Why Even Roll If a Nat 20 Is a Failure? A D&D Rant

As you all enter the mid-point of the corridor, spinning whirly gig blades pop out of the floor all around you! Haha! Whatever, I got this covered. A Dexterity saving throw, right? Well, don’t roll quite yet. Can everyone just tell me what their Dexterity saving throw modifiers are? My modifier is just +1, but, huh, Fat Cat has a +2.

My Dexterity saving throw modifier is a +3 and I roll with advantage because I’m SPECIAL! Oh, you sure are. My modifier is a +5. Agile like a kitty cat. Quite a bit more agile than a kitty cat, I’d say. My modifier is a -1. I dumped dexterity for strength and constitution.

Well, my modifier is a +2, but I must ask, why do we need to tell you our modifiers? Why not just save time and have us roll the Dexterity saving throws? Oh, because, online lots of people were saying that if a natural 20 wouldn’t be a success on something, then I shouldn’t even have you roll.

So, basically, the only way I can determine if you should roll or not is to see what your modifiers are, add 20 to them, and see if that exceeds the DC of the trap. For instance, the DC for this trap is 20, and the fighter has a negative -1 modifier, so I won’t even have him roll.

He’d fail even he rolls a 20. And if the DC for this had been say a 25, I’d only have the rogue make the roll, because only he has a chance of succeeding. So, yeah, I need to get your modifiers first, do some quick math, and then I’ll let you know who needs to actually make the roll.

Holy crap, that seems like a big fat old waste of time. Yeah, that’s stupid. Just have us make the saves, and if a nat 20 is still a failure, it’s still a failure. Indeed, do you know how insane what you just described sounds? That’s right. I bet the people who said that don’t even play the game.

Will you knock that off already? Body Welcome to the DM Lair. I’m Luke Hart, and I’ve been a dungeon master since high school. On this channel I give practical dungeon master advice that you can implement at your table. Okay, so a little while back, I make a video titled Top 10 Worst House Rules Ever in Dungeons & Dragons, and I got a lot of comments from folks saying basically this: If a natural 20 isn’t a success for something, why do you even have players roll? Now, before I jump in with a RANTY REBUTTAL to all those comments, I want to let you know about my newsletter.

If you’re interested in getting FREE D&D resources—including new magic items, NPCs, and even entire adventures—delivered directly to your inbox, you can sign up for my newsletter at the link down below. Anyway, on with the ranty rebuttal! You see, the point I was trying to make in that first video, was that having a house rule where a natural 20 on a roll—ANY ROLL—is a success is perhaps not the best of ideas.

I was also trying to say that it’s probably even a result of dungeon masters not understanding that only ATTACK ROLLS are automatic successes on natural 20s. But alas, I feel my point was missed. And I’m not here to reiterate that point really. I just wanted to set the context for what I’m about to say, because I feel like all those well-meaning folks leaving those comments failed to think their advice through to its natural conclusion.

So let’s just think about this for a moment, shall we? If I’m only going to ask for a roll if a natural 20 is guaranteed to be a success, then I need to be certain that a nat 20 can succeed before asking for the roll, right? And the only way to be certain of that is to know what a character’s modifier is for the check in question and make sure that adding 20 to that modifier at least equals the DC of whatever it is they are attempting to do.

And, of course, in the case of an effect that affects everyone, that means asking for lots of modifiers and adding them all to 20 and making sure they exceed the DC before I ask for the rolls. And THAT takes time. So wouldn’t it just be faster to ask them to roll, and then if they don’t hit the DC, even if they roll a nat 20, just tell them they fail? Like isn’t that faster? And let’s be honest here, too.

How many of you listening to this explanation are utterly confused at this point? Like, how complicated do we really need to make this game? Well, you know, talking head guy, I think maybe all those people were trying to say something else with their comments.

I’m sorry, but nobody asked you, Mr. Dungeon Master. I mean, you’re pretty much the personification of every DM flaw that exists, so you should probably just be quiet. Hey idiot, did it ever occur to you that maybe they meant that if something just plain isn’t possible, don’t ask for a roll? Yeah, you know, like jumping to the moon.

No sense in even rolling. Well, I mean, I suppose that’s possible. Because, yeah, if a player wanted to jump to the moon, I would just tell him it wasn’t possible and that’d be the end of it. Like, no rolls would even be needed because jumping to the moon is ridiculous.

In fact, we probably need to stop using that example in videos. Not only is it dumb, but it’s fairly overused as far as examples go. Well, in that case, was there even any point in making this video? No kidding. You have all these fine and wonderful people watching you blabber on and on, and for what? Yeah, are you telling me that I woke Fat Cat up from her nap to shoot this video for nothing? Yeah, that’s a point well taken guys.

We—we probably shouldn’t have done this video. Holy, crap. We all just wasted our time here. Well, not really. We still get paid. Wait, we’ve been getting paid for these skits? Nope, nope, nobody’s getting paid. Yeah, so uh, to everyone watching, please except my apologies, but we already filmed this video and everything, so I kind of feel like we still need to publish it.

So, um, my only hope is that my awesome editor can make this video not suck quite so much. Good luck, Zack. Don’t forget to follow me over on Twitch for some chill live streams where we hang out, talk about D&D topics far more interesting than the horrible one we picked for this video, and even paint minis together.

Let me know down in the comments how much of a complete waste of time this video was for you. Next week I’ll be discussing why character death and TPKs are good for the game. But until then click here to learn about ten ways to keep your D&D group from falling apart.