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Oct 26th A Fast and Simple Critical Fumble Option

I like critical fumbles in my games for a number of reasons.  First of all, as a storyteller I like it when disaster strikes.  When I’m visualizing and describing a pitched battle I relish the possibility that one of the combatants might slip in the growing pool of blood on the flagstones or over-swing their battle-axe and accidentally strike one of their comrades.  It makes the battles feel more real to me, and it also makes combat feel more dangerous.

In practical terms, it does make combat more dangerous for everyone involved.  If big monsters might accidentally kill their minions when they’re trying to smash that knight, or if the players might lose their footing and fall prone, then there’s more damage being handed out every round.  It makes the monsters go down a little more quickly, but it also exposes the players to more danger.  As DM I consider this a win-win because I like my games to feel as dangerous as possible, and I like combat to go quickly.

But I don’t like to slow my games down with looking anything up.  I’ve been playing and running games long enough that I know pretty much all the rules by heart, and for my fumble rules I wanted to come up with something that could easily be memorized and that wouldn’t slow down combat with referencing a table.  Therefore, I came up with the following optional rule.

Critical Fumbles

Any time an attacker rolls a 1 on their attack roll die, they fumble.  Roll another d20 to determine the severity of the fumble.

Die Roll        Fumble Result
16-20           Character is off-balance and grants combat advantage until the end of the current character’s next turn.
11-15            Attacker looses their footing and falls prone.
6-10             Attacker drops their weapon or loses their next attack if weaponless.
1-5                Attacker targets an ally or themselves with the fumbled attack.  Re-roll the attack to see if it hits the new target.

I like it because it’s nice and simple – there are four results with increasingly dire consequences, so it’s easy for me to remember “off balance, fall prone, drop weapon, or attack self or ally”.

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Posted in 1st edition D&D, 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons / d20 fantasy / Pathfinder, 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, Variant Rules and tagged critical fumble by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.