D&D 5E "Damage on a miss" poll.

Kobold Stew said:

For those who are excited to play a HWF: would you trade the (playtest) rule of STR damage on a miss for +1 damage on a hit?

Click to expand...

I like fighters, and I would. The better basic numbers you have on your character sheet, the better off you are.

Of course, a better bonus than that would probably be appropriate.

To take some other permutations, I'd forgo the damage on a miss over just about anything on principle, and if I was playing and the DM let some other player take damage on a miss, I'd hold things up and demand an explanation as to why a nonsense mechanic is being allowed. As others have said, this is a major red flag.

Kobold Stew said:

For those who are excited to play a HWF: would you trade the (playtest) rule of STR damage on a miss for +1 damage on a hit?

Click to expand...

Thanks for bring this to the people, Kobold Stew. I'm not "excited to play a HWF", but I was thinking when I did have a two-handed fighter way back in 3E, power attack was pretty satisfying. Power attack, however, was fiddly, so I don't condone it. So technically, I don't qualify for your question, but yes, anything adding to damage would evoke that satisfying power-smash feeling.

Kobold Stew said:

For those who are excited to play a HWF: would you trade the (playtest) rule of STR damage on a miss for +1 damage on a hit??

Click to expand...

Well, let's run some numbers. Let's say you're using a 1d12 weapon, and you're doing 1d12+4 (average 10.5) on a hit and 4 damage on a miss using the standard rule. (Do you do the 1.5xstr thing in Next? I haven't read the test packet in a while.) Let's assume a 65% (8 or higher) hit rate as well as a decent middle ground. We'll discount crits for now.

So, average damage per round (DPR) for this test case is (0.65 x 10.5) + (0.35 x 4) = 8.225 damage per round.

So, if we want to the same average damage with no damage on a miss, we'd need to do (0.65 x (10.5+y)) = 8.225, where y is the extra damage. Y should be 2.15. So +2 damage is a reasonable compromise, since it also scales (should scale) with crit.

urLordy said:

yes, anything adding to damage would evoke that satisfying power-smash feeling.

Click to expand...

It's an underrated sensation, really. Flat bonuses with few restrictions not only are better mechanically, they feel pretty good.

What I've come to realize over the last few years is that verisimilitude isn't a cognitive thing. It's not about elaborate explanations of how mechanic X simulates game-world concept Y. That stuff doesn't matter. Verisimilitude is about presenting a facade that does not cause players, in the heat of the game, to question what's going on.

This is both more and less demanding than we tend to think. It's less demanding because you can gloss over an awful lot of stuff that doesn't hold up under close examination--the hit point system is a notorious example. But it's also more demanding, because it's very unforgiving. There's no room for explanations or justifications. The moment a player says, "This doesn't make any sense," verisimilitude has been broken; you've lost.

What this means is that the rulebooks will not save you. You cannot turn to the rulebook and say "It says here 'miss' can mean a glancing blow!" Too late. The question has been asked. Verisimilitude is broken. To keep this from happening, you need the rules definition of "miss" to line up as close as possible to the English definition of the word; and likewise for "damage." Which means misses can't deal damage if you want to preserve the facade.

Now, of course, no facade is perfect, and the rules will never line up exactly with the fiction. There will always be moments where verisimilitude breaks, and sometimes one has to accept that in service of other goals, like simplifying gameplay. But it's hard to see how damage on a miss serves a compelling enough purpose to justify the break.

Dausuul said:

Verisimilitude is about presenting a facade that does not cause players, in the heat of the game, to question what's going on.
...
The moment a player says, "This doesn't make any sense," verisimilitude has been broken; you've lost.

Click to expand...

I think that's true. Rationalizations aren't going to work. If the game is working, no one will ask any questions. The same issue arises in filmmaking all the time: if the audience is asking questions about plausibility, you've already lost them.

What I've come to realize over the last few years is that verisimilitude isn't a cognitive thing. It's not about elaborate explanations of how mechanic X simulates game-world concept Y. That stuff doesn't matter

Click to expand...

I do, however, think that these things do matter to some extent. If mechanic X doesn't simulate concept Y effectively, that's one reason for one type of player to speak up and say "hey, that doesn't make sense".

I think what's even more important though, is internal consistency. Whatever conceits you make, stick to them. That's why rules that violate the basic d20 paradigm of check vs DC and success vs failure are such a bad idea.

Ahnehnois said:

The same issue arises in filmmaking all the time: if the audience is asking questions about plausibility, you've already lost them.

Click to expand...

Or the audience has mismatched genre expectations. I can ask all kinds of questions on plausibility with Indiana Jones (completely mundane), James Bond (completely mundane), John McClain (completely mundane), or the Avengers (superpowers and magic) and hold these films to the same genre expectations that I hold No Country For Old Men. I can. But why would I?

To that end, I think the Honest Trailers for Avengers is very apropos (1:22 - 1:25 specifically).

Mistwell said:

I don't know which "people" you claim to be speaking for, but at least it seems you want an offensive option. OK so you'd be OK if there was an additional offensive option, even if this offensive option was still in the game? It hasn't sounded like that so far, but maybe you would be fine with that?



That's not a rationale thing to say, it's excessive and unnecessary hyperbole. Please stop. Just have a conversation. You don't need to pretend someone is metaphorically slapping you in the face because you don't like one option for one sub-class of one class.



No, really. Please stop. All you are doing is making me discount your opinion. When you say you speak for others, and you then say stuff like this, all you're doing is making sure I know you don't speak for others - because others don't generally say way over the top ridiculous things over an issue like this.

You say that like it's self-explanatory why that is a bad thing. I have no clue why you think that is a bad thing. With bounded accuracy, the two defensive options are literally the best of all the five options for the fighter - mathematically, those are the "winners" of the bunch.

Regardless, as I said, you should be fine if they offer an additional offensive option, which doesn't replace this option but is just another option you could choose?

Click to expand...

I agree that the two defensive styles are the best mechanically, but if I want to specialize in two-handed weapons instead of beefing up my defenses or parrying, I should be able to, and take something that has both a meaningful and mechanical relationship to my weapon. I don't see anything about GWF that specifically screams it should only work with 2H-weapons, aside from all the other problems I mentioned.

I tire of hearing people suggest if I can't get Chocolate, I should be happy with Vanilla. No. It is insulting when it was declared that feedback clearly showed "one size does not fit all" in terms of playstyle, that all are equally valid (some are more equal than others), so long as that playstyle is not simulationist, because...suck it. It's Vanilla for everyone! Be happy and STFU and if you aren't happy with that, too bad.

I do see this mechanic as an insult to the game's history and all the fans out there, who, like me, do not like being told that our playstyle (which happens to be the default, original playstyle this game has supported for nearly 40 years), is invalid and no longer supported, after I spent a year of my time participating in this. And this is the final result. Yay, thanks for beta testing this edition for us for free.

I didn't create all this fuss about damage on a miss, I didn't twist anybody's arms out there or tell them they have to hate it because I do. I just know lots do feel like I do, and that's plainly obvious. So no, I don't speak for them, but my very first post here I brought up 20 different mechanical reasons why this GWF is not a good fit for D&D, and being told, nah, just pick something else (when there is nothing else offered for that archetype). I'm sorry, that is insulting and dismissive.

A metaphorical slap in the face, yes, I stand by that statement. A year of listening to promises about being inclusive to many playstyles then they put this in there.

Damage-on-a-miss is wrong for me, it's wrong for D&D, and it's wrong for America.

Amen

So a better mechanic might be:

Glancing Blow: When you conduct a melee attack, and your result is less than the target's AC but more than the target's touch AC, you do [X] damage.

Manbearcat said:

Or the audience has mismatched genre expectations. I can ask all kinds of questions on plausibility with Indiana Jones (completely mundane), James Bond (completely mundane), John McClain (completely mundane), or the Avengers (superpowers and magic) and hold these films to the same genre expectations that I hold No Country For Old Men. I can. But why would I?

Click to expand...

If the audience isn't on the same page with the artist (be it film director or DM), that would be one reason why they might be asking a lot of questions. In both cases, the onus is really on the presenter to communicate with the audience, not for the audience to adapt to the presenter.