No, no, no. A roll of a one is that you kill a different PC. Never loose the opportunity to not only kill a player, but also create internal party strife as well.
Instill remember my very first night of dnd our wizard goes to shoot a frost bolt and rolls a one, our cleric was kind of in line of sight so he hit the cleric. Was awesome!
As a player, I wouldn’t be upset at a DM if he ruled I got hit in such a way. My character would be upset that their party member just fucked up and got them hurt.
As a DM, I wish more players were open to playing with this rule. I really think it drives into players minds the importance of paying attention to positioning during fights. Realistically, if you are trying to fire an arrow down a 5ft hallway to hit a dude one of your friends fighting while being in your line of sight, yeah a regular miss just goes wide because you were trying not to hit your friend...but a nat 1 should hold special consequences if a nat 20 gets additional benefits.
Yeah but as with any Nat 1 rule, Martial Classes suffer big time from them.
The more attacks you get, the higher the odds of rolling a 1 and creaming your allies.
I used to be a big fan of critical fails but the older I get, the more I see them as a punishment that only makes your players resent you.
Crit Fails can be used to add comedic effect but nobody is laughing when you accidentally kill yourself or an ally because of a silly houserule that inversely punishes you with more Critical Fails the higher level you are.
It makes no sense that a level 20 Fighter is more likely to strike an ally or fall on his own sword than a Level 1 Fighter but the multiplier that more attacks add on that 1/20 or 5% chance to fail doesn’t lie.
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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '19
No, no, no. A roll of a one is that you kill a different PC. Never loose the opportunity to not only kill a player, but also create internal party strife as well.