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

[ren1999]

Spells could entirely miss because the target could disbelieve or have faith that your spell won't work on them. Or perhaps your constitution is strong and you resist the effects better. Or you aren't easily hypnotized. Or perhaps the spell requires the wizard to aim. That means you could use your dex to dodge it.

 

[rounser]

If you're prone to irrational anger and viewing edition wars as something other than geeks on the internet arguing about the best way to pretend to be a magic elf, then this sort of inclusive policy will probably turn you off the edition.

An ad hominem attack ("irrational anger" as a synonym for pointing out some rule is suspension-of-disbelief destroying nonsense) and a trivialization of any concern for the game being any good because it's all just pretending to be magic elves. Yes, I understand that you have little discretion regarding mechanics, but the argument that they can put any crap in between the covers because it's all just magic elves is just more nonsense from your camp.

You can't make any sense, so you attack the opponent and tell them that any complaint is immature because the game itself is immature, therefore asking for any standards for it is taking it all too seriously. Your personal attack and appeal to triviality is a crock, and not a real argument at all.

 

[AngryMojo]

Or perhaps the spell requires the wizard to aim. That means you could use your dex to dodge it.

I've always wondered why AOE spells in D&D land precisely where the wizard wants. It's a lot more exciting when the fireball scatters a bit.

 

[NMcCoy]

D&D was a big tent, it took 4E to make it small, specific and suspension-of-disbelief destroying. And now those elements are coming back for another round. How is that a big tent, when such elements manage to take the D&D out of D&D for so many? The compromise for fans of pre-4E D&D has already happened - we sat it out until it got canned. The game needs to compromise by excluding the non-D&Dish elements of 4E from the core. Keep your peanut butter out of the chocolate.

Hey, 4e player here (who previously burnt out badly on 3.5, and loved reading the 1e AD&D books as a kid). I like the at-will spells and the reaper feat. They seem D&Dish to me, and cause no harm to my suspension of disbelief. I will be less eager to pick up 5e if it excludes the things that I liked about 4e. And I'm not particularly open to being told that I shouldn't like the things I like about the game. I prefer my D&D with peanut butter in it, thanks.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I prefer my D&D with peanut butter in it, thanks.

It's easier to add chocolate to the peanut butter than take it out.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

You know, 4e is probably my least favorite form of D&D, and I still love the Reaper feat.

Looking forward to playing a Slayer Rogue that throws pencils and playing cards at monsters.

 

[Oni]

Given the nature of hit points and the general abstractness of combat damage on a miss doesn't really offend me. However, I do find it to be somewhat boring. I don't know if the math would work out or not, but I think a more exciting way of doing the reaper feat would be to make missing a target give you advantage against them on your next attack. I.E. being such a skilled fighter that even when you miss you're already setting your self up for the next blow and maneuvering you and your opponent to your advantage. Crits are fun, missing leading to an increased chance of critting is more fun to me than slowly chipping away at an opponent that is hard to hit.

 

[eamon]

On the topic of misses not making sense when they deal damage:

It's because of crap rules like Reaper and martial dailies and whatnot that I didn't play 4e.

As for fireball, it doesn't do damage on a miss. You get a save for rolling in a ball, diving behind furniture, etc. You're still in the middle of a fireball.

That's a nonsensical distinction. What do you think a "miss" on a melee attack represents? Unless you rolled a 1, you missed because you didn't beat the AC. In other words, the attacked creature likely deflected the blow with his shield, his armor, or his naturally thick skin. Or maybe he even dodged. Regardless, these are the type of events I don't expect a creature to be able to sustain indefinitely. Even dodging is strenuous; and likely not a little bit either.

If there's something that's unrealistically abstracted, it's omitting damage on a "miss" - it's pretty jarring to assume a creature can take a pounding with impunity, even if he's got solid armor. Particularly a Kobold. It's all fine that his skin is a little scaly and perhaps he parried, but it's still a small, fragile Kobold - a massive strike is still going to hurt him, and if the attacker is sufficiently strong, hurt him enough to take him out of the battle.

Frankly, the argument for half damage on a miss for a fireball is weaker, not stronger. If the fireball is an almost instantaneous explosion, then if you've covered yourself up well, your cloak might get charred, but you should hardly even be warmed. Incidentally, that interpretation jives better with the fact that fireballs do not necessarily incinerate the environment - the temperate is high, but the heat energy not necessarily present in enough quantity to cause significant heating. Enough to burn skin, perhaps seriously, but well shy of the hundreds of degrees necessary to cause fire.

There's lots of nonsense in 4e which I hope 5e avoids, but this just isn't it. Sure, it's a simplification of reality (which is necessary), but it's not a rule purely for the game's sake - it makes sense in-world.

 

[herrozerro]

Imagine you are 1st level and you are fighting several monsters with reaper and some roll a higher initiative. They decide to all attack you first because you are the weakest. All reapers miss you but because they do half damage you die without having the chance to roll once. You then storm out of the game to go complain on a forum about this new game.

No automatic damage or half damage unless you are helpless.

I think the fix is to not have monsters and npcs built with the same rules. They don't need feats.

 

[eamon]

I think the fix is to not have monsters and npcs built with the same rules. They don't need feats.

Urgh, I really hate the dissociation caused by radically different rules for NPCs vs. PCs. Sure, NPCs should be simpler. And that's it - just simpler (out of practicality), not randomly different for no good reason.

Also, you were responding to:

Imagine you are 1st level and you are fighting several monsters with reaper and some roll a higher initiative. They decide to all attack you first because you are the weakest. All reapers miss you but because they do half damage you die without having the chance to roll once. You then storm out of the game to go complain on a forum about this new game.

No automatic damage or half damage unless you are helpless.

This is a pretty far-fetched scenario. You might be dropped, but you're unlikely to be suddenly killed. Even if you're dropped, based on the distribution hit-to-miss damage the reaper does, you'd need about 5 times as many misses as hits to do the damage, and assuming a single hit doesn't kill you, that means at least 5 monsters attacked you before your init and they all missed you. Not just that, we're talking about at least 5 very, very dangerous creatures which can almost kill you in a single strike which all have a higher init that you.

So, for your scenario to play out, you'd need to be in a combat with many very dangerous opponents that all act before the party can help and all (despite being dangerous) miss. If you're in a combat with that kind of monster you're probably toast anyhow (and the fact that they all missed was sheer luck in avoiding a TPK); the problem isn't the Reaper, the problem is that either the DM wants to kill you, or you've made a terrible mistake in choosing your battle.