had to say it...

-clash

You win the thread.

Some suggestions to suggest to the DM.

Fumbles are just that, fumbles, not catastrophic fails. You swing and miss, maybee embedding your sword in a pillar or wall. Needs an action to dislodge or just imposes penalty next attack as you rip it loose and have at it again.
The arrow wiffles and lands at your feet, or the feathers strip off in flight because they were badly set and the thing goes swerving off course. Possibly narrowly missing someone else. IE: Embarassing things rather than debilitating. Roll again to see if it was a fumble. 1=yes and apply something bad THEN as the RNG God is really gunning for you today.
Or make it the players choice. Accept a minor flub, or opt to roll again and if its a 1 then you get the worse result and its your own fault thin for tempting the RNG God.

Alternatively do as others suggested. Just impose disadvantage next attack.

Now personally what I do is when theres a roll of 1 in combat and theres someone else in the line of fire. I or the player rolls again to-hit vs that other target at disadvantage. Friend or foe.