D&D 5E "Damage on a miss" poll.

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I voted for #1. I would have preferred "can be made believable" rather just "believable".

In real-life (D&D is not realistic!), you could hurt someone wearing heavy armor with certain weapons even without landing a "solid" blow. Axes and hammers are pretty good at this. You can dent the armor and bruise the person underneath it on a "miss".

Swords, by contrast, were more dueling weapons for when you and your opponent weren't wearing much armor. (Swords are great at parrying other swords, a big deal when you don't have much armor to protect you!) Swords didn't belong on battlefields, not if you were a knight and your opponent was another knight. (Knights almost always carried swords, but in foot combat used shortened lances, battleaxes, poleaxes, and warhammers.)

There's a couple of ways to word it more realistically though. If you restricted "reaping strike" to the right weapons (axe and hammer-like weapons, and maybe only if you narrowly missed someone wearing heavy armor), or simply gave those weapons bonuses to hit against heavy armor (through a feat; I don't think it's fair or right to give axes and hammers bonuses without paying for them).

The flavor text of Reaping Strike doesn't support what I'm saying though. Using a big weapon will not deal "minimal" damage if you swing at a swashbuckler and miss. That's a clean miss and should deal none.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Those are some skewed poll questions.
How believable something is might be important to a simulationist but not at all important to a narrativist or gamist.
I love the mechanic but not because it is believable/unbelievable but because it is fun and interesting, it makes the GWF feel different from the other fighting styles, it gives those players that want to contribute even in a small way every round an option.

It's not a skewed poll.

D&D and other role playing games are based on the imagination. They took a step away from the combat simulations to the fantasy realm where you are transported to a world of your imagination. Because of the way these games are designed, you "can" turn it into a combat simulator where the full importance is the numbers, but in doing that you move away from the fundamental aspects of a role playing game itself.

You don't even have to believe the mechanics in a narrative way, the abstraction argument itself falls apart because essentially the idea of HP changes from character to character and situation to situation.

Mathematically is works but there is more to the game than just math.

 

[herrozerro]

Those are some skewed poll questions.
How believable something is might be important to a simulationist but not at all important to a narrativist or gamist.
I love the mechanic but not because it is believable/unbelievable but because it is fun and interesting, it makes the GWF feel different from the other fighting styles, it gives those players that want to contribute even in a small way every round an option.

Not to mention that the numbers received will be skewed as well.

If it is a positive total, the argument will be "well there is a large percentage that dislike it, so remove it"

If it is a negative total, the argument will be "well it's disliked more so remove it."

If it's a positive landslide it will be "well we should still remove it because of tradition."

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

It's pretty funny what people get flabbergasted by:

Hit points and damage are abstract...except when they're not. (Crits, sneak attacks, specific damage types, falling, ect..) "I've been rationalizing this stuff since day one, so it's A-okay! Also because tradition!"

Some attacks deal half damage on a miss. "Booo! Unbelievable!"

 

[DEFCON 1]

I would like to touch on this. What exactly do you mean by this part?

I mean that we players can narratively describe or "roleplay" what occurs from the "game" in whatever manner we want, not being beholden to the particular terminology the designers have used to describe the "game rules".

The designers have used "hit" and "miss" as the "game" words to denote rolling above a defender's defense and below a defender's defense. We do not consider this to be a 1 to 1 representation of the in-game fiction all the time. Sometimes, sure. But not always. We are free to use whatever narrative or roleplaying description we want to make the scene look and sound cool. Thus, if the designers have created a mechanic to do HP damage on a "miss" (which, again, from our point of view is merely the terminology the designers have used to illustrate rolling less that a defender's defense), since the mechanic is interesting and unique, we're good with it. And then in terms of the story, we'll narratate it in all the different ways that people have described here on the boards of what a "damage on a miss" could represent in the several threads that have popped up discussing it.

It's the same exact thing in terms of 4E and things like the "Bloodied" mechanic. We've always felt that just because the designers selected the term "bloodied" as an easy and creative indicator for the game mechanic of being at or less than half hit points... it does not follow that in the narrative or "roleplaying" part of the story that a particular character or monster actually is bleeding. They do not always go hand-in-hand. Sure, occasionally someone who is "bloodied" might be described by the DM as bleeding within the fiction... but that is not the case 100% of the time.

The terminology of the "game" that the designers come up with are there to make rules consistent and easier to remember, and those terms are usually fluffy enough to be a possible representation of what is happening in the fiction. But I and my players do not need and do not require them to be the case 100% of the time. Especially considering the game mechanics themselves are so abstract that if you did have them be 100% representational... the narrative would be absolutely stupid.

After all... the game is set up that PCs will get "knocked unconscious" dozens of times in their careers. And I think we've seen in "real life" what has happened to athletes who have received multiple concussions over their entire careers (let alone several times in a single adventuring day or week like can happen in D&D). Our PCs would not be walking around at all if the game terminology the designers have used to represent going under 0 hit points were an actual representation of the in-game fiction. They'd be brain dead after like a single adventure or two.

 

[urLordy]

It's pretty funny what people get flabbergasted by:

Hit points and damage are abstract...except when they're not. (Crits, sneak attacks, specific damage types, falling, ect..) "I've been rationalizing this stuff since day one, so it's A-okay! Also because tradition!"

Some attacks deal half damage on a miss. "Booo! Unbelievable!"

It's pretty funny what people get flabbergasted by:

Hit points, 6 ability scores, etc. "I've been playing this stuff since day one, so it's A-okay! Also because tradition!"

All humans get +1 to stats. "Booo! My human is ruined! Now I have to be an elf!"

In the end, it's just a game. We're all wasting time on a game, so all arguments - gamist, narrativist, simulationist -- are equally funny in that light.

 

[urLordy]

Hit points and damage are abstract...except when they're not. (Crits, sneak attacks, specific damage types, falling, ect..) "I've been rationalizing this stuff since day one, so it's A-okay! Also because tradition!"

Some attacks deal half damage on a miss. "Booo! Unbelievable!"

Also, I think this is rational behavior.

"I've learned to accept x since day one but booo! I don't want more of x"
Where x can be broccoli, rain, stop signs, disagreable politics, explosions and/or car chases in a movie, or abstract mechanics that can confuse the narrative of combat.

 

[JeffB]

JeffB, please don't be so rude. Everyone else, you are most welcome to discuss the things you like and don't like about D&D on this messageboard.

Not enough coffee this morning when I posted. Sorry. But the gist behind my post stands. People are making big stinks about minor somethings easily taken care of with a hqnd wave, and a sentence. There seems to be a large percentage of gamers who think the rules should be built specifically for their tastes and would rather discuss and argue about it incessantly on message boards rather than say..I will not use it in my game, and be done with it, which is how the game was intended to be since inception.

 

[Paraxis]

It's not a skewed poll.

D&D and other role playing games are based on the imagination. They took a step away from the combat simulations to the fantasy realm where you are transported to a world of your imagination. Because of the way these games are designed, you "can" turn it into a combat simulator where the full importance is the numbers, but in doing that you move away from the fundamental aspects of a role playing game itself.

You don't even have to believe the mechanics in a narrative way, the abstraction argument itself falls apart because essentially the idea of HP changes from character to character and situation to situation.

Mathematically is works but there is more to the game than just math.

Yes it is skewed, how believable a mechanic is has nothing to do with some aspects of what makes a mechanic good.

Do you like damage on miss mechanics? Yes/No/Don't care
Does the damage on a miss mechanic ruin you sense of immersion? Yes/No/Don't care
Is the mechanic fun to you? Yes/No/Don't care
Is the mechanic balanced compared to the other options? Yes/No/Don't care

I would vote
Yes.
Don't care.
Yes.
Yes.

 

[amerigoV]

I would not mind it if they encouraged this elsewhere. D&D has for too long been "win/lose" without any degrees of success. Example: Perception check (or however they are going to do it): fail = you get the canned room description, success you get a cool nugget, nat 20 you see something askew that might be a secret door, and a nat 1 means you do not notice the monster that is about to eat your head.