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

[TwoSix]

Some don't want to approach the game on those terms (thank god).

You as a player don't have to care. But the designers sure do.

 

[urLordy]

Of course, anything to further the cause!

AFAICT Pemerton acknowledged (for the 1st time as I can recall) that damage on a miss as a narrative could be suited to a more general fighter than just the heavy weapon fighter. That is something new. Why do you continue to belittle people's opinions?

 

[Imaro]

The game has always had a lot of auto-damage options for mages. Does it hurt the game to give fighters those auto damage options? And how often will they come up?

But these are character abilities... you just said this would be a "player ability" that is the biggest difference. Most editions of D&D have been focused (with the exception of 4e and a few possible exceptions from earlier editions I'm missing) on game-granted character abilities not game-granted player abilities

It hasn't been an issue for me in 4e, but 4e has big hit point totals and wide damage ranges, and 4e is designed (with its action economy, emphasis on terrain etc) to make the getting of the attack potentially interesting in itself. Is it an issue in 13th Age? And how easy is it, in Next, to ensure you have the ability to make that attack which will deal auto-damage?

Yes it is an issue (at least for me) in 13th Age, but as I said earlier this is because of the frequency with which it takes place. I enjoy the mechanic from the perspective of it speeding combat up but am not enamored with some of the other effects on game play it has. The question concerning Next is whether this one mechanic leads to a proliferation of similar mechanics... I think if nearly everyone was lauding it as wonderful, this would probably be the case.

At a minimum, don't the action resolution rules confer some authority on the players? For instance, I can make it true in the fiction that my PC is drawing a sword, and attacking with it, and rolling an 18 to hit with it, and dealing (say) 6 damage on that hit. Can'

Unless the DM says... "you can't"... for whatever reason that's the point of rule zero.

 

[Halivar]

Which is a necessary concession in a HP system. Otherwise you get the "dude with five axe blows who's fine, but then collapses from the small dagger scratch".

It's a problem we inherited from the 70's. Modern RPG's dispatch with hit-points for a reason. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be D&D without it. Which is why I treat D&D from an outcome-based approach; it doesn't simulate anything well at all. There are better systems for that when I want to get gritty like that.

 

[Imaro]

Which is a necessary concession in a HP system. Otherwise you get the "dude with five axe blows who's fine, but then collapses from the small dagger scratch". You can't narrate attacks based on the attacker's rolls. You have to look at the result to the target. Even if it's a crit with a greataxe that does 90 damage, if you hit a guy with 150 HP it didn't cleave him in half. That's why I only narrate the hit that drops someone below half HP and the hit that drops them below 0 as consequential hits. It's just not realistic otherwise!

Uhm... what does this have to do with what you quoted? did you read what I wrote? Earlier editions did make a distinction between subdual, non-lethal, etc. damage as opposed to lethal damage. that was the point I was making Not sure how what you posted relates back to that.

 

[TwoSix]

Uhm... what does this have to do with what you quoted? did you read what I wrote? Earlier editions did make a distinction between subdual, non-lethal, etc. damage as opposed to lethal damage. that was the point I was making Not sure how what you posted relates back to that.

... 4e's paradigm of "all damage is neither lethal nor non-lethal until the final blow is struck"...

... is a necessary concession in a HP system.

The earlier editions do it wrong. Or at least, add in wholly unnecessary subsystems.

 

[pemerton]

Some don't want to approach the game on those terms (thank god).

But presumably [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION] does, given the expressed concern that this ability might lead to players having their PCs killed. How else is that concern to be addressed except in statistical terms?

 

[pemerton]

AFAICT Pemerton acknowledged (for the 1st time as I can recall) that damage on a miss as a narrative could be suited to a more general fighter than just the heavy weapon fighter.

To me, it's about the default narrative you want to build into the game.

Give the ability to great weapon fighters and the gameworld takes on one sort of colour - the "dreadnought" I've talked about in other posts. (Recongisable, I think, from a certain style of fantasy gaming art.)

Give the ability to all fighters and then you get something more like the 4e feel, of the fighter as melee controller, the commander of the battlefield from whom there is no escape.

I don't think there's any inherent reason to favour one of these fictions over the other - the game could even include both options and point out that choosing one or the other is choosing to flavour your gamewold in a paticular way.

 

[Weather Report]

But presumably @Wicht does, given the expressed concern that this ability might lead to players having their PCs killed. How else is that concern to be addressed except in statistical terms?

Well my problem, as I have stated before, is: "Damn, I missed!" "...no, actually you still did 3 points of damage...and, hey, it's dead!" and I do not like minutiae within an attack roll, saves for half-damage on a spell is it for me.

Part of D&D is gambling, rolling the dice, I do not want a sliding scale on my d20 rolls.

 

[TwoSix]

But presumably [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION] does, given the expressed concern that this ability might lead to players having their PCs killed. How else is that concern to be addressed except in statistical terms?

Obviously, we just make rules that FEEL right and hope for the expected outcome! That gosh-darn math can be done later!