I like the idea of extraordinary luck given to players. Giving everything they do a 5% chance of incredible success no matter the difficulty is such a small tweak to let some really hilarious, or awesome things play out. And they will take more risks knowing there is potentially a great reward. How do you balance this? 5% chance of terrible failure no matter how easy. No more automatic success. Sometimes shit just happens and when it happens, it really hurts.

And also, you can just make regular failure more punishing or even make success a monkey’s paw thing: "You want to seduce the lich?! already rolling dice “No, you fail. In your attempt to seduce the lich, his aura of evil has made you impotent. Permanently.” OR "YES NAT TWENTY!! DM deadpan for 10 seconds, then “I have a fetish for fingers. I’ll give you the information you want in exchange for a few those delectable, dainty fingers, half-elf” (Some temporary debuffs that can heal, and they get to skip the fetch quest)

In 5e, they do if you like fun. But go off on your “correct” way to play

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.

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.

This is the way

::: spoiler Pedant mode activated Erm, ackshually, a natural 20 only increases the degree of success by one. This means, for example, if someone rolls a 20 on an attack roll, the total with modifiers is 28, and the defender’s AC is 30, the attack will be bumped up from a failure to a normal success, not a critical success. :::

A jackpot is not 5% odds or a 1 in 20 chance.

A natural 20 is not as rare as y’all wanna make it out to be.

Ok, but if the 20 doesn’t succed, why did you let them roll in the first place?

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

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.

If you make like five skill checks per game, yes it is rare and it’s way more fun to treat it like a crit success. It’s not a job, it’s a weekend activity that is supposed to bring joy.

I don’t mean that it’s ultra rare, just that it serves the same function as a jackpot - it’s the best possible outcome, the thing you’re always hoping will happen when you scratch the ticket, press the button or roll the dice.

It’s your chance to have that YOU WIN BIG moment. Setting up that mechanic and then creating situations where it doesn’t apply is intentionally designing disappointment.

Cool but that’s not what was said. The dude above said the game was designed in such a way that they’re jackpots. They are not. Just because you don’t have skill checks in your game often doesn’t mean the entire game is designed a certain way.

No, a d100 serves the same function as a jackpot. Once again, a 1 in 20 chance is… Real easy to achieve. And if you’re having the whole situation set up around a natural 20 being a jackpot then I really hope you’re treating a natural 1 with the same rules. Otherwise it’s just an extremely biased argument.

Having the nat 20 not be an instant free gimme isn’t bad game design. It’s balanced because as much as you all want to argue otherwise, a natural 20 is NOT rare. Especially with how often you can get advantage. If it’s not rare then it CANT be a jackpot because you’d be giving jackpots to everyone

Edit: This sounds kinda bitchy in tone but isn’t meant to be. Sorry

You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

Just because a Nat 20 isn’t necessarily the cause, doesn’t mean that skill checks don’t crit.

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.

GURPS too

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.

Maintaining the illusion? Not revealing the (impossible) DC?