Uh... since when was this an issue.

Tovec said:

since Crothian seemed to say his group gave up on 4e I don't know why you would be giving such things as an argument of good things in a 5e thread.


There was a lot of flack over reaping strike too. Just do a google search and you can see them. Many of the arguments about it, even from 4e fans, resembled arguments like we are having now about 5e's DoaM. Hardly a good thing either.

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This isn't even a "4e is bad because look its X number of years later and we have 5e." I'm just saying that while it may not have exploded the same way in the 4e days, it was still an issue with a grand number of people

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[MENTION=232]Crothian[/MENTION] asked to be informed about the DoaM rules from 4e. I (and some others) informed him. He thanked me via an XP comment (I'm guessing he might have thanked some of the others too).

And I still stand by my remark that I haven't encountered DoaM in 4e being abusive. I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't like it, but I don't think their objections are balance-based.

DDNFan said:

Gunslinger would already be banned wholesale, and is in a later power option book anyway. Big difference between a "grit" using exploit of a class we'd never play, and a core fighter class option in the Basic D&D game.

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Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think you're going to see any fighter class options in the Basic D&D game. I think it will have preselected abilities.

Tovec said:

pemerton said:

Obviously if you kill someone via DoaM that person has suffered a solid blow (from your weapon, from tripping over and hitting their head on a rock, from . . . - D&D leaves the range of narrative options pretty open in this respect). "Miss" in the phrase "DoaM" doesn't mean "character missed opponent"; it means "player missed target number". DoaM is a rule that allows players of certain characters to have their PCs be (modestly) successful even when rolling poorly; it's not a rule about fighters being able to bizarrely "tire" their enemies to death.

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NO it is NOT obvious that is what is happening. In fact it goes counter to everything that the words, the rules, and basically everything except for the (poor) description of the 'power' say they work. The game isn't written in those terms. You can certainly reflavour the heck out of ANYTHING to make it work a different way in the fiction surrounding it but that doesn't change the fact that without a description of what the power does, it wouldn't be described that way by existing terminology.

The fact that you can cause EVERY KOBOLD AND GOBLIN YOU EVER MEET to trip over and kill themselves on a rock on the first round, ON A MISS, doesn't mean the power suddenly makes sense. Those conditions don't make sense. Consistency is a key problem I have with it and it isn't solved by these repeated attempts to reflavour and thus justify the power. That reflavouring isn't there originally and doesn't work.

And YES Miss as in an attack that fails to beat the target's AC does certainly mean MISS and fail to hit that target person. I know this because EVERY OTHER POWER WORKS THIS WAY. However this particular power goes counter to that saying that the fighter never misses. Not one a 1. Not when the miss would instantly defeat the enemy. Not when they aren't wearing armor and thus a miss IS a complete whiff. No, the fighter can't miss and can't fail to kill that kobold .. ever. The fighter without this power can fail to miss and fail to kill the kobold, strange isn't it?

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the fighter can kill most low level monsters in a single round, on the fist attack, without needing to know the result of the damage, or the result of the die.

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I don't really follow a lot of this.

You seem to be asserting that a missed attack roll always corresponds, in the fiction, to a failure of the attacker to hurt his/her opponent, and hence that DoaM is impossible, and hence that the DoaM mechanic is incoherent and a nonsense.

Your problem is with your opening premise: it isn't true, in a game that contains a DoaM mechanic, to say that a missed attack roll always corresponds, in the fiction, to a failure of the attacker to hurt his/her opponent. Often it will; but sometimes it won't. Sometimes it corresponds, in the fiction, to the attacker hurting his/her opponent less than s/he otherwise might have.

That is not incoherent. And it makes perfect sense. You may not like it, because you may prefer a game system in which every missed attack roll corresponds, in the fiction, to a failure of the attacker to hurt his/her opponent. But the fact that you prefer a game founded on a different premise about the relationship between attack rolls and ingame events doesn't mean that games like 4e, 5e or 13th Age are incoherent and make no sense.

As to the fact that the fighter with DoaM is able to kill every kobold that s/he engages in combat, I regard that as on a par with the fact that a mage with fireball is able to kill every kobold that s/he catches in the blast of a Burning Hands spell. Namely, it shows that some creatures in D&D die easily when confronted by competent opponents.

Tovec said:

Refluffing their attack they may as well sneeze and the kobold falls over dead - according to pemerton - having hit his head on a rock and died, or possibly simply died from exhaustion from being in a fight with a first level fighter for a whole fraction of a round.

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I didn't say this, and would appreciate a retraction and apology. Particularly coming from someone who is attacking others in this thread for the tone and manners of their posting.

pemerton said:

[MENTION=232]Crothian[/MENTION] asked to be informed about the DoaM rules from 4e. I (and some others) informed him. He thanked me via an XP comment (I'm guessing he might have thanked some of the others too).

And I still stand by my remark that I haven't encountered DoaM in 4e being abusive. I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't like it, but I don't think their objections are balance-based.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think you're going to see any fighter class options in the Basic D&D game. I think it will have preselected abilities.

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I am thankful for the 4e information and how it worked there. Just because that game was not for my group does not mean that I would ignore how a rule works in that ruleset. If someone came into this thread and started describing how DoaM works in Savage World (I don't think it is in there but I pick it as a game I also don't play) then I would want to hear that information as well.

DDNFan said:

A gunslinger archetype is not the same as a fighter fighting style, and we don't like guns in our D&D games anyway. Certainly not silliness like grit which I've seen banned at multiple tables I've played in over the years because it's too absurd. I can ignore guns in the same exact way that I can ignore the laser gun and plasma rifle sci-fi add on book that just came out which doesn't interest me or anyone I play with.

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In the end you are willing to house rule one game and not another. There is nothing wrong with that I do it all the time with choices of what game to play and what game to not. But don't defend it as anything other then that because there is nothing wrong with choosing one game over another for whatever reasons.

Crothian said:

In the end you are willing to house rule one game and not another. There is nothing wrong with that I do it all the time with choices of what game to play and what game to not. But don't defend it as anything other then that because there is nothing wrong with choosing one game over another for whatever reasons.

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The gunslinger and guns are an option. They're a class and related weaponry added to the system after launch, and options designed to be modular and removable.

DoaM is a mechanic. It's part of the design of the game found in certain powers, like granting advantage, moving someone a couple of feet, or gaining a bonus to attacks or AC. In the unfinished playtest, DoaM was primarily found in a fighter option, but that does not make DoaM an option any more than +1 to attacks is an option just because it's found in a similar fighter ability.
That's the catch, that's the problem. You can ban Great Weapon Fighting all you want as a DM but DoaM will still be in the game. And more DoaM could appear in more class' powers, in more monsters, in more feats, etc.

Jester Canuck said:

The gunslinger and guns are an option. They're a class and related weaponry added to the system after launch, and options designed to be modular and removable.

DoaM is a mechanic. It's part of the design of the game found in certain powers, like granting advantage, moving someone a couple of feet, or gaining a bonus to attacks or AC. In the unfinished playtest, DoaM was primarily found in a fighter option, but that does not make DoaM an option any more than +1 to attacks is an option just because it's found in a similar fighter ability.
That's the catch, that's the problem. You can ban Great Weapon Fighting all you want as a DM but DoaM will still be in the game. And more DoaM could appear in more class' powers, in more monsters, in more feats, etc.

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In my Pathfinder games we don't use grapple because we feel the rules for it are a mess. Lots of creatures have grapple, there are plenty of feats and classes that can take advantage of it, but we just ignore it. It really is not that hard as long as everyone is on the same page. DoaM would be even easier since you just ignore damage it is not a combat option. But until we see a finished book we really can't say how common of an ability it will be. If it is just a Fighter option then just like the Gunfighter ban the fighter. If people play the game and ignore the rule and make sure Wizards is aware of it then I doubt we would see much support for it. There are plenty of rules in books that never get support because players don't use them.

Crothian said:

In the end you are willing to house rule one game and not another. There is nothing wrong with that I do it all the time with choices of what game to play and what game to not. But don't defend it as anything other then that because there is nothing wrong with choosing one game over another for whatever reasons.

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I'm not willing to houserule such a serious deviation of what I expect D&D to look like, and still be expected to pay for it at the same time. I did that before, and vowed to not do it again.

The main question here is whether Wizards wants to exclude fans of classic D&D where fighters can miss sometimes, from playing even the basic game without houserules.

Second Wind was sort of the first shot across the bow. We thought we had won the Second Wind debate back when they modified it to use Temp HP, then they reverted that change and now here we are, a week before Basic D&D launches still without a solid response from Wizards about which way they decided to go. The cynic in me thinks this is just to coerce people into playing the game due to hype. If I had known Damage on a Miss were definitely in the game a year ago, I wouldn't have started a D&D Next game at all. Instead, I found out they removed it in later private playtests but the point is that this type of change shouldn't be kept in the dark, they are being very opaque here and that's what's bothersome.

The last comment on this issue from an official lead was a tongue in cheek, backhanded joke that could easily be interpreted as mocking of the classic D&D playstyle, so I'm very skeptical about their final intentions. No, I'm not willing to pay for a product where they insult their audience like that, on either side. If they removed damage on a miss I would still want them to be polite and diplomatic about it, politeness and respect doesn't cost anything.

Their complete lack of transparency here strikes me as dishonest. I'm not paying for a company to lie to me. Tell us if there are these types of nonsense rules all over the place in the new D&D, Wizards! There are plenty of older editions for us to keep playing if you chose poorly.

I'd rather open up my Pathfinder books and deal with all the 3rd edition issues than deal with a whole set of other issues, including ones which are far more annoying to me than anything ever was in 3rd edition era. I've never been more annoyed at a game rule than with this one, and since I already own many Pathfinder books and enjoyed that system, that's where I'll have to turn to if Damage on a Miss is in 5th edition.

DDNFan said:

The main question here is whether Wizards wants to exclude fans of classic D&D where fighters can miss sometimes, from playing even the basic game without houserules.

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What edition is classic D&D? I didn't know D&D is like Coke that it has a classic version.

Second Wind was not the first shot across the bow for players of old versions of the game. 3e was. That was a huge departure from D&D. When I first saw it I barely recognized the game. The names of the races and classes were the same but they were so very different.

Their complete lack of transparency here strikes me as dishonest. I'm not paying for a company to lie to me. Tell us if there are these types of nonsense rules all over the place in the new D&D, Wizards! There are plenty of older editions for us to keep playing if you chose poorly.

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I would love to see evidence that they lied to the fans. Not giving you this info on this one rule before the game releases is not dishonest. They have tens of thousands of fans asking them questions. From the company's point of view it is best to just wait until the book gets released and then let that answer the fans questions.

Have you written Wizards directly? How much effort have you really put forth to get your answers.

I'd rather open up my Pathfinder books and deal with all the 3rd edition issues than deal with a whole set of other issues, including ones which are far more annoying to me than anything ever was in 3rd edition era. I've never been more annoyed at a game rule than with this one, and since I already own many Pathfinder books and enjoyed that system, that's where I'll have to turn to if Damage on a Miss is in 5th edition.

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Go with plan B, play Pathfinder. Or find a game that works for you since it seems you are bitching about Pathfinder too. I have literally hundreds of RPGs published in the last 40 years so I know there is quite a variety out there.

Crothian said:

Go with plan B, play Pathfinder. Or find a game that works for you since it seems you are bitching about Pathfinder too. I have literally hundreds of RPGs published in the last 40 years so I know there is quite a variety out there.

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The last info I heard was that Daom was removed. Why would I quit playing a game I'm enjoying when we're so close to the finish line?

DDNFan said:

The last info I heard was that Daom was removed. Why would I quit playing a game I'm enjoying when we're so close to the finish line?

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Heard from who and when? You have to link to it and document it so we can be ready for the rebellion against them if they changed their minds!