Sorry for the rant ahead of time but I may be in the minority but a natural 20 shouldn’t be a get outta jail. Imho it should be a positive and achieve the goal but not some impossible event. Ex: Barb strikes machinery to get it to work (roll 20) it barely works doing halfh the job instead of the standard the machinery works perfectly doing 100% of the job and rewards your dumb idea to smash delicate machinery.
You’re right, it’s not. But in this case it was specifically the “lucky” feature that came into play. Getting the better result through sheer dumb luck is exactly what was supposed to happen.
Also, I strongly disagree with your barbarian hitting a machine example. Rolling a nat 20 attack roll against a machine damages or outright destroys it. I’m not rewarding players for choosing literally the opposite course of action from one that might resolve the problem, no matter what they roll.
If the barbarian wants to try a hail Mary tool proficiency check with their lack of proficiency and -1 intelligence penalty and lucks into a nat 20 for a result of 19 on a DC 17 check then I’ll happily flavour it as “percussive maintenance”, but an attack roll just destroys the machine because that’s what attacks do.
In this example it was an attack roll, and a critical hit as a result of the halfling luck trait, so it played out perfectly.
In the case where it were a skill check, you are correct that there are no crits for skill checks. However rolling a natural 20 is a rare event and as a DM you could choose to reward it. Conversely hitting delicate machines with a battle-axe is usually a mistake.
The machine working at half capacity is a reasonable reward and consequence.
The problem is it isn’t that rare. If you reward it very much at all it encourages doing stupid shit (that won’t hurt you) because you’ll succeed 5% of the time. Maybe they get to do a particularly cool action while trying it on a 20, but it still shouldn’t always succeed. You might just look slightly better while failing.
A nat 20 is the best outcome that the character could manage in that situation, if they have no chance of succeeding then the DM should not be letting them roll. If the barbarian suggests mauling a delicate machine with their mace it’s down to anyone else in the party (or the DM if they’re so inclined) to remind them that actions have consequences.
I disagree that the DM shouldn’t let them try. For a lockpicking example, there are plenty of people who think they could pick a lock who have no shot of actually doing it. The DM shouldn’t be telling them no if their character might think they could do it. They should just roll and tell them they failed. Let them try. They don’t have to know they didn’t stand a chance —unless they get a nat 20, because obviously then they’ll know it was always going to fail.
Yeah, obviously mailing it shouldn’t do anything. They should roll to attack and then roll for damage, because that’s what they’re doing, not a skill check. And yeah, it’s going to destroy something. For something like a lockpick, they could roll and break the lock. Pathfinder handles this better with degrees of success.
If it isn’t dangerous, it just encourages doing stuff your character wouldn’t do. Your barbarian shouldn’t be going around picking locks. Having a 1/20 chance to randomly succeed encourages then to though. Yeah, they’ll usually fail, but there’s no harm in most skill checks, so why not take them?
Skill checks don’t succeed on a natural 20 in the rule book. It’s a house rule thing, that got passed to a lot of players. It’s not a good way of handling it. Pathfinder 2e has a good system for it if you’re interested. It has degrees of success falling above/below the DC by 10 is a critical. Also, a natural 1/20 decreases/increases the degree of success by 1. That means if you really don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily critical fail and have negative consequences. If you’re really skilled you may critically succeed even without a nat 20.
Sorry for the rant ahead of time but I may be in the minority but a natural 20 shouldn’t be a get outta jail. Imho it should be a positive and achieve the goal but not some impossible event. Ex: Barb strikes machinery to get it to work (roll 20) it barely works doing halfh the job instead of the standard the machinery works perfectly doing 100% of the job and rewards your dumb idea to smash delicate machinery.
You’re right, it’s not. But in this case it was specifically the “lucky” feature that came into play. Getting the better result through sheer dumb luck is exactly what was supposed to happen.
Also, I strongly disagree with your barbarian hitting a machine example. Rolling a nat 20 attack roll against a machine damages or outright destroys it. I’m not rewarding players for choosing literally the opposite course of action from one that might resolve the problem, no matter what they roll.
If the barbarian wants to try a hail Mary tool proficiency check with their lack of proficiency and -1 intelligence penalty and lucks into a nat 20 for a result of 19 on a DC 17 check then I’ll happily flavour it as “percussive maintenance”, but an attack roll just destroys the machine because that’s what attacks do.
In this example it was an attack roll, and a critical hit as a result of the halfling luck trait, so it played out perfectly.
In the case where it were a skill check, you are correct that there are no crits for skill checks. However rolling a natural 20 is a rare event and as a DM you could choose to reward it. Conversely hitting delicate machines with a battle-axe is usually a mistake.
The machine working at half capacity is a reasonable reward and consequence.
The problem is it isn’t that rare. If you reward it very much at all it encourages doing stupid shit (that won’t hurt you) because you’ll succeed 5% of the time. Maybe they get to do a particularly cool action while trying it on a 20, but it still shouldn’t always succeed. You might just look slightly better while failing.
A nat 20 is the best outcome that the character could manage in that situation, if they have no chance of succeeding then the DM should not be letting them roll. If the barbarian suggests mauling a delicate machine with their mace it’s down to anyone else in the party (or the DM if they’re so inclined) to remind them that actions have consequences.
I disagree that the DM shouldn’t let them try. For a lockpicking example, there are plenty of people who think they could pick a lock who have no shot of actually doing it. The DM shouldn’t be telling them no if their character might think they could do it. They should just roll and tell them they failed. Let them try. They don’t have to know they didn’t stand a chance —unless they get a nat 20, because obviously then they’ll know it was always going to fail.
Yeah, obviously mailing it shouldn’t do anything. They should roll to attack and then roll for damage, because that’s what they’re doing, not a skill check. And yeah, it’s going to destroy something. For something like a lockpick, they could roll and break the lock. Pathfinder handles this better with degrees of success.
But that also means that you would fail 95% of the time? I’m not sure why that seems unfair.
Sorry, I don’t really play but I like hearing and reading the stories.
If it isn’t dangerous, it just encourages doing stuff your character wouldn’t do. Your barbarian shouldn’t be going around picking locks. Having a 1/20 chance to randomly succeed encourages then to though. Yeah, they’ll usually fail, but there’s no harm in most skill checks, so why not take them?
Skill checks don’t succeed on a natural 20 in the rule book. It’s a house rule thing, that got passed to a lot of players. It’s not a good way of handling it. Pathfinder 2e has a good system for it if you’re interested. It has degrees of success falling above/below the DC by 10 is a critical. Also, a natural 1/20 decreases/increases the degree of success by 1. That means if you really don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily critical fail and have negative consequences. If you’re really skilled you may critically succeed even without a nat 20.
What if I were to tell you that skill checks critting is already a dumb house rule?
Then I’d know you aren’t playing Pathfinder.
Interesting take!