this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2025
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The problem is it isn't that rare. If you reward it very much at all it encourages doing stupid shit (that won't hurt you) because you'll succeed 5% of the time. Maybe they get to do a particularly cool action while trying it on a 20, but it still shouldn't always succeed. You might just look slightly better while failing.
A nat 20 is the best outcome that the character could manage in that situation, if they have no chance of succeeding then the DM should not be letting them roll. If the barbarian suggests mauling a delicate machine with their mace it's down to anyone else in the party (or the DM if they're so inclined) to remind them that actions have consequences.
I disagree that the DM shouldn't let them try. For a lockpicking example, there are plenty of people who think they could pick a lock who have no shot of actually doing it. The DM shouldn't be telling them no if their character might think they could do it. They should just roll and tell them they failed. Let them try. They don't have to know they didn't stand a chance —unless they get a nat 20, because obviously then they'll know it was always going to fail.
Yeah, obviously mailing it shouldn't do anything. They should roll to attack and then roll for damage, because that's what they're doing, not a skill check. And yeah, it's going to destroy something. For something like a lockpick, they could roll and break the lock. Pathfinder handles this better with degrees of success.
But that also means that you would fail 95% of the time? I'm not sure why that seems unfair.
Sorry, I don't really play but I like hearing and reading the stories.
If it isn't dangerous, it just encourages doing stuff your character wouldn't do. Your barbarian shouldn't be going around picking locks. Having a 1/20 chance to randomly succeed encourages then to though. Yeah, they'll usually fail, but there's no harm in most skill checks, so why not take them?
Skill checks don't succeed on a natural 20 in the rule book. It's a house rule thing, that got passed to a lot of players. It's not a good way of handling it. Pathfinder 2e has a good system for it if you're interested. It has degrees of success falling above/below the DC by 10 is a critical. Also, a natural 1/20 decreases/increases the degree of success by 1. That means if you really don't know what you're doing, you can easily critical fail and have negative consequences. If you're really skilled you may critically succeed even without a nat 20.