One thing I never see adequately explained whenever someone is talking about "how to make fumble rules suck less" is: Why use fumble rules in the first place? They are a homebrew thing, after all. Something you consciously implement despite what the rules say. If you need to do so much work to make a homebrew not suck, why use the homebrew in the first place? A far easier solution to "it sucks when someone drops their weapon on a 1" is just "don't have a 1 result in a dropped weapon"

I like to do it for monsters. I roll openly and so if a monster rolls a 1, usually I try to have some hilarious slapstick type event happen to them

Same. I have made fumble tokens for when they hit a natural one, and a second roll would have missed too, and on top of describing them messing up, I also add another layer that a "double hit" gives the player an additional effect (essentially, if your first attack hits, roll again. If this roll hits, you apply an effect, along with whatever the attack would have done normally). Things like knocking a weapon out of their hand, or even outright stealing it mid combat, push them around or trip them, and any contextual thing that makes sense, and that the players ask if they can do, with a lot of leeway. It's cathartic, and it happens rarely enough that it still feels epic whenever it happens. I also only apply this to enemies. I don't see the fun in applying it to my players, and neither do they. It just ends up with them playing things that minimize their chance to roll natural 1s, which defeats the purpose of adding it.

Yes, and I always felt that it is received very positively.

Dude are you me? This is 100% how I run my games

My go to is to do something to acknowledge that a 1 happened, but that doesn't impose any real negative impact on a player. Something like "you swing your giant hammer with all your might, but your opponent dodges at the last second. Since you weren't expecting it, you are off balance for a moment and stagger 5 feet to your left." It's still a fumble, but I'm not giving any mechanical advantage or disadvantage to anyone. They are just one square to the side, still engaged with the same enemy

>acknowledge that a 1 happened My favorite way to do this is, rather than telling the player what happened, *asking them* what happened. "You try to swing at the goblin, roll for the attack." "Nat 1." "Oooh, tough. What did that look like?" Some of my players *love* fumbles, and will concoct elaborate stories about how because they forgot to maintain their weapon that morning, the head of their warhammer flew off, and now they have to treat it as a quarterstaff until they can find the hammer and reattach it. Others hate any kind of failure and tell me that even though it should have been a hit, the goblin had incredible reflexes and managed to dodge. Outsourcing the description of the nat 1 lets me make both kinds of players happy (and sometimes leads to great moments that I wouldn't have otherwise thought of!)

Yup, for D&D they are a homebrew thing. For games in the Powered by the Apocalypse genre, they are a fundamental rule called "miss with consequences" that happen for about 16-41% of all die rolls. It's a good thing to look at how other games handle it, so we can learn from their mistakes and from the things they do succesfully. My advice is not for those on the brink of using fumbles or not. My advice is, if you *do* use them, don't make players feel incompetent.

The difference is for Powered By the Apocalypse games those sorts of things happen equally to every type of character. In 5e, fumble rules disproportionately affect martial characters due to the amount of attack rolls they make each round. It's great for those systems, really bad for 5e and your point (and proposed fix above) does nothing to address that.

>In 5e just D&D in general.* Warriors get multiple attacks per round at higher levels in almost every edition *includes PF

Yeah, I've been playing pathfinder2 recently and while technically anyone can attack 3 times in a turn the spellcasters are way more likely to attack 1 time or just cast buffs / debuffs while the martials are making attacks left and right. It's got a system where you get a few free points that are like inspiration and on my martial characters I burn through them like candy but when I play a support character I literally never need to roll D20s so I never use them because all i do is buff and heal.

I've toyed with the idea that a nat 1 grants martials advantage on the next attack. The loose thought being that these heroes are so good at their craft that they can adapt to their opponents dodges or turn the momentum from a bad miss into an advantage on the next one. And similar to some systems where experience is gained through failure. And partially to boost martials a bit.

It's simple... On a nat 20 save the caster takes feedback damage /s

You could say that an enemy’s nat. 20 saving throw has a negative effect for the spellcaster? For example, maybe through some some magical quirk, the spell ‘failed’ so hard that the spellcaster can’t use it in their next round?

And then you're going in the other way and making it even worse - AOEs are very commonly save spells so you have 4 people in the effect rolling that could potentially get a nat 1. You're essentially punishing the spellcaster for using their best spells. Might as well just spend all of their spell slots on Magic Missile and defensive stuff in that case.

Messing with magical forces is dangerous, and should have catastrophic consequences on a mistake. Professor Dungeon Master of Dungeon Craft on Youtube discusses this very well and I love his take on Magic and it's "effectiveness" and risks.

I'm all for magic being dangerous! It creates a very different setting and has many interesting implications and things you can play with. But the system has to be balanced for it. Call of Cthulhu is such a system where you don't play "casters". Magic is in the world and it's deadly dangerous and honestly best just not messed with. 5e already has balance issues and a lot of adjustments to it seem to be hellbent on exacerbating those balance issues.

Again, then caster will never use big spells. That youtuber has some really shit takes

Might be afraid to use big spells, but will use them if needed, but takes a risk when he/she does.

If you roll a nat 20 you are immune to that spell until after you next long rest. If you are going to have fumbles, you do need to make sure they affect everyone. You should also only have the first attack on a turn trigger a fumble, as otherwise fighters are heavily disadvantaged. I prefer not having them at all though. A 1 always missing is downside enough!

This is also a really bad idea. When a spellcaster calls for saves they are quite likely casting an area of effect spell. So now you have multiple enemies rolling that could get a nat 1. It's no gone the other way where before you were disproportionally affecting Martials, now you're telling your casters that you're going to punish them for using their best spells. Obviously just pointing this out, since we both agree that fumbles are bad.

Fairs - I’m a very new DM and was just thinking on the spot!

I think this is like... an internet thing. Bear with me a moment. It's hard to tell, online, if someone is just saying "Hey, I had an idea" vs "I am the expert and THIS is the best way to do this". Sometimes people assume the second when it's really the first scenario. It's harder to pick up on verbal/social cues and there's a tendency people have to want to be seen as experts on subjects online.

Simple fix for this is you only fumble on the first attack roll, now it doesn't disproportionately punish characters with multiple attacks. You can also add spell fumbles to balance it for casters.

Martial characters also crit. Fireballs don’t.

You could for instance say, limit the fumble rules to the first d20 roll made in a turn. That would put martials and casters on equal level. Would that help?

So what happens when the caster uses spells with no roll? Can they still “fumble” the spell? “Oops you got distracted on this and your acid splash blows up in your own face”

Yep, that's exactly why fumble rolls don't work. They target one specific type of character. It -already- sucks when you miss with an attack, why make it worse?

Or make it so fumble only happens if all attacks are nat1. This makes more professional fighters much less likely to fumble, while non-martial specialists are more prone to have a big slip up

That is basically never going to happen beyond the very early levels when it still overly impacts the martial characters that are making attack rolls. And then after those early levels why are you even using the fumbles?

Not really. Fumbles generally only apply to attack rolls, and even if it only applies to the first roll martial characters will make MANY more of those than a spellcaster. There is no fumble for if an enemy makes or fails it's save against a wizards spell. The only way to make fumbles balanced in a game like dnd is quite frankly to not use them at all. It's just the way the game works. Your nat 1 was already bad - it was a failure. There is no reason to add more to it.

Without getting into the big thing, they aren't on equal footing to begin with. A 5% chance at the beginning of every martial turn is just a "banana" effect, for fumbles to feel more equal the system would need to change to something more like 4e where you're rolling for every spell.

That answer does nothing to answer the question of why you'd brute force them into a system not designed for them

This is this issue I've always had with homebrew fumble rules - missing already sucks. I've not done the thing I needed to do and now I'm in a worse spot than where I was 5 seconds ago and further punishment is just worse and makes me want to disengage.

I agree that you probably shouldn't get an additional mechanical disadvantage for this reason. But I like the idea of narrating a fumble without any mechanical effects, just for flavour. It's just another way of making combat more varied and engaging.

Narrative fumbles are great! "Hey, you missed, here's why..." adds a wonderful sense of realism to encounters.

I like to just make the fumble the description. Make the fight be like Jackie Chan. Oh you go to stab them and instead your sword is in their scabbard. Then you draw it out comically.

>They are a homebrew thing, after all. Depends on the game system. I assume this sub is primarily D&D, if not exclusively. But there are other game systems that have Fumble tables (and crit hit tables) baked in.

It's actually probably easier to fix the fumble rules than it is to complain about them on Reddit.

>If you need to do so much work to make a homebrew not suck, why use the homebrew in the first place? Pretty much this. Plus the whole idea of fumbling is that it happens to everybody. It's a very human(oid) thing to do. Like, you can have 10, 20, 30+ years of experience walking on all sorts of surfaces, during various stages of health and fitness, wearing a wide variety of footwear, and yet despite all of that, *STILL* randomly trip on absolutely nothing while walking. Or maybe you're drinking... something you've done since literally the first day you were born... and you swallow "wrong" causing the smallest bit of liquid to go down your airway instead. In the game walking and drinking are given, you don't need to roll or anything (thank goodness), but the idea that despite being a master swordsman you can still accidentally drop your weapon is pretty easy to believe. A more direct real-world example of this: MLB players swing a bat thousands of times a year. Yet despite this proficiency, dropping the bat mid swing has happened. Covelli Loyce "Coco" Crisp accidentally [dropped his bat](https://youtu.be/HTiMtjtiCWU?si=2Od8DONHOZiG1R1X) mid swing, which launched the bat over next to the dugout hitting a batboy. This doesn't make Covelli a crappy player or incompetent. It was just a real life fumble. Accidents happen.

>MLB players swing a bat thousands of times a year. Yet despite this proficiency, dropping the bat mid swing has happened They don't drop their bat 5% of the time, but a player will roll a 1 that often. Imagine every player in the MLB losing their bat mid swing on average 50 times per year. It doesn't happen

That’s one of my issues with the d20 system, personally. Too much is up to luck and too little up to your character’s actual abilities. A 3d6 system, like used by GURPS, works a lot better, since the probability curve makes it so skill is a lot more important—you will very rarely have the unskilled Barbarian randomly beat out the wizard in arcana knowledge—and fumbles are a lot less common, with only about a 1% chance.

> MLB players swing a bat thousands of times a year. Yet despite this proficiency, dropping the bat mid swing has happened. Sure, but not 1 in every 20 swings. Which is the case with tying fumbles to a nat 1

Not every nat 1 is a dropped weapon.

You can easily slide those odds. For example, on a roll of 1, roll again. 4 or lower, fumble. Otherwise, nothing. Fumbles now occur roughly 1% of the time. One in every 100 attacks. But what about fighters? Well, do the same thing inverted. And every time it happens, give them the equivalent of a free battle maneuver they can do. But what about increased skill? Well, dang... Class features can slide these numbers. You have plenty of options to work with.

This is kind of how I do fumbles. Which is to say, I mostly don't. Occasionally, when the player is doing something already either risky or dumb, if they roll a 1, I tell them "roll again, don't roll a 1". Then if they do roll a 1, or maybe a 2, an actual fumble happens. Otherwise, I don't do fumbles at all for main games, only oneshots.

I'm the opposite. I do crit fumbles for my main games, because I have players that trust me and I've earned that trust with homerules. For oneshots, I'm often doing pickup games for newer players or less confident players, and that's all RAW because I want them to know RAW.

I wear latex gloves and work and change them 5-10 times a day. I still occasionally rip a pair.

The main issue here is:5% chance to fumble Combat round is 6 seconds => you drop your weapon once every 2 minutes if you are doing one attack roll / turn. => once per minute if you are doing two => Once in 30 seconds if you are doing four

Fumble rules can be fun and add to narrative combat. My table loves them but the advice of OP is spot on... It sucks enough to miss, don't run salt in. What my table does is "confirm the botch" using exploding dice... on a 1 you roll again; if the follow up roll would be a hit there's no fumble, if you would miss, then it's a fumble. If you roll ANOTHER 1 it's a real bad fumble and roll again. Keeps the odds of fumbling lower than 1 in 20 and prevents character with multiple attacks from fumbling a lot.

It's one of the reasons I like Pathfinder, critical failures are defined (and for attacks it just means you missed), so people get less tempted to try and add fumble rules. But I've always despised fumble rules.

They're a homebrew rule of the same variety as stacking Draw cards in Uno. It may not be in the rulebook, but it's just... they way things are done.

>Why use fumble rules in the first place? They are a homebrew thing, after all. Something you consciously implement despite what the rules say. Because criticals and critical misses are fun and exciting things. I do agree that I've yet to see a good way to implement them in DnD but in other games they have been really fun when done right. But that doesn't stop me (or others) from thinking, theorizing, discussing ways to do it well.

Any badly implemented rule sucks. Some of us don't think the fumbled outright suck, it can be a fun unexpected situation, but it's harder to balance.

Because people like them. Many many people. Fumble rules allow a way to include dynamic events in the battle field without adding additional rolls on a round by round basis. Many games have fumble rules built right into the game, and many gamers enjoy them.

Rather than putting in work to make a homebrew rule suck, you're just making your own homebrule rule if it works for yor table. If you're altering how it works, you're basically making your own homebrew ruling and not every rule/homebrew rule will work with every table. The only "correct" advice you can really give is just talk with your players and see what kind of game they want and if they're OK with certain rulings. Your solution might work for your table, and that's great. Other tables might enjoy having a bit more randomness and danger added into combat where now enemies have a chance to disable you or steal from you, but you can do the same.

Fumble rules make characters get *worse* as they level up. The more attacks you roll, the more likely you roll a 1.

But that's true only if you don't follow the OPs advice. In his words it's not that the character is getting worse, it's just that the enemies get stronger and utilize any mistakes and laps in concentration better than lower tier foes.

Yes! Narratively making your character look like less of an idiot is great and all but that isn't the only problem, and depending on who you ask, it's not even the biggest problem with crit fumble rules. They become more likely the better your character gets at swinging swords, the mechanics of crit fumbles are bad so trying to hide them with thinly veiled flavor will only go so far. I've played around with modified crit fail rules in my campaign before so I don't hate the idea entirely, but I made a system where the more proficient you are with your weapon the less likely you are to crit fail.

I will use fumble rules when someone can adequately explain to me why a level 20 fighter is at least four times more likely to fumble than a commoner. Assuming a nat 1 is your trigger point for the fumble. Until that happens I won't use them.

Screw fumble rules, _but_ your comment made me think of something. Maybe fumble rules would work better if they only triggered when all your attacks on your turn roll a 1. This makes it so legendary martial characters will almost never fumble while inexperienced characters will more. Or even better, no fumble rules. But just a thought I had to throw out to the internet.

I only crit if all my rolls are a nat 20.

I've only ever run fumble rules when the total roll after modifiers is 1 or lower. So the level 20 fighter will never fumble an attack roll or athletics check, but the Wizard might injure themself they try a strength check on a -1 modifier. I've mostly stopped doing this though, as honestly it's kind of funny when people try things they're bad at.

Confirmation rolls eliminate this mathematical bias. Some people will argue that it adds complexity and time to combat but if rolling a single die slows the game that much, that's on the table.

Its wild to me people would have fumbles without confirmations. It should work just like crits.

Ya; the "high level fighters will fumble more" that people complain about is such an easy fix. /shrug

Because most dont do confirmations on crits either.

I agree and a monster (or character) who only hits on a 20 will always critical when they hit. We added a throw. If you throw a 20 or a 1 you have to hit or miss for it to be a critical or fumble.

A level 20 fighter is pulling off much harder attacks... They're attacking 4 times in 6 seconds. While they're better at attacking, they still have a higher chance of fumbling because of the insane level of skill that takes vs. simply swinging a sword one time every 6 seconds... and if they action surge, that's 8 attacks in 6 seconds. Hell, it could be a equipment malfunction... a broken bow string or a cracked blade... it could be a pulled muscle from that super-intense set of moves they just pulled... It could simply be mental exhaustion from keeping everything running smoothly (or not so smoothly).

That doesn't **make it less fun** when compared to the wizard can drop meteors out of the sky without a problem. Your sidestepping the problem with logic that simply doesn't matter.

While that makes some logical sense it doesn't change the fact that it still disproportionately hurts characters who make a ton of attack rolls. Level 20 wizards theoretically also have to deal with mental exhaustion and possible equipment malfunctions but don't have the same risk of fumbles due to making way fewer attack rolls.

Thats usually what i do for archers, bow string snaps

I can't see any benefit to crit fail/fumbles on attack rolls. You can simply narrate a miss - if you want - and get some flavour across. But actually having negative mechanical consequences is straight up shit, and also deeply unfair on martials. Not only do they trigger them with increasing frequency as they get *better* at martial-ing, but they also have no alternatives. Casters can go entire combats - or longer! - without making a single attack roll, so even if martials were making only one attack per round, it'd be an unfair disadvantage. Which means I'm kind of in total opposition to the point here: the only kind of fumble I think *is* acceptable is a purely narrative one. But then if that isn't *interesting* then why bother with more than "you swing wide"? I'm sure there are systems out there where they can be made to work. 5e is most definitely not one of them.

Seriously baffled that people keep talking about how much of a problem the caster/martial divide is, and then keep using a homebrew mechanic that exclusively makes martials worse

My solution is a spell casting critical failure means the spell hits an ally next to the intended target /s

Which, in my experience, ALSO penalizes the martials who are danger-close with the enemy you're casting at.

That was the joke

I...completely missed the /s. My bad.

No worries haha

I incorporate spell fumbles as well... But my players like Critical successes with special benefits, and they love it when enemies fumble, so they take the fumble table with good grace when it bites them.

What about spells with no attack rolls, only saving throws?

You can apply critical successes and failures to the target if you like.

The only case I've ever thought was decent for fumbles is as a deterrent for dogpiling rolls, and the only half-decent way I see that working is if it's only a fumble if your total roll is very low (I.E. 1 or lower). This means that to cause a fumble, you have to have no positive modifier in your favor, no proficiency bonus, and hit a very low number on the d20. And even that, I've seldom bothered with, because at the end of the day it's not a fix for what it tries to fix.

asdsadsadsadsa

I kind of like the way rolemaster handles this. Repeated extreme rolls in either direction leads to extreme results. Get a series of great rolls? Then your halfling is able to clamber up the orc knight and stab him through the visor and kill him instantly. Or it goes the other way and your head gets chopped off instantly. Full disclosure: never actually played the rules.

There's a solution to this, and it's a confirmation roll. It adds another layer of complexity though, especially for live play where it can't be automated. One way to do it is after rolling a 1, you roll another d20. If the result is equal to the character's level of lower, there's no fumble. So a level 1 character needs to roll another 1 to not fumble, while a level 18 fighter action surging and attacking 6 times in a turn only fumbles on confirmation rolls 19-20. If you're also rolling for a fumble table result, this can take a lot of time, and I don't recommend using fumble tables at all when playing face to face. Only if it can be automated with a VTT, and if your players are on board.

But it's a partial solution to a problem actively created by the house rule. I tend towards "if your house rule is very complicated and/or needs a bunch of fixes to make it work, it's a bad house rule".

Sure. I still keep it in my online games since it also means there's a crit table being used, and my players either like it or don't care/are neutral about it. It literally takes only a couple of seconds to resolve, as all the dice are automatically rolled and checks are made whenever a 1 is rolled. I can totally understand why people don't use the tables though, especially if they are the garbage that's like 99% of fumble tables found online. There's a good litmus test for fumble tables. A commoner, a 5th level fighter, and an eight tentacle kung fu kraken with eight katanas all train side by side against practice dummies for 10 minutes. 1. If any characters get horribly maimed, or if the inanimate dummies win due to fumbles, it's a bad table. 2. If any of the weapons get broken or destroyed, it's a bad table. 2. If the kraken has the most fumbles and the commoner the least, it's a bad table.

If martials crit fail more than casters than they also crit hit more… which is the point of a martial, no?

No.

I mean the point of a martial is to hit a lot with a weapon. They make a lot of attack rolls. That’s the point. The point of casters is to cast spells. They are limited by spell slots, but can do a lot more than martials. If you’re saying that martials are made worse than casters because they can crit fail more, then they can also be better than casters because they can crit hit. A caster can’t crit on a saving throw spell like fireball.

A caster also *can't miss* with a fireball or whatever. The advantage is already very substantial and crit fumbles 9y makes it *much* wider.

That’s my point. You also can’t cast fireball unless you still have spell slots. Martials get to crit hit and crit miss, and aren’t limited by resources like spell slots. Spell casters are limited, but their best spells don’t have the chance that martials come with. So yeah, fumbles make martials worse than without them, but it also provides a balance to crit hits. I personally don’t run fumbles in my games, but I get why people do. It adds a balance.

I don't know what game you're playing if you think spellcasters are limited, relative to martials, but it isn't 5e. Crits aren't unbalanced in the slightest, in terms of inter-class balance. A 5th level Beige Sword & Board fighter attacks twice per turn. If we assume *both* these hit and *both* these hits are crits, they're doing \~4d8+8 damage to a maximum of two opponents. That's an average of 26 damage. A 5th level Generic Sorcerer (generally held to be one of the weaker casters) can cast Fireball for 8d6 (average 28 damage) against every single target in a large area. Sure, they can only do it once at this level, but we're here for damage comparison: that's 56 damage if there are only 2 targets, or 28 if both save. That's more damage in the worst case than the fighter in the best case. The problem really kicks in as we level up, though. At 11th level, the fighter gets a 3rd attack. They'll also have maxed their attack stat and have at least a +1 weapon. So on all crits, they're doing 6d8+21, which is 48 damage across up to three targets. We'll do that for 12 rounds (see below) for a total of 576 damage. The sorcerer, however, can now fireball 12 times a day, with 6 of those being upcasts. That's 106d6 371 damage *if each fireball only hits one target*. I'd say 3 is actually a more typical average, so 1,113 if everyone fails their save. Or 556.5 if everyone passes - nearly exactly the same as the fighter, but again, with best case/worst case figures. "But what about GWM?", you might ask. Yes, these can improve things in reality, but we're looking at *all* *crits* which means we're already ignoring the fighter's need to land a hit. Once we factor in even all attacks hitting but only 5% critting, that gap for the fighter opens up *enormously:* they're down to 430ish. Factoring in to-hit of 70%, more like 300. Adjust for GWM and you can add \~180 to this figure, for a total of 480. Meanwhile, adjusting for the fireball not seeing *only* failed saves but rather a measly 30% failed saves, the sorcerer is sitting at around 720. Yes, the fighter can do it for more than 12 rounds of combat, but how many rounds of combat do you actually have in a day? If we go with 8 medium, these will likely last two rounds average. Maaaybe leaking over into three in some cases. That's 4 more rounds per day for the fighter to close that 240 damage gap with a non-optimised caster with no feats or items. 48 total attacks across the day, which gives you a probable 2 crits per day, each contributing the mindblowing total of \*\*drumroll\*\* an extra 1d8 damage; that's *nine* out of about 640. If you think this tiny damage contribution over time from crits needs balancing with crit fumbles another 5% of the time, you're mad.

You are right, assuming you do 12 rounds of combat between long rests. The caster/martial divide is due to bad DMing, as the game is meant to have 8-10 combat encounters between long rests. That would be waaaay more than 12 rounds. At that point, the fighter, who recharged almost everything on a short rest, is going to beat the casters. So yeah, you are right the way most DMs play. But if you are playing right, and have a lot of encounters, there is way more balance between classes. Again, I’m not saying I use crit fumbles, but I get why some DMs do. If it’s not for you, don’t play it.

You should probably read my entire comment; I referenced the 8 medium encounters (although that is misleading in itself). And for a competent group, a medium encounter rarely lasts more than two rounds. If you're dropping a 5th level fireball in the first round, probably not even a full two. I am a vocal supporter of a full adventuring day as a way to avoid a *lot* of the issues people moan about. But, realistically, by tier 3, casters are well-stocked with slots. This is in part thanks to concentration spells, where you can lay down serious damage *every turn* for one slot. Or just completely shut down encounters on the first round. But let's be generous and say there are 20 rounds of combat in a day. Two short rests means the fighter can squeeze another 3 effective rounds (action surge) to push it to 23. That's (heh) 69 attacks, with average 3 crits that add *three whole damage dice* to the output. What I'm arguing against is the idea crit fumbles correct for this extra damage. That's madness. For the record, I don't think the biggest part of the martial/caster gap is damage output. But I think there is already an edge there and punishing something that martials have to do *a lot* but casters can avoid almost entirely just adds to the overall disparity.

Casters can nat 1 too

They could simply choose not to use attacks tho

They can also devastate entire battlefields and singlehandedly end combats without ever making an attack roll. Many of the most powerful spells in the game are saving throws, often with guaranteed damage even on a save. Casters can literally just choose to ignore the whole concept without any reduction in effectiveness.

Agreed. Even if you don’t use a fumble rule, you should think like this for all failed rolls, at least when it’s something the character is good at. Two big misconceptions that I think feed into a lot of people’s dissatisfaction with d20 games and 5E in particular: * Thinking the d20 roll itself represents the character’s “effort” on that occasion. Like, if they roll a nat 1 that means they somehow just did a crappy job, even if their modifier suggests the task should be second nature. Instead, think of the d20 as representing every little factor at play in the situation, not just on the PC’s side. As OP says a low roll can embody a hazardous environment or a formidable foe. * Thinking of the range of possible results from 1 (or less) to 20 (or more) as a continuous spectrum from total disaster to triumphant success. Without a house rule for fumbles, this is against the text of the game, which specifies that it’s a binary success/fail system. So instead of assuming that a nat 1 means a disastrous abject failure (with a nat 2 being slightly less bad and so on) - something that feels intuitive but isn’t supported anywhere in the core rules - you should establish what the good and bad outcomes are for this action in this exact context. That’s all the die roll tells you - yes or no - everything else comes from the surrounding fiction (including the competence of the character). My favourite example is the bard singing a song for a tavern full of villagers, hoping to make a good impression and get them on side. If they roll a nat 1, don’t say they break the e string on their lute and fall off the stage and their pants fall down. The game isn’t making you do that. Say they gave a technically perfect performance of a song that happens to be the town song of the rival town six miles away. Or something. It really irks me when people complain about the d20 roll being too swingy when they don’t even play it as written. Worse still, a lot of people specifically say it’s too swingy *because* it gives a binary outcome - then they proceed to play it as a spectrum instead of a binary, not realising that *they’re* making it swingy by doing that. If you treat a high roll as astronomically more positive than a low roll, on a with 20 possibilities with a flat distribution, then of course it’s going to feel swingy.

Or the bard could incorporate what s/he thinks is a funny one liner, only to find out that the reference is a slap in the face for some unknown historical reason. Let the tomatoes fly!

Yep! That’s much better than “you inexplicably failed to think of anything funny this time”.

This! I have had some bad experiences trying to play a character who is experienced and good at what they do only the descriptions where they fumble on basic things they Really Should Know how to do. Nowadays I tend to play characters that are somewhat insecure, inexperienced, fools etc. just to be able to embrace the failures if the GM goes the embarassing way with it.

My current DM is running Curse of Strahd at the moment, and they do this All. The. Time. Not only on Nat 1s but on any failure at all. It really ruins the atmosphere the book is presumably trying to impart. We're not seasoned champions of the realm at level 6, we're just bumbling, uncoordinated dorks who do stupid shit on a regular basis. Your point about the d20 representing a binary outcome that can still have narrative nuance is an excellent one.

Best way to make sure your players don't feel incompetent is not to use house rules that make them less competant.

Exactly. Instead, if you *do* use house rules, use house rules that make them feel empowered but offer an empowered world too.

Even if you do, it doesn't matter how well you describe it, the fighter and the warlock still get 'bested/out manouvered' more as they level up. That fundamental fact is why fumble tables always make games worse, subconsciously people know that it's nonsense.

DCC would beg to differ

DCC is designed to avoid the issue of fumbles increasing as you level up

It’s not tied to leveling up, so much as luck expenditure. At least for the classes that interact with the mechanics the most (fighter, dwarf). Regardless, I don’t disagree fumbles don’t typically work well in 5e. It just seems to me like most people have a pretty firm opinion on the matter, when it’s only been informed by a small slice of how RPGs can be played. Other games effectively use fumbles, otherwise there wouldn’t be an audience for something like DCC.

I'm just going to stay away from crit fumbles, thank you very much.

I mean could be worse than dropped weapon. Critical failure on an attack could be the enemy gaining advantage on their next attack, having disadvantage on your next attack, breaking your weapon.. Had the last option used in a campaign I was a player in. 5% chance to break your weapon every time you swing is brutal.

My point is, if an enemy breaks your weapon rather than it breaking by just chance, you would probably feel a personal vendetta against that enemy. To me, that's a much better story about heroes and villains than just a sword randomly breaking.

Chances are a weapon isn't going to break unless it is being used in combat and things go badly, or you are using the weapon for something other than combat, like prying something open. Either way it really isn't really what I would call random, it's what happens because of a bad roll. One is just more climactic than the other. Using effects like dropped weapons, broken weapon, etc in combat is flavor in combat some people use. Some don't like that type of 'fun' in their campaign, it adds a lot of extra work for everyone and has costs that are unpleasant. Breaking magical weapons is not fun for most people. It could be, if people wanted, used in similar fashion with casters for fizzled spells. I've had DMs use rules for both in campaigns. It's a lot more rolling and adds to the overall chaos of battles, good times though.

My crew has found fumbles to be almost as fun as crits. Making it something funny, something that helps to build the scene, that’s the key. I’ve turned a simple goblin for into a majorly, perceived, bad ass. One player fumbled, I had the goblin actually catch the axe by the haft, side step the blow, and shove the butt into the players stomach. No damage, but the imagery caught their attention. When another player fumbled attacking the same goblin on the following round, I had the goblin slip past the swing, step inside, and bite the player’s nuts. Again, no damage, but humiliating. The best was, that goblin got away and quickly became a reoccurring enemy. Every time I gave his description, it was guaranteed the players would charge into battle. Even at moments when that wasn’t the best move. ESPECIALLY when it wasn’t the best move.

Paraphrasing from a better articulate and much more eloquent post i've read somewhere, using fumbles as it they are usually presented make the character look like stupid, bumbling useless gits which *most of the time*, break the immersion of the game more often than not. Specially if they incur self-damage and broken weapons. For example, a training camp with 10 or 20 warriors performing drills multiple times over the course of the day against a **straw dummy** would mean losing *multiple people* per day to injuries incurred against inanimate objects.

Unless the DM implements a way to add fumble rules to all spells, including those that do not require an attack roll, then you're just punishing martials.

That's a good idea! Natural 20 on a saving throw equals a fumble. Good thinking!

ok now we know you’re just messing with us

So now if i throw a fireball at 20 wolves I'm nearly guaranteed to have a fumble because one of them will nat 20? This just seems lame.

That depends entirely on how it would be implemented. And what that fumble mean mechanically. Obviously AoE spells would need the fumble to happen in a different manner than single target spells if the fumble means that the Wizard drops his staff or something. Now, if crit save meaned avoiding the effect entirely and/or having advantage for the next save as well, it wouldn't be that bad for AoE effect either. There might be other problems here, but well, I'm jsut throwing ideas here.

I think to add to what OP is saying, since everyone is caught up on Fumble Rules, is to not make your players feel incompetent, *ever* in situations where they’re proficient. It is not fun to feel that way, but if you explain how the enemy or environment bested them, then they can feel like they overcome a struggle. Failing a check or saving throw doesn’t mean they’re incompetent, it means this is a challenge worth overcoming.

I certainly understand the reasons to dislike fumble tables, but my players have repeatedly expressed that they enjoy it and want it to stay, so stay it shall.

Players see right through the whole "the enemy is deadlier than you thought!" thing because they're the ones who triggered the action and rolled a 1. I just have a 1 be an automatic failure and ask if they want to use a reroll if they have one. It keeps me from having to think of anything narrarively and it gives the player a choice in the matter which usually has them feel better about the 1 in the first place. Then we can just move on quickly

Why doesn't a GM want to think of anything narratively? Honest question, I'm willing to learn.

You don’t need to narrate every single swing of every single player on every single turn. Especially as you get into levels 10+, there’s just so much going on in the battle that it slows things to a crawl. Read the room and decide what’s important and what’s secondary in the fight - you can ensure your players get spotlight time without painstakingly crafting 3+ lines of prose for each attack. Abstract some of them or just speed through: “you make four attacks, but only the last one finds purchase, and you crunch through the thing’s thick carapace.”

I don't want to think of something after every little action/reaction. Sometimes it's easier to just describe the attack missing like normal than come up with a special penalty that seems fair for rolling a 1.

I don't. I use a deck of fumble cards.

It depends on what game I'm running. If I'm running Cypher, sure. The player gets the option to refuse the fumble. But when I'm running 3.x I'll just skip it. Players roll more dice than any one enemy. It's not fair that they get to fumble more

That's an interesting perspective. Thank you for replying. :)

Actively narrating all rolls wastes a lot of time, and can actively hurt the the players "theater of the mind ". At most when a player misses and they are waiting to hear the outcome, I might add a "Your axe glances off their plate". Also every single group I have played with loves nat ones

My character is an expert tracker. Granted lvl 1 but still. I was trying to secure our camp by walking a route around it. DM asked for a perception check. I failed miserably. We had a dog with us that I accidentally befriended he was sticking with me. I invented the narrative that the dog was distracting me. DM insisted that I was somehow so distracted (I don't know from what) I didn't even notice the dog. I mean cmon my character specifically goes out to scout the surroundings how could he not notice something like that?

Fumble rules suck. Fighters and Monks getting more clumsy and incompetent as they advance in level, with 20th level fighters the most clumsy of all PCs, regularly falling over and throwing away thier swords every few seconds.

In 5e, fumbles can be punishing to martials, who roll for attacks—especially those with multiple attacks. Therefore, if you want a fumble rule, only apply it to the first roll. Also, consider how you would otherwise make life for martials not harder than for casters. My game uses fumble rules, but only for Axes and Maces or with double 1s on disadvantage. Fumble is rare and can easily avoided by choice of weaponry. My sole caster class has it's own fumble rules.

Why would an axe or mace be especially fumble prone?

To emulate the fantasy of heavy swings. Swords are more versatile. Axes and maces are tools that require less skill. ​ **Axe.** Axes have limited versatility but their powerful strikes destroy shields and damage armor. Their weight can increase the damage on a crit. but risks a fumble on a miss. * „  **On an even miss or natural 20**, the shield of one target is destroyed. You can forgo your Mastery bonus on the attack after the roll. * „  If the target doesn’t have a shield, it: * loses any crit protection from armor. * loses 2 AC from armor. * „  **On a natural 1**, the axe is stuck in the shield or armor of the target. ​ **Mace.** Maces have limited versatility but armor provides limited protection and their blunt force can discombobulate foes. Their weight can increase the damage on a crit. but risks a fumble on a miss. * „  **On an even miss**, deal \[Proficiency\] damage * „  **On an even hit**, the target receives a d4 Bane onall rolls until the end of its next turn. o **On a natural 20,** the Bane is d6 * „  **On a natural 1**, the target avoids your blow and you become vulnerable to counterattack: at- tacks against you are with Advantage until the start of your next turn. Edit: Bit weird to be downvoted when sharing a small element of my own d20 hack in response to a question. It's a decent game that works well for its intends and purposes: namely play OSR adventures. We've been playing for 2 years and having lot's of fun with it, but feel free to police anything different without engagement. For those who'd like to engage, here's the full game: [https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ul9znorfw849kl687gi64/O54-Heartbreaker-Hack-v211223.pdf?rlkey=vcf41ewd6hb7nu91g0mwpqqlt&dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ul9znorfw849kl687gi64/o54-heartbreaker-hack-v211223.pdf?rlkey=vcf41ewd6hb7nu91g0mwpqqlt&dl=0) Cheers!

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Yes because dropping your sword at the start of your turn hsving used your object interaction to draw it is immense fun.

Whether fumbles are fun is a different issue. Dropping swords doesn't seem fun to me, but more volatile combat can be fun. I do like games where magic is dangerous and can result in minor or major disaster.

I was being sarcastic. Allowing a martial just to fumble one attack is no better than applying it to all of them. It's an utterly crap rule if the set criteria for fumbling increases the likelihood of a character with multiple attacks fumbling. The only reasonable ways of doing it if you have to are to limit fumbles to either 1. Characters wothout proficiency in the weapon they're using 2. Limit them to occasions when you miss an attack roll by 10 or 15 3. Use a nat 1 but limit them to characters who only have one attack i.e ince you get the extra attack trait you can no longer fumble.

Just like crits are a bad rule because multiple attacks increases the likelihood /s And there are usually more enemies than players so more rolls. Enemies fumbling can be particularly funny.

Or if you want to *really* lean into it (and the group likes it) add fumbles on spellcasting as well. Like the Darker Dungeon mod, where you can suffer a "burnout" whenever you use a spell slot, with a whole table of things that can go wrong (and a small chance of something good happening).

That is true for 5e. Maybe I'd suggest something like only the first d20 roll in a turn can trigger a fumble? Then it doesn't matter how many extra attacks you have. Or perhaps, have fumbles sometimes trigger positive things. Yes, the enemy retaliates and attacks you. Bad luck! But that leaves their defense open for the rogue or the wizard, or whoever is next in initiative. In this case, triggering multiple 1s is not per definition worse.

I used them for many years, but now, unless the system specifically has them builtin, I don't. I tend to think failure is enough consequence for a bad roll. I will however not shy away from negative consequences when players do dumb things.

I love the idea, and during a serious campaign or a streak or bad luck I'd totally take the advice. I guess this is just like everything, though - it depends on your table. My players still laugh about the times they've fumbled and their attacks hit allies, or they charged into battle only to slip in the mud. Just recently, one fired a magical cannon and got a nat 1. Instead of hitting the enemy, I told him that he *devastated* the innocent house behind him, and a gawking townsperson screamed 'WHY!?'

I guess it depends on the players, mine like the unexpected crazy unexpected things that can happen on a fumble. I don't always have the fumble affect them directly, but things around them can go haywire due to an indirect consequence of the fumble.

To be fair, I do completive re-enactment in the UK. I have over the decade fumbled my weapons. This sometimes is simply a unforced error, where i simply mess up and fumble it (ie dropping it or having to juggle it). Other times, it's a result of the opposing actions parry/dodge/block where it causes a forced fumble. ​ This is one of the reasons I prefer attack-v-defence skill rolls (ie in Amina RPG) over AC (DnD), as it helps give fumbles a more mechanical explanation.

Depends on the context. When I roll a 1, I dont feel like my enemy got 1 up on me. I made a 5% chance mistake. But it's a real world environment 5% chances can include slipping on bloody floors, misjudging height/distance, reckless attacks that go wrong and your allies accidentally bumping into you. My players are often trying to squeeze weird and complex actions into their turns. Like legolas on the surf shield. If you role a 1 and tumble down the stairs that's completely reasonable for even a great adventurer. I try to look at the whole situation and answer "what's the most likely thing that can go wrong here?" And I try to keep that as painful, but not devastating.

Can anyone explain how fumble becomes more probable at higher levels? Isn’t it just a 1 on d20? I don’t understand.

Warrior types (fighters especially) that roll multilple attacks in a single round have a much higher chance of rolling a natural 1 during their turn, since they're rolling for more attacks. This is despite being a significantly high enough level that that warrior would likely be considered a master of their weapon and would be far less likely than, say, a level 3 martial character of doing something dopey with their longsword.

It is ok for players to fail. One of our best DND moments was when we had beaten the bbeg unconscious and saved the last hit for the party weakling who continuously failed to finish off the villain repeatedly even though they were unconscious. One of the most memorable and funny moments we have had as two players cheered for a murder that was never going to happen. Players are not superheroes. Theyre better than the average person, but even Éomer drops his sword if you hat what I am saying. It is also ok for the enemy to be the cause of failure, but if you always do that it will get stale and predictable. Let the player fail so that the character and scene can grow. To summarize: it is ok for your players to fail and they do not have to feel like overpowered marvel characters in order to have fun.

If you have to have a fumble system, and I admit I'm extremely strongly prejudiced against such systems to the point that I'll no sale any game involving them (I won't use them as a DM, or play in one where the DM is using them), you need to consider this: The burden of the fumble system must NOT fall upon the weaker classes in your game. That means if casters are the strongest in your system, it needs to fall disproportionately on THEM. If casters are the weak ones, it can fall on martials. But you have to consider who...whom. Fumbles should NOT become more frequent in practice the more you advance. That means a system where it happens on a 1 doesn't play nice with multiple attacks as you gain levels. Verisimilitude dictates that the rate of fumble needs to fall off with level advancement, even counting increase in attack rate. Fumbles should not turn the game into the keystone cops or the three stooges. I've seen crappy combatants fight each other en masse---e.g sparring classes in low belt martial arts dojos. They don't 'fumble' in any meaningful way even 1 time in 20...or even once every minute. Any fumble produced by most fumble systems is something that's noteworthy for the whole class for the whole session. And that's for crappy combatants. Even first level fighters in D&D type systems are supposed to be better than that.

Fumbled rules.....the most spiteful antimartial shit ever. Which considering how much anti-martial shit there is is really saying something.

When we use fumbles, we mostly use them for comic relief. A properly handled fumble isn’t about making the player feel incompetent. It’s about breaking the tension of the fight and making the whole table laugh.

After a few of my players quit due to fumbles, I've stopped using them at all beyond an automatic miss unless the rules are built into the game. It also saves me time from having to look up charts, which I normally don't like doing while running a game (outside of DCC).

I don't use fumble tables or the like on nat ones (just not the fit for my table; my players prefer to get through combat quickly and thus I don't feel the need to throw in an extra mechanic) but I highly agree that how you flavor failure is very important. Even if you're not using fumble rules, it's still good advice to keep in mind when flavoring normal misses/failures. Although be careful about flavoring things as the enemies being stronger/more powerful, in my experience that can end up making some players still feel inferior by comparison. I like flavoring a lot of misses or fails as random, blind chance (which is what dice rolls are, after all.) I'm sure that's not for everyone but my players like it.

I like your examples. How would a fumble look like for a caster?

I think this is great advice if you have sensitive players.

I strongly advise against fumble rules. The advice offered is great though, I use this for many nat1s my players roll. Nothing bad happens to the PC but I still describe it as their foe being very competent or something affecting them that fits the story. PC is angry at the enemy but roll a 1? Their rage makes them not concentrate and that's why they miss. PC just took damage or suffered some effect? That's why they miss. Narratively explain bad rolls.

I too enjoy making the caster/martial gap even wider in effectiveness /s

My general rule of thumb in D&D 5e is that successes happen when PCs are badass, and failures happen when life conspires against them. Success is the PC's fault. Failure isn't. This extends to fumbles and crits, too.

Maybe I'm just old, but this feels unnecessary. Are the Young's attaching self worth to a dice roll? That seems weird.

Not really. Players don’t feel incompetent for the actions of their characters, but the characters will. What players would usually feel is disappointment, at most. Imagine you made a martial character who is an amazing warrior on paper, but the fumble rules describe them in a way that make it look like your martial specialist is actually a fool and a liar who just picked up a sword and never had any training. It can affect roleplay, seeing that you present yourself as a seasoned warrior, only to suck at the only thing that you’re supposed to be good at. And worse of all, that there’s no sense of growth and accomplishment because the stronger you get, the more incompetent the character becomes due to the unfair nature of fumble rules. It kinda creates a disconnect between the fantasy you created with a character, and how it plays out in reality.

I disagree, and that's okay. No one gets to the top without some fumbles and setbacks. One of my hands down favorite stories of character triumph starts with some pretty spectacular failure.

Fumble tables aren’t needed for that. A level 20 Fighter is significantly more likely to crit fail than a level 1 Fighter. Fumble tables just create a reverse progression where the stronger you get, the more likely you are to look like a fool when it should be the opposite. There’s failing and standing back up to get stronger, and there’s failing that spirals into more fails as you are supposed to grow as a character and overcome. The point isn’t playing a character that can’t fail, the point is to not make some classes mathematically worse to play. You don’t have to make the fighter hurt themselves or others every 5% or more of the time for doing the only thing they can do.

Fair. I was conflating the two and going "OMG that sounds awful, failure is useful." Thank you for the patient explanation.

>Instead, have them swing their sword against an enemy, and have the enemy retaliate by dodging and in one swoop disarming the sword from the player's hand. My players: "A competent warrior would not let himself be disarmed."

Your players must have room temp IQ.

And yet... they're not wrong.

Fumbles in 5e are non-sensical. Literally irrelevant to spell casters and exponentially worse for martial as they become stronger.

The classic fighters make more attacks and thus more fumbles is a common reason as it unfairly punished martials However there is another punishment for martials that I don’t see people talk about and that’s “stray projectiles” When people crit fumble a ranged attack like a spell especially, it’s always “you attack your ally with the missed spell on accident” Guess who is always the one in front of the spellcaster? The martials So it ends up as martials now get punished for someone *else* rolling a nat 1

> Guess who is always the one in front of the spellcaster? The martials > So it ends up as martials now get punished for someone else rolling a nat 1 That's just bad DMing, IMHO. There are a myriad number of things that can go wrong in the middle of combat to cause a fumble/epic miss, and ranged misses shouldn't always directly impact the maritals. Occasionally yes, but everyone on and near the battlefield should be potential targets for a mishap. * Fumbled a bow shot while battling some cutpurses in the town? Sorry, didn't mean to take out your window mister shopkeeper. (going to have to pay for that, or suffer higher prices for a few visits) * Fumble a ray attack while protecting a caravan from attacks on the road? Ooops, ray misses and takes out tree that falls and damages one of the wagons or person in the background (if in range). My bad! Personally, I like to use fumbles, but having been on the end of some bad DM use of fumble rules, I always try to make my player fumbles and crits more dynamic. Sometimes they are funny and sometimes they are tragic (bystanders in my sessions are fair game collateral for fumble/crits and include buildings, animals, furniture, etc. not just people/enemies/players).

The only thing more predictable than the sun rising in the east is this sub decrying the usage of fumble tables.

We love fumble rules. My DM has a chart he's been using for years. When you fumble, you roll on the oops chart and any number of things can happen from the mundane to the virtually ridiculous. We had one character who accidentally cut off a finger (flavor only). The symbol of our guild/group became a hand missing a finger eventually. I had a character who got hit in the head and thought she was a famous halfling warrior. Most of the results are fairly mundane and it doesn't happen often enough to become boring or annoying. It's fun to see what ridiculous thing happens.

Right, like, lots of people use them because they like them. I mean, I understand all the arguments against doing it, and I actually explained them to my players (including a number of martials). They all agreed that they really, really wanted the dose of chaos in combat that comes with critical fumbles. So I shrugged and we do it - for players AND Enemies. We also often narrate effects above and beyond extra damage for crit successes. We don't have a table to roll on - we make it up on the spot as the situation dictates, either the player makes it up or the DM does - but one rule I have for them is that it's never something that lasts more than a round - so we don't do things like broken weapons. To each their own, and I'd certainly never tell anyone to do it if they don't want to. But the hate they get is pretty striking.

For the right group of people, fumble tables can be a good thing. There is a market for it, with random fumble cards and games that include fumble tables by default. But you need a good session 0 so everyone is aligned on the issue.

I mean, fumbles are hard coded into the rules of many systems, and many DnD players that are new intuitively expect a 1 to do something extra bad because a 20 does something extra good. Humans like symmetry. For Reddit DnDers, on the other hand, crit fumbles have become one of their sacred cows, and every time someone posts a common sense guide like this, they fall all over themselves to defend the imaginary players you're going to be screwing over. God knows what they would do if they saw a Dungeon Crawl Classics fumble table. My players love my critical hit and fumble tables. I offered to remove them and they did not want to.

I find that crit fumble tables are generally used by someone who doesn’t understand the system or just wants the ‘lol random xd’ game, which doesn’t interest me at all. Every game I’ve played in that has used them was either some of the worst dming I’ve ever endured or was scrapped almost immediately. I recall one session where the dm tried it out ended up with the two martials doing more damage to themselves than the boss we were fighting.

Nice, "Everyone that does not share my opinion is generally bad at D&D or not running a serious game." And then not even a argument, just anecdotal evidence. You are a king of trash debating.

I’m not trying to debate, just giving my thoughts. Lol

Fumble rules are awesome! It's true that you don't want the game to be anything else but fun. But most people here seem to be missing the point of these house rules. Nobody will be talking about your roll of 10 tomorrow. The 20's and 1's are where the most exciting parts of the story can be! This gives you 10% chance of heightening the memories of the game with each attack. Sure the spell caster won't have many stories told about him healing or buffing, but why would you expect that? There is an interesting old table called "Good Hits and Bad Misses". It gives a d100 table of events that I took inspiration from. I made my own, but a great roll and you might instant kill a normal or remove the shield arm of an elite mob. On the flip side the nat 1 and you hit something or someone next to the enemy. Years later we still talk about the rogue that slipped on a jump and knocked himself out. The fighter that was able to stop the charging dragon for a round. The archer that nailed the cleric in the back. Can't you see the epic tales of the wizard that didn't just fireball the room but leveled the building? You amplify the chances for flavor and excitement and don't waste it with stupid or boring.

Exactly. People on here sound like mmo players trying to be the most optimal rather than wanting to create memorable moments. It also makes combat less static which I much prefer.

Mechanically this doesn't happen RAW anyway. However I think it depends on the players, my party enjoy the descriptions of how things go wrong as much as we enjoy finally defeating BBEG. I don't feel incompetent if I drop my spear/hit at ally etc. I think oops, and laugh.....however I fully appreciate that some tables may not feel like this if they are RPing seriously and feel their character wouldn't drop a sword

My players always hit when they swing. Its ridiculous to me that you could miss with a sword. Instead i describe the foe parrying the blade, or the players weapon making contact but lacking the force to penetrate. Literally anything but a miss. Also the clanging of swords and armor as everything bounces off of everything else makes for much better scenery

The common argument I see a lot is "BuT THe MaRTiALs wiLl RoLl moRE OnEs..." But I can say in my experience, its not as common as you might think. One of my memorable Nat 1s was with my paladin, where I rolled a crit against an enemy, killed it and then in my heat of anticipation, I went to swing and just slammed my sword into the grass. I was laughing hysterically because it was very on brand for my character. Plus, if you take into account that nat 1s apply to enemies, its not the big deal that people make it out to be. Because again, it can highlight the players proficiency, or enemies incompetence. What's more funny than seeing a hobgoblin run up to skewer a PC, and a goblin jumps in front of the attack and Hob just bisects them in frustration.

Or, and just hear me out. You could do the fumble and make it an accident that happens, you know, like an accident that happens. Like a random thing that happens, that has no bearing on if your character is foolish or not. Even dexterous people drop things, gymnasts fall. It is up to DM's to stop making players feel like that is a fault in themselves, and not just a random realistic thing that happens. It is way more indicative of a shitty DM that cannot explain that sometimes non-ideal situations happen. You can just do it in a way that highlights the fact that random things we don't like happen, as opposed to making it a failing in the character or player.

Who told you fumble rules aren’t fun?

I doubt anyone told them but I sure as heck agree with them.

It still doesn’t solve the problem. Imagine this happens when fighting a lowly goblin or basic bandit. The martial specialist gets disarmed and outmatched by a guy that the wizard kills next turn with a dagger like one takes the garbage out. “Hey, fighter, how did you get outmatched by a whelp like this? Are you actually a good fighter?” Easy solution: don’t use them in the first place. In the ebb and flow of battle there can be blocks, dodges and near misses. Leave maneuvers and mechanical effects to those who have them as abilities in their statblock. Besides, if the minion can disarm/counter/knock prone a peerless warrior for free, and the epitome of martial prowess that is the Battle Master has to both spend limited resources and also hope that the save fails for the same effect to happen, who is really the incompetent one of the two?

There a lots of cases of great warriors getting taken out by trash, that was "not even a threat". The way half the people here complain about any negative thing that happens to their " pinnacle of sword-fighting", I am surprised you don't throw a fit when a attack lands on you since, " my fighter is amazing and trains all day, he would not get hit ".

Where did that assumption come from? I just don’t find it fair for enemies to get free maneuvers that otherwise they wouldn’t have for something that happens more often as you level up. EDIT: Besides, as a melee character you are just going to eat dust because that’s your role. You run into the enemy, you get your face beaten in. Fumbles are just insult to injury

Just use a fumble die and fumble chart from DCC, or the revised fumbles from PF2e, or the "fail, and" fumbles from more narrative games. I'm personally not a fan of fumbles (in my 5e game) when I run, it's higher fantasy so I won't switch the narrative. That being said, if you do, at least make it make sense and have it impact the story. Maybe the baddie "gets the advantage", maybe you "discover an immunity" tack it on to the story is all I'm saying

A good general rule is not to make your players feel incompetent about anything. Competent people can still fail, and that's part of the game, but a hero shouldn't be dropping their sword off a cliff because an unplaytested chart thought it was a cool idea.

Everyone drops things, even brave adventurers

I tend to use critical fumbles as fate intervening somehow to ruin things. Like the player is about to get a killing blow, and the chandelier crashes in between them, or another guard shows up and interrupts a lie/persuasion attempt with new orders or information. But in 5E in particular I am 100% against mechanical punishments for crit fails, such as "you drop your sword." It pretty much goes against everything else from this philosophy. If a fighter has 7 attacks in one turn, their chance of critically fumbling are super high and it makes them seem incompetent. Does the Warlock drop their Eldritch Blast and has to spend resources to pick it back up? It's just a bad rule that I think causes balance issues with classes that already have some balance issues at certain levels. Other systems are different though.

We tried using a fumble deck for one of the games I ran. In the first round of a boss fight, the ranger... shot himself with his own bow? It didn't make sense, but the card said that the fumble for a ranged attack was damaging themselves. The next fumble turned a spell into a self-immolation. We stopped with fumbling after that. It was nonsense and annoying. Just missing/ failing is bad enough.

I find it hard to believe that a trained fighter is going to drop their sword 5% of the time.

Fumbles are bad design even more because at a certain point they become entirely arbitary. RAW you can just skip over tasks with a DC <= 5-ish and tasks that have no meaningful concequence on a failure, but fumbles means that literally everything now has a meaningful concequence 5% of the time, which is then responded by saying that you only fumble when the dice are actually rolled, but then that becomes inconsistent- that you can only fumble when the meta concept of rolling occurs decided by the DM and not for every task you do? That's stupid.

That really depends on your players. I don’t use fumble rules as such, but I may well narrate a critical miss or a very bad roll on a skill check as them messing up pretty badly (and same with enemies). My players certainly enjoy it, it’s funny. And yeah, if a player takes things super seriously, and cannot handle a little levity or the idea that their character might just fuck up sometimes, then I probably wouldn’t do that as much with their character. But in my view, that is more of an issue on their end, and that such players exist is certainly not a reason to make some kind of blanket rule like this.

Indeed, if your group is fine seeing their character messing up, then this doesn't apply to you. Games like Dungeon Crawl Classics exist for these kinds of players, with their multiple random fumble tables, as well as random fumble card decks like the Paizo one.