Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Auto fail on a nat 1: a houe rule that grinds my gears

I'm OK with it for attacks (that's PnP rules as written) and for DC 0 tadpole use (it is a weird, alien power, so sure, a 5% chance of failure is fine). But for saves and especially skill checks, it cheeses me off when DMs do it in PnP and I dislike it just as much in BG3. And not the least reason is the time it takes for skill checks with the dice roll and then animating all the bonuses zooming to the total. If the DC is 10 and the character is +9, just say it's done and move on. Auto succeed on a nat 20 (for saves and skill checks), same thing.

Click on the dice to stop the rolls and animations.

It's a rule that's more or less necessary, really. There comes a point, otherwise, where certain characters can *never* fail at certain things. No chance at failure = utter predictability = no excitement and no fun.

I like it.

Ooo, I didn't know that. Most excellent.

That's the point be being really good at something. If you play PnP, do you feel the same way about PnP? In the world of PnP, when a DM does this, we call if "fishing for failure,'

And if you do play PnP but don't feel the same about PnP, why not?

I do play PnP, have done so for over twenty years. That's more or less where my argument comes from. And, for the same reason.

Having a 95% succes chance at something is, what I consider powerful. Having a 100% succes chance is, what I consider, boring.

+1

I consider it boring when a DM asks for DC 10 roll and my character's total bonus is +10. Like, "You're having me roll for my character to tie his shoes, essentially." I don't play RPGs to roll dice, I play them to role play. If i want to play a roughly D&D-like game game where all I do is roll dice, I will play Gloomhaven (sure, it's flipping cards, not rolling dice, but, same concept).

Or as the saying goes, role play versus roll play.

Now, admittedly, this concept doesn't mean as much in a computer game as it does in PnP. But one thing it does mean is that the one situation in which i will always reload in BG3 is when a roll that can fail only due to a nat 1 auto fail gets a nat 1. So I do have a workaround.

Wich you actually can fail.
Its kinda funny, bcs this is exactly the example people gave me as we were talking last time about this ...

Imagine ... you try to tie your shoes, but your shoelaces were soaked and kinda torn appart from last winter ... and as you pull on them to tighten the shoe, they rip clean off!
Ergo ... you failed to tie your shoes. :P

It can happen to anyone.

Yes, and that's what the take-10 rule is for.

5% failure rate is too high for mundane checks. I don’t fail to tie my shoes once or twice in a month.

Which is a house rule in 5e. So you're saying that any potential issues arising from one house rule can be addressed by adding another house rule.

Also, if you do use 3e's take 10 (and potentially take 20), you are saying "Yes, there are times when there should be no roll." Despite saying earlier that 100% chances are boring.

Pretty much. It's for different scenarios.
The 'taking ten' rule is for when there's no danger of failure, and you could essentially take your sweet time in your attempt.

DM: You're in a storage room of sorts. There's a load of wine barrels, some chests in the back and a huge locked trunk at the far wall.
Rogue; 'Alright, taking ten on the lock' - Yup, you find a big piece of mail armor and some assorted gemstones.

DM: Taveorn smiles. He;s about to enact his most Evil Plan. The Wheel of Time is at the center of the room, with him blocking your path.
Rogue: Since I'm still invisible, I sneak around him and attempt to disable the Wheel of Time. Can you guys help me?
Everyone else: yeah, let's give him this and that!
Dm: Okay, Rogue - It looks like you got this, but you still need a 2 for this to work.

Dnd is a game. You should be able to fail jn the game. It is why dice are rolled. If you want to play set be an actor. Roleplaying, of course, is important, but sometimes you fail. That's life playing a game.

get lucky feat or be be a wizard with divination subclass and portent... or have both... then you can mitigate your "unluck" to get more rerolls... or hand that enemy that 1 you rolled at your morning protent ritual ;P

Thats interesting question ...
How does this autofail work with Halflings ... they have to get nat 1 twice in the row, or they keep rolling until they get anything else than 1 ... therefore they are immune?

No, a halflin rerolls, but takes whatever is the second roll. They *can* roll ones.

This is definitely a divisive one, and there have been a fair few discussions of it over the course of EA.

Personally, while I know that it’s not per RAW to fail/succeed on a 1/20 for skill checks, it’s a change I (usually!) like and find makes things more tense and interesting.

This goes a bit off topic but I like how the cypher system does it:

The GM assigns a difficulty on a scale of 1 to 10—a 1 is extremely simple, while a 10 represents a herculean task beyond the means of most mortals. Once the GM has assigned this difficulty, the rest is up to the players.

Players apply their skills and experience, tools or other advantages, aid from one another, and other assets to reduce this difficulty. They can also focus a limited resource called Effort to further lower the difficulty of actions really important to them.

Once a player has reduced the difficulty as much as they are able, they roll a d20. The target number is equal to three times the difficulty.
This system resolves every task, including combat.

The flexibility of the system frees the GM to build the adventures they imagine with a focus on creativity over “work,” and the GM intrusion mechanic enables great plot twists that the players welcome rather than shy away from.

I think thats great to have nat 1 failures. The winner mindset is a disease when it comes to party games. I am glad that Larian wanted to learn us the acceptance of failure with their permutations system.

The dire need to always win games falls not far from the obsessive compulsive disorder, imo. I come from my own experience, I remember planning my character in advance in order to pass specific checks and then failing them. The feeling of disgusts and anxiety made me rethink the approach and admit that there could be reasons for that failure despite my obsessive preemptive efforts to focus on the task.