Degrees of Success

When you make a check, compare your result to the DC to determine your degree of success.

Critical Success You meet or exceed the DC by 10 or more. For attack rolls, this is a critical hit (double damage).

Success You meet or exceed the DC.

Failure Your result is less than the DC.

Critical Failure You fail the DC by 10 or more.

If an effect doesn’t list a critical success result, use the success result. Same for critical failure — use the failure result.

Natural 20 and Natural 1

Rolling a 20 on the die (natural 20) improves your degree of success by one step. Rolling a 1 (natural 1) worsens it by one step. A natural 20 usually results in a critical success and a natural 1 usually results in a critical failure — but not always. If your total with a natural 20 still doesn’t reach the DC, you might only get a success or even a failure. If your modifier is so high that a natural 1 still beats the DC by 10+, you can still critically succeed.

Apply the natural 20/1 adjustment before any other abilities that change the degree of success.