MichaelSomething
Legend
Know I'm late on this, but how do you feel about minions?
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D&D 5E I just don't buy the reasoning behind "damage on a miss".
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Know I'm late on this, but how do you feel about minions?
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I'm personally generally cool with them. Though I don't like the way their "no damage on a miss" is an exception to the general rule (thus making damage-on-a-miss effects less useful in an encounter featuring them). If "you only die on a hit" was a more general rule, that probably wouldn't bug me as much -- folks know their hits are only going to kill what they connect with. Weirdly, this would make certain aspects of minions MORE acceptable to me.
i just explained it 3 times to you. Read it again or give it up.
Actually, quite a nice thread...
This ability should not be a default TWF enhancement for fighters. It should be made easier to opt out (as it clearly pisses off so many people so violently) and be called "Relentless Dreadnought". I would also love Dex ("Superior Footwork") and Int ("Tactical Pressing") damage on a miss options !
It would work better if monsters HP were made a bit higher (around 4 for a kobold, 6 for a goblin or human commoner). I would also endorse a "final blow must be a hit" rule.
Oddly, this empowering of Fighters makes me feel better about at-will magic
This ability should not be a default TWF enhancement for fighters. It should be made easier to opt out (as it clearly pisses off so many people so violently) and be called "Relentless Dreadnought". I would also love Dex ("Superior Footwork") and Int ("Tactical Pressing") damage on a miss options !
It would work better if monsters HP were made a bit higher (around 4 for a kobold, 6 for a goblin or human commoner). I would also endorse a "final blow must be a hit" rule.
Oddly, this empowering of Fighters makes me feel better about at-will magic
It misses more noticeably because it was a low roll. You get to narrate why any way you want. Sometimes it might be a poorly placed strike (or series of) or sometimes it's because the lowly peasant got incredibly lucky and swatted to the ground the highly trained fighter's blade. You don't have to say it's always cuz your fighter sucked. Maybe he just had a bad day where he's not at the top of his game; I dunno. You can pick different narrations depending on the context, the skill of various fighters and defenders going up against each other, etc.
For all the talk of fiat I don't see whay there's such a problem with anything not narratively justified in a very binary, all or nothing manner.
I'm playing a first level character who does 1d8+2 damage on 'a hit'. I'm fighting a bandit and I hit on a 13.
Round 1: I roll a 19 to hit and then 1 on the d8 for a total of 3 damage.
Round 2: I roll a 13 to hit and then 8 on the d8 for a total of 10 damage.
How does this support the idea that the d20 roll tells me anything about the quality of my attack, when a roll 6 lower on the d20 produces more than triple the effect?
The seperation of attack rolls and damage rolls tells me that the d20 is not changing the fiction in any qualitative way - it does not change the game state. It gives me permission to change the game state with a damage roll, or denies me that permission. The damage roll is what changes what is happening in the world.
Similarly, a missed roll on a 2 or a 12 is not saying a barely missed, or swung wildly and left myself wide open. My AC doesn't change. I am exactly as hard to hit irrespective of what I roll.
As an aside - the d20 would change the game state if it changed the outcome of damage rolls or defence... so if the difference between my roll and the target number were a) multiplied by 2 and added to damage and/or b) multiplied by 1 and added to my AC (a miss would be a negative number and so reduce AC and damage) then the d20 on its own would tell us something. That would actually be a pretty good house rule, I think.
But a binary d20 roll is not providing a scale of success. It is revealing who has permission to say what. Fireball is a metagame beanie that allows me to change the game state. The d20 saving roll gives the target(s) permission - or not - to overrule. (No, I don't take 20 damage, only 10).
So damage on a miss simply provides a character with a permission that others don't have. The 'plausibility' is added, after the fact, by the people at the table, exactly the same as a fireball saving throw. Obviously with varying degress of success.
Round 1: I roll a 19 to hit and then 1 on the d8 for a total of 3 damage.
Round 2: I roll a 13 to hit and then 8 on the d8 for a total of 10 damage.
How does this support the idea that the d20 roll tells me anything about the quality of my attack, when a roll 6 lower on the d20 produces more than triple the effect?
The seperation of attack rolls and damage rolls tells me that the d20 is not changing the fiction in any qualitative way - it does not change the game state. It gives me permission to change the game state with a damage roll, or denies me that permission. The damage roll is what changes what is happening in the world.
Similarly, a missed roll on a 2 or a 12 is not saying a barely missed, or swung wildly and left myself wide open. My AC doesn't change. I am exactly as hard to hit irrespective of what I roll.
As an aside - the d20 would change the game state if it changed the outcome of damage rolls or defence... so if the difference between my roll and the target number were a) multiplied by 2 and added to damage and/or b) multiplied by 1 and added to my AC (a miss would be a negative number and so reduce AC and damage) then the d20 on its own would tell us something. That would actually be a pretty good house rule, I think.
But a binary d20 roll is not providing a scale of success. It is revealing who has permission to say what. Fireball is a metagame beanie that allows me to change the game state. The d20 saving roll gives the target(s) permission - or not - to overrule. (No, I don't take 20 damage, only 10).
So damage on a miss simply provides a character with a permission that others don't have. The 'plausibility' is added, after the fact, by the people at the table, exactly the same as a fireball saving throw. Obviously with varying degress of success.
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Jester David
Hero
It's versatile. So you can choose to use it two-handed or one-handed.
To me, the die in a d20 attack roll is another tool that I can used to help tell a story. I don't need everything spelled out as to just what my defender is doing to not get hit. If he has a high dex bonus I might narrate more often that he dodges and flits around the battlefield, but it isn't a hard science, even if there is a lot of math in this game.
And it is true that it's the damage roll on an attack that tells you ultimately in terms of numbers how successful an attack is. But when I don't actually hit there's nothing telling me how close I might have been. Having the attack roll give some context to the miss just helps in terms of storytelling. It's not going to tell me every time in terms of a hard numbers calculation but it gives me some conditions to work with if I'm trying to be creative and narrate the action in a fight instead of the simple "I roll. I miss." way that easily I fall into.
What I don't like about the GWF is that it limits the choices I have when describing a miss by a fighter with a two handed weapon.
And it is true that it's the damage roll on an attack that tells you ultimately in terms of numbers how successful an attack is. But when I don't actually hit there's nothing telling me how close I might have been. Having the attack roll give some context to the miss just helps in terms of storytelling. It's not going to tell me every time in terms of a hard numbers calculation but it gives me some conditions to work with if I'm trying to be creative and narrate the action in a fight instead of the simple "I roll. I miss." way that easily I fall into.
What I don't like about the GWF is that it limits the choices I have when describing a miss by a fighter with a two handed weapon.
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