If you were to go by the book, a Critical Fail when rolling to attack is, “If the d20 roll for an attack is a 1, the attack misses regardless of any modifiers or the target’s AC.” Pretty straightforward but lacking any real flavor. Most DMs enjoy taking this opportunity to describe the character’s epic failure, but this usually stops short of much more than some humorous insults.
My proposal is nothing new. In fact, I was toying with the idea when I happened upon the podcast Dungeon Master’s Block and their own spin on Critical Fails. (Check our their show. It’s great and they have a HUGE catalogue of episodes.) While I don’t remember exactly how they structured Critical Fails, I believe it was pretty similar to what I’m about to outline.
Critical Fails become a two part roll. The first is, obviously, rolling a 1 to attack. The second is what determines just how devastating a failure occurred.
Roll a d6:
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That character is dealt 1d6 damage of the type they had intended to use.
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The character they had intended to attack gets the opportunity to react with an attack of their own.
- The weapon in use is damaged for the remainder of the encounter. (Any + modifies are removed. If there are none, -2 is applied. For an unarmed attack, the character now has -2 to hit on all such attacks.)
- The nearest friendly character is dealt 1d4 damage of the type they had intended to use.
- That character’s defenses become weakened. -2 to AC for the remainder of the encounter.
- The character falls prone and may not use any actions until their next turn.
Pretty simple, right?
I’ve seen some other variations that include options for even worse outcomes, but I think of this as more of a side-effect than any sort of dire consequences.
Could something like this be used for rolling a 1 in other circumstances? Sure. Technically the only time you can get a Critical Fail is on rolls to attack, but why not spice up some other aspects of the game as well.
Here’s one idea I have for Perception / Investigation checks.
The DM rolls any die in secret. If the number is EVEN they give the player a bit of truthful intel. If the number is ODD the information is less than factual. Good luck to the players when it comes to guessing which is which!
Yes, I know that you’re not actually able to roll lower than your Passive Perception, but sometimes your senses can deceive you…