I hate 1s so much!

[Netzach Sloth]

I know it's a PnP thing, but that doesn't mean I like it. How does it make sense for someone, regardless of how skilled they are, or incompetant their enemy, to always have a 5% chance of messing up?

When you go outside and stomp an ant hill, you don't have a 5% chance of missing the hill, and the ants on your leg don't have a 5% chance of missing their bite.

[Falaris]

Originally posted by Netzach Sloth:

Originally posted by Iridescence:

You're not "a boxer punching a baby" though. At level 8 you are simply an experienced adventurer who is pretty good at their job. At level 20 you may be one of the top fighters or wizards in the realm. I don't know where you get that your character is some kind of demigod that
never makes mistakes.

If my character were a demi god, they'd still have a five percent miss chance; that's my point.

At level 20, a sneak attack from invisibility against a level 1 mountainside still has a chance to miss.

You allways have a 5% chance to miss the broadside of a barn; demigod or no.

Missing isn't just not hitting, though. It also counts things like hitting the armor but not doing damage. In the 'kick an ant hill' example, the odds that you don't actually do any real damage is pretty good, despite stomping on it pretty hard.

[AzureTheGamerKobold]

Originally posted by Netzach Sloth:

I know it's a PnP thing, but that doesn't mean I like it. How does it make sense for someone, regardless of how skilled they are, or incompetant their enemy, to always have a 5% chance of messing up?

When you go outside and stomp an ant hill, you don't have a 5% chance of missing the hill, and the ants on your leg don't have a 5% chance of missing their bite.

yea i mean how does it make sense for people to crit and explode someones head off? so dumb....

in all seriousness its like saying you should never miss ever... the entire concept behind AC is that the enemy is moving dodge and trying to avoid damage. If you want no missing then you cant have crits either by your own logic, its silly to have a 5% chance to instantly kill someone...

You'd hate our table top group if you roll a 1 you have to do a reflex save or drop your weapon or fall prone... a fumble is just that a fumble .

[omegazeda]

Thats why xcom 2 is ♥♥♥♥ and only idiots like it!
5% miss chance turns into 100 XD

[Falaris]

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

You'd hate our table top group if you roll a 1 you have to do a reflex save or drop your weapon or fall prone... a fumble is just that a fumble .

That's ... not a good rule. Fighters, which would normally be the best at fighing (It's in the name), doesn't have good reflex saves, but many attacks - they'd end up throwing their weapons around all the time. In fact, at high level they'd lose every 4th round or so to dropping prone etc.

At the same time, that is a risk wizards and other spellcasters do not face, seeing as they seldom roll to hit, while they often are the real powerhouses, so it penalizes those that doesn't need it, in an illogical manner, for a bit of flavor that is better handled by GM descriptions.

IMHO.

[Iridescence]

Originally posted by Netzach Sloth:

If my character were a demi god, they'd still have a five percent miss chance; that's my point.

At level 20, a sneak attack from invisibility against a level 1 mountainside still has a chance to miss.

You allways have a 5% chance to miss the broadside of a barn; demigod or no.

If they were....but they are not and D&D is not meant to simulate that even at highest levels.
I mean, yeah, I'm sure in a proper campaign if your level 20 chaotic evil warrior wants to punch a baby in the face the DM is not going to make you roll to hit, but against an actual combatant that you would meet in the game? Yes, you should always have a small chance to miss.

[solthusx]

Originally posted by Falaris:

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

You'd hate our table top group if you roll a 1 you have to do a reflex save or drop your weapon or fall prone... a fumble is just that a fumble .

That's ... not a good rule. Fighters, which would normally be the best at fighing (It's in the name), doesn't have good reflex saves, but many attacks - they'd end up throwing their weapons around all the time. In fact, at high level they'd lose every 4th round or so to dropping prone etc.

At the same time, that is a risk wizards and other spellcasters do not face, seeing as they seldom roll to hit, while they often are the real powerhouses, so it penalizes those that doesn't need it, in an illogical manner, for a bit of flavor that is better handled by GM descriptions.

IMHO.

My former group tried a similar rule once. We dropped it after a combat encounter where my fighter fumbled and critically hit our cleric for most of his hit points XD

[drh]

Originally posted by NzFox:

in general its due to being under pressure, its why most GM and games let you take 10 or 20 on out of combat checks if you want (note, not a natural 20, that's different),
it just takes longer 'in word' time to do, ie 'take 20 to pick this lock but it takes you a 10 minutes' though CRPGs tend to ignore that part

People seem to forget this all the time, but nat 20/nat 1 doesn't apply to skill checks in PnP. You cannot jump all the way to the moon on a Acrobatics check with a nat 20, and jumping a distance of one foot (DC 1) doesn't autofail if you roll a 1. With skill checks, all that matters is the final result, compared with either the DC of the check or the opposing skill check, respectively. Automatic failure and success only happen with saves and attack rolls.

[drh]

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

You'd hate our table top group if you roll a 1 you have to do a reflex save or drop your weapon or fall prone... a fumble is just that a fumble .

This is why critical failure, despite being a popular meme, isn't actually a standard rule in d20 based systems. Dropping your sword on a nat 1 means that a seasoned level 20 fighter with four attacks per round will drop their sword more often than a level 1 fighter.

[Quacksalber]

I don't really care about it in combat, probably because I don't even try to be good at it, as there's too much about it I don't get and I play on nerfed normal, so I rarely have to repeat fights even if I miss all the time, but making everything diceroll dependent is a questionable choice in computer games when people can and do just reload. They went to all this effort to make the game "hard" by plonking timers everywhere so people can't rest spam and making resting take up to 2 days, and rations heavy etc, but it's not "hard" if people can reload to get the result they want.

[a weird person]

that is a dnd rng

[Sigmund Void]

Originally posted by Iridescence:

it's perfectly logical because you aren't rolling to step on an ant hill. You're still in combat, even if it's a level 20 fighter swinging at a kobold you can still trip or do something really clumsy. Ever watch sports and see like a great basketball player throw up a really bad air ball?

Imagine every fighter / sportsmen etc. had a 1 in 20 chance to ♥♥♥♥ up big time everytime they do something lol...


You'd literally see every team member of a football team for example fail miserably several times per game. Every.One.Of.Them.

[Netzach Sloth]

Originally posted by Faexin:

Originally posted by Iridescence:

it's perfectly logical because you aren't rolling to step on an ant hill. You're still in combat, even if it's a level 20 fighter swinging at a kobold you can still trip or do something really clumsy. Ever watch sports and see like a great basketball player throw up a really bad air ball?

Imagine every fighter / sportsmen etc. had a 1 in 20 chance to ♥♥♥♥ up big time everytime they do something lol...


You'd literally see every team member of a football team for example fail miserably several times per game. Every.One.Of.Them.

Critical Fail Football

I'd watch it.

[Iridescence]

Well "critical fails" do happen in sports...Even at the highest level

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18caPNisP2U

anyone?

Poor guy must've rolled a 1 on his ground ball check.

[Graygan]

Originally posted by Netzach Sloth:

Originally posted by Graygan:

Umm...

You're telling me you've never tripped over nothing?
You've never walked down a hallway completely sober and bounced off the wall?
You've never tripped on a stair when climbing?
You've never accidentally cut yourself doing something simple?
You've never dropped a glass that you just picked up?
You've never spilled some liquid out of glass while you were drinking?

The list just goes on and on.

And yeah... You can miss that ant hill. Sure, it's probably more likely a 1% chance in real life, but this is a game, not real life. And yeah... you could easily get those ants on your leg... in fact, you're more likely to get ants on your leg by stomping on an ant hill...

Speaking of which, I can tell you've never actually stepped on an ant hill... it only takes once to learn that lesson. Then you take a shovel, dig it up until you see the egg chamber, spray a lot of lighter fluid, and light those suckers up. Especially if you're dealing with formic acid type ants.

I feel like you didn't actually read what I wrote. It's implied that you get ants on your legs, that's why I said that there isn't a 5% chance for the ants to miss their bite.

You will not miss the ant hill, you will get ants on your leg, and you will get bit. No five percent failure chances for anybody; the anthill is to stationary for you to miss, and you're too large for the ants to miss.

You know...

There is a saying... "You couldn't hit the side of a barn" when referring to people who miss a lot of different things.

Look up the videos. There are tons of examples of just that. The one I find most hilarious is the dude in LA... less than 5 feet away from his cowering lawyer... empies a pistol at the lawyer... misses every single shot.

Ok... sure... lets be generous. He's untrained so at a -4 to hit. He's older, so maybe an 8 dex, another -1 to hit. But firearms are touch AC and the lawyer is effectively prone and next to him which provides a +4 to hit. The only way for the guy to miss is to roll a 1... 6 times in a row.

That's not the only example.

Failing a simple act is so commonplace, most people don't even think about it except when they're doing it or when the result is so funny it's memorable.

"Rolling a 1" is how my wife and I talk about obvious fails, because that's exactly what rolling a 1 is supposed to be. If you pay attention, it happens daily.

Throw some paper into the garbage can 5 feet away and miss.
Pick up a stack of papers and have some of them fall.
How many times have you had to bend over and pick something up because you've dropped it?

etc...

And again... just because it's stationary, doesn't mean you're going to hit that ant-hill every damned time. As for the ants missing you.... maybe their to-hit roll was to get onto your leg in the first place. How many missed? I'll bet it's more than 5% of the ones that had a chance to get on your leg. That's because you're a titanic giant with a high natural AC bonus compared to them. Of course some of them tried to get on you and failed. Some of those will have rolled a 1, but you don't notice because they're so small and you're more worried about the ones who did make their rolls.

[Graygan]

Oh... and yeah...

You will always have a 5% chance of missing on Attack rolls and saves.

Skill rolls do not have that 5% chance of missing, at least they're not supposed to. Skill rolls are non-critical possible meaning no critical miss and no critical hit chance. A 20 is not an auto-success with skills.

As for why? Game balance and lack of boredom. If you didn't have a chance of missing, there'd be no point in playing at a certain point. Why not just get to that point and click the button that says "You win, no need to actually spend time doing anything else."

Enjoyment for most people requires a bit of uncertainty. There's a reason Vegas makes so much money from slot machines. That variable payout with a chance of failure is addicting to humans.

No chance of failure = boring