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More than anything, my issue with critical fumbles is that I lack a reference point for their use in the sort of fiction that inspires my campaigns. Most of the time when I play or DM D&D, I'm drawing inspiration on some level from heroic fantasy--sometimes directly, but more often in a general sense of tones and genre tropes.

In heroic fantasy, there does seem to be such a thing as a critical hit, for example, in the Hobbit when Bard takes down Smaug by shooting his one weak point. It is therefore pretty easy for me to incorporate critical hits into a heroic fantasy game in a way that feels true to the genre.

But critical misses, by and large, do not occur in heroic fantasy. Heroes don't always hit, but when they miss it is generally because the enemy is skilled, not because they themselves are clumsy. Conan never accidentally throws his sword away, Aragorn never trips over his own feet. There is very little in the way of genre precedent for critical misses, and what little precedent there is exists not in heroic fantasy but in humorous fantasy--Rincewind in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, for example, seems to critically miss with some regularity, but it is always played for laughs.

This is no accident. Critical hits make heroes seem cooler, whereas critical misses undermine their coolness. A hero who fumbles, throws his sword away, trips over himself, stabs his best friend accidentally and what have you, is simply not going to seem all that impressive. Even if he makes up for it by also being occasionally super lucky, he will still seem flukey and slapsticky, one of the Three Stooges gone adventuring.

Feb 11, 2010 -- 12:03PM, Awesomeocalypse wrote:

But critical misses, by and large, do not occur in heroic fantasy. Heroes don't always hit, but when they miss it is generally because the enemy is skilled, not because they themselves are clumsy. Conan never accidentally throws his sword away, Aragorn never trips over his own feet.

Frodo falls down more than Gerald Ford, and when Conan misses it's usually because he slips in something or because his axe is stuck in someone's shoulder.

I seem to recall Fafhard and the Grey Mouser always messing up, but it's been too many years for me to think of a specific instance.

Feb 11, 2010 -- 12:18PM, Awesomeocalypse wrote:

4e characters aren't Frodo though, they're Fellowship members. They aren't ordinary schlubs asked to do great things, they're huge, legendary badasses asked to do great things.

The last three modules I ran:
Tymanther needs scouts to look around the area.
Myth Drannor needs guards to stand at a gate and yell if anything comes though.
Warlsbry is besiged by wolves and whales.

The locals in charge in these modules definately put the characters in the position of "Schlubs", not "huge, legendary badasses".

technically its still heroic fantasy.  It's not tolkien's heroic fantasy, obviously, so its not pure gold and the standard to which all other fantasy is held.  But a movie can still be heroic fantasy (and is.)  so Aragorn falling off of a cliff does count.  Its not as good of an example as it would have been had it been from said golden pen, but then, not everything can come from tolkien. 

(not sarcasm.  Tolkien is GOD.)

AwesomeApocalypse,

Well thought out as usual.  However I don't completely agree.  Heroic fiction does have situations where bad luck turns, the hero slips in blood, giving his adversary an advantage, they stab and enemy and their blade gets caught, or they take a shoulder cut that weakens their grip, or he cheerfully hacks through the rope holding the portcullis, only then realizing he cut the wrong end (I loved that scen in 3 Musketeers).  This always occurs when the author wants to add complication to a scene, to make things a bit more dangerous, rather than just "and they killed the bad guy".

I think the intention of a critical miss table is to emulate these random occurences, to throw in a little random complication to make the encounter a bit more memorable.  But of course, what actually happens is the critical miss table becomes a bunch of ridiculous overreactions, massive character de-buffs and practical jokes.  "Trip over an imaginary, unseen, deceased turtle...stunned 1 round, "cut your arm off".  They go beyond complication, into the realm of buffoonery, especially when you have characters who roll multiple attacks a round, thus increasing the chance they'll be the butt of the joke for this combat.  Trained swordsment trip over their feet less, not more.

In general, a critical hit merely means a guaranteed hit and maximum damage.  A 1 (a critical miss) is a guaranteed hit and minimum damage (0).  Though I'd never do it, I guess a reasonable critical miss effect is to cancel any damage that would occur, even on a miss (like from Hammer Rhythm, or "half-damage" from a Daily).  I would never do it...missing is bad enough.

One thing I might do, as a mirror to all those feats that let you do something else on a crit, is add a property to the occasional monster that lets them make a basic attack against anyone who rolls a 1 while attacking them in melee (possibly for other monsters, they could do some kind of spell reflection for ranged attacks).  "The monster takes advantage of your momentary disadvantage, and counterattacks".  That seems like a fun little random complication that would spice up combat, and make the players dread those ones.  I would only apply it to the first attack of each round, though, otherwise it wouldn't be fair to the multi-attackers.