Goodman Games

I used to run White Wolf back in the day. I ran a little bit of D'ND at times. Mostly a mix of 1 and 2e. I have never ran a game in which the AC increased rather than decreased. So the question I have is more for those creatures and such that end up with AC over 20. On those, 20 is not going to be an automatic hit is it? And what about saves. If something needs a save of 23, mostly in high end play, the save needs to be 23 correct? The same for thief skills as well?

On the opposite end, a 1 always fails, even if the thief has plus 8 to his sneak roll. Or a plus 3 to a save. That seems more correct. I think.

-Stretch.

I run things where on hitting a high AC or target number of any sort, a natural 20 is always a hit. If you roll a 19 and needed to roll a 23 to succeed, you can't just burn 1 Luck to 'get' a 20 -- you'd have to burn 4 points to get to that 23.

And I like that 1s always fail, too -- but you can burn Luck to avoid any collateral effects (that's a big part of what Luck is for). So just as in the rules, a Wizard can burn Luck to avoid corruption on a spell failure, but no matter how much they burn, they can't burn themselves out of the failure of rolling a natural 1 (they can just avoid the corruption that comes with it).

So you could burn luck to avoid the fumble but not enough of it to actually hit instead of missing. That makes sense. As does the top end 20 always connecting. To hit say AC 23 when rolling a 19 then you would have to burn 4 luck points. What if its a warrior that has a lower crit range. A) Would you allow him to crit if he rolled a 19 and spent the luck to hit the 23 and B) Say he has str +2, deed die +1 and spends one luck? and C) He has str +1, deed 1, weapon +1. From what I can gather he B and C would hit and crit. I would probably rule A to crit as well. Just curious if that is the general mindset or not.

-Stretch

I am with GnomeBoy, but I do not assume a 1 is a fail or a 20 a success on a skill check.

A couple years ago I played Labyrinth Lord for a few months, but I confess that the first thing I did was convert all the AC's and hit tables into an ascending AC scale

We have played luck so that if you need a 30, roll an 18, you can burn 2 luck and get a '20' on your roll for an automatic success. We also play that only fighters can avoid automatic misses on a 1 by burning luck. This gives characters a more plausible chance to resist ridiculously difficult monster effects and makes thieves much more powerful than they otherwise would be; that part has been good. On the down-side, it makes it perhaps too easy to cast overly powerful spell effects and casters are already pretty darn powerful in DCC; I've been tempted to rule that luck can't be spent to make a spell a critical. (I think as the rules are written we are playing this wrong: the rule says only that burning luck gives you a bonus to your roll.)

This is probably something everyone knows, but I thought I'd bring it up "just in case." The RAW is that a natural 20 on d20 is an auto-hit (unless you are a dual-wielding halfling, then a natural 16 on d16 is an auto-hit). Natural 1 is an auto-miss. Only warriors and dwarves can spend luck to avoid rolling a fumble (but they still miss). Spells work similarly: a natural 1 is always a failure; a natural 20 allows the caster to add his caster level on top of his existing spell check bonuses. Again, sorry if I am preaching to the choir .

With all this being said, I tend to let Clerics burn luck to avoid Deity Disapproval, unless they roll a natural 1.

Depending on the skill, I give a nat 20 an auto success. If it's a strength based skill for instance, like rope use or hauling someone up a rope - I give it to them and say "you tapped your inner strength" or "you used muscles you never knew you had", etc. If it is a specific high DC to beat an puzzle or trap encounter, then that's different.

The importance of the natural 20 is core to gaming like 1974 intended, I say!

Kizarvexius wrote:The importance of the natural 20 is core to gaming like 1974 intended, I say!

I second this.

JediOre wrote:

Kizarvexius wrote:The importance of the natural 20 is core to gaming like 1974 intended, I say!

I second this.

3rded.

GnomeBoy wrote:I run things where on hitting a high AC or target number of any sort, a natural 20 is always a hit. If you roll a 19 and needed to roll a 23 to succeed, you can't just burn 1 Luck to 'get' a 20 -- you'd have to burn 4 points to get to that 23.

And I like that 1s always fail, too -- but you can burn Luck to avoid any collateral effects (that's a big part of what Luck is for). So just as in the rules, a Wizard can burn Luck to avoid corruption on a spell failure, but no matter how much they burn, they can't burn themselves out of the failure of rolling a natural 1 (they can just avoid the corruption that comes with it).

This is my rule as well. Natural 20's and natural 1's are a lot more special than modified 20's or 1's. (My game table has began referring to them as "a natural 20" versus "an unnatural 20." )

One thing I don't like about D&D 5E is the lack of fumbles on a natural 1. (And in many layers of the playtests they didn't have the crits on a natural 20, either. Now they do.)

Stretch wrote:I used to run White Wolf back in the day. I ran a little bit of D'ND at times. Mostly a mix of 1 and 2e. I have never ran a game in which the AC increased rather than decreased. So the question I have is more for those creatures and such that end up with AC over 20. On those, 20 is not going to be an automatic hit is it? And what about saves. If something needs a save of 23, mostly in high end play, the save needs to be 23 correct? The same for thief skills as well?

On the opposite end, a 1 always fails, even if the thief has plus 8 to his sneak roll. Or a plus 3 to a save. That seems more correct. I think.

-Stretch.

Page 64 - A natural roll of 20 is a critical hit. For some classes, other results may also score critical hits. (i.e. Warriors but only on a natural 20 is the hit automatic)

It matters not what the armour class is; it's a critical (and therefore a hit) even if the armour class is 40

If the die is adjusted upwards, say to D24 then a natural 24 is a critical. If adjusted downwards (i.e. anything less than a D20) this no longer applies except as noted under two weapon fighting (and Halflings)

So Dwarven shield bashes, attacks with untrained weapons and the additional attacks from 4th & 5th level that roll under D20 cannot critical and cannot therefore automatically hit.

Weisenwolf wrote:...If the die is adjusted upwards, say to D24 then a natural 24 is a critical...

FWIW, I rule that on a d24 or a d30 the natural 20 is still a crit, too. This makes it so that moving up in the Dice Chain doesn't diminish the chance of a crit, but increases it, which feels thematically right.

Oh, and on a d30, a natural 24 is also a crit.

That's interesting: I noticed this issue too & though about increasing the threat range for each die up the chain, 23-24 for D24 28-30 for D30

I think I prefer your system, it's easy to remember, all natural rolls of 20, 24 or 30 are critical hits

Nice (in the correct sense of the word)

Great ideas! FWIW, I wrote an article for the Goodman Games Gen Con program that will present another method for handling this. Stay tuned...

-Terry Olson

I'm tuned..............

we are still tuned...

I remain tuned............