Nat 20/1

[Reyr]

I have a general question in regard to dice (die) rolls.

Often in the series a nat 20, or more often a nat 1, is rolled and sometimes the players still add on modifiers, but it is my understanding that with a nat 1 or 20 modifiers mean absolutely nothing. They are either critical successes or critical fails no matter what. 

Am I remembering this correctly? If so, why do the players mention modifiers?

If I am wrong, are there instances that crit fails can succeed or nat 20s can fail?

Thank you,

- Reyr

[Oneiros]

This is something that often gets confused, because the nat 1/20 being auto-fail or success is supposed to only apply to combat - i.e. it's an auto-hit or auto-miss. It's just somewhere along the line, this got extrapolated out to *all* rolls (inc saves and skills), and many groups adopted it for simplicity.