Critical Failure's Part 2

Yesterday, I mentioned the idea of a Magical Mishap being added to Critical Failure table. I did this once by accident (having forgotten the option of Fall prone), and while they did not roll the needed '5' I got a very positive "Oh no" response from my players. "Oh no", with possible expletives, is something I want to hear my players say. As opposed to real life, in DnD this is a very good thing. It means the players are paying attention, realize something difficult or different may come up that they need to respond to, and that they're thinking about the situation. In short it means they're engaged.


So of course I needed to add it to my Critical Failure list officially. Here's my new one:

1. Fall Prone
2. Drop Weapon
3. Throw Weapon
4. Hit Self
5. Break Weapon/Magical Mishap
6. Nothing

The deal here, is that if you're wielding a mundane weapon or implement it breaks on a 5. Magical Weapons are tougher, but might give you magical backlash. Rolling a 5 with a magical weapon or implement, means that a Magical mishap has happened, and you need to roll on the Magical Mishap table. It's a d100 table.

That's allot of Magical Mishap possibilities. That means a few things you need to be aware. First off, it means that getting any particular option is very rare. There's only a 1/2,400 of even getting to the Magical Mishap table (not including the possibility that maybe your using a mundane weapon), and only a 1/240,000 chance of getting any individual Mishap. Thanks to Crothian of Enworld for help with the math.

Because there are so many options, they vary greatly in level of effect. Some add temporary minor effects, and a couple might even kill the PC. They're also all, relatively short descriptions. They will need flavor embellishment from the DM for sure. Some will need some rule moderation depending on the situation. Remember when this happens, these may be failures, but we want to lean toward fun if it gets out of hand.

Because each option is so very rare, a few of them break the game. 

Any mention of weapon, is intended to cover implements as well. Swap Burad for gnome or halfling if not using Burads in your game.

Take the time to look through this list and edit it to your liking. Its editable for just that reason. Some of them might not be ok options for your group. Some might be too tame for an epic failure, or too game breaking for accidental effect. 

Link to the list (its long so its a separate document): Magical Mishaps

Critical Failure's Part 1

 The idea that something truly awesome might happen when you roll multiple natural 20s in a row, or something equally heinous would happen when rolling multiple natural 1s in a row is not something new to roll playing. 


When 4th edition rolled around, my group made the jump and found we liked it. There was something lost in not rolling to confirm the crit, but we never house ruled a change. We did however insists that a natural 1 was always a success, even a level 1 attacking a god, and a natural 1 was always failure. That was just the epic nature of the game. Its always possible to fail or succeed, at least for a moment. Its one of things that makes DnD feel Epic to me. 


Another carryover, was the idea that when you rolled a natural 1, you had to roll that d20 again to see how bad it really was. Roll any number but 1, and it was just a regular, run of the mill, thats too bad, failure. Roll a 1 on that second roll, and things get critical. Out comes the critical Failure Chart. Roll a 1d6 to see what happens.


My old chart looked like this: 

1. Fall Prone
2. Drop Weapon
3. Throw Weapon
4. Hit Self
5. Break Weapon
6. Nothing

You have a 1 in 400 chance of getting to that point and still on a six your in the clear. There is, as of the moment, no positive counter to this chart. My players have never complained. There's something about this that makes failure exciting.

Due in part to the odds of reaching this chart being low, I had a habit of misplacing it. Recently, I was having difficulty working on the fly to redo it for a roll and instead of drop Prone I quickly wrote down 'Magical Mishap' instead of Fall Prone. My players seemed rather intrigued by this possibility, so of course I needed to come up with actual possibilities and modify the way I did things. More on that tomorrow. 

Map of Grand Hall

Grand Hall was the capital city in my current points of light campaign. Here we have a a city that was once much larger and prosperous. With the decline of the last great kingdom, the city has suffered many more attacks. In addition, the lack of a unifying government decreased trade with neighboring communities. As population decreased and areas took damage, they were never repopulated and slowly fell into ruins and slums.

The grey is meant to represent ruins, and abandoned areas, while the other colors distinguish different styles of architecture in the city. I've include one with my notation and one without. Enjoy.

Free Orc Friday! 3 Orc Feats

For Free Orc Friday, I give you three quick feats to help your Orc player feel like he's part of a bona-fide player race.

Head for Blood
Prerequisites: Orc, Warrior's Surge Racial Power
Benefit: You can use Warrior's Surge, in place of a Melee Basic Attack, if your target is bloodied.

Natural Tribesman
Prerequisites: Any tribal feat, orc
Benefit: Treat the number of allies in range with the same tribal feat as being one greater.

Warrior Leader
Prerequisites: Orc, Warrior's Surge Racial Power
Benefit: You gain either your Wisdom Modifier or your Charisma Modifier in bonus hp when you hit with Warrior's Surge.

Civilized vs Savage

When we think of races that have been included in Player's Handbook or Campaign Setting versus the Monstrous Races we often make a distinction in how those races act and live. The Player Races are more civilized and the Monstrous Races savage. The printed material often backs this up to a certain degree, and may even change their stories a bit when it becomes time for a Monstrous Race to become a full Player Race. Jared von Hindman comments on this with the Minotaur in a recent article for Wizards' website.


Our own prejudice against monsters often takes this on even further though. In 3.X, where I started DMing, one of my biggest grievances was with the low Intelligence score on the Minotaur. I didn't like the idea that all Minotaurs were savage brutes. Even if a minotaur wasn't nice, it should at least be cunning. This understanding has been allot more popular as well, with the popularity of World of Warcraft.


Other races have received similar, or reverse, treatment with setting. Orcs, one of the most loved Monstrous races, is also the one most relegated automatically to savage, but not so with Eberron Setting. The halflings who are so often associated with the peaceful hobbits of Tolkien, are brutal, and dangerous in Dark Sun.


So how do we define a Monstrous Race? It becomes especially difficult with a point of light campaign. No more do goodly races from large kingdoms of peace and light, welcoming in outsiders and defying evil. The norm now  is to distrust outsiders. Adventurers approaching a small town they have never been to before are likely not to be let in without some intimidation or bribe, never mind being welcomed. They may even be attacked on sight.


Is this so different to a pack of gnolls ambushing travelers who had wandered into their territory? 


If its not your level of aggression towards outsiders is it simply the fact that you live in a city that makes you civilized? I find it hard to label all nomadic or tribal people savage. I use catfolk (in 4e use shifter stats) as a tribal people that most people would find quite civilized. 


4th edition has made a big step towards keeping more and more races unaligned. Every race, like every human, can run the gambit. I favor this lingering gray, though certainly plenty of people oppose it. They would very much prefer it to be the good guys vs the bad guys and leave it at that. That can certainly be entertaining. We all like to be heroes at times. I like to make my heroes work a bit.

Just some thoughts for now. If you liked this article check out the one I linked to above and Chris Simms' writing on the nature of canon.