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this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Your daily reminder that"Nat 20" doesn't apply to skill or ability checks. It's applies to combat only.
It does in fact apply to skill checks and ability checks. Nat 20 just means rolling a 20 naturally on the dice before any modifiers are added :) I think what you meant was that "critical success" only applies to combat! In this instance, the natural 20 still means it's the highest possible roll for an ability checks which gives it the highest possibility of success.
Just a daily reminder that someone can always come around and surpass in pedantry. (Sorry I couldn't resist :) No hard feelings meant)
I love it. I'm not even mad.....well....maybe a little. Lol
Thanks for being a good sport!
Bad faith and pedantry aren't the same.
The comic very clearly implies that the nat 20 caused their dumbass character to be able to decipher the runes.
If it didn't, the player wouldn't have announced "Nat 20", but the actual score, wirth modifiers taken into account.
Nat 20 is very, very commonly used by GMs to mean "critcal success" in or out of combat, no matter the explict rule. Same goes for nat 1 being a "critical failure."
Why? Because it makes the game better for everyone to have these rare rolls rewarded or hilariously punished.
The trouble with doing that is that you end up in the stupid situation described by this comic!
I wasn't arguing in bad faith. Everything I said was factual, honest, and trustworthy. You are correct that a nat 20 caused them to be really smart and have the best chance to read the runes (nothing shows them actually reading it to be fair). This is because the nat 20 is the highest possible roll available to the player, before modifiers are added! In many instances, rolling that high passes skill checks up to "Hard" (according to the DMG) automatically unless you have some negative modifiers. With the assumption that this player was attempting something actually attainable, this high roll is translated as the character having the absolute epitome of their ability to translate the runes (whether or not it is successful.)
Could be Pathfinder 2e and raised their result from failure to success, or any of the playgroups that house rule it so a 20 does apply which in my experience is so common it might as well be the default
If a Nat 20 (the highest you can ever roll on a 20-sided die!) doesn't succeed, what was the point of rolling in the first place?
Generally speaking it's considered bad practice for a GM to call for rolls that literally no one in the party can succeed at, but as with anything in tabletop roleplaying there is nuance.
There could be a narrative reason for the player to not know just how difficult something is and you don't want to give it away by just telling the players they can't succeed. If the most capable member of the party rolls a 20 and fails then the "reward" is the narrative of the attempt and learning what you're up against.
Or maybe someone in the party could succeed but for whatever reason the child-prodigy wizard with a strength of 8 wants to try lifting the portcullis. It wouldn't make any sense for them to actually do it.
If someone wants to jump into a cavern and use strength to flap his arms to fly, rolling a d20 can be to see how much the person fucked up. A 20 isn't an automatic success.
Same when someone mixes a potion, the d20 may be to see how much it will poison the creator if they drink it.
Roll to see how badly you fail.
I house rule it to anything where dumb luck might help anyway. deciphering a language you know nothing about? nah. lockpicking a simple lock despite not really having much of a skill? woah, you don't know wtf you did but things clicked. you could probably force it open with a high enough strength check too but hey.
the tension before DM can put on a self satisfied look and say "even that wasn't enough"
Generally speaking, to shut the player up about it
You could technically have negative modifiers that would make it impossible for you to succeed, where others might.
You're right in that your DM likely will not even let you roll....but it's still possible.
Critical Skillchecks is an optional rule in the Dungeon Master Guide 5e on page 242.
They are as optional as feats and multiclassing.
Also a reminder that Pathfinder 2E has a significantly better system for criticals, in a way that makes sense for ability checks. It has degrees of success and failure, and a crit only moves it one degree higher or lower, so a crit can potentially still be a failure if your really bad at something or it's very hard.
Really, P2e is better at almost everything, especially making it so you don't need to remember tons of exceptions like D&D5e. You also aren't supporting Hasbro, which is always a good thing.
Also a Nat 20 / Critical Skill check doesn't guarantee success, just the best possible result.
In BG3 (which mostly follows d&d 5e rules) you succeed in a skill check with DC 30 on a natural 20 even if you have less than +10 as a modifier on the roll
Are you sure a 20 has no special meaning in checks in d&d (I presume you mean in d&d as it's the most popular system)?
Yes he is and no it does (edit: has) not. That is a common house rule Larian implemented into BG3, but it is not part of the original rules of DnD 5e.
I'm glad you know them so well. In what way is such a popularly used rule not a rule?
Incidentally I find it interesting that d&d 3.5 specifically calls out that a 20 isn't automatic success, and a 1 is not an automatic failure, where 5e removes that clarification, simply saying "if the roll plus bonuses is less than the DC the check fails".
That looks to me like they are leaving it more open to the common house rule
I think you answered your rethorical question yourself: If it is not in the official books, it is not an official rule.
And I would not say that they leave it vague. To quote the PHB: "To make an ability check, roll a d20 and add the relevant ability modifier. As with other d20 rolls, apply bonuses and penalties, and compare the total to the De. If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success [...]. Otherwise, it's a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective[...]." That does not leave much room for interpretation. It plainly say that if the exceed, then they succeed and if they don't, than they fail. Yes they don't make an explicit remark about critical results, but they don't need to, because such a rule was never meant to exist in 5e aside attack rolls and death saves.
Not to say that you can't make it a rule at your table (same as with everything else), but there is still not much room for missunderstanding the official print.
To expand on the other comment, to include in the rules everything that doesn't happen would be insane. If it isn't in the rules it isn't in the rules. You don't have to list every possible thing that a player may say applies for it to not be included. If a player falls out of their chair, does that change the result? It isn't included in either of these rulesets...