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

[Wicht]

But I need rules that tell me "Use these numbers, and this monster will be a challenging but not overwhelming fight for a standard 8th level party".

You have seen the charts at the back of the Pathfinder Bestiary, yes?

 

[TwoSix]

I don't see how that's the case. If you roll a 1, or get a low enough result to miss the target's touch AC (regardless of whether this term appears in 5e or not), than you miss. If you roll high enough to contact the target but still miss, the blow is absorbed or deflected in some way. The mechanics are feeding you the results, as far as I can tell.

Once you get into having Touch AC and "Regular AC", you're no longer using a binary resolution mechanic. You have a whiff (a 1), a dodge (a roll up to Touch AC - 1), a contact with armor (Touch AC through Regular AC - 1), and connection through the armor (Regular AC through a natural 20).

If that's the model you want to prescribe, I have no problem with that. After all, I'm assuming you'd have less issue with an ability that lets a giant weapon do Str modifier damage when it hits Touch AC?

 

[TwoSix]

You have seen the charts at the back of the Pathfinder Bestiary, yes?

I don't know. Is it on d20pfsrd.com? I don't own any Pathfinder books other than the Inner Sea World Guide.

 

[dmgorgon]

No, I don't personally care either way. Both are not perfect simulations, but we do it that way for ease of use. And for me, ease of use is more important, for a game.

I am not arguing it that to convince people to change their minds - they won't change their minds. I am arguing it to demonstrate my lack of understanding why one of these things, which is a poor simulation, is widely accepted by some people who despise this other thing, which is also a poor simulation but slightly less poor a one.

There has to be some reason why these same people just shrug over alchemist fire, but rage against the machine over great weapon fighting. If they're simulationists, they should hate both with roughly equal passion. If their gamists, they should shrug with roughly equal dispassion. But, they don't - they have dispassionate reaction to one and deeply passionate reaction to the other. This makes no sense to me - why does one get a "meh, simulationist pass" in their minds, and the other gets a "violates all sense of simulation and reason must be banished!" declaration?

You are making a false assumption about simulationists. You seem to think that it's all or nothing for us.

You need to understand that it's a game and not everything can be simulated perfectly. In truth, we are not super computers and we can't ever hope to simulate combat to any real degree anyway.

That fact doesn't invalidate our desire for more realistic and intuitive rules. Sure, some rules in our games won't be perfect, but for the most part they will approximate real world results most of the time. In addition, not everyone wants the same things to be simulated.

For my game, I'm always looking to improve the rules. If someone can suggest a rule that's easy to manage and more closely approximates a real world result I'll use it.

btw, your alchemist fire issue is only applicable to the version of D&D you are quoting. That situation hardly ever happens anyway and that's why people are not upset about it. Your assertion that the 3e rule for grenade like missiles gets a "meh, simulationist pass" is wrong.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Once you get into having Touch AC and "Regular AC", you're no longer using a binary resolution mechanic. You have a whiff (a 1), a dodge (a roll up to Touch AC - 1), a contact with armor (Touch AC through Regular AC - 1), and connection through the armor (Regular AC through a natural 20).

True. However, degrees of success have a lot of precedent in d20 mechanics (less so in older iterations of D&D, I think).

If that's the model you want to prescribe, I have no problem with that. After all, I'm assuming you'd have less issue with an ability that lets a giant weapon do Str modifier damage when it hits Touch AC?

In principle, fine. I could see something like that being implemented poorly, but that would be fine if done well. Doesn't even necessarily have to be a giant (though in cases of substantial size differentials, it makes a lot of sense).

Remember, we're talking about an ability that lets a modestly skilled halfling fighter deal damage if he attacks a dragon with a butter knife and rolls a 1.

 

[Wicht]

I don't know. Is it on d20pfsrd.com? I don't own any Pathfinder books other than the Inner Sea World Guide.

To tell you the truth, I really don't know if it is or not, but the chart (very useful for creature creation) tells you what the average AC, hp, damage and saves should be for each CR and creature type.

EDIT: Turns out it is on d20pfsrd

 

[TwoSix]

Remember, we're talking about an ability that lets a modestly skilled halfling fighter deal damage if he attacks a dragon with a butter knife and rolls a 1.

I thought the ability only worked with 2-Handed weapons? And I'm totally cool with a 1 being a complete failure, even if you have an attack roll fail ability.

And let's not forget the more salient point, that regardless of the ability or not, the dragon is going to WTFPWN the halfling. The fact that it lost a few hit points is immaterial to the greater fiction.

 

[dmgorgon]

Damage on a miss is a mechanic designed for a specific ability, not a general rule. It's really not practical to make such mechanics optional; you're asking DMs to go through the entire rulebook ticking off "This ability yes, that ability no."

What I'm wondering is why it's so important to have this ability in the first place. Whether or not the mechanic in question is a deal-breaker, it's a major turn-off for a large segment of the player base. If there's another large segment that has a hankering for it, okay, but I don't have the impression anyone was really clamoring for damage-on-a-miss abilities.

If it will only ever exist for one mechanic/ability then an optional rule in the PHB doesn't take much space does it? At that point, it becomes practical to have it as an optional rule.

On the other hand, if DoaM infects the entire system and no optional rules are provided, the entire game becomes tainted for a particular playstyle, and that is counter to the goals of D&D Next.

With that said, the DoaM mechanic speaks to an entire playstyle. It's already infected a few spells like Melf's Acid Arrow. If the situation is ignored, I predict that you'll see a sharp increase in these mechanics as time goes on.

 

[Celebrim]

Because I don't want to guess as to how hard the fight is going to be?...But I need rules that tell me "Use these numbers, and this monster will be a challenging but not overwhelming fight for a standard 8th level party".

I doubt that it is possible in any sort of general case. Besides, D&D has always traditionally done exactly that - it's called a Monster Manual. Creating unique opponents is assumed to be an advanced application of the rules. By default, you are supposed to be flipping open the Monster Manual or using some stock stat block from a 'Rogues Gallery' of stock NPCs.

The reason why you can't ever have a perfect answer to whether a monster is challenging is how much of what makes a monster challenging isn't obvious. It's the synergies that the monster has within its own abilities, with its allies, and with its environment that really make it threatening. Having Achilles heels can vastly undermine assessments of CR. That's why CR and EL are such imperfect numbers and get it wrong so often. No system is going to be able to account for the fact that if you give a troll access to a spellcasting class that can cast spells that grant it immunity from fire, it's going to be much more dangerous than simple application of 2+2 suggests. No system can correctly account for the fact that if a monsters best attack is a grapple, advancing its size class has a much bigger impact than if it's best attack is a magical ray. Sometimes, because of synergy, 2+2=5. Some powers make the creature vastly more dangerous than others. At best, you might have a simplified set of stat blocks for monsters with nothing other than simple attacks, but these would tend not to work at higher levels when being threatening usually means also having access to a variety of means of manipulating the action economy and resisting debuffs (and that has been true since 1e as well).

When 4e came out, it was supposed to fix that, but in practice, not really. Monsters of the same level are still vastly different in threat level. The math didn't get fixed, monsters still needed tweaks (especially at high levels) and monsters still have emergent properties in combination or when altered. No amount of simplified guidelines substitutes for good design and never will.

I've been DMing since 1e, so my stat blocks in my prep look a lot like the old 1e 1-2 line simplified stat blocks, only they are 3-4 lines instead. I cut and paste them out of a word document I have, and tweak them slightly and we are good to go.

 

[dmgorgon]

Once you get into having Touch AC and "Regular AC", you're no longer using a binary resolution mechanic. You have a whiff (a 1), a dodge (a roll up to Touch AC - 1), a contact with armor (Touch AC through Regular AC - 1), and connection through the armor (Regular AC through a natural 20).

If that's the model you want to prescribe, I have no problem with that. After all, I'm assuming you'd have less issue with an ability that lets a giant weapon do Str modifier damage when it hits Touch AC?

My plan is to use Contact AC to fix DoaM.