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

That is why I prefer how pathfinder did it. If you roll a 10 lower then your required DC or above in 10 you get a critical fail or critical success. This makes it where harder enemies are virtually impossible to critical on [makes sense] while easy enemies always get critical on. There are also feats such as “always a chance” which removes 1s from being auto fail while keeping 20s as success.

The above would fix the problem as, your DC for your main stat would naturally increase with your level making it almost impossible to fail a DC for your class. Aka it fixes the RNG BS a lot

Yup ...
And that opponent is perceiving his surroundings.
And if you fail your stealth check, he notices your presence ...
Did he seen you?
Did he seen your shadow?
Did he notice crates behind wich you are hiding moved?
Did he heared your armor clings?
Did he felt your sweat droping?
Unspecified ... and not relevant, all that failed check is telling us is that he noticed you ... everything beyond that is matter of roleplay interpretation.

That is once aggain just roleplay interpretation ...
All that number tels us is how hard it will be to slip around him ... he can aswell be just ignorant, distracted, focused on sonething else, or simply sleeping (even if on duty) ... but even as such he cant ignore obvious threat.

Stealth just shouldnt equal "being undetectable by any means" ... and if (and that alone is a HUGE if ... its not even "a" ... its THE huge if ... thats how huge it is) it should mean "being undetectable by any means" ... there simply shouldnt be any check in the first place, since its effectively pointless.

Well its not my fault that D&D isnt played with 10.000 sided sice to mimic smaller chances.
Still even chance 0.000001% =/= impossible.

Probably been suggested before, but seems to me the better solution would be to keep critical fail but for skill checks where the player don't have proficiency only.

Isn't inspiration an already existing counter to critical misses on dialogues?

This would mean a new system on top of the existing system, which - at least in my experience - even after 2 years of EA still has bugs.

Your proposal sure sounds nice, but in practice the outcome is just the same as not making NAT 1 an auto-fail. So I would prefer to have less systems aka less possibilities for bugs.

The difference would be less dice rolls (for the player), which in and of itself can be an improvement, especially when having a situation as you described in your previous post (10 traps in a room), but for me I prefer simplier solutions over complicated ones (aka new system on top of a system) where the result would be (approximately) the same, hence i vote for abolish NAT 1 = failure.

That dont really sounds effective. O_o
sry. :-/

Once again: go get more familiar with the system. Nothing here is just roleplay interpetation. Numbers in D&D do have their interpretation by the book. You get -5 to passive checks when you have disadvantage. Guess what gives disadvantage on perception checks? Being deaf and/or blind! We here are forced to work with both at once since the game doesn't really work with hearing.
And no one says here that steath should be undetectable by any means. I'm among those who insisted that stealth shouldn't be just walking around those vision cones and hearing should exist. But you lost the point that stealth already opposed by 10+Perception of the opponent. Most of our opponents will have 10 and even more for us to roll against. Even if they are distracted, because that's what passive perception is, it's how good you notice things around you when you're not intentionally paying attention to them. If we remove auto fail on 1 for stealth check we still will fail, when rolling 1 in most cases. So you can just leave stealth out of this conversation entirely, it won't win anything from removed auto-fail in normal situations, we just won't auto-faill to stealth against deaf and blind anymore. You may say that said deaf and blind could get some compensatory feeling of environment, but that would mean that he has some points in perception and his passive perception goes above 5 and we once again get a good chance to fail against him.
There is no such thing as just numbers D&D, they have meaning and rules for going up and down. Larian here simply broke one of those rules and throw away the meaning that way.

Would we?
I mean, last time i was paying atention to skillchecks, it was with Astarion and i had 12-15 bonus!

//Edit:
And what else is inability to fail while rolling 1 if not this?

Would love to see sources of those bonuses. There could be messed up numbers pretty easily or you're not saying that it was with advantage or Shadowheart's buff, which is godly powers and failing because of some stupid 1 with them sounds even more stupid.
There is no such thing as inability to fail stealth check while rolling 1 in normal circumstances. And I explained why already. Rolling 1 makes us fail even at easy tasks that has 5DC for the rest on this levels they are just making us fail more often. Stealth check normally has at least 10DC.

Anyway. My last answer to you on this topic. You can go read the book and do some math yourself.

Not sure which version of pathfinder you were playing but things like lockpick and such we would always take 10 on.

1 was still a failure. 20 was not always a success, still had to go against the DC which could be nutty in mythic games.

As for what was homebrew in our games idk, because I didn't DM, but I recall older versions of tabletop rules = 1 = fail.

Sure we can do math ...

So Astarion starts at Dex 17 ... on level 4 its 19 ... using Ethel hair 20 ... that means +3-5
Since he is profficient in Stealth its +2 ... +3 on level 5 ... but he have Expertise there so actualy +4 resp. +6 ...
Drow Leather armor that is simply looted from container, there is no hard fight (Bulette can easily be avoided) or long quest ... you simply come and get it ... gives another +2
Same story goes on that Ring you find on rise road ... another +2
Also Astarion is a Vampire and if he drinks some blood he get +1 til Long rest ...

And just to have it covered all if you kill Duergars, Sovereign will give you Bliss Spores that gives you 1d6 on ability checks ...
There is ofc Guidance that gives you another 1d4 ...
And blessing of trickster wich is cantrip and gives you advantage for Stealth rolls.

So ...
Astarion on level 1-3 if i count corectly have +12 on Stealth ...
On level 4 he have +13/+14 depensing on of he allready used that hair ...
And on level 5 +15/+16 ...

And that still dont include his rolls NOR Bliss Spores, guidance, or blessing of trickster ... wich are all free.
But if we would count them ... we can reach ridiculous +17-26 AND ADVANTAGE ... and that is still just bonus to our roll!

Meaning ... unless i count incorectly ... since we are talking about rolling 1 ...
Our guard would need AT THE VERY LEAST pasive peeception 19+ to discover Astarion.
AND
Even that is only if Astarion would be incredibly unlucky to roll 1 for his skill check, bless and spores SIMULTANEOUSLY ... and there is still advantage from blessing of trickster ... i refuse to calculate chances for that so i just say they are incredibly low.

Shame you refuse to tell how exactly are we suposed to "easily fail" this monstrosity.

Patch 9 has crit hits and crit fails in and out of combat. We can tell Larian how each of these situations feel. For me, the relevant questions are:
1. Does the crit do anything special?
2. Would anything be different if I'd rolled a 19 (or 2) instead of a 20 (or 1)?
3. If I miss, can I try again?

In Combat

• Critical Hit: Double damage feels great! Rolling a 19 would probably have been a hit, but with less impact. Thumbs up for crit hit!
• Critical Miss: A crit miss is just a miss. Also, rolling a 2 probably misses. A miss never feels great, but the critical part is *shrug emoji*. Just try again next turn.

Skill Ckecks

• Critical Success: Feels like nothing. The only reward is not having to sit through the animations of every bonus added one at a time (which should be streamlined anyway). Unless attempting a check the PC has no business trying, a 19 also succeeds. Nat 20s aren't special here.
• Critical Fail: Crit fails are just fails. No feel-bad in that sense. But, assuming the PC's skills line up with the check, rolling a 2 will succeed a good chunk of the time. Worse, rolling a 1 sometimes would have been enough if the crit fail rule didn't exist. That feels awful.
  There are rerolls: Fine with thieve's tools as those are in good supply; not great with inspiration, especially if several successive checks are required, especially especially if your paladin seems to be rolling persuasion checks with a d10. Emotionally, crit fails range from annoying to let's-stick-a-few-more-needles-in-the-Swen-Vincke-voodoo-doll.

In the end, I agree with OP's suggestion: Please remove the one case which provides nothing but grief.

It doesn't provide nothing but grief, in my opinion. It is natural to fail sometimes even in things you are good at. It makes a story believable and interactions deeper.

As for the combat, the only remark I'd make is that critical misses matter. Because 95% to hit is not 100%. This auto-miss detached from your stats also makes fights unpredictable in a healthy way. May be it itches the nerves of min-maxers and save-scummers but for me it makes the game fun. Extra effects for crit misses would be nice though. If you hate crit misses, play a halfling

I do feel a combat Critical Miss more than a miss with a 2, given I don’t even get chance to apply my bonuses. But that’s not a bad thing, and I agree it doesn’t feel as consequential as a skill fail, given all being well I’ll get another opportunity to attack, whereas I only get a limited number of chances at skill checks. Perhaps only one, if I’m out of inspiration and it’s not one other companions can try!

In skill checks, it bugs me that the game doesn’t give any feedback about critical fails or successes which is extremely confusing to start with, particularly for players not familiar with D&D. If this is kept, then at the very least the same sort of feedback as we get in combat would be helpful, such as the text saying “Critical Fail” or “Critical Success” rather than just the normal “Fail” or “Success”. I do agree rolling a natural 20 isn’t that wow in early access, because there are hardly any checks that require more than 20, but presumably it could get more important as the game progresses.

As to whether they do keep skill crit fails/successes I think I might already have said that I’m slightly in favour as I perversely enjoy the element of peril and occasional pain, but am happy to revert to 5e if that’s the majority view.

Though I will say that yesterday I rolled a natural 1 for the first time and failed on the final line of dialogue when dealing with the injured mind flayer in the wrecked nautiloid. The results were quite fun to see, but only because I’d saved just before. There really should be an auto-save when approaching this encounter!

I don't find it natural to fail at things you're good at. When's the last time you failed to tie your shoes? If that's too simple an example, consider this: if you know the trick to making mayonnaise, you will never ever fail.

Also, (still purely subjectively) I find it hurts believability when my charismatic paladin fails to persuade someone with a sound argument that can only fail on a 1. What's the story justification for it not working? Did the paladin accidentaly flip the bird?

(All of this has been mentioned in the thread. I'm just trying to provide Larian with a data point).

I agree with all of that, with the caveat that exactly 95% to hit is vanishingly rare in my experience. Rolling a 1 doesn't really need to have a special rule to trip players up. Still, I'm pro-crit-miss for the reasons you mentioned.

You can alaways do a mistake, even at things you are excellent at. Just compare professional basketball players doing free throws at practice (were they are hitting dozens in a row) and during a match (where hitting above 80% is considered good).

If people claim that they never fail things that they think they are good at they don't live in reality or are not honest to themselves. Besides making a mistake sometimes random things happen that distract you or interfere. Is it 1 in 20 times you do something? Maybe not. But none of the D&D rules are realistical to that level of detail. There is a reason most systems have this rule and actually One D&D seems to be adding it to the next iteration of the ruleset.

I think that when it comes to dice rolls and natural 1s, the key to remember is that players should only roll the dice when there's a possibility of failure, and when that failure would actually be interesting/meaningful. So tying your shoes should never call for a roll in the first place. If a paladin gives a truly sound, even exceptional argument to persuade someone, then the DM should think hard about if the paladin needs to roll at all. And if the paladin does need to roll and rolls a 1, then that can represent the NPC simply being stubborn or illogical or erratic, something that doesn't require the paladin to retroactively not have made a good roll.

Strongly disagree with claim that Crittical Failure in ability checks adds "nothing but grief" ...

- For one, it justifies the very existence of ability check ...
If you cant fail, there is no reason to roll ... nor is situation anyhow tense, and speaking for myself, im not even happy from guaranteed sucesses ... if anything all that rolling animation anoys me.

- For two, there are roleplay reasons ...
Sometimes i simply want to fail, if nothing else, then to just know what will happen ... yes, im aware that i can easily create social illiterate that will fail most rolls, bcs his Charisma will be 8 (or 3 if we get rolled stats) ... but for such argument i ask you to focus on the first word in this sentence: "sometimes". :P

- And for three, (and this one will be possible little controversial) I dont give a shit.
Yes, i know its not really an argument pro or against, but lets be reasonable for a second ... how often do we critticaly fail? I dont know about you, but i usualy see around 3-5 crittical fails during single EA playtrough ...
That is simply something that in my honest opinion cant really create enough negative responces to be worth atention.
Just my opinion.

3 Days ago ...
My shoelaces were wet and frozen from the snow, also those boots wasnt exactly "new" if you know what i mean, so when i pulled them to tie my shoes tight (i dont really like snow in my boots) ... they ripped off.

Ergo i failed.

You are adding values ...
Quality of argument have none in PC game, since computer is not a DM that adjust your difficiulty if you create something really reasonable ... so ... sory, but it dont really matter how "good" your argument is. :-/

Also you are working with presumation that other side is even willing to accept your argument, or as the matter of fact, even listen to whatever you say ...

There is old joke we say in Czech:
If your wife is mad at you, pat her head and say: "Calm down, you are histerical." She will realize that you are corect and calm imediately.
(Juuust for the record i strongly advice AGAINST trying it. )

See? Its not that hard to fail with completely factual and sound argument, nor is it so hard to make things even worse ... much, much worse.

//Edit:
And remember ... if you remove possibility to fail, just bcs you have enough charisma and ability bonuses for persuation, you can easily end up with other bad extreme:

Yup, that sounds like a cricital fail if ever there was one. I got a good laugh out of that little anecdote.

Touché!