Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Critical fails on skill checks are a mistake

Cant say i remember such case ...
But its possible i gues. :-/

In such case, that sounds kinda ... dunno missinterpreted sounds like corect word here. :-/

I just wanted to chime in on this. I guess it never really came up in my previous play-throughs, but I've actually auto failed a few skill checks on this run that were absolutely ridiculous. Prime example is Astarion picking a lock with a DC 10. With his Dex bonus, Sleight of Hand bonus, a Happy bonus, and with Shadowheart providing the Guidance cantrip, there was, quite literally according to the D&D 5e rules as written, no way he could have failed, as a 1 was all he needed to roll in order for the other bonuses to add up to 10. Watching the die roll a 1 and then failing without adding in the bonuses was the first time I'd even realized that was a "feature" of this game. If it is a "feature," please, please, please Larian, make it an optional one, just like loaded dice! I know there are other things about this game that do not follow 5e mechanics exactly. Honestly, I'd rather everything did, or at least that there was a difficulty setting that made playing strictly by RAW an option.

I do not have any problems with it as long theres mechanism to help if people have really really bad luck.

CRPG are kinda bad at RP, because theres so many characters, anyway. Now Im Astarian, now Gale etc. Bird View isnt most immersive either. We humans likes to watch the world with our eyes. If I was Larian I would sell Characters.

I like RP, Batman Arkham Knight made me feel like a Batman but this isnt the right game. Interestingly Batman isnt even RP game. But this is. When I played DOS2 I felt like an ant. Thats even more reasons to put more focus on Characters, make them stand out.

Look at it this way; if cooking is a skill then statistically every 20 meals you cut your finger off with the knife. That's why a crit failure is poor design. I'd tentatively go for a "Roll 1, roll again to see if you get a 1/2 for a crit fail" but a simple 1=fail is 'eh'

1 = Critical Miss in combat ONLY. It also does NOT mean the character fumbled and flubbed up majorly. It just means that even if an enemy has AC 8 and you get +8 to Hit, there's still a chance you might fail.

The purpose is to prevent players from getting so good that they hit no matter what in combat, thus making combat pointless. It is not to symbolize just how poorly a person did.

It is NOT used for skill checks because the game is designed so that if you are good enough at something, a die roll isn't even necessary.

So, if you have +4 skill, a 5 or higher check is pointless. The difficulty is so low that unless you have no ability at all in that area, you shouldn't have to roll.

Similarly, if you get +10 for lock picking, because you are a Rogue with Expertise, any lock that is only 10 or higher is no roll necessary. You're an expert. You won't fail on something so trivial to you. That's why you're an expert.

There's nothing worse than being an expert at something in a game like this and then failing because of a dice roll.

True story, playing Star Wars RPG with my brother. Epic scene/ fight. Climax of the game/ story. He runs up stairs, but he has awesome Athletic skill. Rolls a 1. Trips and falls. Almost died. He doesn't almost die at the hands of a villain. He almost dies because of rolling a 1 to climb stairs.

Suffice to say, he was ticked. His argument? His character was super athletic. He shouldn't be almost dying by running up stairs.

I think it sounds pretty fun. Dice rolling is extremely popular across the entire world. Game industry is full of RNG games. Usually they are just too HC. There needs to be something if you're having a bad luck streak, typical RNG games doesnt realize if you're having bad luck, and it can get quite bad. I think Narrator might the way to go, game sees your luck is bad, he/she gives you something, or change the course of it.

This is the reason why Larian should take inspiration from Monty Python, Standup Comedy etc. "Hey I just failed, lol".

Sucks to say, but I think you're at wrong game. Mutant Year Zero has less RNG actually. But it isnt that good.

???

I think you didn't read everything I said and pulled that out of context.

I am 100% for dice rolling. I love the dice rolling in the game - in THIS game. I'd like more of it so that all the skills have meaning and purpose so each character is unique and useful. I want to see my rogue with expertise in Deception tricking people left and right and even rolling for disguise kit usage... Or rolling to sneak past enemies while behind them because they might hear me... And my cleric using Medicine rolls to stabilize not only fellow players but dying NPCs. I'd love it if they gave you the ability to save Arabella from the snake bite by succeeding in a Medicine check. Or my fighter wrestling an orc thug just to prove he has more prowess, rolling an Athletics roll against the orc's Athletics.

Dice rolls, the ability to fail, make the game exciting. If you can succeed every time, there's no thrill. It's just pick the right option and you win. Yay! [Bored cheering noises]

What I don't like is auto-fail due to a 1 in skill checks. Critical Miss is fine for combat, allowing for potential failure every round no matter how skilled, but skill checks, no. Plus, many skill checks are opposed, or should be, so auto-fail is impossible if both roll 1s.

I would love to bump the thread and bring something to Larian attention since this "feature" still in the game and in some other places people were speculating that criticals on skill checks got in the game because of OneD&D in the first place.
So, Larian, please notice that in current issues of OneD&D the rule was changed again and "criticals" were removed from skill checks and replaced with granted Inspiration. That's because it also got negative response from play-testers. You may presume by now that no one loves the thing to be used as an actual rule.

First issue of OneD&D:
https://media.dndbeyond.com/compend...m=crosspromo&icid_campaign=playtest1

Current issue of OneD&D:
https://media.dndbeyond.com/compend...m=crosspromo&icid_campaign=playtest3

I completely disagree and would like the game to keep 1 = fail.

The chance to fail, even if it's improbable can radically changes the playthrough.

Yes your Rogue can fail even after 1000 times success of picking bathroom lock.

Yes your Wizard can fail that Arcane checks, he may made a mistake after 1000 succeeded in deciphering information.

Yes your bard can fail a performance checks after 1000 Faerun Tour.

You can fail when the DC is to high for you. That's enough. And 1 on D20 isn't a one fail after 1000 succesess, it's potentially every 20th. Try to read the rest of the thread, there were more the an enough arguments by now.

I read the entire thread and I found nothing convincing.

Currently on steam there are a thread literally made few days ago and have accumulate hundreds of comments, not just 2 pages.

Safe to say people are divided, but largely leaning to say this is a non-issue.

I think it should be kept the way it is. If somebody want to mod it so that Crit Failure is Disabled for Skill checks, go ahead.

+1

I don't care if I rolled a 1. My 3rd-level fighter shouldn't fail at telling a guy how to swing a sword. Period.

I would prefer they do not make NAT 1 an auto-failure with skill checks (same goes vice versa for NAT 20).

Alaways having a fixed 5% chance to either fail or succeed indepently of difficulty of the check is so non-sensical to me.

But as with a lot of suggestions / feedback regarding BG3: please Larian make it a toggle in the options menu.

I do agree that natural win/fails in skill checks feel off to me.

However, I'd larian will keep them, I think they should also add some special feedback. Not passing AC of 5 feels off as the game doesn't really highlight that rolling 1 is a special case.

I dunno, the more i play the game, the more logical it seems to keep this intact. :-/

Shit just happens ...
Even the greatest master of sneaking can step of squeaking plank in the floor.
And even the clumsiest Zoidberg can manage to *somehow* lockpick a lock.

Chances for both are tiny ... and they hardly can get tinier than 1/20 on 20 sided dice.

I don’t mind 1s on skill rolls being auto fails, and even quite like the fact there’s always some element of peril, even if occasionally this is hard or even impossible to rationalise.

But given it’s a departure from 5e rules I do agree that Larian shouldn’t force it on people, and as it presumably makes QA an increasing nightmare to have everything optional, would be perfectly okay if they simply brought the treatment of 1s and 20s into line with the core rules.


Definitely agree that unless someone is already familiar with table-top rules they’re going to be really puzzled by this - unless there’s a tutorial topic I missed? Of course, given what people have said about the departure from core rules, it’s going to puzzle them anyway but at least they’d be in a position to make a good guess as to what was happening.

This is truth, except I don't think "we must roll regardless." Why not narrate and log the checks that we auto-succeed or auto-fail? Even if we add bonuses from Guidance, Enhance Ability after we pull up the dice animation, you could still move on immediately, and it would make certain scenarios flow better.

Some of this is DM discretion or common sense in TT, but they could build that criteria in when they set the DC.

For example, disarming traps. The consequences for failure can be severe, but maybe it doesn't make sense that there's always a 5% chance everyone with anywhere from +9 to +30 in boni is going to blow themselves up on DC 10 traps. Set an "auto-fail" and "auto-succeed" DC. If you've got a room full of DC 10 traps, and you've got a rogue with 18 dex, expertise, the ring, guidance and cat's grace, just let him click through the ten traps instead of forcing ten roll animations.

As in my previous post, I think this is something we take for granted in Table Top that is adjudicated by a DM and common sense. You could emulate it with an (hidden?) "auto-succeed" and "auto-fail" DC.

A manual task with minimal hidden variables might never fail on a Nat 1 if your boni are = or > than the DC. Persuading someone you just met to do something when you don't know them might have a higher "auto-succeed."

Stealth checks are not confronted by the enviroment, they are confronted by opponents perception. Passive perception for starters. And passive perseption is already 10+Perception skill value. So if the opponent managed to go down to 5 with his passive perception he is effectively deaf and blind.
And again a clumsy Zoidberg can manage to lockpick not so sophisticated lock, somehow without those 20s on 1d20, he just needs to roll more than 5 or 10 or 15 plus his Sleight of Hands value. Him openning a super sophisticated lock that has DC above 20 plus Zoidberg's Sleight of Hands value should be a miracle (not 5% chance) and miracles are provided by magic in this world.