(in D&D at least)
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Nat 20? Wait, how are you going to roll a 20 on a d12?
Oh, wrong game.
They do if the DM says they do, y’all get way too hard for the rules as written.
Not to mention which game you’re actually playing.
It’s technically homebrew, but basically every table Ive played at will give you a little bonus if you roll a 20 for a check and a little negative if you roll a 1. But we still kept that a 20 does not necessarily mean an auto success and a 1 is not necessarily an auto failure. You still need to beat the DC
Agreed, auto success on a skill check nerfs challenges.
If the DC is so high that the PC doesn’t succeed with a 20, it seems too random to give it to them.
Then again, it depends on the situation: a nat 20 trying to convince the penny pinching tavern owner to give you a discount seems like fun even if the DC should be infinite; but when dealing with something story related, I’d stick a little closer to the rules.
But at the same time, if the DC is so high that no roll could succeed, then they shouldn’t be rolling for it in the first place
I agree, and if I think an DC might be too high for a player, I just ask them first “Wait, what’s your <skill here>?”
You’re right, but I don’t know most of my PCs stats. If the DC on a lock is 21, I’d expect a rogue might make it, but another PC who has never picked a lock wouldn’t.
D&D has all the money in the entire hobby, basically, and they still make terrible design decisions like this.
Rolling a nat 20 and getting a crit is the jackpot of d&d mechanics. Don’t design a system where sometimes you hit the jackpot but don’t win anything. That’s an objectively bad choice to make.
I 90% agree. I think most of the opposition to this comes from people exhausted with habitual boundary-pushers who think that a nat 20 means they can get away with defying the laws of reality.
Like, no, a nat20 persuasion does not convince the merchant to give you half his stock and all the money in the register… He would go broke and he’s got a family to support, along with his own survival that your nat20 does not also convince him to stop caring about.
But at the end of the day, a lot of GMs who are sick of that need to be sent the dictionary page for the word “no.” The occasional use of it really does improve the quality of the game, and I’m sure plenty of players will appreciate not letting aforementioned boundry pushers continue to waste time on impossible pursuits that do nothing to move the game forward.
I’ve seen this easily solved by assuming the 20 succeedes but the DM decides how exactly.
“Okay. The dragon loves you know. They realize you have their old lover’s eyes. You remember this too. Old tales in your family that you thought were a joke. You are apparently related. And they do love you now.”
If you can’t trust your players to act like adults and show some basic maturity. That’s a different issue.
Personally, I find “5% of the time the outcome is astoundingly good, and 5% of the time it’s shockingly bad” kind of unsatisfying. Jarring, even. Picture playing darts and every 20 throws, missed the dart board completely, no matter how good you are at darts.
I haven’t played pf2e but I think degree of success is a much more reasonable system.
I also prefer games that aren’t flat probability. When you only roll one die, every outcome (on the die) is equally likely.
But I think a lot of people playing DND don’t really care about rules, consistency, verisimilitude, or much anything beyond “lololol and then Kevin crit his stealth check so we said the goblin king didn’t see him at all as he stole the throne the goblin was sitting on!!!”. Which is fine, I guess.
Ok, but if the 20 doesn’t succed, why did you let them roll in the first place?
I… Don’t? Is that so magical?
Like, if something would need a DC 25 Acrobatics check, I ask the player “Wait, how high is your character’s Acrobatics? +3? Ah no sorry, you can’t do that.”
Some players don’t ask.
They absolutely do, and the bonus effects are listed in the description of each skill action. Oh. you mean in D&D. washes hands
