D&D 5E Now that "damage on a miss" is most likely out of the picture, are you happy?

[Ulrick]

At first I was like

And then I was like

At somepoint I became

And then I got

But finally i'm just:

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm pissed, yet another way to say Fighters can't have nice things...

 

[Mistwell]

For what it is worth, I am the one who asked the question of Mike Mearls. And, I didn't think his answer was as committal as some folks think it was.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Absolutely!

Fireball!

Pay up.

Your position has NEVER made sense. That the Devs might (have) listen(ed) to you says more about the devs competence than your logic.

Saying my position doesn't make sense is too easy. Why don't you try posting an arguement that explains why?

 

[Obryn]

Saying my position doesn't make sense is too easy. Why don't you try posting an arguement that explains why?

You mean a brand new argument that hasn't been stated over and over again? Seriously, I'm not him, but how about looking in all the three hundred other threads and thousands of posts about this asinine topic? Do you really need anybody to lay out the points again?

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Well of course you disagree, since you're more of a traditional minded person (edit: gaming terms only! broader speculation not intended!). Of course I can still pretend hit points are whatever I like, but this is another example of how the designers are agreeing with hit points as meat. The game concept of hit points as meat means that it makes no sense to miss and still cause damage.

And it makes perfect sense if you believe that concepts like "hit" and "miss" are general ideas rather than being set in stone.

I can believe whatever I want about hit points, but if the designers disagree, the rules have fewer options: the design space shrinks if hit points are meat. I believe that's bad.

Don't want attacks to cause damage on a miss? Don't play a character that has those powers. Pretty simple, and inclusive.

A hit has always meant a success while a miss is a failure. If I damage you, then I have managed to successfully cause you hit point loss whether it was a jarring blow to your shield, a grazing hit to your arm, a quick punch to the face, or even causing you to twist your ankle in a bad side step. Damage on a miss was never abstract, it was a mechanic designed in 4th edition to make people feel a little better if they missed with their daily. It's funny how people are scrambling to come up with all these crazy justifications as to why it would be described "in game".

 

[Obryn]

A hit has always meant a success while a miss is a failure. If I damage you, then I have managed to successfully cause you hit point loss whether it was a jarring blow to your shield, a grazing hit to your arm, a quick punch to the face, or even causing you to twist your ankle in a bad side step. Damage on a miss was never abstract, it was a mechanic designed in 4th edition to make people feel a little better if they missed with their daily. It's funny how people are scrambling to come up with all these crazy justifications as to why it would be described "in game".

Holy cow, no it wasn't. Where do you even get this nonsense?

In 4e, attacks and spells are normalized into a unified system, so the actor always rolls for success. Before 4e, most spells had saves and most attacks used attack rolls. In 4e, it's all the same unified mechanic.

So in 4e, instead of the target making a reflex or "spell" save against fireball, the wizard makes an attack vs. Reflex. Instead of half damage on a successful save, it's now half damage on a missed attack. Same exact process, same exact logic, mathematically reversible, but now the "aggressor" makes all the rolls for consistency. Half damage on a miss is born. There you go.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I'm just glad I won't ever have to hear about it again... haw haw.

 

[billd91]

Holy cow, no it wasn't. Where do you even get this nonsense?

In 4e, attacks and spells are normalized into a unified system, so the actor always rolls for success. Before 4e, most spells had saves and most attacks used attack rolls. In 4e, it's all the same unified mechanic.

So in 4e, instead of the target making a reflex or "spell" save against fireball, the wizard makes an attack vs. Reflex. Instead of half damage on a successful save, it's now half damage on a missed attack. Same exact process, same exact logic, mathematically reversible, but now the "aggressor" makes all the rolls for consistency. Half damage on a miss is born. There you go.

I actually suspect XunValdorl_of_Kilsek may have the right of it more than you think. The idea of an attacker rolling to hit rather than the defender rolling for a saving throw against spells appeared earlier than 4e as a "player makes all the rolls" variant (specifically, Unearthed Arcana for 3.5). Having the direction of the roll switched for spells wasn't all that revolutionary in 4e, the math concepts being virtually the same. No, I thought the big change was in turning some martial attacks into using the same mechanic - inflicting damage on a miss - and I suspect that probably developed once they put the martial characters into the same power structure as the spell casters. I don't think it was specifically to make players feel better about a daily that missed, per se (that's what reliable is for ), but I think it was because they were putting the two types of characters into a unified power structure and not because they hit on turning the saving throw around into an attack roll.

 

[pemerton]

Damage on a miss never made sense to start with. Missing something but killing it anyway makes people just shake their heads, swallow it and try not to wrap their brains around it.

When you say "people" do you mean "all people" or perhaps "some people"? I am a person, and I've never had trouble wrapping my brain around it, and have never had to shake my head. "Damage on a miss" means that, for that player playing that PC doing that thing, the default failure condition ("miss") is instead a partial success condition. It's player fiat.

I'm sure there are people who can't make sense of that, but then for any interesting thing X there are at least some people who can't make sense of it. That doesn't necessarily tell us much about the worth of X, though.