Resolution

[bmadden]

I imagine many (if not most) powers in 5e to be of the form: Hit: <effect> Miss: <diminished effect>

In order to prevent the boredom and despair of missing in combat that existed in previous versions of D&D, no longer will one's turn have no effect at all.

After all, missing with cursed dice may cause boredom. Better to have everyone engaged in combat all the time.

[Sadrik]

Originally Posted by bmadden

I imagine many (if not most) powers in 5e to be of the form: Hit: <effect> Miss: <diminished effect>

In order to prevent the boredom and despair of missing in combat that existed in previous versions of D&D, no longer will one's turn have no effect at all.

After all, missing with cursed dice may cause boredom. Better to have everyone engaged in combat all the time.

I think 4e clearly went with the offensive player making the roll and the defensive player sets the DC. When 4e was released I was 100% sold on the format, recently my mind has begun to change. In 1e/2e/3e they all used the save system. The system added a little bit of drama to the die roll.

DM: “save for the fireball”
Player: Picks up his favorite d20, kisses it for good luck and rolls

Now it is, I roll to hit and do damage based on that. The defense just gets what is coming and never really has a stake in defense other than at character creation.

Heck even AC could be done this way too. Every sword blow hits – unless they dodge/deflect/block it…

So the reason I say that here is that when you put the emphasis back on the player defending the attack then it feels less like you have to have a diminished effect on every power/spell/basic attack.