D&D 5E Now that "damage on a miss" is most likely out of the picture, are you happy?

[Herschel]

In a game powered by imagination "window dressing" is the meat and potatoes of play. If mechanics are in the forefront then the game has already failed.

Why do you have to only imagine your wizard never missing while the fighter does?

IOW, why does the Wizard unerringly weave external powers of the cosmos to always manifest exactly where he wants them while teh Fighter wielding the same, tactile sword in his hand all along will miss?

 

[Dausuul]

Why do you have to only imagine your wizard never missing while the fighter does?

Wizards miss all the time, with spells from ray of frost all the way up to disintegrate.

The wizard spells that don't have to worry about missing are the ones that blast an entire area and everything in it. A fireball doesn't "miss" because it's everywhere at once. At the moment of detonation, there is no place in the area of effect where the fireball is not hitting, and thus no way for it to miss.

The same is not true of a sword; no matter how fast you swing it, the sword can only be in one place at a time, and the enemy could manage to be somewhere else at that time. Fighters using true area attacks (nets, alchemist's fire, et cetera) should also not have to worry about missing.

(Of course, there is always the possibility of hitting the wrong area--your flask of alchemist's fire lands in the wrong spot. I would be quite open to imposing such a constraint on wizards, too. It always bugged me that a wizard could position a fireball with such precision as to fry a hobgoblin, yet not even singe the paladin slugging it out with the hobgoblin in melee.)

 

[Herschel]

The wizard spells that don't have to worry about missing are the ones that blast an entire area and everything in it. A fireball doesn't "miss" because it's everywhere at once. At the moment of detonation, there is no place in the area of effect where the fireball is not hitting, and thus no way for it to miss.

Except the fireball always lands right where you want it to. Not long, short, left or right in any degree of mattering, and always in the perfect shape/area.

 

[Dausuul]

Except the fireball always lands right where you want it to. Not long, short, left or right in any degree of mattering, and always in the perfect shape/area.

And that's why I said that I'd be open to making wizards roll for "off target" fireballs. The main obstacle to that is the practical challenge of figuring out, quickly and without confusion, where and by how much the blast missed; but if fighters have to roll to target a flask of alchemist's fire, wizards should have to roll to target a fireball.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Why do you have to only imagine your wizard never missing while the fighter does?

IOW, why does the Wizard unerringly weave external powers of the cosmos to always manifest exactly where he wants them while teh Fighter wielding the same, tactile sword in his hand all along will miss?

A wizard can miss. Spells can be disrupted and lost. Targets can succeed in a saving throw resulting in the expenditure of magic for no effect. Either way, a limited resource is consumed with nothing gained for it. The cost of a miss for a wizard is greater.

A fighter can simply keep fighting. If at first you fail to do damage, try try again. It is the fundamental difference between classes.

If all classes basically played the same, why have more than one?

 

[Herschel]

If all classes basically played the same, why have more than one?

Ah yes, the tired fallacy trotted out time-and-again by people who never actually played it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Except the fireball always lands right where you want it to. Not long, short, left or right in any degree of mattering, and always in the perfect shape/area.

In editions where the caster had to worry about accounting for volume in confined areas, I assure you that fireballs sometimes went into places that were undesired.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Ah yes, the tired fallacy trotted out time-and-again by people who never actually played it.

What is this "IT" you are referring to?

 

[Herschel]

What is this "IT" you are referring to?

Don't play dumb, you know exactly your editio war reference, as does eveyone else.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Don't play dumb, you know exactly your editio war reference, as does eveyone else.

I have played D&D 3.0, 3.5. and 4E and a little bit of playtest 5E. I have not played Pathfinder, so if that is the IT then you are correct.