Ahnehnois
First Post
What is a hit? What is a miss?
Let's try this definition:
A "hit" occurs when a character strikes an opponent with a weapon and inflicts meaningful physical harm. A "miss" is when a character attempts to do this, but it unsuccessful.
In this paradigm, damage on a miss is nonsensical.
Let's try this:
A "hit" occurs when a character may or may not have physically struck his opponent with a weapon but somwhow caused that opponent to have a diminished fighting capacity. A "miss" is when a character attempts to do this, but it unsuccessful.
In this paradigm damage on a miss is still nonsensical.
***
It should be clear that:
*The first definition of hits and misses makes more sense and is more easily operationalized for a game.
*Damage on a miss makes no sense in any remotely D&D-like paradigm.
Of course, all those other things people said about damage on a miss being anticlimactic and unbalanced are true too.
Let's nip this design mistake in the bud.
Let's try this definition:
A "hit" occurs when a character strikes an opponent with a weapon and inflicts meaningful physical harm. A "miss" is when a character attempts to do this, but it unsuccessful.
In this paradigm, damage on a miss is nonsensical.
Let's try this:
A "hit" occurs when a character may or may not have physically struck his opponent with a weapon but somwhow caused that opponent to have a diminished fighting capacity. A "miss" is when a character attempts to do this, but it unsuccessful.
In this paradigm damage on a miss is still nonsensical.
***
It should be clear that:
*The first definition of hits and misses makes more sense and is more easily operationalized for a game.
*Damage on a miss makes no sense in any remotely D&D-like paradigm.
Of course, all those other things people said about damage on a miss being anticlimactic and unbalanced are true too.
Let's nip this design mistake in the bud.
XP is off, but that sounds like the voice of reason to me.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.