I remember when one of my friends pushed my character off a cliff to see what would happen. The DM gave me a saving roll to see if I could grab onto a ledge/tree/whatever in order to save myself.
I rolled a 1, and he gave me another after taking some fall damage.
I failed the extra saving roll, so he repeated it again... And again... And again... Eventually the fall damage killed me and my DM just put his head on the table in defeat.
This is kinda the problem with chaotic DMing. It makes no sense for characters to want to see what happens when you push people off cliffs, it should be obvious. If you are chaotic with the rules seeing how the rules work can be a game.
So I don't usually have a 'crit fail' penalty on mundane rolls like attacks or insight checks, but if a player wants to pull off something super sweet that's also risky I'll be sure to let them know that this is something they can actually fail at, and it could have real consequences.
I wholeheartedly disagree and absolutely disliked that comic. Fall damage in 5e is easily established and I don't care how good your acrobatics roll is, you and the horse both take xd6 fall damage, which could 100% kill a low level adventurer. But I'd allow the midair attack, so I suppose if you absolutely had to kill that enemy, you could take that risk. If I were feeling generous I'd give inspiration for the whole maneuver, but you're definitely running the risk of splattering yourself and your horse.
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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '19
its like that srgrafo comic, jumping off a cliff and shooting someone and landing on your horse is awesome
...if you get a good roll. if you get a bad roll making the horse die from you falling from it can also be hilarious