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

[Wicht]

This is the bit I was fastening on. I don't understand why it is untenable for a great weapon fighter to have this ability, but fine for a grenadier to have it.

Because, to repeat the points already made once - the splash damage models an explosion (however imperfectly), the splash damage in non-discriminatory, affecting friends and foes alike, and the attack burns off resources. The great weapon fighter is not exploding, never hurts his friends and burns off no resources.

 

[Mistwell]

Really??? Dude the rules are online. Here you go, from the SRD...

I didn't know you could target an intersection instead, but I am failing to understand why that is relevant to the conversation we're having. We're talking about whether you can always-damage a creature within 5' of you with a splash weapon, and the answer is yes, you can always do it. That you could do it another way which does not always-damage them is not really relevant to the discussion in any way I can think of. Maybe I am missing something - can you explain why that's important for this issue?

 

[Mistwell]

The miss goes a number of squares away from the target equal to the range increment of the throw. That is, if the range is 10 feet and the target is 5-10 feet from you and you miss, it goes 1 square away on a miss. If you are 15-20 ft, it goes 2 squares away. 25-30 ft and it goes 3 squares away. And so on.

I know. Which is why I said, "If the range is 5'...".

It is, coincidentally, the same range we're talking about for a typical melee weapon.

 

[Mistwell]

Because, to repeat the points already made once - the splash damage models an explosion (however imperfectly),

Right, but it's modelling it even more poorly, in my opinion, than what Great Weapon Fighting is trying to model. It makes no sense at all that alchemist fire can burn through +5 Plate mail every single time, or that it will always hit even the most agile person, or that it splashes in exactly equal portions to every 5' square within 5' of the square it lands in, as opposed to continuing to mostly travel in the direction it was thrown due to momentum. These are all modelling issues which simply don't make sense - less sense even than the concept that you can always make a glancing blow on even the most agile person next to you with a really big weapon.

the splash damage in non-discriminatory, affecting friends and foes alike, and the attack burns off resources. The great weapon fighter is not exploding, never hurts his friends and burns off no resources.

These last issues are all ones of balance and fairness of the mechanics. But, as we've already explained, this option for the fighter is in general mechanically much weaker than the other options, having even less impact as the game goes up in levels. So, in the context of where this option is at (relative to the others one could choose), it seems balanced and fair, perhaps even unusually weak.

Which is why I have troubling understanding the severity of the objections to this option, though I acknowledge the severity is real for a fair number of people. In terms of believability, the ability seems more believable than the already-accepted splash weapon mechanics, which model things even poorer than this option models things. And in terms of balance and fairness, this option is just as balanced and fair, or even more balanced and fair, than the splash weapon that is already-accepted. So why is the reaction so severe for this, but not for splash weapons?

 

[pemerton]

Because, to repeat the points already made once - the splash damage models an explosion (however imperfectly), the splash damage in non-discriminatory, affecting friends and foes alike, and the attack burns off resources. The great weapon fighter is not exploding, never hurts his friends and burns off no resources.

[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] covers this above - as a model for an explosion it has the "pixie dodge" problem, the "ignore AC/cover" problem, and so on all as badly or worse than GWF.

Mistwell also covers the balance issues.

Hence my puzzlement as to why the grenadier fiat is regarded as OK but the GWF fiat as impersmissible.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Ugh, just no... so how does this differentiate a graceful dodger (mechanically) from a brute who can take alot of damage? This essentially makes the Juggernaut and Gambit/Longshot mechanically the same. It just feels lazy and wrong.

Swimming a ways back upthread for this one.

Do you have similar problems with a high level fighter? After all, my 10th level human fighter can have more hit points than a giant or an ogre, things that are obviously much more tough than I am.

If it's okay for a high level fighter's ability to be a graceful dodger (which is basically what this is) why can't the pixie have extra hit points in exactly the same way? How is that lazy?

The only way I can see this as lazy is if you insist on only one definition of what hit points represent, which has never been true in any edition of D&D. Hit points combine all sorts of things, one of which being a graceful dodger. So, why can't a pixie have 50 hit points instead of an insanely high AC? It achieves exactly the same result.

 

[Weather Report]

Because of your traditional posting style, I cannot tell whether you are being ironic here or not.

If that sort of fortune in the middle is OK for fireballs, though, then I don't understand why it's not OK for GWF.

Well, it's obvious to those without a blind agenda: Saving Throws are often a reactionary roll to maybe take less damage, completely different than damage-on-a-miss, but due to your posting style, it seems you will stick your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la.

 

[pemerton]

Saving Throws are often a reactionary roll to maybe take less damage

This doesn't explain why it's OK for a fireball to be auto-kill against low level characters who, in the fiction, should have a chance of avoiding death.

 

[Weather Report]

This doesn't explain why it's OK for a fireball to be auto-kill against low level characters who, in the fiction, should have a chance of avoiding death.

Yes, it does, and as I said in the other thread: ...yeah, chomping at the bit it seems...you appear to not even know what you're "fighting" for at this point; but no, damage-on-a-miss has become a thing, a controversial one at that.

We realise that you think 4th Ed/13th Age (great game, love the basing rules) is the second coming; some may not agree with you.

 

[Imaro]

I didn't know you could target an intersection instead, but I am failing to understand why that is relevant to the conversation we're having. We're talking about whether you can always-damage a creature within 5' of you with a splash weapon, and the answer is yes, you can always do it. That you could do it another way which does not always-damage them is not really relevant to the discussion in any way I can think of. Maybe I am missing something - can you explain why that's important for this issue?

Well besides the fact that you were espousing a "know the rules before you jump in a convo making statements" philosophy earlier... It shows that you are wrong and that it is in fact possible to do no damage to targets that are 5 feet away if you are aiming at the intersection as opposed to a single target with a splash weapon that has a range of 5'. Is this right or wrong?

Always= all the time with no chance of failure...
Always!= possible in some circumstances but not in others. So you are wrong in your rules knowledge and in your statement.

EDIT: And to top it off you are wrong about the range increment of alchemical fire... it's not 5' it's 10'. I should've known. Again this stuff is online...

Alchemist's Fire

You can throw a flask of alchemist’s fire as a splash weapon. Treat this attack as a ranged touch attack with a range increment of 10 feet.
A direct hit deals 1d6 points of fire damage. Every creature within 5 feet of the point where the flask hits takes 1 point of fire damage from the splash. On the round following a direct hit, the target takes an additional 1d6 points of damage. If desired, the target can use a full-round action to attempt to extinguish the flames before taking this additional damage. Extinguishing the flames requires a DC 15 Reflex save. Rolling on the ground provides the target a +2 bonus on the save. Leaping into a lake or magically extinguishing the flames automatically smothers the fire.

So in summary your entire example was wrong.