D&D 5E I Don't Like Damage On A Miss

[Scribble]

*sigh* Here we go again, with that same "squishy hit points" argument.

Fine, you want hit points to be abstract. Aces. The fact remains: no matter how you define hit points and damage, at the end of the day, the fighter doesn't even have to roll the dice to see if he manages to kill the big bad evil guy. It's like his action doesn't even matter...no matter what, he gets to win. Call it luck, call it damage, call it "sixth sense" or whatever you want, that is still what it boils down to.

And it's boring. (Or anti-climatic, at best.) They can do better.

So the answer would be for them to make it the Fighter does damage on a miss unless the target has fewer HPs then the total damage done.

But then why should the Wizard be allowed to kill someone even when they "miss" with a fireball? (The target saves.)

(How come no one ever called THAT boring?)

Should we do the same thing for the Wizard? The spell does half damage on a miss unless that amount of damage is more then the total remaining HPs of the opponent?

 

[CleverNickName]

Tell me something...did the BBEG get down to around three hp by playing hop-scotch?Or is it possible that the fighter (and his teamates) did some rather more dramatic things during the "fight"?

It is equally possible that he did it by standing too close to the fighter, while he was batting the air with an axe-blade.

 

[variant]

If a miss is just a complete whiff or a weapon deflecting off armor, then that means apparently you can only make a single physical attack in 6 seconds. What strange physics must be in the fantasy world.

 

[CleverNickName]

(How come no one ever called THAT boring?)

I can't speak for everyone, but the reason it wasn't boring at my table was because the wizard couldn't do it every single round of every battle.

 

[Transformer]

Fine, you want hit points to be abstract. Aces. The fact remains: no matter how you define hit points and damage, at the end of the day, the fighter doesn't even have to roll the dice to see if he manages to kill the big bad evil guy

Your argument has changed. Before you were saying it doesn't make sense. Now you're saying it's not dramatic enough.

But anyway, why should it be a problem if the Fighter with the really aggressive fighting style manages to finished off the BBEG after he's taken innumerable blows and hits, even without landing a solid hit of his own? I suppose it's a bit undramatic (though not necessarily; it's Jackie Chan finishing a 5 minute fight scene by flicking the enemy with his pinkie, or it's a brutal grapple in which the combatants landed lots of solid blows but at the end one of the brave combatants just collapses in the face of one final brutal attack, even if no "finishing blow" was landed.) But it's certainly not problematic.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Hitpoints are an abstraction? And?

Are they meant to be nonsensical?

Yes.

 

[Scribble]

It is equally possible that he did it by standing too close to the fighter, while he was batting the air with an axe-blade.

If the BBEG hasn't managed to kill the party while they've managed to miss him every sing attack... then I think there's more wrong with this fight then the fighter miss hit...

I'm picturing two guys like the mole man from the simpsons standing there boxing...

 

[Scribble]

I can't speak for everyone, but the reason it wasn't boring at my table was because the wizard couldn't do it every single round of every battle.

Ok then maybe it just needs a limit? You can do this miss hit x amount of times per day?

 

[variant]

Ok then maybe it just needs a limit? You can do this miss hit x amount of times per day?

Hell no.

 

[Scribble]

Hell no.

Reasoning?