You’re right, it’s not. But in this case it was specifically the “lucky” feature that came into play. Getting the better result through sheer dumb luck is exactly what was supposed to happen.
Also, I strongly disagree with your barbarian hitting a machine example. Rolling a nat 20 attack roll against a machine damages or outright destroys it. I’m not rewarding players for choosing literally the opposite course of action from one that might resolve the problem, no matter what they roll.
If the barbarian wants to try a hail Mary tool proficiency check with their lack of proficiency and -1 intelligence penalty and lucks into a nat 20 for a result of 19 on a DC 17 check then I’ll happily flavour it as “percussive maintenance”, but an attack roll just destroys the machine because that’s what attacks do.
You’re right, it’s not. But in this case it was specifically the “lucky” feature that came into play. Getting the better result through sheer dumb luck is exactly what was supposed to happen.
Also, I strongly disagree with your barbarian hitting a machine example. Rolling a nat 20 attack roll against a machine damages or outright destroys it. I’m not rewarding players for choosing literally the opposite course of action from one that might resolve the problem, no matter what they roll.
If the barbarian wants to try a hail Mary tool proficiency check with their lack of proficiency and -1 intelligence penalty and lucks into a nat 20 for a result of 19 on a DC 17 check then I’ll happily flavour it as “percussive maintenance”, but an attack roll just destroys the machine because that’s what attacks do.