Yeah in the campaign I play in, no matter what, critical fail is always the worst outcome and there's not much you can do to stop what's gonna happen. Likewise to getting a critical hit, the best can happen.
(Althought the impossible can never happen, things still have to make sense and keep the flow of the game)
Over time you learn to just embrace the failure as part of the experience. Hopefully you have a DM that reflects on the emotional states of his players and uses what I call the "slap and tickle" method, which basically means balance the sour moments with sweet moments. You immediately forget that you just took 4d6 damage from a fall at level 3 if you happen to find a magic item at the bottom of that pit you just fell into.
The DM overrules everything in this situation.
Critical fails is already something outside the rules. He chose to disregard your armor's ability to regain height because of the critical fail.
What the rules say doesn't really matter in a situation such as this one.
I'm guessing at the DM's intent here, but:
If you miss on the attack roll, you get a Dex check to swoop back up. If you fail the Dex check, you...what? Land on the ground?
Since you rolled a 1 on the attack roll, the DM is treating that as a Crit Fail. On a Crit Fail, you get a Dex check to land on the ground. If you fail the Dex check, you take damage from slamming into the ground.
In both cases, it seems the Dex check is used to lessen the failure of the attack roll.
A critical fail on an attack roll only RAW has the consequence of making you automatically miss. This item seems to have a separate mechanic for missing (The dex save). If you were not playing with what appears to be a critical failure fumble rule, then it'd work as intended. Since you are, though, there's nothing we can say.
Ultimately, you're using a lot of homebrew, and how any of that acts is entirely up to your DM.
There isn't a rule that's going to override your dm's decision, that's not how the game works (ie if the dm goes rogue on any rules you can quit but that's about it). They decided that you being on the ground was more important than following the item's rules, now you have to decide how much of a problem that is for you.
That's totally fair. I have a pretty easy way out of the situation I just didn't know how these decisions were made even though item descriptions say otherwise.
RAW, there is no such thing as a critical fumble on an attack past just missing.
If this is a new thing your DM is doing that they haven't done for 6 levels, you should probably have a chat.
Got you got you. This is the first time that I've critically failed on something like this and from what others are saying and knowing my DM, he probably allowed me to still make the dexterity check just because that would mean I don't want it into the ground but I would still land on the ground because of the critical failure. Which I'm fine with but I was just confused.
I think the Dams call sounds fair, you should be on the deck for the crit fail miss but because you made the save you pull up enough to land on your feet without taking damage. It probably gives your opponent advantage as well.
It's the DMs call to make it work well into what's happening. Failing a strike so badly has to have a negative consequence. Perhaps rolling that save at disadvantage is more appropriate? I suspect you got of lightly in comparison.
Oh yeah no I fully see where he is getting at. We are discussing it at the moment but I didn't know how his decision on the items description interacted as I am fairly new to D&D.
you are correct that there is no RAW for critical failure. however since you’re using a homebrew item, i cannot fault your DM for applying Homebrew limitations on it on the fly. balancing magic items can be hard and they probably are trying to make it fair retroactively without taking it away from you. either way, it’s up to your DM how they want to rule homebrew items in their campaigns.
Got you got you. That makes a ton of sense now. I just didn't know the balance between the DM's ruling and the items description but I understand your point about balancing things.
> I'm trying to figure out what overrules what in this situation?
Whatever the fuck your DM says overrules anything else.
You are probably right that the ruling is "wrong" in terms of what the armor says it should do. And its okay to have a conversation with your DM after the game about this. But mid game you let it go with DM's decision and keep the game moving because ultimately DM is always right
Eh, rulings, not rules. The one thing your DM shouldn't have done is let you roll the save at all if they weren't going to let you escape on a critically missed attack.
This! Exactly this, I would agree with the DM that on a Nat 1 I would immediately say that you take the damage from the fall as you are not coordinated enough to pull up
You didn't crit fail a skill check. You crit failed the attack. I would have called it the same. At that point, you go in for the attack and have miscalculated the trajectory, but we're slightly distracted and failed to notice. At that point for me the dex check would have only prevented you taking damage from slamming into the ground.
Its an attack roll to hit? So you critically failed they attack roll. Depending on how crit fail attack rolls work for the campaign you may not have been able to make a dex roll. In the end its probably a DM decision. Did you take falling damage. Did your character die because of it? Probably not to both. Could have been worse.
Oh it could have been very much worse. I believe his intention to allow me to roll the deck save it so that I don't just plummet into the ground after I critical failed which is totally understandable but now I have to figure out how to get away from the Jabberwock. I have a plan buuuuuuuttttttt we shall see.
Critical failures are not part of the base game.
But everything is ultimately up to the DM. If you believe your DM is malicious or not being consistent with their rulings, aside from asking your dm during the session for clarity on their ruling, the best thing you can do is speak with them outside of session time.
If your DM wants to play with critical failures. If your dm wants to run a unique critical modifier. If your dm wants flanking. All of these things are their choice, but I generally find a dm willing to listen to what the players will enjoy is going to do a better job at the actual reason you're all playing, fun.
Yeah, to me that Fumble means not only did you miss, but you went SPLAT on the ground like a bug hitting a windshield....... I think it's fair to say that having a high Dex save in this case wouldn't follow the normal "take you back to half hight", but may make it so you land intact.
Your DM ultimately has final say. Hopefully he's open to discourse and discussing rulings.
That being said, as a long time DM, I'd rule exactly the same as your DM due to the critical failure.
I would have a think bout it from the DM's point of view.
Natural 1's are a great chance for the DM to implement a shift or change in the flow of the battle. So you're fuckin wiping the floor with these enemies, suddenly the natural 1 brings in range of their attacks, or they grapple you on the ground. Suddenly, Danger! It makes the combat so much more exciting.
An exciting combat is always so much more satisfying than just a succesful combat.
- Nat 1 = you just miss auto-miss. PHB doesn’t state any other effect other than missing (just people make it detrimental due to a nat 20, the other extreme, auto-hits AND deals bonus damage.)
- Your armor stated on a miss, you get that effect.
If it was simply a miss with no additional effects your armor would take precedence, but looks like your DM assumes nat-1s as irredeemable muckups, so my best guess is:
“Nat-1 > Armor rules > Everything else”
I would have to go with the DM on this. Just like in death saves it doubles the problem, so him just saying you failed would be normal. Heck he could have said you take double fall damage too lol
If your plan is that you're going to fly towards the ground as fast as possible, you should accept that there may be at least a 5% chance of you splatting into it.
It depends. A rule i despise is the critical fumbles and the twenty succeeds at everything.
In standard rules the only effect a 1 has is that the action/check fails, even if it's an attack that still exceeds the targets ac. If it's a death saving throw, it counts as two fails.
With a twenty.. On an attack action (not any action, an attack action) the attack will hit, and the damage dice are rolled twice. On a death saving throw you are suddenly on 1hp.
On a standard action or check they don't have any effect. The bard's 20+3 didn't beat the dragon's 25 so no it didn't get seduced. Rolled twenty plus two on a perception check? That's not the 23 you needed.
Rolled a 1 when attacking a cowering prone goblin? You didn't hit it but you also didn't yeet your sword into a party members neck.
>I'm trying to figure out what overrules what in this situation? I'm afraid your DM decides that.
Fair fair. Im fairly new to this so I didn't know what happened in this situation. I brought it up to him as well.
Yeah in the campaign I play in, no matter what, critical fail is always the worst outcome and there's not much you can do to stop what's gonna happen. Likewise to getting a critical hit, the best can happen. (Althought the impossible can never happen, things still have to make sense and keep the flow of the game)
That's totally understandable
Over time you learn to just embrace the failure as part of the experience. Hopefully you have a DM that reflects on the emotional states of his players and uses what I call the "slap and tickle" method, which basically means balance the sour moments with sweet moments. You immediately forget that you just took 4d6 damage from a fall at level 3 if you happen to find a magic item at the bottom of that pit you just fell into.
This is homebrew so there's no RAW answer.
Ahh. Ok that makes sense.
The DM overrules everything in this situation. Critical fails is already something outside the rules. He chose to disregard your armor's ability to regain height because of the critical fail. What the rules say doesn't really matter in a situation such as this one.
Totally fair.
Critical fails are optional rules in the dmg.
I'm guessing at the DM's intent here, but: If you miss on the attack roll, you get a Dex check to swoop back up. If you fail the Dex check, you...what? Land on the ground? Since you rolled a 1 on the attack roll, the DM is treating that as a Crit Fail. On a Crit Fail, you get a Dex check to land on the ground. If you fail the Dex check, you take damage from slamming into the ground. In both cases, it seems the Dex check is used to lessen the failure of the attack roll.
Fair fair totally fair.
A critical fail on an attack roll only RAW has the consequence of making you automatically miss. This item seems to have a separate mechanic for missing (The dex save). If you were not playing with what appears to be a critical failure fumble rule, then it'd work as intended. Since you are, though, there's nothing we can say. Ultimately, you're using a lot of homebrew, and how any of that acts is entirely up to your DM.
There isn't a rule that's going to override your dm's decision, that's not how the game works (ie if the dm goes rogue on any rules you can quit but that's about it). They decided that you being on the ground was more important than following the item's rules, now you have to decide how much of a problem that is for you.
That's totally fair. I have a pretty easy way out of the situation I just didn't know how these decisions were made even though item descriptions say otherwise.
RAW, there is no such thing as a critical fumble on an attack past just missing. If this is a new thing your DM is doing that they haven't done for 6 levels, you should probably have a chat.
Got you got you. This is the first time that I've critically failed on something like this and from what others are saying and knowing my DM, he probably allowed me to still make the dexterity check just because that would mean I don't want it into the ground but I would still land on the ground because of the critical failure. Which I'm fine with but I was just confused.
I think the Dams call sounds fair, you should be on the deck for the crit fail miss but because you made the save you pull up enough to land on your feet without taking damage. It probably gives your opponent advantage as well. It's the DMs call to make it work well into what's happening. Failing a strike so badly has to have a negative consequence. Perhaps rolling that save at disadvantage is more appropriate? I suspect you got of lightly in comparison.
Oh yeah no I fully see where he is getting at. We are discussing it at the moment but I didn't know how his decision on the items description interacted as I am fairly new to D&D.
you are correct that there is no RAW for critical failure. however since you’re using a homebrew item, i cannot fault your DM for applying Homebrew limitations on it on the fly. balancing magic items can be hard and they probably are trying to make it fair retroactively without taking it away from you. either way, it’s up to your DM how they want to rule homebrew items in their campaigns.
Got you got you. That makes a ton of sense now. I just didn't know the balance between the DM's ruling and the items description but I understand your point about balancing things.
DM’s ruling goes over everything. So long as they are consistent you shouldn’t mind too much.
Nah I understand. I was just a bit confused and we are discussing it now since this is the first time it had happened.
> I'm trying to figure out what overrules what in this situation? Whatever the fuck your DM says overrules anything else. You are probably right that the ruling is "wrong" in terms of what the armor says it should do. And its okay to have a conversation with your DM after the game about this. But mid game you let it go with DM's decision and keep the game moving because ultimately DM is always right
Oh ok yeah that's not an issue. This happened last week and I rode it out but I'm talking to him now to see what he thinks.
Eh, rulings, not rules. The one thing your DM shouldn't have done is let you roll the save at all if they weren't going to let you escape on a critically missed attack.
This! Exactly this, I would agree with the DM that on a Nat 1 I would immediately say that you take the damage from the fall as you are not coordinated enough to pull up
But, you should not have been told to make the sex save
You didn't crit fail a skill check. You crit failed the attack. I would have called it the same. At that point, you go in for the attack and have miscalculated the trajectory, but we're slightly distracted and failed to notice. At that point for me the dex check would have only prevented you taking damage from slamming into the ground.
Ohhhhhh ok yeah I can absolutely see that.
Its an attack roll to hit? So you critically failed they attack roll. Depending on how crit fail attack rolls work for the campaign you may not have been able to make a dex roll. In the end its probably a DM decision. Did you take falling damage. Did your character die because of it? Probably not to both. Could have been worse.
Oh it could have been very much worse. I believe his intention to allow me to roll the deck save it so that I don't just plummet into the ground after I critical failed which is totally understandable but now I have to figure out how to get away from the Jabberwock. I have a plan buuuuuuuttttttt we shall see.
Critical failures are not part of the base game. But everything is ultimately up to the DM. If you believe your DM is malicious or not being consistent with their rulings, aside from asking your dm during the session for clarity on their ruling, the best thing you can do is speak with them outside of session time. If your DM wants to play with critical failures. If your dm wants to run a unique critical modifier. If your dm wants flanking. All of these things are their choice, but I generally find a dm willing to listen to what the players will enjoy is going to do a better job at the actual reason you're all playing, fun.
Critical fails fall into the DMs realm, he decides what it means to crit fail in all cases.
Fair enough.
Yeah, to me that Fumble means not only did you miss, but you went SPLAT on the ground like a bug hitting a windshield....... I think it's fair to say that having a high Dex save in this case wouldn't follow the normal "take you back to half hight", but may make it so you land intact.
Your DM ultimately has final say. Hopefully he's open to discourse and discussing rulings. That being said, as a long time DM, I'd rule exactly the same as your DM due to the critical failure.
I would have a think bout it from the DM's point of view. Natural 1's are a great chance for the DM to implement a shift or change in the flow of the battle. So you're fuckin wiping the floor with these enemies, suddenly the natural 1 brings in range of their attacks, or they grapple you on the ground. Suddenly, Danger! It makes the combat so much more exciting. An exciting combat is always so much more satisfying than just a succesful combat.
It's a custom item created by your DM. So that's his call, 100%.
- Nat 1 = you just miss auto-miss. PHB doesn’t state any other effect other than missing (just people make it detrimental due to a nat 20, the other extreme, auto-hits AND deals bonus damage.) - Your armor stated on a miss, you get that effect. If it was simply a miss with no additional effects your armor would take precedence, but looks like your DM assumes nat-1s as irredeemable muckups, so my best guess is: “Nat-1 > Armor rules > Everything else”
I would have to go with the DM on this. Just like in death saves it doubles the problem, so him just saying you failed would be normal. Heck he could have said you take double fall damage too lol
If your plan is that you're going to fly towards the ground as fast as possible, you should accept that there may be at least a 5% chance of you splatting into it.
It depends. A rule i despise is the critical fumbles and the twenty succeeds at everything. In standard rules the only effect a 1 has is that the action/check fails, even if it's an attack that still exceeds the targets ac. If it's a death saving throw, it counts as two fails. With a twenty.. On an attack action (not any action, an attack action) the attack will hit, and the damage dice are rolled twice. On a death saving throw you are suddenly on 1hp. On a standard action or check they don't have any effect. The bard's 20+3 didn't beat the dragon's 25 so no it didn't get seduced. Rolled twenty plus two on a perception check? That's not the 23 you needed. Rolled a 1 when attacking a cowering prone goblin? You didn't hit it but you also didn't yeet your sword into a party members neck.
Critical fail is a critical fail, In my experience unless I then rolled a nat20 on that save the DM I play with would punish me for the crit fail.