Remove non-attack automatic successes/failures

[nebuul-mail]

In D&D 5+ tabletop, there are only two cases of automatic successes & failures: saving throws vs death & attack rolls. In BG3, they changed this to include all skill checks, ability checks, and saving throws. This does a few things that i think are detrimental:

1. It makes halflings too strong because they have only a 0.25% crit failure rate and a 5.25% crit success rate vs the flat 5% for all other races (aka 1:400 vs 1:20). This is further amplified in cases of (dis)advantage, sometimes dramatically, making halflings the objectively best race in the game.
2. It removes player agency because their dex 24 expertise-skilled rogue can still fail a lowly dc-10 trap dramatically altering an encounter through no fault of the player's.
3. It cheapens builds because a player can surpass any skill check using advantage and inspiration dice instead of investing in an expert build setup. A halfling with advantage and 4 inspiration has over a 50% chance of getting a natural 20 in five attempts, so they will probably succeed.

It's my opinion that returning to tabletop rules here would make the game better.

[Yoonmoonsik]

Critical Success or Failure
Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw doesn’t normally have any special effect. However, you can take such an exceptional roll into account when adjudicating the outcome. It’s up to you to determine how this manifests in the game. One approach is to increase the impact of the success or failure. For example, rolling a 1 on a failed attempt to pick a lock might jam the lock, and rolling a 20 on a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check might reveal an extra clue.

[nebuul-mail]

I'm just saying that BG3 differs from d&d 5.5 because in BG3, a natural 1 always fails and a natural 20 always succeeds. In 5.5e, that is only true with attack rolls and death saves. BG3 uses it for literally every D20 check.

I would personally like to see it returned to the pen-and-paper rules for all saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks other than the aforementioned attack rolls and death saves.

[nebuul-mail]

For example, rolling a 1 on a failed attempt to pick a lock might jam the lock, and rolling a 20 on a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check might reveal an extra clue.

This part is the key: "rolling 1 on a failed attempt ... and rolling 20 on a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check" (emphasis added)

The game rules are specifically saying that if it is a failed or successful check and the roll is extraordinary then a table might have a special rule to adjust the outcome to be extra special. Larian ignored the fact that a 1 or a 20 can be a success or a failure, respectively.

[Yoonmoonsik]

Natural 1s no longer fail automatically on ability checks, skill checks, and saving throws. A hidden passive raises the minimum result of those rolls to 2, so the outcome is decided by the total against the DC, as in the 5.5 rules. Attack rolls and death saving throws keep their automatic success and failure.

Natural 20s still succeed automatically on ability checks, skill checks, and saving throws; that side is unchanged.

Commit: 82eeda0