House Rules for: Does a Natural 20 always Hit?

[Admin Pete]

Over the years I have seen many, many discussions on message boards about "does a natural 20 always hit." I adjudicate it as follows: If magic is not required to hit and you roll a natural 20, then you always hit. If magic is required and you are using a magic weapon (with or without a plus to hit) and you roll a natural 20, then you always hit. Those are the simple ones.

Let's say that you roll any number on the d20 from 2-19 (a natural 1 always misses) and your roll plus any bonuses you have equals or exceeds the number needed to hit, then you always hit (again accounting for whether or not magic is required or not and whether magic is used or not). Again still simple.

Now for example, let us say that you need a 20 to hit AC 0 and the AC you are trying to hit is AC -2, what do you need to roll to hit (again accounting for magic as per the above)? Well there are two ways you can hit AC -2, the first is to roll a natural 20 and you hit, the second is to roll any number and consider any bonuses you have to hit. If you roll a 18 and have a +4 to hit, then you would hit AC -2 by rolling a 18. And so on and so forth, that is the way I run it and have never run it any different way. That is one of my very oldest house rules.

How you play it?

[tetramorph]

Same for me, Admin Pete.

[The Red Baron]

If a creature is only hit by magic weapons, than only a magic weapon has any possibility of hitting.
If a creature is hit by only +3 or better weapons, than only a +3 or better weapon has any possibility of hitting.
A protection from evil spell negates all attacks by enchanted/summoned creatures.
A protection from normal missiles spell negates all attacks by non-enchanted missiles.

Otherwise a 20 always hits, a 1 always misses.

[hedgehobbit]

For me a natural 20 always hits but a 1 doesn't automatically miss.

[tetramorph]

Feb 19, 2015 18:06:20 GMT -5 hedgehobbit said:

For me a natural 20 always hits but a 1 doesn't automatically miss.

I can see that.

I came back to D&D through austinjimm's Planet Eris rules.

He has a fumble table and fumble rules. I guess I've gotten used to it and I've come to like it. It is something else that keeps the game interesting and allows for creative role-play if you want to.

[monk]

For us a natural 20 always hits no matter what. If it's a magical creature we come up with a suitably strange and awesome story for why it hits. Natural 1 always misses and if you're in the second rank or shooting missiles past friendlies, you make a second roll. If it's a hit, you just wounded your closest buddy.

We also have a d30 that each player can roll once per session instead of the d20. Sometimes they use it for saving throws, but often it's an attack. If it comes up 20, they get a critical (double damage or full die damage, their choice). If it's over 20 it just hits. If it's 30, they deal triple damage and force a morale roll for enemies if applicable. We've only had one nat 30, actually. But the PC did like 27 points of damage to some lowly humanoid and I ruled that he sliced through two of them. We've never had a nat 1 on the d30, but it should be something suitably horrible (accidentally amputate toes/foot, knock yourself out, etc.)

We like to roll dice and laugh. Haha.

[The Semi-Retired Gamer]

Admin Pete that's pretty much spot on for how I do it.

[Von]

I'm with monk on this one. Fumbles and criticals add a touch of the surprising and extreme to combat and I'm all in favour of that. Plus it's hilarious when the party's Paladin drops their new Sunsword down a two-hundred-foot shaft on the first swing and only gets it back because a helpful hireling Feather Falls down to retrieve it and meets them up top much, much later.