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You can tack on so many modifiers that even if you roll a 1 you can end up with a pretty high roll. And the fact that DC checks can well exceed 20 makes it silly to allow auto success on a 20, even if it might be a feature of older D&D games.
Then again my favorite table top game was a game called Hackmaster, and that game used a D10,000 roll for your critical hits and had a frankly absurd number of esoteric tables that were purely there to murder you dead with RNG.
Not that I would really complain if a table top DM wanted to include auto failure or auto success, but in a game where I can cheese the game with saves it becomes less attractive.
Honestly not much of a fan of it in the table top either, as most DMs don't know how to add such situations in. Which ends up being a joke reason, or just because as the reason they failed.
Meanwhile system with Degrees of Failure and DoS tend to work out better, since game books which use those mechanics tend to teach and give GMs examples of how to use them in a game.
The greatest Sin or DnD is that it doesn't have a single page dedicated to teaching GMs and Players how to be a good role player, only how to run the games mechanics as if it were a video game and not a table top role playing game.
You should take a glance at other systems, for instance Black Crusade. It's critical hit system is based on the damage dice you roll, thus you only crit if you hit. You don't hit because you crit. Mind you I do undertand this is DnD, but it seems the other person was just speaking to the concept of auto hits / misses in general.
Counter argument: Making critical fail/success in terms of nat 1 and 20 rolls possible for skill checks defeats the purpose of proficiency. It would mean in 10% of the cases proficiency wouldn't matter at all (2/20 probability).
There is good reason in game design sense criticals only apply to attack rolls in D&D since 3rd edition. If you tamper with that you tamper with the games balancing as a whole.
It neither makes sense in a logical sense nor does it in a game's environment.
Example:
If I am a wizard who's very versed in Arcane Knowledge, even having one of my worst days (rolling a nat 1) will at least let me recall the most basic of knowledge. It doesn't make sense that all of a sudden I can't recall anything arcane anymore. The other extreme would be rolling a nat 20 as an unproficient char. Just because I'm having the best and brightest day of my life I can't all of a sudden recall all the arcane knowledge there is... as a fricking stupid barbarian... who has never even heard of anything arcane before except maybe that magic exists.
Other than not making any sense at all it's just a very poor design decision to possibly hardcore punish a player just for trying to make use of their skillset. Furthermore think of all the additional things you could use on the skill check. Take spells like guidance for instance. You not only would undermine the skills of the character making the check but all the characters that tried to support them.
I'm a super agile and dexterous rogue who's made the seemingly most impossible stunts work for years. And all of a sudden I fall off a normal ledge, break my neck and die. Because of a 5% chance. Well that's a lot of fun! /s
I will surely try to use my skills like this again with any of my characters when I know that I can critically fail at them, especially in the way that you described. /s
I lose one of my limbs because I fumbled at my persuasion? Screw persuasion then. Never gonna try that again.
It's hard enough to transport a complex and dynamic system like D&D or any other pen and paper game into a video game as there are many situations that arise from roleplay on the table that simply cannot be covered by a game's engine. Punishing you hard for something that gives you only limited choice to begin with would be even more frustrating.
If anything there should be a distinction between proficient characters and unproficient ones. Scoring the same they should get different grades of knowledge imho. The proficient one getting super reliable intel for instance where as the unproficient one only gets vague hearsay. That's at least how I would rule it in my games.
Having said that, I wouldn't care if this becomes another toggle option. I'm sure there will be plenty of mods for people to homebrew their own BG3 games.
DEGREES OF FAILURE
Sometimes a failed ability check has different
consequences depending on the degree of failure. For
example, a character who fails to disarm a trapped chest
might accidentally spring the trap if the check fails by
5 or more, whereas a lesser failure means that the trap
wasn't triggered during the botched disarm attempt.
Consider adding similar distinctions to other checks.
Perhaps a failed Charisma (Persuasion) check means a
queen won't help, whereas a failure of 5 or more means
she throws you in the dungeon for your impudence.
CRITICAL SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw
doesn't normally have any special effect. However,
you can choose to take such an exceptional roll into
account when adjudicating the outcome. It's up to you
to determine how this manifests in the game. An easy
approach is to increase the impact of the success or
failure. For example, rolling a 1 on a failed attempt
to pick a lock might break the thieves' tools being
used, and rolling a 20 on a successful Intelligence
(Investigation) check might reveal an extra clue.
While you as the DM can surely take into account the roll of a nat 1 or 20 to emphasize on the failure or success it is not meant to determine the outcome as the basis for the measurement. IF your roll is a failure (as is determined in "Degrees of Failure") and your roll is a nat 1 THEN you can emphasize on that. So what the very well versed balancing team of WotC has laid out for us is: first determine the difficulty of an attempted task by assigning a DC (Difficulty Class) then let the player roll against it and finally determine the outcome. So for instance...lets take the rogue player from the example. The player might have said "I try to disarm that trap using my thieves tools." The DM then either replied "Okay this is not the most complex of traps you've seen something like this quite often before; roll a DEX check adding your proficiency bonus with the tools if you have such against DC 13." or they might not reveal the DC that's ofc up to the DM. The video game tells us because it's different in video games and to hide information from the player makes them feel cheated and can be considered bad design. The rogue player then rolls and scores a 9 with a roll of a nat 1(+5 DEX+3 Proficiency). They fail in their attempt, but they're actually not that far off. The DM has ruled that in this case an 8 would spring the trap. But the rogue is super dexterous and already has done some adventuring so it can be assumed they know what they're doing and this can be considered an everyday task for them. Nonetheless they fumbled. The DM rules they make a noise while scratching along the metal with their tools also damaging the tools in the process. They need to use a new set of tools for their next attempt and maybe have alerted someone in the vicinity to their presence.
In your ruling catastrophe has struck them and they should be hit by a comet for this now.
In another example a Bard tries to persuade a shop owner to give them a discount since they're such a fine customer who also intends to become a regular given the right incentive. The trader is generally of the sort that drives a hard bargain. The DC is quite high for this with an 18. The Bard rolls a nat 1 for a total of 9 and fails their check by an impressive amount. The shop owner takes it as a serious insult, calls his personal guard and orders them to throw the bard out of their shop giving them a lifetime ban from it. On top of it all the guard throws them out with little regard to their wellbeing. They land on the streets face first and take 3 bludgeoning damage.
Had they tried this with another trader and failed with a nat 1 they might have only pissed them off for the day.
In your ruling the guard probably would've split the bards head in two instantly.
The system gives you a way to fail miserably or succeed heroically at skill checks. By how much is only determined by the difficulty of the task itself not by a stupid 1 or 20 roll on the dice.
Failing can be a fun thing if implemented correctly.
Exactly; and every good game designer knows this. It basically is chance implemented in a fun-killing way. It goes in the same direction as hiding crucial information for a decision from the player. Expecting a decision from a player not giving them full information on what their decision should be based upon makes it not a decision, it makes it a guess.
A good DM will always make critical fails memorable and fun/funny even if it is to your detriment.
I find D&D its most enjoyable when theres risk and reward but the failures are handled in a way that leads to something interesting or funny happening.
Critical fail persuasion check? "You are about to give a well prepared speech that would surely win them over when all of a sudden you feel wind break from your pantaloons loudly."
Critical fail melee attack? You swing and lose your grip and the sword hits a random foe or friend(or self) in a direction decided by a D6 for cerdinal directions. (bonus if theres a critter nearby it might be hit instead of combatants)
Critical fail a ranged attack? You prematurely fire your shot and hit a random foe or friend(or self) in a direction decided by a D6 for cerdinal directions. (bonus if theres a critter nearby it might be hit instead of combatants)
Critical fail medicine check? YOUVE SEEN THIS PROCEDURE BEFORE OBVIOUSLY! (breaks injured persons arm and makes them lose a death save or hp)
You can go down the list for any skill check or d20 based action and eventually find something. Perception and Investigation might be a bit tricky though but context is always key to making critical failures fun.
Here's an example thats just stupid imo: You find a body in a collapsed tunnel in the goblin fortress. I failed my roll (got 1 + 3 + 2 = 6, which turned red because 6 is less than 5) and couldn't deduce that the crushed body died of all the things it is crushed underneath.
I have problems with every part of that. why even add the numbers if 1 is always a fail? Why is this a check when anyone capable of breathing knows what being crushed under rocks looks like? Most of the complaining about "skill checks you don't like" getting instant failure removed are these examples. Don't change how the skill check works, just do things that can't be failed differently.
And as has been said, the system gives us a good basis and examples on how to handle those ones well. It's just that the game implements them incorrectly and the creator of this thread doesn't seem to realize it for some reason.
I don't even get the addition part. When rolling a one on the die the game just shows me this as critical fail, adds nothing and lets me fail even though the result should still have ended in a success. Which basically is the false implementation of the mechanic we're talking about here. :D