D&D 5E I just don't buy the reasoning behind "damage on a miss".

[Tovec]

Does this really need another thread?
<snip>
We have a thread, in which both views have been clearly expressed, here.

Actually, I agree and disagree. This thread seemed to have had a different take, which is good. But it is retreading much of the same ground, which is bad. So I'm torn but mostly agree KS.

We have a poll dating back to the first time the idea was introduced in the play test, here.

I think a new poll may not have been a bad idea actually. I never saw (or at least never voted on) the original poll the first time through. Another one might settle a lot of pre-debate that we would otherwise be having over some issues - but it all depends on how it is worded.

At the same time, over 80% say the mechanic is balanced, so that's roughly 4 to 1, which I'd claim as a pretty significant result.

Just because 80% ostensibly agree with the "not overpowered" doesn't mean it is a good mechanic. Even assuming the results of a poll for this new ability are exactly the same as the results for the old poll. That would mean that only 60.71% (at the time of this post) agree that it is believable and balanced. You could likely lump in the 3.57% who would never play 5e without it.

Conversely that still means a sizable percentage (the remaining 35.72%) have a problem with it - either it is bad on believability or it is bad on balance, or both. That seems like a big portion of any potential market to me. But mostly, saying 80% of the pollers agreed to the same thing seems disingenuous to me.

 

[Jester David]

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. On the hand you say that a hit doesn't connect, but then a miss means that you do connect? That seems wrong.

My take on it is that if one uses hit points to include energy and fatigue (I see no reason why it has to be exclusively either that or meat points), then a hit is both connecting and an expenditure of energy from the target. On a miss, there's not that kind of connecting but the target still expends energy to avoid the blow and fatigue creeps in.

The issue that crops up then, however, is why only this type of Fighter can wear people out by attacking. Battle fatigue is a real factor that decides the fate of many battles. If hit points include an aspect of fatigue, then (low) damage on a miss is more realistic than no damage at all on a miss. So why can only Fighters do this? Why don't Barbarians tire people out? Why is a missed attack from a Paladin or bear-shared Druid effortlessly dodged whereas a Fighter's isn't? The game 13th Age seems to have nailed this issue down far better than Next so far.

The point was that both a miss and a hit do not strike the target. Because when viewing hp as mostly skill, luck, and energy you don't really get hit and injured, just tired. So the mechanics are saying two things (hit and miss) but the narrative is the same. There' same disconnect between the mechanic and story unfolding.

While hitpoints do work best as a mixture of health and skill, damage on a miss can lead to weirdness. Such as the final blow in combat coming from a miss. I've remarked before that a first level fighter with 16 Strength will never not kill a goblin or kobold. And when Strength hits 18 they can kill a commoner. They walk up, swing in the general direction of the goblin, and it drops dead. The goblin expends so much energy avoiding the wild swing that it's heart explodes.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think what might be interesting is to compare to a well-established 3e mechanic that does sort of the same thing: Improved Evasion. This is also an example of a case where the character gets a somewhat successful outcome even on a roll that the d20 system describes as a failure.

Personally, I've never been a fan of it, and it causes some significant, if not usually game-breaking problems.

 

[Sage Genesis]

The point was that both a miss and a hit do not strike the target. Because when viewing hp as mostly skill, luck, and energy you don't really get hit and injured, just tired. So the mechanics are saying two things (hit and miss) but the narrative is the same. There' same disconnect between the mechanic and story unfolding.

While hitpoints do work best as a mixture of health and skill, damage on a miss can lead to weirdness. Such as the final blow in combat coming from a miss. I've remarked before that a first level fighter with 16 Strength will never not kill a goblin or kobold. And when Strength hits 18 they can kill a commoner. They walk up, swing in the general direction of the goblin, and it drops dead. The goblin expends so much energy avoiding the wild swing that it's heart explodes.

Thanks for the clarification. And yes, the goblin/commoner issue is a weird situation. If the fatal damage came right at the end of a long and hard battle I could see it work, the enemy just too tired to even raise its hands anymore so you basically can kill him as a free action (in other words, as part of the "missed" action, just with slightly different visuals). But going from fully healthy to cut down on a miss for normal, healthy human beings is just plain weird.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Because when viewing hp as mostly skill, luck, and energy you don't really get hit and injured, just tired.

For me, the thing is this: anything that does HP damage can kill you.

If it can't kill you in the fiction, it shouldn't be doing HP damage.

Can you get killed when a trained warrior's blow rains down on your armor and shakes your body around? Or when you take a blow and sort of roll with it? Sure, I actually buy that. When a trained warrior takes a swing at a goblin, even if the goblin rolls with the blow, it hurts...and since it's a goblin, it probably hurts enough to kill the critter.

That said, I don't think I'd have a real problem with a rule that says you can only die from a hit.

 

[Stormonu]

I can handle attacks that deal damage on a miss; wizards have been doing it for years with "save for half" spells. However, what I would like to ensure is that a miss can't take away the opponent's last hit point (same for a save). Your attack should have to connect to take out an opponent.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I can handle attacks that deal damage on a miss; wizards have been doing it for years with "save for half" spells. However, what I would like to ensure is that a miss can't take away the opponent's last hit point (same for a save). Your attack should have to connect to take out an opponent.

Then we have a whole other issue about hit points. Yes you can take "damage" on a miss. You get SO EXHAUSTED avoiding the attacks it takes the wind right out of you.

Then, when you are just barely able to stand and have been battered to a pulp (down to 1hp), those tremendous powerful strokes that nearly drove you to your knees are suddenly........ not that impressive. Lets say Brutus the Beefcake has been damaging you every round without fail. Now when he has you right where he wants you, he starts rolling low. All of a sudden that miss damage starts to look pretty stupid when it can't finish a guy who could be knocked over by a strong breeze.

And what about creatures that you can barely damage on a hit anyway thanks to partial immunity, DR, and so on? I need a magic weapon to hit? Screw that I'll just take my normal sword and miss him to death then Bozo the magnificent can finish him with a magic missile.

Its a crap rule. Not really a big deal though. Not like we have to play it.

 

[Stormonu]

And what about creatures that you can barely damage on a hit anyway thanks to partial immunity, DR, and so on? I need a magic weapon to hit? Screw that I'll just take my normal sword and miss him to death then Bozo the magnificent can finish him with a magic missile.

I wouldn't imagine that damage on a miss should ever be high enough to breach any sort of immunity or DR - if it does, that's poor design in my mind. And if using ol' AD&D +X weapon to hit, normal attacks - even on a miss - should never deal damage. Same would go for "3 points fire damage on a miss" vs. Fire Immunity. Ineffective is, ineffective.

 

[pemerton]

A low attack roll does not indicate a skillfully placed blow.

It needn't but it can. A low attack roll could mean the best-placed blow ever, but parried by an even more skillful defender. (In other words - D&D has no active defence mechanic, and hence the attack roll represents both attacker's and defender's efforts.)

I still don't see what it translates to in in-game terms.

Relentlessness. In much the same way that a barbarian's rage represents fury.

a first level fighter with 16 Strength will never not kill a goblin or kobold.

And here we see that relentlessness in play.

It's a player fiat mechanic, and in practice, in those circumstances I wouldn't ask for an attack roll. The player just gets to narrate his/her PC taking down the kobold.

It gets much sillier when hitpoints represent energy and fatigue. When you hit, you don't actually connect but the blow takes so much energy to avoid it tries the target. Damage on a miss means the exact same thing, you don't hit but energy is expended dodging. The narrative for a hit is exactly the same as the narrative of a miss. This is problematic.

I don't think it is, actually. An AD&D PC with 10 hp left is attacked by dragon breath for 40 hp, save for half. The save doesn't change the narrative whether it succees or fails - the PC fries to a crisp! Never seemed to cause many problems.

(Of course, the narrative isn't literally identical on a hit or a miss, because different amounts of damage are dealt.)

Yet damage on a miss means you still actually connect.

It doesn't have to, as you noticed in your para that I already quoted.

 

[bogmad]

What if the Great Weapon Fighter ability was changed from "damage on a miss" to "damage on a NEAR miss"?

Say we have this hypothetical:
A finesse weapon fighter rolls a 17 to hit an AC 18.
A Great Weapon Fighter rolls a 17 to hit an AC 18.
Now you could narrate the hit however you like, but lets just pretend that the hit was numerically the same, and also include a blow to the same spot on the armour.
Since the finesse weapon bends, was thrust with less force, etc it doesn't penetrate the armour and does no damage. However the Great Weapon hits with such force that it inflicts some strength damage.
THEN
Both of the fighters then roll a 5 to hit an AC 18.
They both miss completely, making no contact, and inflicting no damage.

Now you don't have auto damage, but you do have something more akin to what the GWF ability is supposed to represent. Does that work at all?

Of course, you could get very simulationist and worry about how much of the AC is dex based and how that influences what a "total miss" is, but I think you could have basic enough a system, especially with the added peculiarities of hp, player or DM fiat, etc not to really sweat it to the extent that we have to go all the way back to having "Touch AC" and whatnot.