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Who Is Ellen - 63 - HD
🕑 Added 2022-11-22 04:00:03 +0000 UTCDangerously silly.
Commentary
For the record, yes, she totally would have made it down the stairs without any problems if she hadn't suggested rolling for it as a joke.
Turkeys
This week is Thanksgiving week in the US, and I will be taking Friday and Saturday off from posting anything.
Given that Thanksgiving is Thursday, one might wonder why I don't take Thursday off from EGSNP, and toss something up on Saturday.
The answer is simple: I didn't want to wait that long to share what happens next.
Critical Fail
I don't know how many games do this, but there exists the concept of rolling a natural 20 on a twenty-sided die (the die result is literally 20 without any modifiers), and a natural 1 (same deal, but with 1).
Depending on the game, house rules, etc, rolling a natural 20 might make something exceptionally successful happen, while rolling a 1 might result in exceptional failure.
For the purpose of writing a fun story, our heroes are playing a game in which rolling a 1 on a d20 (twenty-sided dice) results in exceptional failure, and Ellen is going along with that rule.
As common as this idea is, not every group likes to use it, while others might like it enough to house rule it into games in which it's nowhere in the rulebook ("house rules" being rules people within a group agree on that differ from the rules in the rulebooks).
I personally think it's a fun concept, but I imagine it depends on the tone of the game and group. It's a chance to make moments of extreme nonsense happen, but that might not fit the mood of the game.
Comments
Daryl Sawyer
Probably their funniest track is "Worst Birthday Ever".
Wild Card
She is protected from the terrible secret of space.
wargrunt42
At least Nanase doesn't have to worry about being eaten by a Taranasaur at the bottom of the stairs. That would just be bad luck!
John Trauger
I'd give her a second roll to recover.
Jenora Feuer
Oh lord, a friend of mine exposed me to that. This friend had it on a mixtape he titled 'Difficult Listening'.
Daryl Sawyer
NANASE IS PROTECTED. SHE HAS GONE DOWN THE STAIRS. (Probably going to be paraphrasing the Laziest Men on Mars' "Terrible Secret of Space" for this entire story.)
Kendra Kirai
Game!Nanase: I told you guys! I warned you about the stairs!
Mark
I'm currently in a campaign with a system where the player rolls a single D10. The GM floated the idea of critical rolls, but given that when he is feeling bloody-minded, even an amazingly high roll will often result in a mediocre outcome, we declined to be crapped on one roll in 10 for negligible reward at the other end.
Thisguy
Thats generally how my DM does things. For skill checks, Nat 20 is not an auto success, but rather the best your character is capable of doing. And usually comes with a good bit of flavour text. Nat 1 will make a funny fail if you don't succeed with modifiers. In combat, a Nat one will be an auto miss, and come with a funny description, but no mechanical punishment.
wargrunt42
I once had a similar experience in a D&D 3.5 Campaign. My character was a Giant-blooded Dwarven Barbarian named Mongo Bubbuh-Stonebreaker. He was exiled from his birthplace, a Dwarven underground city in the mountains, for being freakishly too large in his youth. He grew to be 6'9" and was raised by humans. He had a 22 for strength, giving him a +6 modifier. I invested 4 ranks into Climbing as one his starting skills, so all in all, he had a +10 to Climbing checks. So as our campaign started, the party was being transported to do forced labor as punishment for starting a bar fight that turned into an all out riot. We managed to escape from the back of the cart and ran straight to the to the country's border and asked the border patrol if we could help them and joined the military. We helped them fight a battle against a small battalion of undead soldiers, which we won largely thanks to us. These undead soldiers were wearing the same uniform as us, so the commander sent our party to go check the outpost spire, the direction from which they came. We get there and find the place eerily deserted. We then hiked all the way to the top, with one of the other party members standing gaurd at the bottom. When we get there, all we see an unlit bonfire. Then suddenly we hear a roar of a dragon and we all take cover. The red dragon blasted the top of spire with its breath weapon and then continued on its merry way. No one was injured, but a nearby T-Rex mistook the dragon roar for a mating call and came to investigate. All it saw was our Ranger, still standing gaurd at the bottom. While the rest of the party rushed down several flights of stairs, I decided to take the quicker way and scale the outside of the building. The DM had me roll a Climbing check with a DC 15. All I had to do was roll 5 or higher on the die. I roll a nat 1. I slipped, lost my grip and started falling. The DM was nice and let me roll a Reflex Save to catch myself, which I barely pass. I was a little over halfway down, but needed to make another Climbing check. I rolled another nat 1. I fell the rest of the way. So there I was, lying prone and bloody on the ground with only 3 HP to my name to help the ranger fend off a T-Rex. The DM had us roll for initiative. I roll a nat 20. I ran away from the spire, hooting and hollering to grab its attention to buy the rest of the party a little time to reach to the bottom. Turns out the T-Rex ran faster than me, despite me having the run feat. It caught up within two turns and swallowed me whole. At least it was enough time for the rest of the party to catch up. They fought valiantly for a bit, but the fight ended with me cutting my way out of the T-Rex's stomach. And thus concluded our first session. So yeah, the dice sometimes really screws you over, then gives you a nat 20 when you don't really need it. Tis the way of the RNG gods.
Brooks Moses
I appreciate it when critical rolls result in some good "flavor text" regardless of the mechanical result. A Nat 20 should be automatic hit (if in combat) and a good story, while a Nat 1 should come with an embarrassing or funny story. If the skill modifiers outside of combat are such that one misses even with a 20 or hits with a 1 (and, if so, why were you rolling?), you can have a story of coming remarkably close to achieving the impossible, or mucking things up and just barely succeeding.
Jenora Feuer
*laughs* I had a GM in a Mekton Zeta game who would do stuff like that... if you said 'I eat my sandwich' you'd do it no problems, but if you said 'I try to eat my sandwich' he'd make you roll for it. One guy then failed a Reflexes roll (the stat the R.Talsorian games use instead of Dexterity) for eating his sandwich and the GM ruled that he held his sandwich too hard and half the ingredients were squeezed out and spilled down his shirt. We tended to be *very* careful of what we said around the GM after that.
Jared Fattmann
It's like Neo breaking the Oracle's vase in The Matrix... or how being nervous about cutting yourself with a knife is the easiest way to end up cutting yourself with a knife when you're cooking.
Copper Hamster
When evaluating your crit fail rules, have 20 spearmen line up attacking 20 dummies for 20 minutes. At the end of that time if anyone is dead or maimed, re-evaluate your rules.
Thisguy
In D&D Fifth Edition, rules as written, critical rules only apply to attack rolls and death saving throws. For attack roles, a Nat 20 is an automatic hit, and you roll double damage dice. A Nat 1 is just an automatic miss. For death saving throws, a Nat 1 counts as two failed death saves, and a Nat 20 allows you to regain 1 HP. RAW, critical do not affect skills, but some DMs like to make them do so because of reasons.
Stephen Gilberg
I found myself proud of good rolls and ashamed of bad rolls, until I realized that neither reflected on my personality.
Thisguy
I present to you: My character casts Scorching Ray using a 4th level spell slot. 5 attack rolls. 20, 20, 19, 10, 20 (unmodified). My group basically died of laughter and disbelief. Of course, my target was incinerated, hit by 16D6.
Thisguy
This is why you never roll unless the DM asks you to.
AstroChaos
Depends entirely on the player and caster. Plenty of builds in bog standard D&D where you are making most the rolls. That's less the issue here though... the real question is if you hold up the "20 is massive success, 1 is massive failure" rule when rolling OUTSIDE of combat situations. Some folks like that, others just check it as pass/fail regardless of if it was a 1 or 2 or whatever
Randall Wald
The biggest problem with crit fail rules in games like D&D is that melee characters are more likely to make attack rolls than spellcasters: melee always needs to roll to hit, while spells often are "I succeed at the spell automatically, my targets make their own rolls to resist." This tends to exacerbate the "linear warrior, quadratic wizard" problem.
