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[Culise]

Make it your quest to slay the pantheon of gods, those fickle beings who toy with the lives of mortals for their amusement. Make it the player's job to free his kind of the pantheon's whip, to break their chains and bring freedom to the lands.

Could make a bunch of templates and then make each game mix and match so that each pantheon is different, with different gods with their own mix of abilities.

Then make the final end boss yourself players.  Who, after all, toys with the lives of the characters for their amusement more than the players and GM?

[Sergarr]

I wonder how would 3rd edition D&D change from having natural 20's not auto-succeed and natural 1's not auto-fail?

[BlackFlyme]

Probably have fewer unlucky deaths, as well as incredibly lucky wins.

Aside from that, it would depend on how your group handles those rolls. I've read a few stories that would have ended much differently if the players weren't using fumble/success charts that altered what happened on natural 1/20's.

There are also the rare instances where you are put up against things that you can't harm without that natural twenty. In such cases, it's probably the DM's fault.

[GiglameshDespair]

I wonder how would 3rd edition D&D change from having natural 20's not auto-succeed and natural 1's not auto-fail?

They aren't in normal 3rd or 3.5e, far as I know, it's just an extremely common houserule. It certainly isn't the case in 3.5e.

Natural twenties are only an automatic success when attempting to hit things in combat. A 1 is not an automatic miss.

[Sergius]

Actually in D20 and variants, a 20 is automatic hit and 1 is automatic miss, only in combat, and I think they're just normal rolls in skill checks and probably saving throws. So on a natural 1 you just add 1 to whatever base bonus you have, and if 20 isn't enough to lockpick something then it just doesn't work.

Neither is a critical, technically, that's actually a function of the threat range (all threat ranges just happen to overlap with the natural 20). There's a subtle distinction... yeah for all intents and purposes "natural 20 means critical threat" could be said, but it's an oversimplification.

No such thing as a critical miss in RAW. Even as a house rule, having 1 being automatic critical failure is too much, you'd have to "confirm a miss" or something. Also it penalizes martial classes with multiple attacks per round (a high-level warrior with 5 attacks per round would get a critical failure every 4 rounds ).

Also when confirming, natural 1s or 20s are irrelevant per RAW, if a roll of 20 + BAB +bonuses would miss, it means you can't crit that target with your current BAB, and you can confirm a crit even on a roll of 1 + BAB+bonuses.

So yeah. Crit failure is house-rules. Because watching a fighter hit himself is hilarious apparently.




EDIT: Right... about removing auto-hit/auto-miss... well, it would just mean that it's impossible to hit some creatures/NPCs with enough armor because levels.

In some games this works, Fate for example, you NEED enough bonus to beat defense (both roll but if the target's defense is 9 ranks above your attack - not exactly very plausible unless you burn advantages/points - you just can't hit. Unless you burn your own points. Realistically nearly everyone is in the 0-4 skill range, unless some kind of giant monster that must be killed using teamwork or other tactics. But I digress, there just isn't an auto-hit.

EDIT2: Not sure why I posted all that rant about criticals, I'm just sleepy, it's time for bed already. Also automatic success/failure also works for saving throws, just not skill checks. I guess I just wanted to point that natural 1 automiss is not a houserule, critical failure is.

[Sensei]

As a rule of thumb, more random combat (such as guaranteed hits and misses on 20s and 1s, more dramatic crits/critical fails, etc) ALWAYS favors the weaker party in the engagement, because a smaller portion of combat is determined by the abilities you brought to the table. Normally, the monsters are weaker than your players, but this works in players' favor against the BBEG or huge dragon or whatever.

[Jimmy]

Don't forget that it's not just attack rolls that are affected by the 1/20 rule. Saving throws are also included.

From the d20 SRD:

Automatic Failures and Successes
A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on a saving throw is always a failure (and may cause damage to exposed items; see Items Surviving after a Saving Throw). A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a success.

The results of the change largely depend on action economy and the typical actions the characters take. If you're fighting a single enemy, the fact that you have more actions means you have a greater chance of 20's, and given there's no consequence for a 1 except a miss, it means you end up gaining an advantage. If you typically use abilities that don't require attack rolls, then this reduces the advantage. If on the other hand you typically fight large amounts of enemies with more actions than you, for example if your DM is fond of using large hordes of creatures in place of one big one, you end up at a disadvantage.

[Sergius]

I haven't even played enough to know how often a difference between BAB+bonuses and AC greater than 20 comes up for the autohit to matter. Or the opposite, how often your high BAB would guarantee a hit even on a 1 (without auto-hit). Well, actually, having 20 AC is not that hard with heavy armor or monk abilities (or natural monster armor) so I guess anyone with BAB of 1 or 2 could potentially miss 100% of the time without autohit rules. That's like, non-combat classes or really low level fighters. I would say if this is the norm rather than the exception, IMO that's a bigger problem than just allowing auto-hits.

[Gentlefish]

AC doesn't even factor at higher levels. It's a stopgap between death and miss chances.

[BlackFlyme]

Something I've been thinking about, now that I've been looking into necromancy in Pathfinder. Where do people stand on the idea of non-evil undead? Not for any game in particular, just as a general view.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I know that in Pathfinder, it is strictly not allowed, despite the fact that non-evil, and even good undead have existed in D&D before Pathfinder was conceived. There are even non-evil undead in some official Pathfinder adventure paths, or so I've been told, but the company insists that all undead must be evil. Instances where a non-evil undead may be created have been errata'd in the past.

An example of an errata would be the juju oracle mystery, where a mindless undead created by juju would originally be true neutral, and intelligent undead would share the alignment of their creator.

It just seems strange to me that intelligent undead must be evil, since unlike mindless corpses, they still have free will and personalities. Though a majority aren't who they are in life, and I can still see a large majority succumbing to the negative energy that powers them.

Eh, considering the recent alignment arguments, maybe I should have rethought this.

[Nerjin]

It's likely simply because "Oh you're using a dead body for anything other than letting it rot? You evil bastard."

I would wager any amount of money that it has some sort of "That used to be a thinking creature" sentiment attached which is foolish to me.

A zombie is a tool if it's following commands. If I use a Zombie to save an orphanage I have committed an evil act. But if I don't use a zombie but, due to lack of zombie for whatever reason, am unable to save the orphanage but I try REALLLY hard... It's a good act.

Moral systems like that annoy me because they look at the ideal [to some people's minds] and say "This is the way it should be no matter what" without keeping in mind that "how it should be" isn't always "how it is".

But to answer your question: Undead are true neutral as they lack the intelligence to make moral choices. They are as alignment charged as a Cat. Intelligent Undead, on the other hand, should be viewed as how they act.

If a Vampire is working for the common good while asking for donations of blood so that they can control their hungers they would be as morally upstanding as a group of adventurers who ask for lodging so they may keep themselves in proper shape. Arbitrarily saying 'that vampire is evil' "Why?" 'Because all vampires are evil' really ruins a lot of potentially interesting setups for me.

One good example I've seen of how necromancy with zombies could be good is if the dead bodies are used to make sure an entire city can live in luxury. You live life really well while necromancers control the corpses of the dead as a sort of servant. You donate blood to the vampire lords who run the city [and get monetarily compensated] and when you die your body is added to the servant pile. (Note: The zombies all wear masks so you'd never know if dear Uncle Mortimer were one of them but... I found it a super cool idea).

Sorry if that came off as rambly I'm tired as heck and get somewhat miffed at arbitrary designations of evil.

[Spehss _]

I recall reading a greentext or something from /tg/ where a necromancer used the magic to communicate with his dead ancestors and past family members. No enslavement, just an old man who talks with his family beyond the grave. Can't find it.

Here's another relevant story I found to make up for it.

[Rolan7]

Interestingly the Necromancy spell school has life-wards and detection spells which are mostly useful *against* undead.  And "enervation", which is a Necromancy ray of negative energy, isn't evil.  A "Necromancer" doesn't have to create undead, they can be a powerful force against the undead.  Or just enjoy shooting people with negative energy via enervation, which isn't evil... although... a victim killed by enervation becomes a free-willed wight, based on the negative energy rules.

[My Name is Immaterial]

I think that 'Undead = EVUL' is stupid. I think that it makes sense for a listed alignment to be taken as a recommendation, not a hard and fast rule. It is reasonable for most raised undead to be evil, because grave robbing is usually an evil act, except when adventurers do it.

[Toaster]

*Treasure Hunting