Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 107 - Critical Hits & Misses

Episode Date: January 9, 2022

In this episode Jeremy talks about the different rules for Critical Hits and Misses in Pathfinder, Starfinder, and 5e; discusses some alternate rules and gives advice for how he handles these situations in his games. Finally, he gives some advice about what food you should NEVER bring into the bedroom.

This week on the Taking 20 Podcast. I want you guys to notice what I didn't say Natural 20s and Natural 1s affect. Skill checks. Just because you rolled a Natural 20 to persuade the potion shop salesman to lower his price, that doesn't mean you scored a crit and get potions for free. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to episode 107 of the Taking 20 podcast, this week focusing on critical hits and fumbles. This week's sponsor, knives.

If your kitchen knife breaks, there's no reason to get upset. The knife just couldn't cut it anymore. So evidently, I'm continuing to have trouble with my domain hosting, and I'm trying to get that fixed. Email notifications may be delayed, but you can always reach out to me on my Facebook page, Twitter, or Instagram accounts. That does lead me to an apology. I had some very generous people donate to my ko-fi account, and I never received a notification about it. So to the people who donated last year, thank you so very much. I greatly appreciate your generosity and have all but paid for all of the hosting costs for all of 2022. You are all very kind and I cannot thank you enough.

Fair warning, this is a rare rules-heavy episode of the Taking20 podcast. Most of the time I try to give advice that is system agnostic, meaning you can use it whether you're DMing Pathfinder, 5e, Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, or any other system. Unfortunately, critical rules vary widely from edition to edition, so I'll need to start us off by talking about the Rules as Written, or RAW. Rules as Written in 5th edition, natural 20s and natural 1s only change what happens on attack rolls and death-saving throws. That's it. If you roll a natural 20 on your attack roll, that means you have scored a critical hit on that attack. You automatically hit and roll double the amount of dice

that you normally would for damage. For example, if you critically hit with a longsword, you will roll 2d8 for the damage instead of 1d8. It should be noted that you do not double any modifiers that you have to your damage roll. So if your normal damage is 1d8 plus 3, a crit will mean that you do 2d8 plus 3 damage. Conversely, if you roll a natural 1 on your attack roll, then you've critically missed, and you do not hit your target regardless of what the result of the roll would be, including all of your bonuses. The same is true for death saving throws that you have to make when your character is reduced to zero hit points and you are dying. You have to make a special saving throw

with a difficulty class of 10. If you succeed three times before you fail three times, your character stabilizes and does not die. But if you fail three times first, you're dead. Kaput. Off to meet your maker. Bereft of life, may you rest in peace. Here's why it's related to crits. A natural 20 on a death saving throw counts as two successes, whereas a natural one on a death saving throw counts as two failures. I want you guys to notice what I didn't say natural 20s and natural ones affect. Skill checks.

Just because you rolled a natural 20 to persuade the potion shop salesman to lower his price, that doesn't mean you scored a crit and get potions for free. It just means that you did as well as you can persuading them. It does not mean automatic success, though. Once more for my, I seduced the tavern server group in the back. You don't get to sleep with anything just because you rolled a natural 20. When you look like me, by the way, a natural 20 just means I get a warm smile from someone. It doesn't automatically send me on a one-way ticket to pound town.

Of course, I'm married, so I haven't checked lately. Likewise, a natural 1 on, say, an acrobatics check to tie your shoes doesn't necessarily mean that you somehow hang yourself. It just means you did about as poorly as you could. To keep this bad analogy going, I'm sure George Clooney could roll a natural one on some sort of persuasion check, which means he'd walk up at a party, trip, shit himself, break his nose on the nearest table, cause the table to flip over, slinging silverware and fine china halfway across the room, and still get hit in the face with underwear from every gender before he made it back to his knees. He is one handsome man. Anyway, let's move on to Pathfinder 1st Edition. In Pathfinder 1e, it's similar to 5e. When a D20

comes up a natural 1 on an attack roll, it's always a miss. And when a natural 20 comes up on an attack roll, it's always a hit. And when a natural 20 comes up on an attack roll, it's always a hit, regardless of your attack bonus and the defender's armor class. A natural 20 is also known as a threat, a possible critical hit. Sometimes we say that it threatens a critical hit for easy phrasing. To find out if it is a critical hit, though, you immediately make an attempt to confirm the critical hit. You make another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll that you just made. This is called, in Pathfinder, a confirmation roll. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit against the target's armor class, your original hit is a critical hit. The critical roll just needs to be a hit to give you a critical hit. It doesn't need to come up a natural 20 again. If the confirmation roll is a miss, then your hit, well, it doesn't crit, it's just a regular old hit. In Pathfinder 1e,

on a critical hit, you roll your damage more than once with your usual bonuses, with some exceptions that we don't have time to go into here. Like, you can't double sneak attack a damage by a rogue, that kind of thing. But you roll twice and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on attack is a natural 20 only, but there are some weapons that threaten critical hits on a 19 to 20 or even an 18 to 20. And the multiplier for critical hits is times two by default, but there are some weapons that do times three or even things like a pick that does times four. Also similar to 5th edition, there's no such thing as a critical success or a critical failure on a skill check. On a natural one or 20, you just add your skill modifiers and either succeed or fail based on your total.

Doesn't matter what the die says. Another place where a natural one and natural 20 make a huge difference in Pathfinder, though, is saving throws. If you roll a natural one on your saving throw, you always fail no matter what. And if you roll a natural 20 on a saving throw, Fortitude, Reflex, Will, you always succeed. That's different from 5th edition, where 1s and 20s do not have special effects on most saving throws. Only death saves. But Pathfinder 2nd Edition is where things get a little wonky. Pathfinder 2e builds around the concept called degrees of success. On nearly

any d20 roll, you can critically fail, fail, succeed, or critically succeed, and the outcome may be very different among the four. If you roll a d20 and you beat the difficulty class that you're trying to beat by zero to nine, so you either meet it or go all the way up to nine points higher, then that is a success. But if you do the same thing and beat the difficulty class by 10 or more, you have a critical success. Similarly, if you miss the DC you're trying to roll by 9 or less, it's just a failure. Whereas if you miss the DC by 10 or more, you critically fail. But, and here's where things go weird. If you roll a natural 20 on any check, attack roll, skill check, saving throw, whatever,

it means that you achieved one level of success greater than the total would otherwise dictate. For example, let's say you have plus 3 to hit and you're trying to hit a bandit with an armor class of 17. If you roll a natural 20, your total is a 23. 20 plus 3. It would be a hit since 23 is greater than 17, but since it's a natural 20, your outcome is moved one step better to a critical hit. But a natural 20 isn't always a guaranteed hit. If you have a plus three to hit and you're trying to hit a Conqueror Worm with an armor class of 42, that natural 20 plus the three of your modifier is a 23 to hit, but you missed your target by more than nine points, so it'd be a critical failure. But since it's a natural 20, it moves one level of success up from a critical failure to just a failure.

The same thing happens with natural 1s, only in reverse. So you get one step worse than normally your score would be. So let's say you have a plus 20 to hit, and you roll a natural 1 to hit an AC 21 against a creature who has an AC of 17. to hit an AC 21 against a creature who has an AC of 17. Where normally that would be a hit, that natural one takes it one step worse to make it just a failure or a miss. This same rule holds true for skill checks, saving throws, outcomes from some spells, traps, ability checks, and it all changes depending on whether you critically failed, failed, succeeded, or critically succeeded. And a natural 20 moves that up a step. Natural 1 moves it down.

Critically failing while disarming a trap, for example, likely sets off the trap. You'll have to see the trap's description for more information. But just failing, but not critically failing, may mean that you break a lockpick, or you don't set off the trap, but you also didn't disarm it properly. You may have to replace a part, or you may have to make a separate check to properly disarm it. See the difference? Success may mean you disable the trap for a time, a minute, a day, or whatever, whereas a critical success may mean that you disable the trap permanently. For attack rolls, if you roll a natural 20 on your attack or if the result of your attack exceeds the target's AC by 10,

you achieve a critical success, also known as a critical hit. If you critically succeed as a strike, your attack deals double damage. You don't roll the dice twice, you roll it once and double it, which is different than 5E or Pathfinder 1E. Interesting things can happen on 2E crits as well. Other attacks such as spell attack rolls and some uses of the Athletic skill describe specific effects that occur when their outcomes are critical success. Further, some weapons in 2E have critical effects that only take place when you score a critical hit, like tripping or knocking them down and so forth.

Finally, talking about Starfinder, which I don't talk about enough in this podcast because I really do love that game system. If your attack roll is a natural 20 and your attack total is equal to or greater than the target's AC, your attack's a critical hit. There's no confirmation roll. And a critical hit means that you roll your dice twice, adding each roll to your usual bonuses, including any additional damage from special abilities and so forth. So you add it all together and determine the damage dealt. And in Starfinder, just like Pathfinder 2e, some weapons have additional crit effects that apply when you score that critical hit. Electrical shock, being set on fire, being deafened, corroded armor, stunned, and so forth.

And if you roll a natural one, it's an automatic miss just like Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. There are no confirmation rolls for either your crit hits or crit fumbles. So even if you just stick to rules as written, natural ones and natural 20s are handled very differently in different gaming systems. But what if the rules as written leave you unsatisfied? This is a natural 20. Shouldn't there be something that happens that's really fucking cool, at least better than double damage? Enter the world of wacky alternative rules that you can find out there. Well, that

sounds interesting, Jeremy. Tell me more. I will, polite person in my head. Thank you. Let me preface all these alternative rules with this caveat. Some of this shit will break your game. The game is generally balanced with the critical rules as defined in the core rulebooks. Going your own way with critical hits can cause unexpected side effects. Every game system I've mentioned tonight has decks of cards that you can purchase which contain more, shall we say, flavorful effects for attack rolls that critically hit and those that critically miss. The Pathfinder 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, and Starfinder decks are all authorized and produced by Paizo. They are official, albeit optional, parts of the game from the manufacturer.

The 5th Edition decks are not official Wizards of the Coast, so these are likely more rarely used out there. I think they're by Nord Games if I remember right. I'll try to put a link on the resources page and in the YouTube description. And I have not been using the resources page enough. Time to dust that beast off and add to it. When using these decks, you pull a card when certain criteria are met. For example, only if you crit on a natural 20, only if you beat the confirmation roll by 10, only when your DM really feels like spanking you on the keister,

or whatever the criteria is for each system. Each card has a potential critical effect, depending on what type of attack it was. I just happen to have the associated app for Pathfinder First Edition on my phone called iCrit. Clicking it once reveals... Come on. The following.

For a bludgeoning weapon, a normal damage, meaning I don't roll the damage twice, and the target is knocked prone and stunned for one round. A fortitude save negates the stun. On a piercing weapon, a guarded strike. Double damage, so damage as traditional for a crit, and plus four to my AC for one round, because they're distracted. Slashing weapon, shattered jaw. Oh, fuck.

Ow. Normal damage. Boo. And one con damage. Yay! Target. Ow. Normal Damage. Boo. And 1 Con Damage. Yay! Target cannot speak or bite until healed. Oh, God, that'd be great against a Spellcaster. Finally, for a Magic Attack. Just like a Spell Attack or something like that.

Double Damage and Target takes a minus 4 penalty on saves versus your spells for 1d6 rounds. There's a couple of really powerful critical effects in there that can turn the tide of a battle. Plus, it just sounds cooler than, uh, okay, and then hit him, and 58 points of damage. Okay, next up is Beeman. What do you want to do? Similarly, here's an example from the Critical Miss deck.

One called Not My Pony, where the ranged attack misses your intended target and hits the nearest allied animal or mount. Ooh, I could have used that to kill an animal companion in the last camp. Keep talking like that, Jeremy. People will think you hate animal companions or something. Oh shit, that was out loud. Um, shh, act casual. Moving on. But there's a huge caution with these cards.

If the PCs can use them on baddies, GMs, do you allow the baddies to use them on PCs? If so, how happy will your wizard player be if her jaw gets shattered by random skeleton number six using a rusty scimitar? Your PCs throughout the course of a campaign will be attacked a lot more often than the monsters will be. Think of it this way, that lizard folk they're fighting will only get hit maybe four to six times in your campaign before it's probably dead. Your PC is going to get hit hundreds of times, and the critical effects could be long-lasting, debilitating, and build on themselves over time. So use these flavor crits with caution, and only use it on your players if they know it could happen to them too. While the decks are neat, they're not the only alternative critical hit solution out there. Through the years, people have come up with massive numbers of critical hit and failure tables.

One solution I've seen and used is that crits do the maximum possible damage. If you crit in 5th edition with a longsword, you do 8 points of damage plus any damage modifiers you have. That's because a longsword does 1d8 of damage. With a greatsword, it's 12 plus modifiers because your greatsword does 1d12 damage. This weakens crits just a little bit. In 5th edition rules as written with 0 strength modifier, a crit with a longsword will do between 2 and 16 points of damage, or 9 points of damage on average if you're a math nerd like me. With this rule, you would do 8 points of damage on a crit every single time. It makes crits more consistent, but you don't get the thrill of

those high numbers coming out for damage every now and then. I don't think it's as fun though, I tried it and I didn't like it. Sure, it means occasionally you'll have that 2 hit point crit, but you'll occasionally have one that damages in the teens and those feel juicy. Another more complicated solution I've seen is that if you have a crit where you would roll two dice, you receive the maximum possible number on one die and the rolled damage on one other die. So, for example, if I crit with a longsword in Pathfinder, instead of rolling 1d8 twice, adding them up with modifiers, etc., as written in the rules, I would roll 1d8, the normal damage for a longsword, add the maximum value I could have rolled on the second die, in this case 8, so I would do 8 plus 1d8 plus modifiers of damage. This alleviates the yay I got a crit

exultation, followed by the crushing feeling of rolling two ones on the dice. Crits just mean more and they feel more lethal with this rule. Also, there are a number of critical hit by location tables out there where not only is the damage dealt, but you could have some detrimental effects like broken bones, deep bruises, punctured organs, or even instant death. Once you confirm the critical, you have to roll the location, and then possibly the degree of the crit, and then the effects of the crit. And some of the effects are invariably completely unbalanced. One swing of a mace staves in the skull of the minotaur,

and according to the crit, the minotaur collapses dead, despite the fact that he actually had... 78 fucking hit points left. I used this once in a gladiator one shot and it just slowed down the game way too much for my taste with all the extra die rolls. Especially the player that was using a rapier as a weapon and had improved critical feet. I think he crit on something like a 15 to 20 on a d20. He almost exclusively either critical hit or miss. Nothing else. Finally, there are some DMs and GMs that apply the rules of 20 always succeeds and one always fails on any d20 roll, including things like skill checks. This is a bad idea. It completely unbalances the game.

It means I have a 5% chance, the chance of rolling a 20 on a d20, of jumping up an entire flight of stairs if I roll a natural 20. Or I have a 5% chance of falling down every time I tie my shoes. Look, I've been tying my shoes for more than 45 years now, and I've fallen down 2% of the time at the most, maybe 3% if you count the times I've been drinking. In more practical gaming terms, it means there's a 5% chance that a level 1 rogue who barely understands which end of the lockpick goes into the door can pick a legendary masterwork lock with multiple tumblers and electronic tamper resistance.

Oh, and it also opens the door to I roll to seduce Orcus. Natural 20, give me some of that sweet demon prince of the undead booty. That wasn't a sentence I'd planned to say today, but here we are. No, no, Orcus, no. That was a joke for my podcast. I'm not, no. You're handsome.

You're not my type. No. So, okay, dodging that bullet. So what do I do in my games? Honestly, I'm kind of boring. In my Pathfinder first edition game where you have to make a confirmation roll to confirm a critical hit or critical failure, our table decided to use the cards only when it's a natural 20 on the confirmation roll

and only when it's done by a PC or a named baddie. So random bandit number four can't chop somebody's head off, but maybe a boss or a mini-boss can. It eliminates the chance of your campaign artificially being cut short by a random encounter or some unnamed creature that got unnaturally lucky on the die roll. However, in my Skull & Shackles campaign, we are doing one weird thing. We have a house rule. If you take damage greater than 50% of your maximum hit points on a single critical hit, we have a special table that you roll on for scars. 80% of the time, it's just a cosmetic scar with no numeric effects. But there is a slight chance for the loss of a finger, an eye, or maybe even an entire leg. What are pirates without interesting scars, after all?

We're currently on an extended holiday break, but we're going to discuss this in our upcoming session, and we're likely going to adopt that rule. For the rest of my games as both player and DM, we stick to rules as written. If you want to bring custom or different rules about critical hits to your game, discuss it with your players first and get everyone's buy-in that they all think it would sound fun. It's a lot like bringing food into the bedroom. You'll have a better chance if everyone discusses it ahead of time and everyone agrees that it's a good idea. Oh, and FYI, cheese dip has peppers in it

that can really burn if it gets on your d***. In summary, cutting off Jeremy from yesterday, the rules about natural 1s and 20s vary widely from system to system. They can vary from just numbers on the page for automatic hits to dramatic misses where you not only drop your shield but crap your chain mail. If you want to move away from rules as written, there are all sorts of alternative systems out there, but I do advise not using natural 20s as automatic success on skill checks and natural ones as automatic failures. Tune in next week, by the way, when I'll have a whole episode on designing good quests for your players.

Thank you so much for listening. Please give thanks to our sponsor, Knives. Did you know that a knife went into space with John Glenn in the 1960s? It was attached to the tang. You see because tang is a powdered orange drink that was used in the space program and it's also when the steel of the blade extends

to the handle. Yeah. Critical fumble on that joke, but this has been episode 107 all about critical hits and fumbles. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game

is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube media production. Copyright 2022. References to game system content are copyrighted by the respective publishers.