Variant: extended rolls for natural 1s and 20s

I don't know if this variant has already been thought of by someone. Please tell me whether you think this is balanced or makes the game worse.

This variant applies to hit rolls, saving throws, and any time the usual rules would say that a 20 is an automatic success and a 1 an automatic failure. It therefore doesn't apply to ability rolls.
When you roll the d20 and get a natural 20, add 1d6-1 to the result. If this brings the roll up to 25, add another 1d6-1, and so on.
When you roll the d20 and get a natural 1, subtract 1d6-1 to the result. If this brings the roll down to -5, subtract another 1d6-1, and so on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pigkappa

I don't know if this variant has already been thought of by someone. Please tell me whether you think this is balanced or makes the game worse.

This variant applies to hit rolls, saving throws, and any time the usual rules would say that a 20 is an automatic success and a 1 an automatic failure. It therefore doesn't apply to ability rolls.
When you roll the d20 and get a natural 20, add 1d6-1 to the result. If this brings the roll up to 25, add another 1d6-1, and so on.
When you roll the d20 and get a natural 1, subtract 1d6-1 to the result. If this brings the roll down to -5, subtract another 1d6-1, and so on.

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I dunno, I kinda enjoy rolling to see what silliness occurs on a critical fumble. I have a d% table for that.

I also enjoy seeing the joy on a player's face when he/she invokes the equivalent of a headshot in DnD. I play with an instant death rule. A player rolls a natural 20. Rolls to confirm. Comes up a natural 20. Monster makes a death by massive damage save. Monster fails save. Monster dies. (If the monster makes the save, the monster is "stunned" and loses its next action, and takes whatever normal crit damage for the weapon is.)
Note: This is only on a natural 20, with something that crits on 19-20 or whatever, it is still only on a natural 20.

Why not use exploding dice on 1s and 20s?

That's quite dangerous in my opinion. When a player will be killed by a mouse because that rolls two 20s in a row, he will be reasonably angry. Also, that way a level 1 archer who suprises an ancient gold dragon has more than a 0,01% chance to kill the dragon with one arrow. An ancient dragon fighting a group of 1000 archers has a decent chance to be oneshotted by an arrow, which is kinda strange IMHO.

[I was answering dsmiles, but exploding dices are dangerous too :smalltongue:]

An alterneate rule in the DMG does the same thing but you require three natural 20's in a row(natural 20 to hit,natural 20 to confirm, natural 20 to kill).

I like the stacking-crit rule that I've seen used.

You roll within your crit range. You roll to confirm. It's also in your crit range? You roll again to confirm (till you do not get a crit roll)

If you confirmed, say, 5 times, you crit '5x'. As in, for x2 crits, it is;

x2x2x2x2x2 = x6 damage, and for x4 crits;
x4x4x4x4x4 = x16 damage.

It makes for super damaging shots, but the chance of a L1 archer one-shotting a great wyrm is EXTREMELY small.

Which works well, since it COULD happen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pigkappa

That's quite dangerous in my opinion. When a player will be killed by a mouse because that rolls two 20s in a row, he will be reasonably angry. Also, that way a level 1 archer who suprises an ancient gold dragon has more than a 0,01% chance to kill the dragon with one arrow. An ancient dragon fighting a group of 1000 archers has a decent chance to be oneshotted by an arrow, which is kinda strange IMHO.

[I was answering dsmiles, but exploding dices are dangerous too :smalltongue:]

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That's why I treat attack rolls where you confirm a crit with a natural 20 (after confirming THAT, of course) as Coup de Graces.

Mouse got a double nat 20 on you? Make a DC 12 Fort save.

Of course, when you get to higher levels, it can get ridiculous.

Power attacking for +10 damage, with a +10 bonus from Strength, and that's a DC 50 save before even rolling for damage. :smalltongue:

But you know, my players support the rule, even though I've told them they might fall victim to it.