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

[pemerton]

Well first, I don't agree with your premise... "typical" kobolds in 3.x according to the SRD have 4 hit points, so actually (however slim) "typical" kobolds in that edition could survive a fireball cast by a 3rd level sorcerer or wizard.

I had hoped I'd made it clear, by my frequent references to the Bestiary, that I was referring to D&Dnext in its currrent incarnation.

Ok, just tell me where these mechanics are located in the playtest material...

The current playtest doesn't have pixies. So if we're confining ourselves to the current playtest material there are no dodging pixies, so the problem doesn't arise.

But I had assumed that we were envisaging what might be. In the case of "graceful dodgers", the changes required to Evasion and/or Uncanny Dodge are trivial and presumably are the sorts of things Mearls had in mind when he talked about eliminating some mechanical confusions around the ability.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I don't see why. I find unavoidable splashes as less believable than unavoidable warriors.

Wut?

So you're trying to tell me that you have never had a waterballoon burst next to you and wet you a little, while being hit full on wet you more.

Unless you are the Flash, you couldn't out run it.

 

[pemerton]

Wut?

So you're trying to tell me that you have never had a waterballoon burst next to you and wet you a little, while being hit full on wet you more.

Unless you are the Flash, you couldn't out run it.

Two things.

First, if I was wearing a metal bodysuit I mightn't get very wet.

Second, unless I was The Flash I couldn't dodge Redgar either. That's kind of the point.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Second, unless I was The Flash I couldn't dodge Redgar either. That's kind of the point.

But it's entirely likely that Regdar would occasionally slip, get distracted, or otherwise whiff completely (i.e. roll a 1).

 

[Manbearcat]

Wut?

So you're trying to tell me that you have never had a waterballoon burst next to you and wet you a little, while being hit full on wet you more.

if I was wearing a metal bodysuit I mightn't get very wet.

I think the dynamics in play in a hailstorm and a gable roofing system with 3 tab asphalt shingles is instructive here.

- The hailstorm is the (lacking in uniformity) AoE effect.

- The 3 tab asphalt shingles are the layers of protection and "meat" of the target creature; the armor - layers of asphalt (and possibly mineral fillers) - protects the meat - base matting (of paper or fiberglass + resin).

I'll try to keep this short and accessible without losing too much in the process:

Industry standards (created and continuously verified by field research and testing and considerable publishing in peer-reviewed journals) have defined functional hail damage to asphalt roofs as: "a dimunition of the water shedding ability of the shingle or the reduction in the long-term service life of the shingle."
​

There are multiple phenomenon in play here that dictate damage to the base matting (the meat) of the shingle which would compromise it:

1 - The mitigatory effects of the top layers of the shingle (the armor class!). As shingles get old, they dry out and become brittle and they suffer natural granule loss due to exposure to various elements of aging. Once the shingle has passed its useful life, it is extremely susceptible to events like thermal shock or hail strikes from smaller than 1.25 " stones.

2 - Industry standards puts 1.25" diameter stones as the minimum threshold for damaging asphalt shingles.

3 - The structural integrity of the hailstone itself. If a hailstone is "soft", it will leave spatter marks (removing oxidation, dirt, algae but causing no functional damage). Hailstones that are "hard" may cause indentation, inducing granule loss and possibly fracturing the base matting. The deeper the updrafts of the storm, the more likely the hail will be of the harder variety (as it will have cycled upward into freezing temperatures more often).

4 - The angle of impact of the hailstone on the roof. The wind has a large role to play here. If the wind forces the hailstones into an oblique angle, the energy transfer of the impact of the stone onto the shingle is mitigated (progressively with the obliqueness of the angle). A strike at a right angle to the roofing system will create maximum energy transfer and increase the possibility of damages to the base matting of the shingle significantly.

5 - Hailstorms are extremely local events. You can have extreme updrafts (causing larger, harder stones) in one place and literally right outside these extreme updrafts, the upward moving wind can be marginal. Further, just as above with updrafts, the horizontal wind field is also local.

This creates a scenario where a neighbor's roofing system can be "missed (utterly undamaged or at least functionally undamaged)" by a hailstorm while right next door the old roof (beyond its useful life), with micro-updrafts and little to no horizontal wind to make the angle of impact oblique, is damaged significantly.

Bottom line, AoE effects and their damage are not remotely uniform and, in the real world, are subjected to a large number of "contests" that trigger classification of "a hit (with damage)".

 

[Imaro]

I had hoped I'd made it clear, by my frequent references to the Bestiary, that I was referring to D&Dnext in its currrent incarnation.

Ahh, no it wasn't clear since throughout this thread various posters, including yourself, have been discussing various editions and everything from kobolds to grenade-like-weapons, to pixies. So I was unaware we had suddenly switched back to talking purely about Next.

The current playtest doesn't have pixies. So if we're confining ourselves to the current playtest material there are no dodging pixies, so the problem doesn't arise.

But I had assumed that we were envisaging what might be. In the case of "graceful dodgers", the changes required to Evasion and/or Uncanny Dodge are trivial and presumably are the sorts of things Mearls had in mind when he talked about eliminating some mechanical confusions around the ability.

So we have the final public playtest rules, these mechanics are not in there... but we shouldn't say anything, just assume it will be fixed. Yeah, that doesn't seem logical to me. If that's the case we shouldn't bring up concerns about anything since it might be fixed in the final game.

 

[Imaro]

I think the dynamics in play in a hailstorm and a gable roofing system with 3 tab asphalt shingles is instructive here.

- The hailstorm is the (lacking in uniformity) AoE effect.

- The 3 tab asphalt shingles are the layers of protection and "meat" of the target creature; the armor - layers of asphalt (and possibly mineral fillers) - protects the meat - base matting (of paper or fiberglass + resin).

I'll try to keep this short and accessible without losing too much in the process:

Industry standards (created and continuously verified by field research and testing and considerable publishing in peer-reviewed journals) have defined functional hail damage to asphalt roofs as: "a dimunition of the water shedding ability of the shingle or the reduction in the long-term service life of the shingle."
​

There are multiple phenomenon in play here that dictate damage to the base matting (the meat) of the shingle which would compromise it:

1 - The mitigatory effects of the top layers of the shingle (the armor class!). As shingles get old, they dry out and become brittle and they suffer natural granule loss due to exposure to various elements of aging. Once the shingle has passed its useful life, it is extremely susceptible to events like thermal shock or hail strikes from smaller than 1.25 " stones.

2 - Industry standards puts 1.25" diameter stones as the minimum threshold for damaging asphalt shingles.

3 - The structural integrity of the hailstone itself. If a hailstone is "soft", it will leave spatter marks (removing oxidation, dirt, algae but causing no functional damage). Hailstones that are "hard" may cause indentation, inducing granule loss and possibly fracturing the base matting. The deeper the updrafts of the storm, the more likely the hail will be of the harder variety (as it will have cycled upward into freezing temperatures more often).

4 - The angle of impact of the hailstone on the roof. The wind has a large role to play here. If the wind forces the hailstones into an oblique angle, the energy transfer of the impact of the stone onto the shingle is mitigated (progressively with the obliqueness of the angle). A strike at a right angle to the roofing system will create maximum energy transfer and increase the possibility of damages to the base matting of the shingle significantly.

5 - Hailstorms are extremely local events. You can have extreme updrafts (causing larger, harder stones) in one place and literally right outside these extreme updrafts, the upward moving wind can be marginal. Further, just as above with updrafts, the horizontal wind field is also local.

This creates a scenario where a neighbor's roofing system can be "missed (utterly undamaged or at least functionally undamaged)" by a hailstorm while right next door the old roof (beyond its useful life), with micro-updrafts and little to no horizontal wind to make the angle of impact oblique, is damaged significantly.

Bottom line, AoE effects and their damage are not remotely uniform and, in the real world, are subjected to a large number of "contests" that trigger classification of "a hit (with damage)".

Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but how does this help in determining whether damage should be taken for things like alchemical fire (where the metal armor may block you from being hit directly but the armor heats up) and fireball, which could have the same thing happen... or acid where some may burn through the armor (represented in the abstract of course) You seem to be basing damage purely on impact of a hard splatter in this post and that's not necessarily where the damage comes from with grenade-like weapons and magical explosions in D&D.

 

[Garthanos]

Well first, I don't agree with your premise... "typical" kobolds in 3.x according to the SRD have 4 hit points, so actually (however slim) "typical" kobolds in that edition could survive a fireball cast by a 3rd level sorcerer or wizard.

isnt that a spell you didnt get until 5th level?

 

[Bluenose]

Not the same thing. It does stand to reason that new capabilities should be added with caution, but the capabilities of characters don't have to be static in the absence of reason (see below).

However, if I postulate the following: any effect achievable through a magical ability should be achievable through a nonmagical ability, do you think that's true? I hope not. Because that's the premise I was responding to.

Not any effect, no. But there's plenty of effects that are perfectly achievable with nonmagical abilities that are not made available - bleeding, severing limbs, dazing, blinding, etc - and which could be.

I'm a proponent of magic being treated as an exception to the way the world works.

Unfortunately rather too often it turns into an exception to the way the game works. See above, where I point out several things that are perfectly possible to achieve without requiring magic, which are nevertheless only implemented in the game as a result of magic. Please note that the effects exist in the game, thus invalidating any claims that the combat system is too abstract to allow that; it's merely that they're only attained by magic, which is thereby not altering the way the world works but instead altering the way the game works by ensuring that the combat system has to deal with these effects anyway.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Not any effect, no. But there's plenty of effects that are perfectly achievable with nonmagical abilities that are not made available - bleeding, severing limbs, dazing, blinding, etc - and which could be.

I agree. I don't think damage on a miss is one of them (nor are instantaneous healing or mind control), but there are many abilities that are achievable magically and should be part of the nonmagical combat. In fact, things like DoaM take book space and designer time that could be used on better mechanics for representing martial skill and the seriousness of getting stabbed/slashed/bludgeoned.