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

[Burninator]

I use my blah blah blah power, LOL. That's exactly the main reason I ended up getting fed up with playing that game. When you can do something lazily, you will. It's just human nature. Eventually it just became silly to try and narrate different ways to say the same thing occurs. I'd rather try to narrate a different thing, to achieve a different result, so that the narration isn't superfluous fluff, and part of the actual end result. In a sense, what I'm saying is : fluff should influence crunch. Essentially, as it always did before. If I push a table in front of the enemy, I don't need a power to impose that condition (slow), I just need a couple checks and a sensible plan approved by a sensible DM, and the cooperation of the dice. Removing the agency of any of those elements, such as the DM and the dice, and putting it all on the player who says "I use this power, which does this...now, hmm, how do I work back from the end result back to the cause of that result, to make it possible to narrate this retroactively".

Even Rodney Thomspon, the guy who's pushing this damage on a miss, seems to love how quick combat and asking for a few checks is a low more elegant and simpler, as well as more compelling and engaging an experience. It's odd that he sort of wants to go back to that mistake him and others made in 4e : Damage occurs, it's hard to explain how, because the weapon didn't touch the target, but anyway, just put it in there. It's like he selectively forgets all the other lessons about what Next is doing right, and why it works now where it didn't before.

I bet any money their internal playtesters will flag this mechanic as a bug in at least a few of the 24 ways that I've brought up, and if this community (or any, for that matter, I'm posting the list of bugs all over the place) has any influence, they should immediately concede at least 5 of the points that are objective mechanical problems with it that have nothing to do with forcing the use of a vague and senseless definition of HP (which this mechanic doesn't even reference by the way, so his explanation is a non-sequitur).

 

[billd91]

But that's the point - by choosing this option, I'm estabishing a minimum level of non-suckage for my PC. (As chaochou said, by choosing this option I gain a permission that, by default, others lack, to always narrate a minimum degree of success ie STR damage on an attack.).

Should that kind of choice really be up to the player to decide or should it be up to the task resolution system to resolve? Should a PC really have that degree of power over the circumstances that may come up in a conflict - that he is never ineffective in his attacks? Suppose he wants to smash the macguffin in the BBEG's hand and prevent the rising of some dread god? As a GM, I might want that to be a possible resolution of the crisis, but perhaps not so be easy as the two-handed weapon warrior would have it.

 

[Burninator]

When sparring in kickboxing, reach is pretty significant - you really feel it when going up against a guy a foot taller than you; it's tricky to get a punch in without him punching you in the face first. (That's what an opportunity attack is simulating). That's even more apparent when the opponent has a knife and you're really scared of getting cut.

I think that the superior reach of a two-handed weapon is the unique flavor here. It really distinguishes the heavy weapon fighter from all other fighters.

Fair enough, so why not with halberds instead? They actually are weapons with even better reach.

I've done kickboxing too, and reach doesn't trump accuracy. The one with the lower reach, if they get in closer, will actually be more accurate. But that's when this fails. The problem with using reach -> greater accuracy, is that the guy with the dagger will feel like, "if this dagger is so nimble in my hands, why am I not the one who can cut you so quickly with a second attack if the first one misses".

To my mind, in classic D&D, the lower the speed factor a weapon has, that should imply it's easier to swing, since it's faster + lighter, and that would imply it's also more accurate. For example, what's nimbler and more accurate, a longsword, or a rapier? Rapiers surely, no contest. So why give the guy with the longsword, if he uses it two handed, unlimited accuracy? (effectively never missing). Quite aside from inverted logic, as a game design thing it's a no no to make something never fail. It's called an exploit in my profession, and I do model simulations of hand to hand combat, as well as weapon combat. Accuracy is something that IMO should remain independent of weapon size, if you're going to insist, I'm going to say if you're close enough to attack with a dagger, you've already bypassed the superior reach of the guy with the two-hander, and he's in trouble (closing the distance to your foe is obviously in the interest of the guy with the lower reach, and the guy with the longer reach has the inverse goal, to keep you away).

 

[urLordy]

OK well, I think that level of faithful attention to simulation (ie weapon accuracy) would go in a gritty module along with wound/vitality track, etc.

I don't know what the solution is but seems like a stalemate.

 

[urLordy]

I'm going to say if you're close enough to attack with a dagger, you've already bypassed the superior reach of the guy with the two-hander, and he's in trouble (closing the distance to your foe is obviously in the interest of the guy with the lower reach, and the guy with the longer reach has the inverse goal, to keep you away).

Mind you, in a pm to TwoSix, I was thinking about something like Power Swing: Long sweeping arcs of your mighty blade inflict horrible rends on a hit (+1 to damage, or +2 to damage, or 1.5 x Str) and fend off opponents on a miss (+x to AC?) That would seem to loosely narrate the scenario you describe above.

 

[mlund]

What does armor have to do with making people make as you? Nothing. They hit you. Armor is there to mitigate the injury suffered from being struck. Strike that "miss" due to armor don't fail to strike the target. They fail to damage the wearer of the armor. Still, strikes that fail the penetrate armor can still injure or kill people. Bludgeoning damage works. High-impact slashing and piercing weapons will kill people with focused blunt force trauma though they never slashed or pierced a person.

That said, D&D isn't realistic or simulation at about armor at all since it dropped wrap vs. AC tables. Heavy rivetted mail hauberks are pretty much impregnable to anything short of a crank-opperated crossbow or gun powder weapons. Bows are more might be good for hampering a shield and swords were reduced to awkwardly balanced staves again full armor.

Frankly, partial damage on a "miss" that was caused by armor or shields would be way more simulation-focused than most of the last 20-odd years of attacks vs. AC. Some sort of mechanic with "touch AC" or "reflex defense" would be a complicated (but fun IMO) module to add to an advanced game. Some sort of general abstraction seems appropriate for the core or base games.

- Marty Lund

 

[Libramarian]

Is it not a rule in 5e that a natural 1 always misses and a natural 20 always hits? I wouldn't mind this damage on a miss rule if you still outright missed with no damage on a natural 1.

 

[Burninator]

But that's redundant. Damage on a miss still occurs on a 1, only because 1 implies a miss no matter what. Adding an exception to damage on a miss for natural 1s, is just a roundabout way of saying they goofed up with this mechanic. Because hit points of damage should be dealt on a hit, and that's just common sense. It's right there in the term "hit point". I mean, nothing can be simpler and clearer than that. A miss is the opposite of a hit, a lacking of, so if your goal when you swing your sword is to both hit, and hit hard, it makes no sense to train to be able to miss, but yet still hit...wait, sorry, I'm confusing the confusing verbal sludge I'm supposed to narrate here. On a miss, I'm supposed to say, I deal non-physical damage since a miss isn't a hit. Or wait, no, a miss doesn't mean a miss, it means a "miss", which isn't the opposite as a hit or a "hit" because they're just different levels of the same thing : damage.

So, essentially, you don't really need two dice to scale damage only, if you can't miss, all you need is a damage roll and not a D20. Which is what I've been saying all along, the agency of the attack roll is removed, and on a "miss", so is the agency of the weapon's damage roll, despite you still doing damage with that weapon, you deal str mod. But it's still damage through your weapon to the target. Which it didn't hit. At least not physically. Mentally? Spiritually? whatever!

Got all that? Simple! If I wanted to scream "BullS**t", I'd play the card game with that name. It's a game where you intentionally make a ludicrous assertion, and others call you out on it. It's not the most popular game out there, though it is unique. Oh wait, I should say, it now has an admirer / imitator : D&D Next.

 

[Libramarian]

I am a HP loss = physical beatdown kind of guy, and I don't mind this mechanic, probably because I'm already used to narrating a miss as a weak/non-penetrating hit that didn't do any damage, rather than an outright whiff. I think of natural 1s as complete whiffs, so I think even a fighter with this specialty dealy shouldn't do damage on a natural 1 though. But that's an easy houserule.

 

[pemerton]

Should that kind of choice really be up to the player to decide or should it be up to the task resolution system to resolve?

<snip>

As a GM, I might want that to be a possible resolution of the crisis, but perhaps not so be easy as the two-handed weapon warrior would have it.

You won't be surprised that I incline to different preferences to you on the "player empowerment" setting, but I agree with you to this extent - you've identified an intereseting feature of the mechanic, which for some playstyles might be a problem, and which isn't simply about the subjective "feel" to a player of player-side fiat.

One approach to handling this - not the whole of an approach, but a start - would be for the rulebooks to talk a bit more frankly than traditionally they have about what these mechanics are for, and how they distribute authority around the table.