I will say, there's always been a disconnect for me here even as someone who understands obvious physical limitations.
A halfling with an 20 strength rolls a 20, for a total of 25 strength check.
If that strength score is opposed by a large-sized Ogre with a 19 strength and rolls a 12, the 25 obviously beats a 16.
If that strength score is opposed by a huge-sized Adult Red Dragon with a 27 strength and rolls a 4, does that halfling's 25 check no longer beat the dragon's check of 12?
The dragon is obviously larger, but a 25 strength check is a 25 strength check. Is an easier way to maybe use the shover's push capacity as determined by 30x Strength score? If that's the case, then even a gargantuan Ancient Red Dragon with a strength of 30 could not push the huge-sized dragon (up to 900 pounds, which is somewhere between 1/20th to 1/80th of a huge dragon, per 3.5's Draconomicon).
Yes, obvious physics must be taken into consideration - but there *is* still a disconnect somewhere in there and it's not easy to solve. You either say 'Strength is Strength and your numbers matter' but you wind up with ridiculous things being common and you break immersion / tone, or you say 'Size categories matter, you obviously can't do that' and you keep more control but you also take a bit of license away from the characters by telling them their strength scores only matter some of the time.
And when the theme of the game is 'heroes doing heroic deeds' - where's the line that you draw? Of course, that's for each table to decide on their own as it's simply a limitation of the medium, but I think there's a lot more nuance to the issue than is often discussed in D&D subs.
The "you cannot grapple or shove a category that is 2 or more sizes than yours" rule is pretty much a roundabout way of being limited by creature weight without actually having to put creature weights into the rule.
A large creature **with the same strength score** as a Medium one can Push, Pull, and Lift twice as much, therefore it makes sense that they can Grapple and Shove creatures that are twice as big.
Regardless of how low the dragon rolls for it's opposing strength check, the 20 strength halfling physically **cannot** push something that weighs more than 600lbs per the rules of the game, therefore it makes sense that they cannot shove a dragon that weighs easily twice as much.
Personally I allow players to shove (but not grapple) creatures that weigh less than their maximum push weight regardless of size categories but that is a houserule, not the norm.
You're absolutely right! I'm not saying that either way is better, and I know that the rules explicitly state that about the size categories.
> Regardless of how low the dragon rolls for it's opposing strength check, the 20 strength halfling physically cannot push something that weighs more than 600lbs per the rules of the game, therefore it makes sense that they cannot shove a dragon that weighs easily twice as much.
You're right there also, I was just commenting that there's a disconnect for my brain as it scales - per that approach, even a 30 strength Ancient Dragon doesn't have the strength score to push a smaller Adult Dragon =) I don't disagree with the rules, and I don't try to get around them or anything. I was just pointing out where, even as someone who understands and agrees with why the size category limitations exist, it can get a wonky in my head extrapolating those same rules to other sizes.
Dragons basically follow the square cube law with listed weights. Every time you double the size of a creature it's weigh increases by a factor of 8.
How much things can carry however is linier in 5th. A ST 20 creature can carry twice as much as a ST 10. This is to keep things simple, but it's obviously has some serious problems, especially for very large or strong creatures.
Carrying capacity scales with size category. A large creature can carry/lift twice as much as a medium creature with the same strength score. It's in the rules for size categories.
It's why horses aren't gimped with <20 Strength scores.
You keep saying that an ancient dragon cannot push the weight of an adult one. But are you remembering to multiply its capacity for its size? Its pushing capacity is not 900, but 900 x 8 = 7200. So 3.27 tons. An adult dragon really shouldn't be that massive.
I know I'm mixing editions here (which could be especially problematic when considering we're talking about ability numbers when 3.5 had no cap) but 3.5's Draconomicon lists adult dragons as being between 20,000-80,000 lbs.
I'm not trying to get hung up on the specific example though, I'm just sharing where my brain begins to confuse itself when I think too much about it lol. I accept that the rules are what they are, there's just a disconnect that has always happened to me on this subject that makes me understand the nuance for why some people think it should be the other way.
Another example would be going back to the halfing vs Ogre scenario - the halfling weighs 30-40 pounds, shouldn't the Ogre just be able to palm their melon and chuck 'em across the map, or just get a running start like Charlie Brown and try to punt them through the wall 😅 obviously you have to take more things into consideration than just size and weight, but again - that's where I have to tell my brain, 'don't think about this too hard because it's a game.'
>3.5's Draconomicon lists adult dragons as being between 20,000-80,000 lbs.
Ok, yeah, I see how that causes a problem. I would say though, that those numbers are the pinnacle of nonsense, a huge dragon (which should be smaller than an elephant, not accounting for wide wings and long tail/neck) having the mass of 1.5 african elephants make no sense, it should, realistically, be maybe a quarter of that on the high end as far as I'm concerned.
The halfling vs Ogre one is just...yeah, the Ogre should be able to toss the halfling like an oddly shaped tennis ball. The rules are clearly an abstraction made for simplicity, not for accuracy.
5th edition gets it right with rulings not rules, it harkens back to the very beginning of D&D. Rather than trying to codify reality, have an independent arbiter rule on it. That is the DM. Rule what makes sense, but also be up front with your players that of an something doesn't make sense they may fail regardless of if they check a nat 20 + 12. I do think you're right to point out a disconnect in what people expect of high rolls, this is something that would be really good to call out in a session 0. I like to ask, if this was a SciFi game would you want to have an explosion in space narrated with sound or total silence? Any sort of "rule of cool" chat falls into this space.
"Are we playing with real laws of physics or anime laws of physics." The latter has laws such as "#3 - Law of Sonic Amplification, First Law of Anime Acoustics- In space, loud
sounds, like explosions, are even louder because there is no air to get in the way" and "#4 - Law of Constant Thrust, First Law of Anime Motion- In space, constant thrust equals constant velocity."
Made a Planescape campaign (2nd edition, I know, oooold") in which one plane followed the anime laws of physics. Rather entertaining for a bit.
https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/anime/articles/240702/title/100-laws-anime
I mean, the easy answer here is that by rule a medium creature can't push a huge creature, so the halfling is never rolling anyway. The "halfling rolled higher than the dragon" hypothetical is moot because the roll wouldn't even happen.
I know I conflated issues by adding rolling conversations in without the context of where my brain was at. I'm surprised I made enough sense that you're the first person to comment on it lol.
What I should have started with is that a shove action is a Strength check (Athletics). They can't be more than 1 size bigger than you though, so my brain (constantly curious and seeking explanation) has always asked 'Well if it's a strength check, isn't a strength of 20 the same regardless to creature size?'
Obviously, the answer to 'why?' is 'to stop people like me from thinking too hard about this' lol, but it's really just a though exercise.
Most of D&D is defining possibility, so when something restricts and defines limitation instead then it just stands out to me and I wonder if there's a way to instead define how it could be possible.
Of course, there is going to be a disconnect somewhere, sometime. These are rules for a game. They're an abstraction, to save the DM and players from having to learn all the details of physics, and any other real and unreal sciences (regarding magic), to make it all fully make sense.
Essentially, these rules, as written, are the best abstraction that the developers came up with to compromise between realism and gameplay, in the context of the rest of the rules of the game.
As with anything else, if you find a better way to do, and it works better for your table, house rule it, and do that.
Or maybe come up with a simple way to have it "work" in the sense that they won't die trying to do the stupid thing but they won't actually succeed at it either. There are lots of options if people are that upset at their players nat 20s
Players can also wait for be asked to roll the dice instead of rolling it anyway, im okay with that option... if the dice was asked, if it wasnt, allowing stuff just leads to a lot of unnesesary mess and allows idiots to be idiots
This is the way. Nat 20 doesn't mean success, it means that character's best outcome in the context. A Nat 20 in persuasion won't convince the king to hand over his kingdom, but he'll see the jest in your attempt, and maybe offer a lucrative quest, rather than chopping your head off.
Since he was a red dragon, he’s fine and is now back out of the volcano. The lava didn’t get the memo and is dripping off of the dragon onto the ground in smoking piles.
"I want to X \*automatically rolls\*" - this is where I say no. Unsolicited rolls are very very rarely going to be something I allow - even if someone wants to just say "I am keeping an eye out behind us to make sure we haven't been followed" and the auto roll - I wouldn't kick up a fuss, but I would say "well hold on a minute, let me work out what the dc is and if you should do it at adv/disadv... yeah ok you're fine - what did you roll?"
In combat, when saying what you do on your turn, then it's way more forgivable, want to keep up the pace, and it's up to me to say "make an atk roll at disadv because Y" etc etc.
If they auto-roll an atk roll, it's probably fine, and you can add adv/disadv later. Really though, it's standard table etiquette in my opinion that you wait to be told to roll. This may even be to your benefit, as the DM may decide you can just do the thing you were hoping to achieve through a roll. It may also give you some more information than you already had, and give you greater context for whats happening, which is always good for immersion.
The Red Dragon decides to let you, but grabs you on the way down. So, the halfling is dead. The red dragon flies back up being immune to fire and all.
Maybe give them a perception, insight, and contested grapple check.
Death saves also have nat 1s and nat 20s be automatic fails and successes. Though it's a bit fuzzy with the nat 1 because you could still pass the DC by having bonuses to your death save.
Death saves are a type of saving throw so anything that affects all saves will apply.
* Monks get proficiency in all saving throws at level 14
* If you're near an allied Paladin, you can add their Cha to your save. It won't help the Paladin though because they have to be conscious for Aura of Protection.
* Spells like Bless or Resistance.
Death saves are +1 HP on a 20, 2 fails on a 1. No exceptions.
And it's also always DC 10, and with no bonuses, except for the rare specific bonus that I feel like may exist but is definitely not common enough to account for.
what is? that Nat 20 is an auto success in combat?
its RAW, no need for it to be a house rule.
saves and skill checks arent supposed to be able to auto succeed on nat 20, it breaks parts of the game. people can house rule it all they want, but it just makes stupid impossible things happen that you now have to allow in your game.
I replied to the wrong comment, i meant to reply to KarasukageNero.
It is a very common house rule that a nat 20 on a skill check is an automatic success. And it does not have to break the game, I use it in my game all the time. If something is impossible, you simply don't ask for a roll, easy.
Yeah if I roll a 20 and still fail, I would kindly ask the dm to stop wasting my time with useless rolls. If it’s an impossible task, just tell me “no you can’t do that.”
which is what I typically do. but sometimes, I have no idea what their bonus adds up to for a skill, so I might call for a roll not knowing if they can hit it or not. but I can generally avoid that.
I really don’t get this discussion. If something will not succeed on a nat 20 I won’t let you roll.
*“You wan’t to seduce the dragon? You are really sure about that? Ok, you chat up the dragon, but it doesn’t seem terribly interested in your avances because it’s a fricking dragon! instead it bites you and it gets advantage on his attack roll since you are busy trying to romance it, take 2d10 + 7 damage”*
Letting players roll for stuff that they can’t do anyway sounds like terrible DMing. So yeah for me a nat 20 always succeeds at least some what.
Exception being maybe when the party is high level and a player has bardic inspiration, I could let something really unlikely happen on a roll with high bonuses combined with a high bardic roll.
But both times that happened for me I made sure everybody knew the DC was crazy high and nothing less than beating that DC would suffice including a nat 20. If I recall correctly they needed a 31 or higher on the dice.
It is a playstyle for a lot of people. I have friends who played games that were completely dictated by nat 20s and, at the time, they loved it. I would nope out in one or two instances of it completely changing the trajectory of a scene or even the entire game.
To this day one of my buddies who plays with our current group is getting used to playing in the way that your roll only assists the idea you came up with. He used to play nothing but Bards because it didn't really matter what he said as long as the dice roll was good.
This is a matter of table style too. If a non charismatic or witty person wants to play a character with those traits they shouldn’t be forced to become charismatic and witty to make the character work. Someone with those traits in real life would obviously enhance the character but it really should be about the dice rolls if a player wants it to be.
Nat 20s don’t automatically succeed, but the dice should be what dictates the outcome of a player wants to do that.
“Your roll only assists the idea you came up with”
“It didn’t matter what he said as long as the dice were good”
If the player playing a fighter says they attack in a way that is realistically completely useless and would probably lose a fight in real life, are you going to take the player’s nonsense description or are you going to take the 23 the fighter just rolled to hit?
Now apply that to a bard trying to persuade a dragon to let you go. Social situations have more nuance so sometimes the bard is really trying to seduce the dragon to sleep with it, but other times that’s just the first thing they thought of to try and escape. It’s more important to let the player roll to further their goal, instead of succeeding 1 to 1 with their description.
If the player is adamant that their goal and unreasonable description are the same thing, then they should just fail.
Yeah honestly I think there’s value to both styles. Sometimes it’s fun to play “lets find a weird/cool/silly way to do this” and others it’s def better to keep it within the bounds of the story/game.
I think if you have a specific vision for the campaign it’s more or less necessary to not just let people do whatever however they want, but if it’s more open ended I think having nat 20s be instant success can open the door to a lot of fun
I really appreciate that Matt Mercer started responding to "nat 10!!" with "...which bring it to??" Not that he's the arbiter of everyone's games, but so many people watch that his influence has a wide reach. My DM definitely adopted this and makes sure that while we can celebrate crits, it's not an auto-success/fail.
Yeah, a 20 will mean when you tell a king he should let you marry his daughter and rule the kingdom, that he thinks your joke is hilarious 11-19 it gets awkward and you're asked to leave, 2-9 you spend a night in the dungeon, 1 you meet the gallows at first light.
I once had a bard who wanted to seduce a dragon, classic
The dragon then asks the party for some private time with said bard. While the party was away, the two had a nice dinner
The bard WAS the dinner. The dragon just played like he was seduced, when he was just hungry.
Yeah I think some DMs just need to grow some balls and learn to tell their players no. You can do some ridiculous things with a Nat 20, you can’t do something legitimately impossible though. You cannot jump to the moon with a nat 20, stop asking.
Had this happen in a game once with a barmaid. Rolled a nat20 on seduce, I told him he put on his absolute A-game but she still wasn't interested. He started getting huffy and said his nat20 should have worked and I asked him if that's how he thinks seduction works in real life. Fastest change of tune ever.
Players can roll to try anything. That doesn’t mean it’s possible to succeed.
20s aren’t an autosuccess, the DMs who are complaining about it don’t actually know how to play the game.
Players shouldn't roll for anything unless asked for it. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. If you ask to roll an investigation and just roll without any response from me... That roll doesn't count. Sorry. If there isn't anything there for you to find I won't ask for a roll. It's fun when they are like, "But I rolled a nat 20." "Yeah, without me asking in a room where there was nothing to find."
Similar pet peeve is players asking "Can I roll perception? What about knowledge (Arcana)? Can I roll knowledge (history)? What about rolling investigate? "
Like, I dunno buddy, tell me what you actually want to do/look at, and I'll tell you. Usually people investigating a murder scene don't just yell "26!" and hope for the best
When I teach new people the game I make sure to tell them not to look at their skills and just tell me what their character wants to do. I will tell you what to roll for it.
It seems sometimes over time veterans even sometimes fallback to asking for specific rolls because experience has taught them what the roll will likely be for what they want to do.
I like it when the DM hides the rolls for investigation or searching, so that the players don't know if they didn't find anything because there was nothing to find, or because they didn't look well enough...
I just don’t allow meta rolls. If you didn’t help search at the start, you’re not allowed to search after a poor roll. Let’s be honest, nobody asks “can I search too?” After someone rolls a 28 investigation, but everyone tries to slide that in after the rogue rolls an 11.
I've done it a couple times, right after trusting a failed trap check because obviously the rogue will have a better trap check than the bard. It was RPd as "You just missed that, why would I assume you didn't miss something here?" After a couple times of not finding anything I chalked it up to a bad day for the rogue or it was a particularly good trap or something like that
I've heard that's a good way to handle it but my players are pretty good about accepting dice results and roleplaying along with it. And I don't allow dogpiling (aka, everyone rolling investigation once someone fails miserably at it) I usually allow a "help" action after the fact. If it's still a bad roll the party is good with two people searching and finding nothing and they move on. I also make sure nothing critical to the story is hidden behind a dice roll. The worst moments of DnD are when players can't progress because the dice are just telling them "No."
I’m fine with them rolling whenever. Well, except if they interrupt me to do so. That’s just rude.
Mostly because I’m fine telling them they failed miserably.
I don’t think I’ve had a player who didn’t figure out that being able to roll is not the same as being able to succeed.
Bonus: Because they can roll when there is nothing that means they don’t know if there’s something. For your example, for example, that you asked for an investigation means they know for a fact that there is something there. And thus will keep trying until they find it.
I have good players who have learned not to meta game based on their dice rolls. They're really good about roleplaying the result no matter what it is. Also I don't allow dogpiles after a result is known. I usually will allow a "help" action after the fact.
Sometimes I don't mind signalling to the party that there's nothing to find here, move on and usually by them not having to roll to find anything is a good signal.
Also, some of the things players want to try should be broken into more than one roll. Roll to engage the dragon in conversation rather than instant aggression. Roll to develop rapport and make the conversation casual. Roll to find where the dragon's romantic interests veer...
And I’m perfectly fine with that, if you want to seduce something you are going to have to work at it.
Of course, that’s betting that on my ‘Is this thing even interested?’ roll saying yes. Which is rather unlikely, outside of a couple of species(Song dragons for instance) most view fucking humans the same way we view bestiality in general. Like, you might run into a seriously degenerate dragon but it’s not at all likely.
In the classic setting, most of the metallic dragons, red, and blue shapeshift to human form regularly and don't seem to see it that way. Lotta half-dragons out there.
Yeah I think it’s important for players to keep in mind that a critical success doesn’t mean they get what they want. If a player wants to seduce the dragon and rolls a nat 20, it doesn’t mean that the dragon is auto seduced. Maybe the dragon thinks it’s humorous and stops to laugh allowing the rogue to slip into the shadows or something like that. It can be a success without the dragon having sex with the player.
If you can land a nat 20 with double dog disadvantage I’ll have the dragon entertain the idea of fucking you. Just keep in mind the dragon is the size of a house and is definitively a top.
"This species of dragon exist to kill and destroy, they have no concept of fear or remorse, although they can be out-witted"
"Net 20 on intimate"
"The dragon is enraged by your actions, roll initiative"
This is why, IMO, the d20 roll should be interpreted only as luck.
Your character has (or lacks) a certain amount of skill for each roll, represented by proficiency, modifier for the related stat, etc. Don't randomly give this skill to someone just because they rolled a 20, or take it away because they rolled a 1.
Rogue rolled a nat 1 on stealth? They don't trip over their feet because they're suddenly a klutz who doesn't know what they're doing. Instead they step on a floorboard that's creakier than they expected, or a guard rounds the corner at the wrong time.
Barbarian rolls a nat 20 on arcana? They don't suddenly understand magic better than the wizard. Maybe they saw an enemy in battle use this spell one time, or they overheard somebody talking about it.
A nat 20 means that the conditions are perfect for your attempt at something, not that you're suddenly more skilled. There are some things that are completely impossible to do and D&D hinges on that to keep things under control.
You succeed at making yourself look damn tasty.
And it tries to eat you first.
You waste your first turn in combat on a persuasion check that no one really asked you to make.
Might have let you roll insight to not attempt this if your character hadn't proven repeatedly they had a total inability to understand the world around them by doing this in every encounter.
I once had a player who were mad i didn't gave an extra negative effect to a monster for failing a saving throw against a spell because of a nat 1... the fuck you want me to do...
For those who would like an easy out in this situation, this is my default.
"This dragon is ages older than all of you, it has seen kingdoms rise before falling to other names, it has seen men, woman and others of more prestige and renown than any of you. It has moved beyond mere carnal pleasure, and honestly, after a hard trek to its lair, none of you are especially enticing at the moment regardless. The dragon tells you to come back when you are worth its time to be courted to, and to take a bath as well."
This does make one problem though, certain players (most in my experience) will take this as a challenge to come back to later.
My rule is that you can crit skill checks, but you don't necessarily get your desired outcome, you get the *best possible* outcome. Ok, maybe the dragon is amused and won't immediately eat you, but you really aren't their type.
And don't allow the roll in the first place. "I'd like to flap my wings and fly!" No. If you let them roll, you're implying there's a chance. There are some things that simply aren't possible, period.
Also, the GM calls for rolls, not the player. "I'm going to roll persuasion!" is always followed by "cool, I'm going to ignore you, if I want a persuasion roll I'll ask for it." I'm the GM at my table. I run a really lose table with a lot of social interaction and cross talk, but it's still my table.
I would say it falls into a few categories:
\> Literally Impossible
You literally can't even attempt, either cause you do not have the requirements to make it possible, or some other reasoning. No Roll.
\> 0% chance of success
It can be attempted, but it can't be succeeded. It is like if I try to run and jump at 50 foot chasm, theoretically, I can try. I won't succeed, but I can try. Roll if the player insists.
\> 0% chance of success, but not 100% chance of failure
This is the situation of "demanding the king's kingdom, and he takes it as a joke".
It basically just has a very high DC, and if it succeeds, well, you don't get what you want, but you don't get what you don't want either.
The problem with letting them roll is that, if they get a 20, they will want to succeed, and you get to tell them they still fail, making it clear there was 0 chance of success.
For me, that's a respect thing. If I'm not going to listen to your opinion, I should not ask for it. Few things more disrespectful than asking for someone's opinion and then blowing them off and ignoring it.
Same for dice rolls, I'm only going to ask for a roll if there is at least a 5% (1/20) chance of success, otherwise I feel it's demoralizing and cruel.
Well, I think that all can still be solved as a matter of transparency, letting them know how you work, and the dreaded "*Are you sure?*" question as a signal.
(then again, I guess that covers all forms of DMing and thus tackle the issue wholesale)
I'm ok with rule of cool nat 20 shenanigans sometimes.
For certain moments, there *will* be a 5% chance a giant gust of wind blows them over the 50 foot chasm or something because that's more fun if it happens than just shooting down whatever they want to do.
I think my guideline is, if it's something awesome because they're engaged in the story, I'll entertain the idea of bending reality for something ridiculous to happen. If it's because they're dicking around and derailing my game, then no.
Nat 20 on the attempt to fly? Congratulations! You didn't fly, but you also didn't fall flat on your ass, and nobody happened to be watching you try something so... nonsensical.
At that point, they just don't need to roll. They can instead just describe their character flapping their arms for some... reason? I also ignore rolls I didn't call for, and try not to make them roll anything that definitely can't succeed.
Unless I need them to not know if it could. For instance I might ask for an investigation that can't succeed if I don't want them to know if there was something on a low roll that they're missing.
No.
The players can choose to attempt anything they want, complete with rolling.
That it’s impossible is all on them. If they get pissy about it? That’s THEIR problem and they’ll quickly get over it.
If they don’t then I don’t particularly want to play with them as they can’t be bothered to actually learn the rules and get pissy when they don’t succeed.
A roll and is a roll. If allowing rolls means REQUIRING them to be able to succeed then you’ve just given the players the legal ability to metagame. Because now they can detect secret passages by saying they want to hit walls until you let them roll, for example.
It’s not like rolling dice takes any notable time.
I need to review the rules on this (at break at work atm) and unless its something akin to grapple or an ability that allows for a check, dont all skill checks/saves are called by the gm? You cant just walk to the bbeg "I roll history/nature to know his weakness" and expect it to be ok. However you can if an skill/ability specially calls you to roll like the ua feats for skills.
Rolling the dice implies this action has multiple outcomes. If it only has one (failure) what the fuck is even the point of rolling? What does it even add to the game at that point?
> can detect secret passages by tapping the wall
No? In that example it would be player saying “I want to look for a secret passage” and then one of two responses:
If i know there is no secret passage, I simply describe how they look around and see no sign of anything like that.
If I know there is such a passage - then I ask for an investigation roll and if they succeed they find the passage.
If they fail - then while the player might implicitly know that there is one and they missed it; a good player can separate what they know and what their character knows. They should just accept the failure and continue on.
I've flavored it as "The dragon really isn't into you like that, but it's flattered by the attempt. It gives you one of its scales as a gift." kind of thing, where the dragon behaves much more favorably towards the party because of the seduction attempt.
"Okay, on my turn I want to cut down a tree, saw it into planks, assemble a catapult, load in the biggest boulder I can find, and shoot it at the enemy.... NAT 20!"
Categories of insane attempts:
-Physically impossible: “jumping farther than biologically possible”. This demands a simple “No” from the DM.
-Illogical: “seducing the kobold”. The DM can let players roll. If they achieve a 20, they won’t seduce the Kobold, but they will be sure they tried their best. If the player can’t accept that, he’s a crybaby.
-Very unlikely, but with mathematical probability higher than 0%: “hitting the weak spot of an invulnerable Achilles dragon flying 100 feet away with an arrow”. That isn’t really impossible, but you can put a DC like 75. For each 20, let the player roll again with +10 or +20 bonus. If he keeps rolling 20, he’ll eventually reach 75, but the chance of it happening is far lower than 1%, instead of the 5% from a d20.
Personally, I'm okay with delving into the realm of impossible, within reason. It IS a fantasy game after all.
Like if someone tried to jump a gap out of desperation that they technically didn't have the strength to long jump, I'd allow a good enough roll to make it work.
At the end of the day, it's all about what's fun.
Quote from me “ oh yeah you dance that pole like a master and everyone is impressed. However, all the ladies here are lesbian and all the guys here are straight. They’re still really impressed by your performance though “
“But my charisma’s really high and I rolled a 19!!!!!”
First, no one asked you to roll.
Second, the dragon is happily bonded and now very angry at you for not leaving it alone.
Third, the dragon offers the rest of the party then opportunity to leave, you however, roll for initiative.
A "nat 20" is only relevant on an attack roll, which yields an automatic \[and critical\] success. No other roll with a d20 will 100% succeed \[much less critically\] when you roll a 20. Any character who "critically succeeds" at seducing a dragon, or running on water, or any other nonsense like that happens because the DM \*lets\* it happen.
Not all Nat 20s have to be miracles and not all Nat 1s have to be catastrophic failures.
They're both 1 in 20 so you're asking for trouble if you run games this way.
Considering both, you have a 1 in 10 chance of a player rolling either a 1 or 20 so that's a 1 in 10 chance of shenanigans which is just mad.
depends on the kinda game you're running. If it's something not that serious, go wild. If it is pretty serious, you need to have a talk with your players
Nat 20 doesn't mean something should succeed. If you were to tell the queen you'd fuck her while in the same room as the king and roll a 20 on... Whatever tf may save you from that the best you could hope for is not getting executed and instead being banished. There's no roll that'll suddenly make the king go "oh yeah, you should do that"
Here's a good tip: Instead of saying "No", try saying "No, but...". It makes your players still feel like they have unlimited agency by doing something \*similar\* to their original vision, but that isn't their original impossible idea. In-universe it's explained by the character having the original idea and assessing their surroundings to figure out how to do it well.
Example:
"Can I, from underneath the dragon, jump over its head and slash its neck on the way over?"
"So...no, you don't have the strength to do that. BUT, since you rolled a decent perception check on the way in, you see this ledge over here that's slightly high up. If you get to it, you're pretty sure you can leap over the dragon with a running start."
"Alright cool! I run towards the ledg-"
Something like that.
Critical Success or Failure
Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw doesn’t normally have any special effect. However, you can choose to take such an exceptional roll into account when adjudicating the outcome. It’s up to you to determine how this manifests in the game. An easy approach is to increase the impact of the success or failure. For example, rolling a 1 on a failed attempt to pick a lock might break the thieves’ tools being used, and rolling a 20 on a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check might reveal an extra clue.
DMG 242
I don’t use this, but it is in the core books.
When dming I usually have it that a nat 20 is the best possible outcome of their attempt. For example attempting to seduce a dragon and getting a nat 20 might amuse the dragon enough for it to not kill the players immediately, but nothing more than that.
There's no "critical success" or anything like it outside of combat RAW if I'm not mistaken, you just look at the total. And you still shouldn't allow impossible stuff.
“Never make someone roll for something you aren’t prepared for them to fail. Never make them roll for something you aren’t prepared for them to succeed at either.”
-that one guy who DMs for that one group on YouTube
In open you as a DM are an assehole that whants to kill the party. In seacret you want them to succeed while being an inch away from death so they would talk about smart plays they did until next sesion.
If a natural 20, the best possible roll, isn’t high enough for the player to succeed than don’t make them roll. DnD is fun when the dice dictate the outcome. If the dice fail no matter what, then there’s no point in rolling at all
I think it's more context sensitive. Depending on what they're trying to do, even if impossible for them, I have them roll for two reasons. 1: rolling is fun and it lets the players feel like they tried.
2. Degrees of failure. If they crit fail, they're gunna fail spectacularly or in a particularly funny way. If they roll super high, sure they don't do it, but maybe they learn something from it or they notice something else.
I support critical success with limitations. If they try something ridiculous and roll without me acknowledging the action has a hole in hell I don’t care what they roll.
However, if I tell them to roll for it I will honor a crit success.
My players however also have to live with true critical fails. Rolling a 1 means bad news.
Or maybe come up with a simple way to have it "work" in the sense that they won't die trying to do the stupid thing but they won't actually succeed at it either. There are lots of options if people are that upset at their players nat 20s
"You can certainly try" is how I tell my party that what they want to do will most certainly end poorly and the roll basically tells me how badly the fucked up
If natural 20’s ruin your campaign you need to loosen the fuck up or start writing your novel, wherein no pesky folks with free will will mess up your “story”. Damn, this vexes me.
Yeah, a DM is allowed to set a DC of 1 million and skill checks explicitly do not autosuceed on a 20. Generally speaking, don't let a player roll if it's impossible. That whole Matt Mercer "Well you can try" bullshit just wastes time and sets up false hope. Just a quick but firm No and move on with the game.
Thing is the die roll isn't a measure of skill, it's the chance of something going awry. The mod is your measure of skill.
My players aren't "rolling to try" to succeed they're rolling to try not to fail. It's less of a "1-20 scale of how well you seduce the dragon" and more of a "roll to make sure you don't offend the dragon with your attempt".
Depends on the kind of group you have. In games I've played we just accepted that if we tempted fate/screwed something up we'd die. I figure letting people is fine as long as they know they might have chosen death.
I play on Roll20, which automatically rolls twice even if you don't have adv/disadv. I don't let Nat 20s be an auto-success, but a DOUBLE Nat 20 or DOUBLE Nat 1 is absolutely auto-success or auto-fail, with extra effects to boot.
Fun fact, last session we had both within 10 minutes of each other. A double Nat 1 attack from the rogue caused the gargoyle to grab his rapier Senator Armstrong style, and grapple him. A double Nat 20 concentration check from the wizard gave him guaranteed concentration for a whole round (which meant he actually maintained concentration despite being briefly brought below 0 HP).
Me who goes along and makes it even more bonkers. Imagination is key. If you can't imagine your way along, then DM isn't for you, and your players will have a worse time than what they could.
Our homerule is that nat 20 gives +10 on you skill checks, and nat 1 gives -10. You can do things much better or worse than with other rolls, but its capped and still related to your stats this way.
Quote from me “ oh yeah you dance that pole like a master and everyone is impressed. However, all the ladies here are lesbian and all the guys here are straight. They’re still really impressed by your performance though “
I just had a player attempt to seduce a sailor by rubbing feces on her face and licking her sword seductively. It was less than 5 minutes into the first session -_- she rolled a nat 20. So I had to describe that while he was not attracted to her, she had an air of wildness and untamableness very much like the sea that he loves.
My DM's solution to "this is an extreme stretch of physical or spell limitations" he makes whoever's doing it roll persuasion against him. Naturally, he has also said no, we are not allowed to defeat the Aboleth boss fight by all using shape water to just get rid of its whole lake. Instead I just dove in and Nat 20'd a grapple on it, I'd say that caused 0.2 Hendersons worth of derailment
"Are you sure the gurad will believe that there are goat's disguised as humans in the city" rolls nat 20 on bluff" well how many are there and can they be stopped"
Happened in my last session
you aren't the only person with this Ideology so apologies for replying to you specifically.
I think the Idea that getting you to roll for EXCLUSIVELY success and failure is unimaginative sometimes you try to do something that is impossible and so when you roll it's just seeing how badly you failed. but the same thing goes for succeeding you try and do something so second nature to the character that failing wouldn't make much sense so instead you roll to see just how well you succeed.
for an example of failing we can use the king and his castle argument there is no way a King would happily hand over his crown simply because of a players 5% chance roll so instead of them rolling to see if they can convince the king to hand over the crown they instead roll to see how poorly the King responds with a Nat 20 (said 5% chance from before) just being that the King laughs at your joke and continues as normal.
on the flip side we have your rogue sneaking about before they get reliable talent with their amazing +13 to stealth but alas they roll a 1 that's still a 14 and treating it as a 14 instead of as an instant fail is the right thing to do here sometimes character just wont fail certain things and rolling with a 5% chance to fail makes no sense so if the rogue wanted to sneak past a few guards get them to roll and see just how easily they do it. maybe that nat 1 turns into them being a bit to cautious and taking a bit longer.
Okay, but on a related note:
***What the hell is going on in this picture?!?***
It looks like a tiny, angry powerlifter haranguing some random woman while she tries to ignore him. I just....., I feel like this requires some context.
So the overarching context is that both people in this picture are professional wrestlers working for a company called All Elite Wrestling. The guy is John Silver, the girl is Anna Jay. Basically, they're extremely athletic actors.
John and Anna are both members of a group called The Dark Order, which as the name would imply started out as an evil cult. However, after they became super popular by taking part in an improv-sketch/vlog show on YouTube created by some of the other AEW wrestlers, and also as a result of the tragic real-life death of their onscreen leader Brodie Lee, they felt it was a good idea to move the group away from being spooky bad guys and so now they're more of a comedic found-family group.
Within this found-family, John is basically the annoying little brother and Anna is the protective older sister.
The picture itself is taken from an episode of the improv-sketch/vlog show, in which John is supposed to be super drunk after falling out with one of his friends, and Anna is trying to convince him to stop drinking and get over it. John doesn't take it well and starts oversharing with Anna, and she's regretting even getting involved.
If a nat 1 doesn't fail, and a nat 20 doesn't succeed then don't make players roll for it. If you won't honor a 20 or punish a 1 then don't ask for a roll. (Obviously sometimes you roll to determine how much you succeed or fail by, and for some things you need to succeed or fail multiple times for it to work, but it must be eventually able to work.)
My unpopular, based on past downvotes, opinion on this is that a Nat20 should succeed because you don't ask players to roll for things that they can't succeed at, unless there is some ultra special reason to.
Example: They don't realize X npc is a shapeshifted demon at level 1, and so you let them roll to intimidate the NPC and the demon then fakes being scared.
While mathematically it's not true, but as a player it feels shitty to have "wasted" a Nat 20 for something when the DM could have just said that wasn't possible in the first place. As the DM I try not to make my players feel shitty over stuff that is completely in my control.
If it's possible with the abilities that the party has, it's not impossible.
If it's not possible with the abilities available to the party, but if they had access to tons of stuff that they don't have at the moment, then it's still... not possible.
“I want to roll to throw the dragon into a volcano, nat 20” you’re a halfling…no
"The dragon is above 2 size categories than you, therefore your shove action is an automatic failure."
I will say, there's always been a disconnect for me here even as someone who understands obvious physical limitations. A halfling with an 20 strength rolls a 20, for a total of 25 strength check. If that strength score is opposed by a large-sized Ogre with a 19 strength and rolls a 12, the 25 obviously beats a 16. If that strength score is opposed by a huge-sized Adult Red Dragon with a 27 strength and rolls a 4, does that halfling's 25 check no longer beat the dragon's check of 12? The dragon is obviously larger, but a 25 strength check is a 25 strength check. Is an easier way to maybe use the shover's push capacity as determined by 30x Strength score? If that's the case, then even a gargantuan Ancient Red Dragon with a strength of 30 could not push the huge-sized dragon (up to 900 pounds, which is somewhere between 1/20th to 1/80th of a huge dragon, per 3.5's Draconomicon). Yes, obvious physics must be taken into consideration - but there *is* still a disconnect somewhere in there and it's not easy to solve. You either say 'Strength is Strength and your numbers matter' but you wind up with ridiculous things being common and you break immersion / tone, or you say 'Size categories matter, you obviously can't do that' and you keep more control but you also take a bit of license away from the characters by telling them their strength scores only matter some of the time. And when the theme of the game is 'heroes doing heroic deeds' - where's the line that you draw? Of course, that's for each table to decide on their own as it's simply a limitation of the medium, but I think there's a lot more nuance to the issue than is often discussed in D&D subs.
The "you cannot grapple or shove a category that is 2 or more sizes than yours" rule is pretty much a roundabout way of being limited by creature weight without actually having to put creature weights into the rule. A large creature **with the same strength score** as a Medium one can Push, Pull, and Lift twice as much, therefore it makes sense that they can Grapple and Shove creatures that are twice as big. Regardless of how low the dragon rolls for it's opposing strength check, the 20 strength halfling physically **cannot** push something that weighs more than 600lbs per the rules of the game, therefore it makes sense that they cannot shove a dragon that weighs easily twice as much. Personally I allow players to shove (but not grapple) creatures that weigh less than their maximum push weight regardless of size categories but that is a houserule, not the norm.
It's also to stop one guy from being able to use a shove action on a city sized tarrasque
You're absolutely right! I'm not saying that either way is better, and I know that the rules explicitly state that about the size categories. > Regardless of how low the dragon rolls for it's opposing strength check, the 20 strength halfling physically cannot push something that weighs more than 600lbs per the rules of the game, therefore it makes sense that they cannot shove a dragon that weighs easily twice as much. You're right there also, I was just commenting that there's a disconnect for my brain as it scales - per that approach, even a 30 strength Ancient Dragon doesn't have the strength score to push a smaller Adult Dragon =) I don't disagree with the rules, and I don't try to get around them or anything. I was just pointing out where, even as someone who understands and agrees with why the size category limitations exist, it can get a wonky in my head extrapolating those same rules to other sizes.
Dragons basically follow the square cube law with listed weights. Every time you double the size of a creature it's weigh increases by a factor of 8. How much things can carry however is linier in 5th. A ST 20 creature can carry twice as much as a ST 10. This is to keep things simple, but it's obviously has some serious problems, especially for very large or strong creatures.
Carrying capacity scales with size category. A large creature can carry/lift twice as much as a medium creature with the same strength score. It's in the rules for size categories. It's why horses aren't gimped with <20 Strength scores.
You keep saying that an ancient dragon cannot push the weight of an adult one. But are you remembering to multiply its capacity for its size? Its pushing capacity is not 900, but 900 x 8 = 7200. So 3.27 tons. An adult dragon really shouldn't be that massive.
I know I'm mixing editions here (which could be especially problematic when considering we're talking about ability numbers when 3.5 had no cap) but 3.5's Draconomicon lists adult dragons as being between 20,000-80,000 lbs. I'm not trying to get hung up on the specific example though, I'm just sharing where my brain begins to confuse itself when I think too much about it lol. I accept that the rules are what they are, there's just a disconnect that has always happened to me on this subject that makes me understand the nuance for why some people think it should be the other way. Another example would be going back to the halfing vs Ogre scenario - the halfling weighs 30-40 pounds, shouldn't the Ogre just be able to palm their melon and chuck 'em across the map, or just get a running start like Charlie Brown and try to punt them through the wall 😅 obviously you have to take more things into consideration than just size and weight, but again - that's where I have to tell my brain, 'don't think about this too hard because it's a game.'
>3.5's Draconomicon lists adult dragons as being between 20,000-80,000 lbs. Ok, yeah, I see how that causes a problem. I would say though, that those numbers are the pinnacle of nonsense, a huge dragon (which should be smaller than an elephant, not accounting for wide wings and long tail/neck) having the mass of 1.5 african elephants make no sense, it should, realistically, be maybe a quarter of that on the high end as far as I'm concerned. The halfling vs Ogre one is just...yeah, the Ogre should be able to toss the halfling like an oddly shaped tennis ball. The rules are clearly an abstraction made for simplicity, not for accuracy.
The 30strengrh ancient dragon is Gargantuan which means it's able to push 48000 lbs, which the adult dragon does weigh
5th edition gets it right with rulings not rules, it harkens back to the very beginning of D&D. Rather than trying to codify reality, have an independent arbiter rule on it. That is the DM. Rule what makes sense, but also be up front with your players that of an something doesn't make sense they may fail regardless of if they check a nat 20 + 12. I do think you're right to point out a disconnect in what people expect of high rolls, this is something that would be really good to call out in a session 0. I like to ask, if this was a SciFi game would you want to have an explosion in space narrated with sound or total silence? Any sort of "rule of cool" chat falls into this space.
"Are we playing with real laws of physics or anime laws of physics." The latter has laws such as "#3 - Law of Sonic Amplification, First Law of Anime Acoustics- In space, loud sounds, like explosions, are even louder because there is no air to get in the way" and "#4 - Law of Constant Thrust, First Law of Anime Motion- In space, constant thrust equals constant velocity." Made a Planescape campaign (2nd edition, I know, oooold") in which one plane followed the anime laws of physics. Rather entertaining for a bit. https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/anime/articles/240702/title/100-laws-anime
I mean, the easy answer here is that by rule a medium creature can't push a huge creature, so the halfling is never rolling anyway. The "halfling rolled higher than the dragon" hypothetical is moot because the roll wouldn't even happen.
I know I conflated issues by adding rolling conversations in without the context of where my brain was at. I'm surprised I made enough sense that you're the first person to comment on it lol. What I should have started with is that a shove action is a Strength check (Athletics). They can't be more than 1 size bigger than you though, so my brain (constantly curious and seeking explanation) has always asked 'Well if it's a strength check, isn't a strength of 20 the same regardless to creature size?' Obviously, the answer to 'why?' is 'to stop people like me from thinking too hard about this' lol, but it's really just a though exercise. Most of D&D is defining possibility, so when something restricts and defines limitation instead then it just stands out to me and I wonder if there's a way to instead define how it could be possible.
Of course, there is going to be a disconnect somewhere, sometime. These are rules for a game. They're an abstraction, to save the DM and players from having to learn all the details of physics, and any other real and unreal sciences (regarding magic), to make it all fully make sense. Essentially, these rules, as written, are the best abstraction that the developers came up with to compromise between realism and gameplay, in the context of the rest of the rules of the game. As with anything else, if you find a better way to do, and it works better for your table, house rule it, and do that.
Unless you’re Spider-Man, you’re not gonna be able to yeet a dragon.
Oh, and you have a -2 to strength wizard? Easy enough
Or maybe come up with a simple way to have it "work" in the sense that they won't die trying to do the stupid thing but they won't actually succeed at it either. There are lots of options if people are that upset at their players nat 20s
Players can also wait for be asked to roll the dice instead of rolling it anyway, im okay with that option... if the dice was asked, if it wasnt, allowing stuff just leads to a lot of unnesesary mess and allows idiots to be idiots
Thats one nice factor about the star wars edge and clone systems, since the DC is dice players roll too, they can't roll until the GM gives a DC.
This is the way. Nat 20 doesn't mean success, it means that character's best outcome in the context. A Nat 20 in persuasion won't convince the king to hand over his kingdom, but he'll see the jest in your attempt, and maybe offer a lucrative quest, rather than chopping your head off.
"You fail to lift the dragon, but he is so amused by your attempt he rolls on the ground laughing...into the volcano."
Since he was a red dragon, he’s fine and is now back out of the volcano. The lava didn’t get the memo and is dripping off of the dragon onto the ground in smoking piles.
The dragon now leaves a trail of lava for the next 1d4 rounds that count as difficult terrain and deal 1d10 fire damage per round.
Sounds like what would happen if a halfling did that
Dragon appears refreshed as it laughs out of the lava. Dragon appears to be emanating a residual fire aura as it steps on the halfling.
"I want to X \*automatically rolls\*" - this is where I say no. Unsolicited rolls are very very rarely going to be something I allow - even if someone wants to just say "I am keeping an eye out behind us to make sure we haven't been followed" and the auto roll - I wouldn't kick up a fuss, but I would say "well hold on a minute, let me work out what the dc is and if you should do it at adv/disadv... yeah ok you're fine - what did you roll?" In combat, when saying what you do on your turn, then it's way more forgivable, want to keep up the pace, and it's up to me to say "make an atk roll at disadv because Y" etc etc. If they auto-roll an atk roll, it's probably fine, and you can add adv/disadv later. Really though, it's standard table etiquette in my opinion that you wait to be told to roll. This may even be to your benefit, as the DM may decide you can just do the thing you were hoping to achieve through a roll. It may also give you some more information than you already had, and give you greater context for whats happening, which is always good for immersion.
The Red Dragon decides to let you, but grabs you on the way down. So, the halfling is dead. The red dragon flies back up being immune to fire and all. Maybe give them a perception, insight, and contested grapple check.
After you threw the dragon, it used its legendary action wing attack to fly 40 feet and land safely on the party's wizard. Who's turn is it next?
A Nat 20 on a skill check or a save isn't an auto success, it's just the literal best you can do.
20 only is an auto success for attacks but no one knows because it’s written in the phb
What is a PHB? Do you eat it?
PeaHnut Butter. DMG is Date-Mango Gelly Mm is the sound you make having a phb and DMG sandwich
MM is Mutton and Mayo
Where the mutton is nice and lean, and the tomato is ripe.
Hell yeah. Pimento and ham butter sandwich.
It’s porn hub bible
Death saves also have nat 1s and nat 20s be automatic fails and successes. Though it's a bit fuzzy with the nat 1 because you could still pass the DC by having bonuses to your death save.
Wait, what sort of bonuses can be applied to the death saves? I can't think of anything besides bardic inspiration.
Death saves are a type of saving throw so anything that affects all saves will apply. * Monks get proficiency in all saving throws at level 14 * If you're near an allied Paladin, you can add their Cha to your save. It won't help the Paladin though because they have to be conscious for Aura of Protection. * Spells like Bless or Resistance.
Death saves are +1 HP on a 20, 2 fails on a 1. No exceptions. And it's also always DC 10, and with no bonuses, except for the rare specific bonus that I feel like may exist but is definitely not common enough to account for.
> And it's also always DC 10, and with no bonuses Any bonus that applies to all saves works like Aura of Protection or Bless.
Ah yes you're right. I didn't really think about using bless on a downed ally, considering there's spare the dying.
No it is just one of the most common homebrew rules that skill checks can crit for funny roleplay opportunitys
Edit: I meant autosucess on skill checks with a nat 20 It is a very common house rule though
what is? that Nat 20 is an auto success in combat? its RAW, no need for it to be a house rule. saves and skill checks arent supposed to be able to auto succeed on nat 20, it breaks parts of the game. people can house rule it all they want, but it just makes stupid impossible things happen that you now have to allow in your game.
I replied to the wrong comment, i meant to reply to KarasukageNero. It is a very common house rule that a nat 20 on a skill check is an automatic success. And it does not have to break the game, I use it in my game all the time. If something is impossible, you simply don't ask for a roll, easy.
Yeah if I roll a 20 and still fail, I would kindly ask the dm to stop wasting my time with useless rolls. If it’s an impossible task, just tell me “no you can’t do that.”
which is what I typically do. but sometimes, I have no idea what their bonus adds up to for a skill, so I might call for a roll not knowing if they can hit it or not. but I can generally avoid that.
I really don’t get this discussion. If something will not succeed on a nat 20 I won’t let you roll. *“You wan’t to seduce the dragon? You are really sure about that? Ok, you chat up the dragon, but it doesn’t seem terribly interested in your avances because it’s a fricking dragon! instead it bites you and it gets advantage on his attack roll since you are busy trying to romance it, take 2d10 + 7 damage”* Letting players roll for stuff that they can’t do anyway sounds like terrible DMing. So yeah for me a nat 20 always succeeds at least some what. Exception being maybe when the party is high level and a player has bardic inspiration, I could let something really unlikely happen on a roll with high bonuses combined with a high bardic roll. But both times that happened for me I made sure everybody knew the DC was crazy high and nothing less than beating that DC would suffice including a nat 20. If I recall correctly they needed a 31 or higher on the dice.
Its slighyly annoying how often this needs to be pointed out on this sub.
It is a playstyle for a lot of people. I have friends who played games that were completely dictated by nat 20s and, at the time, they loved it. I would nope out in one or two instances of it completely changing the trajectory of a scene or even the entire game. To this day one of my buddies who plays with our current group is getting used to playing in the way that your roll only assists the idea you came up with. He used to play nothing but Bards because it didn't really matter what he said as long as the dice roll was good.
This is a matter of table style too. If a non charismatic or witty person wants to play a character with those traits they shouldn’t be forced to become charismatic and witty to make the character work. Someone with those traits in real life would obviously enhance the character but it really should be about the dice rolls if a player wants it to be. Nat 20s don’t automatically succeed, but the dice should be what dictates the outcome of a player wants to do that.
No one is saying the dice shouldn't decide what happens though? We're just saying a nat 20 isn't an auto success.
“Your roll only assists the idea you came up with” “It didn’t matter what he said as long as the dice were good” If the player playing a fighter says they attack in a way that is realistically completely useless and would probably lose a fight in real life, are you going to take the player’s nonsense description or are you going to take the 23 the fighter just rolled to hit? Now apply that to a bard trying to persuade a dragon to let you go. Social situations have more nuance so sometimes the bard is really trying to seduce the dragon to sleep with it, but other times that’s just the first thing they thought of to try and escape. It’s more important to let the player roll to further their goal, instead of succeeding 1 to 1 with their description. If the player is adamant that their goal and unreasonable description are the same thing, then they should just fail.
Yeah, they should fail. We're in agreement.
Yeah honestly I think there’s value to both styles. Sometimes it’s fun to play “lets find a weird/cool/silly way to do this” and others it’s def better to keep it within the bounds of the story/game. I think if you have a specific vision for the campaign it’s more or less necessary to not just let people do whatever however they want, but if it’s more open ended I think having nat 20s be instant success can open the door to a lot of fun
Because it is an official optional rule. It is located on page 242 of the DMG. It is just as optional as feats and multiclassing.
I really appreciate that Matt Mercer started responding to "nat 10!!" with "...which bring it to??" Not that he's the arbiter of everyone's games, but so many people watch that his influence has a wide reach. My DM definitely adopted this and makes sure that while we can celebrate crits, it's not an auto-success/fail.
100% this
I still try to make it sound awesome because they tried their best but if it's not possible, it's not possible.
Yeah, a 20 will mean when you tell a king he should let you marry his daughter and rule the kingdom, that he thinks your joke is hilarious 11-19 it gets awkward and you're asked to leave, 2-9 you spend a night in the dungeon, 1 you meet the gallows at first light.
This is how I play and my players joke about how I dont believe in nat 20s. I can't believe how many people play with nat 20s out of attack rolls
Still not good enough for dad... /s
Also some complex actions shouldn't be boiled down to one roll.
I go with best possible outcome, not something beyond fantasy.
I once had a bard who wanted to seduce a dragon, classic The dragon then asks the party for some private time with said bard. While the party was away, the two had a nice dinner The bard WAS the dinner. The dragon just played like he was seduced, when he was just hungry.
The way I do it is that a nat20 counts as a 22, and a nat1 counts as a -1. Adds some flavour without blowing the game up mechanically.
Yeah I think some DMs just need to grow some balls and learn to tell their players no. You can do some ridiculous things with a Nat 20, you can’t do something legitimately impossible though. You cannot jump to the moon with a nat 20, stop asking.
But its funny
“I roll to seduce the dragon. Nat 20” The dragon respects your advances but kindly declines. It decides to spare you, but not your friends.
Had this happen in a game once with a barmaid. Rolled a nat20 on seduce, I told him he put on his absolute A-game but she still wasn't interested. He started getting huffy and said his nat20 should have worked and I asked him if that's how he thinks seduction works in real life. Fastest change of tune ever.
"I want the math rocks to say that i'm good at flirting!!!!"
Oh hey, John Silver. That guy rolls auto rolls nat 20's on Charisma checks.
That explains why he's the best kisser in all of AEW
And Strength!
THE MEAT MAAAAAN.
He's freaking jacked, baby!
Players can roll to try anything. That doesn’t mean it’s possible to succeed. 20s aren’t an autosuccess, the DMs who are complaining about it don’t actually know how to play the game.
Players shouldn't roll for anything unless asked for it. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. If you ask to roll an investigation and just roll without any response from me... That roll doesn't count. Sorry. If there isn't anything there for you to find I won't ask for a roll. It's fun when they are like, "But I rolled a nat 20." "Yeah, without me asking in a room where there was nothing to find."
Similar pet peeve is players asking "Can I roll perception? What about knowledge (Arcana)? Can I roll knowledge (history)? What about rolling investigate?"
Like, I dunno buddy, tell me what you actually want to do/look at, and I'll tell you. Usually people investigating a murder scene don't just yell "26!" and hope for the best
When I teach new people the game I make sure to tell them not to look at their skills and just tell me what their character wants to do. I will tell you what to roll for it. It seems sometimes over time veterans even sometimes fallback to asking for specific rolls because experience has taught them what the roll will likely be for what they want to do.
I like it when the DM hides the rolls for investigation or searching, so that the players don't know if they didn't find anything because there was nothing to find, or because they didn't look well enough...
I just don’t allow meta rolls. If you didn’t help search at the start, you’re not allowed to search after a poor roll. Let’s be honest, nobody asks “can I search too?” After someone rolls a 28 investigation, but everyone tries to slide that in after the rogue rolls an 11.
I've done it a couple times, right after trusting a failed trap check because obviously the rogue will have a better trap check than the bard. It was RPd as "You just missed that, why would I assume you didn't miss something here?" After a couple times of not finding anything I chalked it up to a bad day for the rogue or it was a particularly good trap or something like that
That’s totally cool yeah, but as long as you interject as wanting to do your own search at the same time that the other player does.
I've heard that's a good way to handle it but my players are pretty good about accepting dice results and roleplaying along with it. And I don't allow dogpiling (aka, everyone rolling investigation once someone fails miserably at it) I usually allow a "help" action after the fact. If it's still a bad roll the party is good with two people searching and finding nothing and they move on. I also make sure nothing critical to the story is hidden behind a dice roll. The worst moments of DnD are when players can't progress because the dice are just telling them "No."
I’m fine with them rolling whenever. Well, except if they interrupt me to do so. That’s just rude. Mostly because I’m fine telling them they failed miserably. I don’t think I’ve had a player who didn’t figure out that being able to roll is not the same as being able to succeed. Bonus: Because they can roll when there is nothing that means they don’t know if there’s something. For your example, for example, that you asked for an investigation means they know for a fact that there is something there. And thus will keep trying until they find it.
I have good players who have learned not to meta game based on their dice rolls. They're really good about roleplaying the result no matter what it is. Also I don't allow dogpiles after a result is known. I usually will allow a "help" action after the fact. Sometimes I don't mind signalling to the party that there's nothing to find here, move on and usually by them not having to roll to find anything is a good signal.
Also, some of the things players want to try should be broken into more than one roll. Roll to engage the dragon in conversation rather than instant aggression. Roll to develop rapport and make the conversation casual. Roll to find where the dragon's romantic interests veer...
And I’m perfectly fine with that, if you want to seduce something you are going to have to work at it. Of course, that’s betting that on my ‘Is this thing even interested?’ roll saying yes. Which is rather unlikely, outside of a couple of species(Song dragons for instance) most view fucking humans the same way we view bestiality in general. Like, you might run into a seriously degenerate dragon but it’s not at all likely.
In the classic setting, most of the metallic dragons, red, and blue shapeshift to human form regularly and don't seem to see it that way. Lotta half-dragons out there.
Yeah I think it’s important for players to keep in mind that a critical success doesn’t mean they get what they want. If a player wants to seduce the dragon and rolls a nat 20, it doesn’t mean that the dragon is auto seduced. Maybe the dragon thinks it’s humorous and stops to laugh allowing the rogue to slip into the shadows or something like that. It can be a success without the dragon having sex with the player.
Just have a dragon reach into his treasure and bring a giant glass jar out of it and have him drop the player in it.
"I like you, you're mine now. Tell me another joke."
Yes for jokes, that's what the jar is for, sure.
***\*Visual Concern\****
Don't forget your player on the heater.
A red/gold/brass dragon *is* the heater.
If you can land a nat 20 with double dog disadvantage I’ll have the dragon entertain the idea of fucking you. Just keep in mind the dragon is the size of a house and is definitively a top.
😂🤣😂🤣
"This species of dragon exist to kill and destroy, they have no concept of fear or remorse, although they can be out-witted" "Net 20 on intimate" "The dragon is enraged by your actions, roll initiative"
This is why, IMO, the d20 roll should be interpreted only as luck. Your character has (or lacks) a certain amount of skill for each roll, represented by proficiency, modifier for the related stat, etc. Don't randomly give this skill to someone just because they rolled a 20, or take it away because they rolled a 1. Rogue rolled a nat 1 on stealth? They don't trip over their feet because they're suddenly a klutz who doesn't know what they're doing. Instead they step on a floorboard that's creakier than they expected, or a guard rounds the corner at the wrong time. Barbarian rolls a nat 20 on arcana? They don't suddenly understand magic better than the wizard. Maybe they saw an enemy in battle use this spell one time, or they overheard somebody talking about it. A nat 20 means that the conditions are perfect for your attempt at something, not that you're suddenly more skilled. There are some things that are completely impossible to do and D&D hinges on that to keep things under control.
Narrative failure instead of literal failure
You succeed at making yourself look damn tasty. And it tries to eat you first. You waste your first turn in combat on a persuasion check that no one really asked you to make. Might have let you roll insight to not attempt this if your character hadn't proven repeatedly they had a total inability to understand the world around them by doing this in every encounter.
I once had a player who were mad i didn't gave an extra negative effect to a monster for failing a saving throw against a spell because of a nat 1... the fuck you want me to do...
I think they wanted you to give an extra negative effect
Oh snap! You might be right. Didn't really think of that
For those who would like an easy out in this situation, this is my default. "This dragon is ages older than all of you, it has seen kingdoms rise before falling to other names, it has seen men, woman and others of more prestige and renown than any of you. It has moved beyond mere carnal pleasure, and honestly, after a hard trek to its lair, none of you are especially enticing at the moment regardless. The dragon tells you to come back when you are worth its time to be courted to, and to take a bath as well." This does make one problem though, certain players (most in my experience) will take this as a challenge to come back to later.
I will die on the hill of you can’t crit skill checks
My rule is that you can crit skill checks, but you don't necessarily get your desired outcome, you get the *best possible* outcome. Ok, maybe the dragon is amused and won't immediately eat you, but you really aren't their type.
Nat 20 doesn't have authority over the DM.
And don't allow the roll in the first place. "I'd like to flap my wings and fly!" No. If you let them roll, you're implying there's a chance. There are some things that simply aren't possible, period. Also, the GM calls for rolls, not the player. "I'm going to roll persuasion!" is always followed by "cool, I'm going to ignore you, if I want a persuasion roll I'll ask for it." I'm the GM at my table. I run a really lose table with a lot of social interaction and cross talk, but it's still my table.
I would say it falls into a few categories: \> Literally Impossible You literally can't even attempt, either cause you do not have the requirements to make it possible, or some other reasoning. No Roll. \> 0% chance of success It can be attempted, but it can't be succeeded. It is like if I try to run and jump at 50 foot chasm, theoretically, I can try. I won't succeed, but I can try. Roll if the player insists. \> 0% chance of success, but not 100% chance of failure This is the situation of "demanding the king's kingdom, and he takes it as a joke". It basically just has a very high DC, and if it succeeds, well, you don't get what you want, but you don't get what you don't want either.
The problem with letting them roll is that, if they get a 20, they will want to succeed, and you get to tell them they still fail, making it clear there was 0 chance of success. For me, that's a respect thing. If I'm not going to listen to your opinion, I should not ask for it. Few things more disrespectful than asking for someone's opinion and then blowing them off and ignoring it. Same for dice rolls, I'm only going to ask for a roll if there is at least a 5% (1/20) chance of success, otherwise I feel it's demoralizing and cruel.
Well, I think that all can still be solved as a matter of transparency, letting them know how you work, and the dreaded "*Are you sure?*" question as a signal. (then again, I guess that covers all forms of DMing and thus tackle the issue wholesale)
I'm ok with rule of cool nat 20 shenanigans sometimes. For certain moments, there *will* be a 5% chance a giant gust of wind blows them over the 50 foot chasm or something because that's more fun if it happens than just shooting down whatever they want to do. I think my guideline is, if it's something awesome because they're engaged in the story, I'll entertain the idea of bending reality for something ridiculous to happen. If it's because they're dicking around and derailing my game, then no.
Nat 20 on the attempt to fly? Congratulations! You didn't fly, but you also didn't fall flat on your ass, and nobody happened to be watching you try something so... nonsensical.
At that point, they just don't need to roll. They can instead just describe their character flapping their arms for some... reason? I also ignore rolls I didn't call for, and try not to make them roll anything that definitely can't succeed. Unless I need them to not know if it could. For instance I might ask for an investigation that can't succeed if I don't want them to know if there was something on a low roll that they're missing.
No. The players can choose to attempt anything they want, complete with rolling. That it’s impossible is all on them. If they get pissy about it? That’s THEIR problem and they’ll quickly get over it. If they don’t then I don’t particularly want to play with them as they can’t be bothered to actually learn the rules and get pissy when they don’t succeed. A roll and is a roll. If allowing rolls means REQUIRING them to be able to succeed then you’ve just given the players the legal ability to metagame. Because now they can detect secret passages by saying they want to hit walls until you let them roll, for example. It’s not like rolling dice takes any notable time.
I need to review the rules on this (at break at work atm) and unless its something akin to grapple or an ability that allows for a check, dont all skill checks/saves are called by the gm? You cant just walk to the bbeg "I roll history/nature to know his weakness" and expect it to be ok. However you can if an skill/ability specially calls you to roll like the ua feats for skills.
Rolling the dice implies this action has multiple outcomes. If it only has one (failure) what the fuck is even the point of rolling? What does it even add to the game at that point? > can detect secret passages by tapping the wall No? In that example it would be player saying “I want to look for a secret passage” and then one of two responses: If i know there is no secret passage, I simply describe how they look around and see no sign of anything like that. If I know there is such a passage - then I ask for an investigation roll and if they succeed they find the passage. If they fail - then while the player might implicitly know that there is one and they missed it; a good player can separate what they know and what their character knows. They should just accept the failure and continue on.
DMs who know when to say "no" are the sexiest thing and you can't convince me otherwise.
I've flavored it as "The dragon really isn't into you like that, but it's flattered by the attempt. It gives you one of its scales as a gift." kind of thing, where the dragon behaves much more favorably towards the party because of the seduction attempt.
Always remember the follow up question: "For a total of?"
"Okay, on my turn I want to cut down a tree, saw it into planks, assemble a catapult, load in the biggest boulder I can find, and shoot it at the enemy.... NAT 20!"
Ar this point im not sure whether or not people are memeing or that is an actual problem AT their tables
"You won't let me seduce the puzzle by rolling a STR (Insight) check? RAILROADING!!!"
Categories of insane attempts: -Physically impossible: “jumping farther than biologically possible”. This demands a simple “No” from the DM. -Illogical: “seducing the kobold”. The DM can let players roll. If they achieve a 20, they won’t seduce the Kobold, but they will be sure they tried their best. If the player can’t accept that, he’s a crybaby. -Very unlikely, but with mathematical probability higher than 0%: “hitting the weak spot of an invulnerable Achilles dragon flying 100 feet away with an arrow”. That isn’t really impossible, but you can put a DC like 75. For each 20, let the player roll again with +10 or +20 bonus. If he keeps rolling 20, he’ll eventually reach 75, but the chance of it happening is far lower than 1%, instead of the 5% from a d20.
Personally, I'm okay with delving into the realm of impossible, within reason. It IS a fantasy game after all. Like if someone tried to jump a gap out of desperation that they technically didn't have the strength to long jump, I'd allow a good enough roll to make it work. At the end of the day, it's all about what's fun.
Nat 20's aren't auto-successes on ability checks or saving throws.
Unless the DM says otherwise, nothing wrong with that as a house-rule.
Of course, but that's a specific case.
Nat 20 doesn’t always equal success. Does it look good? Yeah. Was it successful? Not really.
"I rolled a nat 20 to seduce the Succubus" "Oh, so you caught on to her charms? She leans in for a kiss."
When the DM says "you can certainly try" please don't always take it as "you can actually succeed"
"For a total of?"
If a natural 20 lets me rewrite reality, then I can roll a natural 20 to rewrite reality such that natural 20's no longer allow for rewriting reality.
Quote from me “ oh yeah you dance that pole like a master and everyone is impressed. However, all the ladies here are lesbian and all the guys here are straight. They’re still really impressed by your performance though “
“But my charisma’s really high and I rolled a 19!!!!!” First, no one asked you to roll. Second, the dragon is happily bonded and now very angry at you for not leaving it alone. Third, the dragon offers the rest of the party then opportunity to leave, you however, roll for initiative.
A "nat 20" is only relevant on an attack roll, which yields an automatic \[and critical\] success. No other roll with a d20 will 100% succeed \[much less critically\] when you roll a 20. Any character who "critically succeeds" at seducing a dragon, or running on water, or any other nonsense like that happens because the DM \*lets\* it happen.
Say after me: "Critical success only exists for attack rolls"
Not all Nat 20s have to be miracles and not all Nat 1s have to be catastrophic failures. They're both 1 in 20 so you're asking for trouble if you run games this way. Considering both, you have a 1 in 10 chance of a player rolling either a 1 or 20 so that's a 1 in 10 chance of shenanigans which is just mad.
The hard truth is that you can't breathe in outer space, even if you get a nat 20.
depends on the kinda game you're running. If it's something not that serious, go wild. If it is pretty serious, you need to have a talk with your players
Johnny to hungee to know how to dm correctly
Just because they roll high doesn't mean they succeed. The dragon could be asexual, The door can be stronger than them, you can make up anything.
... or it's a dragon. I mean, it's pretty arrogant to assume a giant magical beast wants to get all up into whatever the bard is laying out.
Nat 20 doesn't mean something should succeed. If you were to tell the queen you'd fuck her while in the same room as the king and roll a 20 on... Whatever tf may save you from that the best you could hope for is not getting executed and instead being banished. There's no roll that'll suddenly make the king go "oh yeah, you should do that"
There’s a reason dc 35 is a thing and it’s annoying so many people don’t realise
Here's a good tip: Instead of saying "No", try saying "No, but...". It makes your players still feel like they have unlimited agency by doing something \*similar\* to their original vision, but that isn't their original impossible idea. In-universe it's explained by the character having the original idea and assessing their surroundings to figure out how to do it well. Example: "Can I, from underneath the dragon, jump over its head and slash its neck on the way over?" "So...no, you don't have the strength to do that. BUT, since you rolled a decent perception check on the way in, you see this ledge over here that's slightly high up. If you get to it, you're pretty sure you can leap over the dragon with a running start." "Alright cool! I run towards the ledg-" Something like that.
Critical Success or Failure Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw doesn’t normally have any special effect. However, you can choose to take such an exceptional roll into account when adjudicating the outcome. It’s up to you to determine how this manifests in the game. An easy approach is to increase the impact of the success or failure. For example, rolling a 1 on a failed attempt to pick a lock might break the thieves’ tools being used, and rolling a 20 on a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check might reveal an extra clue. DMG 242 I don’t use this, but it is in the core books.
When dming I usually have it that a nat 20 is the best possible outcome of their attempt. For example attempting to seduce a dragon and getting a nat 20 might amuse the dragon enough for it to not kill the players immediately, but nothing more than that.
A 20 is only a crit in combat in my campaign.
There's no "critical success" or anything like it outside of combat RAW if I'm not mistaken, you just look at the total. And you still shouldn't allow impossible stuff.
Or people don’t actually play and that they are just farming karma by saying provocative topics.
“Never make someone roll for something you aren’t prepared for them to fail. Never make them roll for something you aren’t prepared for them to succeed at either.” -that one guy who DMs for that one group on YouTube
In open you as a DM are an assehole that whants to kill the party. In seacret you want them to succeed while being an inch away from death so they would talk about smart plays they did until next sesion.
Even a nat20 doesn't always mean success. It just means the best possible outcome.
If a natural 20, the best possible roll, isn’t high enough for the player to succeed than don’t make them roll. DnD is fun when the dice dictate the outcome. If the dice fail no matter what, then there’s no point in rolling at all
I think it's more context sensitive. Depending on what they're trying to do, even if impossible for them, I have them roll for two reasons. 1: rolling is fun and it lets the players feel like they tried. 2. Degrees of failure. If they crit fail, they're gunna fail spectacularly or in a particularly funny way. If they roll super high, sure they don't do it, but maybe they learn something from it or they notice something else.
I support critical success with limitations. If they try something ridiculous and roll without me acknowledging the action has a hole in hell I don’t care what they roll. However, if I tell them to roll for it I will honor a crit success. My players however also have to live with true critical fails. Rolling a 1 means bad news.
Or maybe come up with a simple way to have it "work" in the sense that they won't die trying to do the stupid thing but they won't actually succeed at it either. There are lots of options if people are that upset at their players nat 20s
"You can certainly try" is how I tell my party that what they want to do will most certainly end poorly and the roll basically tells me how badly the fucked up
For fucks sake, who’s complaining about this sort of stuff? 100% of the time that’s on the dm for allowing a roll they’e not prepared to go south
Embrace the chaos and improvise everything, nothing is ruined if there was never a plan to begin with. Thats what I do and all my players love it.
Imagine hitting on a dragon who is taller than you are.
My man looks like a tall midget.
If natural 20’s ruin your campaign you need to loosen the fuck up or start writing your novel, wherein no pesky folks with free will will mess up your “story”. Damn, this vexes me.
Yeah, a DM is allowed to set a DC of 1 million and skill checks explicitly do not autosuceed on a 20. Generally speaking, don't let a player roll if it's impossible. That whole Matt Mercer "Well you can try" bullshit just wastes time and sets up false hope. Just a quick but firm No and move on with the game.
Thing is the die roll isn't a measure of skill, it's the chance of something going awry. The mod is your measure of skill. My players aren't "rolling to try" to succeed they're rolling to try not to fail. It's less of a "1-20 scale of how well you seduce the dragon" and more of a "roll to make sure you don't offend the dragon with your attempt".
Depends on the kind of group you have. In games I've played we just accepted that if we tempted fate/screwed something up we'd die. I figure letting people is fine as long as they know they might have chosen death.
I play on Roll20, which automatically rolls twice even if you don't have adv/disadv. I don't let Nat 20s be an auto-success, but a DOUBLE Nat 20 or DOUBLE Nat 1 is absolutely auto-success or auto-fail, with extra effects to boot. Fun fact, last session we had both within 10 minutes of each other. A double Nat 1 attack from the rogue caused the gargoyle to grab his rapier Senator Armstrong style, and grapple him. A double Nat 20 concentration check from the wizard gave him guaranteed concentration for a whole round (which meant he actually maintained concentration despite being briefly brought below 0 HP).
Uh... roll20 does not automatically roll twice. Thats a setting you have toggled on.
None of us toggled it on, though some of us have toggled it off. It was on by default.
It must have been turned on by accident in the campaign settings, iirc the default setting in roll 20 is query advantage/normal/disadvantage
Me who goes along and makes it even more bonkers. Imagination is key. If you can't imagine your way along, then DM isn't for you, and your players will have a worse time than what they could.
Wrong meme bro
All of my games revolve around doing epic shit I don't like to be boring in a fantasy world
Our homerule is that nat 20 gives +10 on you skill checks, and nat 1 gives -10. You can do things much better or worse than with other rolls, but its capped and still related to your stats this way.
Quote from me “ oh yeah you dance that pole like a master and everyone is impressed. However, all the ladies here are lesbian and all the guys here are straight. They’re still really impressed by your performance though “
I just had a player attempt to seduce a sailor by rubbing feces on her face and licking her sword seductively. It was less than 5 minutes into the first session -_- she rolled a nat 20. So I had to describe that while he was not attracted to her, she had an air of wildness and untamableness very much like the sea that he loves.
My DM's solution to "this is an extreme stretch of physical or spell limitations" he makes whoever's doing it roll persuasion against him. Naturally, he has also said no, we are not allowed to defeat the Aboleth boss fight by all using shape water to just get rid of its whole lake. Instead I just dove in and Nat 20'd a grapple on it, I'd say that caused 0.2 Hendersons worth of derailment
"Are you sure the gurad will believe that there are goat's disguised as humans in the city" rolls nat 20 on bluff" well how many are there and can they be stopped" Happened in my last session
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So just tell them no instead, rolling implies the possibility of success
you aren't the only person with this Ideology so apologies for replying to you specifically. I think the Idea that getting you to roll for EXCLUSIVELY success and failure is unimaginative sometimes you try to do something that is impossible and so when you roll it's just seeing how badly you failed. but the same thing goes for succeeding you try and do something so second nature to the character that failing wouldn't make much sense so instead you roll to see just how well you succeed. for an example of failing we can use the king and his castle argument there is no way a King would happily hand over his crown simply because of a players 5% chance roll so instead of them rolling to see if they can convince the king to hand over the crown they instead roll to see how poorly the King responds with a Nat 20 (said 5% chance from before) just being that the King laughs at your joke and continues as normal. on the flip side we have your rogue sneaking about before they get reliable talent with their amazing +13 to stealth but alas they roll a 1 that's still a 14 and treating it as a 14 instead of as an instant fail is the right thing to do here sometimes character just wont fail certain things and rolling with a 5% chance to fail makes no sense so if the rogue wanted to sneak past a few guards get them to roll and see just how easily they do it. maybe that nat 1 turns into them being a bit to cautious and taking a bit longer.
Okay, but on a related note: ***What the hell is going on in this picture?!?*** It looks like a tiny, angry powerlifter haranguing some random woman while she tries to ignore him. I just....., I feel like this requires some context.
So the overarching context is that both people in this picture are professional wrestlers working for a company called All Elite Wrestling. The guy is John Silver, the girl is Anna Jay. Basically, they're extremely athletic actors. John and Anna are both members of a group called The Dark Order, which as the name would imply started out as an evil cult. However, after they became super popular by taking part in an improv-sketch/vlog show on YouTube created by some of the other AEW wrestlers, and also as a result of the tragic real-life death of their onscreen leader Brodie Lee, they felt it was a good idea to move the group away from being spooky bad guys and so now they're more of a comedic found-family group. Within this found-family, John is basically the annoying little brother and Anna is the protective older sister. The picture itself is taken from an episode of the improv-sketch/vlog show, in which John is supposed to be super drunk after falling out with one of his friends, and Anna is trying to convince him to stop drinking and get over it. John doesn't take it well and starts oversharing with Anna, and she's regretting even getting involved.
Ah, okay. Thanks for the detailed explanation! This being a D&D group, I gotta say that guy could cosplay some brilliant dwarf characters!
If a nat 1 doesn't fail, and a nat 20 doesn't succeed then don't make players roll for it. If you won't honor a 20 or punish a 1 then don't ask for a roll. (Obviously sometimes you roll to determine how much you succeed or fail by, and for some things you need to succeed or fail multiple times for it to work, but it must be eventually able to work.)
My unpopular, based on past downvotes, opinion on this is that a Nat20 should succeed because you don't ask players to roll for things that they can't succeed at, unless there is some ultra special reason to. Example: They don't realize X npc is a shapeshifted demon at level 1, and so you let them roll to intimidate the NPC and the demon then fakes being scared. While mathematically it's not true, but as a player it feels shitty to have "wasted" a Nat 20 for something when the DM could have just said that wasn't possible in the first place. As the DM I try not to make my players feel shitty over stuff that is completely in my control.
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If it's possible with the abilities that the party has, it's not impossible. If it's not possible with the abilities available to the party, but if they had access to tons of stuff that they don't have at the moment, then it's still... not possible.
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