this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Very much depends on the modifier, though. Like in Baldur's Gate 3 they do crit fails/successes which is what made me think of this. But say my character is a level 20 wizard with an essentially superhuman mastery of Arcana. So a bonus of +12 to arcana and is presented with a rune that needs to be identified:
Under the crit fail/success system, this genius Archmagus with a knowledge of Arcana in the same ballpark as Mystra herself has a 5% chance of not knowing what the fuck that rune does instead of whatever small percentage rolling a minimum of 13 would get you on that particular skill challenege. If this dude rolled the lowest he can roll, it is and should still be treated as pretty damn good.
And it's ultimately up to the DM, of course, but RAW matters too
BG3's crit fails on skill checks drive me crazy. I have failed so many DC 10 sleight of hand checks because of that natural one. Like, easily 1/3, despite it supposedly being a 5% chance
Has no one made a mod for it yet?
Exactly! That's what I love! Consequently, it's also the one thing about Baldurs Gate 3 that I think is genuinely bad and very short sighted. There have been countless checks I've failed in that game because of that whole "autocrit/autofail" thing. It doesn't make any sense. You build a character to be good at a thing so that the minimum they can do is still better than anyone else but you have a perpetual 5% chance of catastrophic failure? No. Fuck that.
I don't run autochecks and autofails and I never will because I want my players to feel like their build actually matters.