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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Critical fail charts for 3.5



kingzerno
2016-01-11, 08:39 AM
Ok. So I'm 3 adventures in to a 3.5 campaign, with the players decisions ranging from "seriously. You want to do that? Really? Definitely?" to "That was ridiculously lucky." Along the way of advetures 1 and 2 a lot, and I mean a LOT, of 1's were rolled when making attack rolls (both them and me). After the twentieth "X gets stuck in the doorway" (it became a running joke) I decide to brew up a critcial fail chart.

Now I know a lot of players don't like these, so I asked if they all wanted to give it a trial.Adventure 3 was both ridicuous and hilarious and the chart was a hit (see the NPC archer tripping himself off a roof) and all the players agree they want to continue to use it.

I thought I'd throw it up here and get some critique on it. Perhaps you all can come up with changes/alterations? (The idea was the the lower the roll on the chart the worst the result). Hell share your experiences with using critical fail charts as well! Do they stand up to the long run of a campaign? Did your DM change them as your levels changed?

Or you can just call me a **** for using one :P

Table 1 Melee
Critical fail roll. Effect
1 Roll once more on this table and then on table 2.
2 The weapon shatters beyond repair
3 The weapon flies from your hand, landing 2d10 feet away in a random direction. If it hits someone make a ranged attacked roll.
4 Your attack misses wildly throwing you off balance -2AC this round, sneak attack damage applied if applicable.
5 You throw too much into the attack lurching forwards d10 feet in a random direction provoking atackcas of opportunity.
6 Your feet tangle and you lurch drunkenly, DC20 balance check or fall prone. Provokes attacks of opportunity.
7 Handling your weapon like a rank amateur you sprain your wrist -2 to attack rolls for d8 rounds
8 Grit clouds your vision -1 to hit for d4 rounds
9 So confident of your attack you throw everything into it. Overblancing your opponent may make a free trip attempt with a +4 modifier
10 Your attack is anticipated by your opponent(s). They gain a +2 bonus to attacks against you for one round.
11 You manage to damage your weapon. It is at -1 to attack until you spend a turn repairing it. (If the minus 1's gained from rolling this exceed your Base attack before a repair is made the weapon breaks)
12 Your opponent defends themselves excellently. Lose any remaining attacks. DC 15 dex to hold on to your weapon.
13 You misjudge your opponent(s) who take advantage. Attacks of opportunity against you.
14 In an embarrasing feat of clumsiness you cannot bring your own body under control, lose any remaining actions.
15 Your wild lunge is sidestepped. Your opponent gains a free disarm attempt.
16 Make an attack roll against a random person within reach
17 Your attack leaves you open, but only for a strike with the off hand. If unarmed this is a punch.
18 You fumble ineptly, loosening your grip on your weapon. Make a DC15 DEX check to recover your control or forfeit your next attack. You provoke an attack of opportunity from all enemies who threaten you.
19 Your opponent parries your strike, numbing your hand. -2 to attack rolls and strength based skills for d4 rounds
20 The strike comes off with magnificent effect. Controlling your failure you turn it into a precision strike, roll critical damage.

Table 2 Melee
1 Death. You are dead. Serves you right for being inept.
2 Your weapon explodes in your hand. D8 damage. If your weapon is destroyed due to table 1, roll a d6. 1-5 is the number of figners you lose. 6 costs you a hand. 1 fing no penalty. For each additional finger lost -1 to any atk rolls or skill checks (cumulataive). If a hand is lost switch to your off hand -3 penalty.
3 The nearest friendly character has enraged you beyond belief, you ignore your opponent(s) and attack them. If they are not in reach you spend any remaining movement heading towards them to attack on the next turn.
4 You somehow manage to slice the straps of your own armour. You are now not wearing armour.
5 Your attack bounces off of your opponent right back at you. Make an attack roll against yourself. You are flat footed.
6 Your attack bounces off of your oppenent right back at you. Make an attack roll against yourself. You are NOT flat footed.
7 You develop an irritational hatred for a random person involved in the ancounter for d3 rounds your sole focus is hurting them.
8 You start yelling wildly at your opponent(s) curisng their bloodline. All attacks will be directed against you for the next round.
9 Your boot laces snap, tangling you. You fall prone. A DC15 balance check is required to gain your feet in the next round
10 You are overcome with a wave of nausea -4 to attacks for d3 rounds
11 You have an irrepresible urge to cartwheel. DC 15 acrobatics check to carthweel away from your oppponents. Provokes attacks of opportunity.
12 That person insulted your mother! This cannot go unpunished. Bullrush a random person.
13 You must have the nearest shiny thing. For d3 rounds attempt to get the nearest shiny.
14 You know you're stronger than that guy (or gal) initiate a grapple with a random person within reach.
15 You're fed up of using this weapon. Discard it and draw a second one. If you don't have a second one it's time to go bare knuckle. (drawing provokes atks's of opportunity)
16 You are convinced you are a ferocious dragon. Forfeit your next round of actions as you bellow a challenge to all your opponents. Intimidate check. -20 circumstantial penalty as they can clearly see you aren't a dragon!
17 You wish you'd gone to the toilet before you came here. Soil yourself. Whenever you move DC15 dex to not slip on your own waste
18 So confident are you in your fighting ability that for the next round you will fight with your eyes closed -10 to atk and lose dex bonus to AC
19 Your attack is directed against a random person within range
20 You save yourself from disaster at the last second. You lucky lucky fool. Gain 5HP permanently. You deserve a treat.

And the ranged table:

Ranged

Roll once more on this table and then on table 2.
The weapon shatters beyond repair
Your bow string snaps, lashing up and across your face d4 damage. If a 4 is rolled you take on a pemanent scar
The weapon flies from your hand, landing 2d10 feet away in a random direction. If it hits someone make a ranged attacked roll.
The weapon rebounds hitting you in the face for d6 non-lethal damage and stunning you for one round
The weapon ricochets widly in your hands sending you sprawling 2d10 feet away from it.
Your feet tangle and you lurch drunkenly, DC20 balance check or fall prone. Provokes attacks of opportunity.
Handling your weapon like a rank amateur you sprain your wrist -2 to attack rolls for d8 rounds
Grit clouds your vision -1 to hit for d4 rounds
As you reach for an arrow/bolt/knife your hand snags. You tug hard. Your quiver scatters arrows everywhere. If wearing a bandolier the buckle snaps spilling the weapons.
A stray sunbeam temporarily blinds you. You are blind for d3 rounds.
Your opponent brings their weapon up to deflect the strike. The missile hits a random person within 10 feet. They take half damage.
You stare dumbfounded as your shot goes high and wide any attacks made against you are at +2
In an embarrasing feat of clumsiness you cannot bring your own body under control, lose any remaining actions.
You manage to damage your weapon. It is at -1 to attack until you spend a turn repairing it. (If the minus 1's gained from rolling this exceed your Base attack before a repair is made the weapon breaks)
Make an attack roll against a random person within range
Your fumbled shot sends your missile wide. You curse your incompetent attempt and spend a full round regaining your composure. You may take a move action but not an attack action in this time.
You fumble ineptly, loosening your grip on your weapon. Make a DC15 DEX check to recover your control or forfeit your next attack. You provoke an attack of opportunity from all enemies who threaten you.
You put too much into the attack, catching your hand and numbing it. -2 to attack rolls and strength based skills for d4 rounds
The strike comes off with magnificent effect. Controlling your failure you turn it into a precision strike, roll critical damage.

Ranged
Death. You are dead. Serves you right for being inept.
Your weapon explodes in your hand. D8 damage. If your weapon is destroyed due to table 1, roll a d6. 1-5 is the number of figners you lose. 6 costs you a hand. 1 fing no penalty. For each additional finger lost -1 to any atk rolls or skill checks (cumulataive). If a hand is lost switch to your off hand -3 penalty.
The nearest friendly character has enraged you beyond belief, you ignore your opponent(s) and direct your attack(s) against them.
You somehow manage to slice the straps of your own armour. You are now not wearing armour.
Your attack rebounds coming right at you. Make an attack roll against yourself. You are flat footed.
Your attack rebounds coming right at you. Make an attack roll against yourself. You are NOT flat footed.
You develop an irritational hatred for a random person involved in the ancounter for d3 rounds your sole focus is hurting them.
You start yelling wildly at your opponent(s) curisng their bloodline. All attacks will be directed against you for the next round.
Your boot laces snap, tangling you. You fall prone. A DC15 balance check is required to gain your feet in the next round
You are overcome with a wave of nausea -4 to attacks for d3 rounds
You have an irrepresible urge to cartwheel. DC 15 acrobatics check to carthweel away from your oppponents. Provokes attacks of opportunity.
That person insulted your mother! This cannot go unpunished. Bullrush a random person.
You must have the nearest shiny thing. For d3 rounds attempt to get the nearest shiny.
You know you're stronger than that guy (or gal) initiate a grapple with a random person within range.
You're fed up of using this weapon. Discard it and draw a second one. If you don't have a second one it's time to go bare knuckle. (provokes atk's of opportunity)
You are convinced you are a ferocious dragon. Forfeit your next round of actions as you bellow a challenge to all your opponents. Intimidate check. -20 circumstantial penalty as they can clearly see you aren't a dragon!
You wish you'd gone to the toilet before you came here. Soil yourself. Whenever you move DC15 dex to not slip on your own waste
So confident are you in your fighting ability that for the next round you will fight with your eyes closed -10 to atk and lose dex bonus to AC
Your attack is directed against a random person within range
You save yourself from disaster at the last second. You lucky lucky fool. Gain 5HP permanently. You deserve a treat

I had hoped to just upload the file I have, but that doesn't seem to be allowed so apologies for the crappy formatting. If anyone wants a copy I'm happy to provide.

Hamste
2016-01-11, 10:04 AM
Ok, so when do you roll on the table? When you get a one? Two ones in a row? Something else?

A massive problem I see is weapon destruction. A bulk of martials will have invested a lot in the weapon and irreparable weapon damage is a massive problem. It also doesn't make sense that weapons with higher hardness and hp than others have the same chance to shatter.

You also point to ineptness in several of the possible outcomes. Unless you did something special with them, the most skilled fighter is more likely to get one of these in a round than someone who is actually inept.

I also don't like the irrational mental ones or actions. It essentially tells the player how to play their character. If you want to make a calm collected character they shouldn't develop anger issues all of a sudden and if that weapon is your family's ancestral blade they shouldn't just decide they are done with it.

Also a few of these don't make sense for specific combat styles. Unarmed, thrown weapons, unarmored and two weapon fighting all mess with a few of these results.

There are also all the inherent problems with critical failures but those are repeated enough that you can just search them up if you are interested.

kingzerno
2016-01-11, 10:42 AM
When you make any attack roll and get a 1 you follow it up with a roll on table 1. Should that also come up as a 1 you follow the instruction of rolling again on table 1 and on table 2 applying both effects.

Bearing in mind this chart is currently for them at low level. They are all level 3 and have yet to get their hands on magicky goodness, so they are all dealing with common weapons. As the weapons get better I may adjust this or leave as is. One thought is to give them a save to prevent the breakage.

That's just for a bit of flavor in the text and I can change that on the fly depending. Calling them inept is my go to if I can't think of anything :P

Point taken. Those ones could perhaps do with being replaced.

None of the party currently use any of those styles, which is something I had in mind when doing it. If they go down that route then I will add alternate options for how they are fighting. i.e your weapon breaks in two handing fighting would become something like "roll a d6 1-3 your main weapon breaks, 4-6 your offhand weapon breaks"

I've read some critical failure threads and they seem to divide opinions. I decided to ask the players if they wanted to add it in as something out of the ordinary. It also lets them laugh at NPC's who fail.

Fast Jimmy
2016-01-11, 11:32 AM
I don't like the "instant death" rolls.

Yes, I realize you would have to roll 1's for the attack roll, the Table 1 Crit Fail and then the Table 2 Crit Fail... which seems like one in a million, right? Except it is 1/8000. Now think about multi-attack, or AoO, or two-weapon fighting and try to calculate how often 8000 attack rolls might happen across your entire party. Someone in a decent sized campaign is going to die this way. And it will be a near-riot, because chances are they will be fighting a kobold or something they could kill in their sleep.

kylehanson
2016-01-12, 10:44 PM
I would simplify the table a bit. Roll 1d8:

1. The weapon breaks or is damaged. (Ranged: 25% chance it's just the quiver)
2. Attack the next closest creature instead (friend or foe).
3. Throw weapon into square close to the target. If occupied, make an attack roll against it.
4. Trip forward: move to a square close to the target, provoking AoO
5. Flat-footed (lose DEX to AC; susceptible to sneak attacks), provoking AoO
6. Fall prone, provoking AoO
7. Sweat/helmet/backlash to the eyes: -4 to hit next turn
8. Lose any remaining portion of your turn (attacks or movement).

The lessening of variety has a few purposes. One is to avoid having partially overlapping results like dropping the weapon versus getting a check or else drop or throw the weapon. Another is to give me (the DM) a bit more flexibility. We could roll a 1d8 to determine a random direction and make it 2d10' or 1d3 squares away, but for example if a PC is firing a bow into melee combat, it just makes sense for any "you might hit someone else" result to affect the person with whom the target is in melee combat.

I try to make sure I put enough direction/limitation into the roll as to ensure some clarity and make sure my DM results are not "too convenient." This seems like the right amount.

(AoO = Attack of Opportunity)

kingzerno
2016-01-13, 11:46 AM
@fast jimmy I agree. But I figured the punishment for 3 1's needed to be severe. Because if you suffer that bad then you kind of deserve to die...

@kyle originally I thought of going with a smaller chart, but didn't want the results to become too samey. There's only so many times a player is going to throw his weapon away before they get annoyed! lol. The other reason for the larger chart was to have a spread of effects ranging from "oh sweet god why me?!" to "huh that wasn't so bad"