Critical Hits and Fumbles

[R. Scott Kimsey]

What do you guys do for this, if anything?

I am thinking of going max damage on a natural 20; DEX save or lose
next turn on a natural 1.

[Chris Perkins]

I do max damage on a natural 20... unless you need a natural 20 to hit.  On a natural 1 your initiative drops to 1 the next round (resolve multiple fumbles in DEX order, from high to low).

[Guamae]

I like the Initive dropping to 1 a little more than save or loose a
turn.

On Sep 10, 5:19 pm, Chris Perkins <csperkins1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I do max damage on a natural 20... unless you need a natural 20 to hit.  On
> a natural 1 your initiative drops to 1 the next round (resolve multiple
> fumbles in DEX order, from high to low).
>

[John Appel]

I used to do double damage (after modifiers) on a natural 20 since the
1980s, but I've switched to max damage over the summer as an
experiment. Of course my games were all on hiatus so I don't yet have
a good feel for how it's working yet. I've also contemplated the "get
an extra attack" method.

For fumbles it's been "lose your next attack" for many years - the how
it's happened have always related to the circumstances. I've had
people fall, go off balance, drop their weapon, have a pole-arm
entangled in a chandelier - you get the picture. I tend to shoot for
"What's the most entertaining thing that could happen?" and my groups
have been happy to play along, because I do the exact same thing to
monsters. (For example, a orc that was charging full-steam at a PC,
axe raised and blood-curdling war-cry erupting from his maw, rolled a
1 and wound up tripping on a loose tile, smacking into a wall and
becoming stunned for a round.)

But that's a matter of trust, and having players who weren't hung up
on requiring absolutely standard and fixed rules for all happenings.

- John

[Guamae]

I actually never liked the "auto-hit on a 20" rules and such. Plus if
Bruce Lee is fighting Chuck Norris, they're not going to trip and
loose a turn 5% of the time.

I know this would involve more book-keeping, but i always liked the
idea that rolling a 20 is equivalent to getting 30 on die, and rolling
a 1 is equivalent to getting a -10 on the die. And if (after
modifiers) your attack roll is a negative number, something awful
happens [meaning that a lvl 8 Fighter with good strength would be
immune to critical failures]. And if your attack roll is more than 10
above their AC, then you do something special [meaning that the lvl 8
Fighter might be rolling Crits on unarmored opponents on a 12 or
16 ... of course that works a lot better if you have AC going up with
level as well as To-Hit].

Mostly it works the same, except for situations of high modifiers.

[R. Scott Kimsey]

I like the natural 20 as an automatic hit. No matter what the
disparity in AC and level, it means there is always a chance that a PC
can hit any creature, or vice versa.

A natural one doesn't have to mean tripping an losing a turn. The
fluff you use to describe it can vary according to what you think it
plausible. The mechanical effect of losing a turn or falling to the
bottom of the initiative order would remain the same.