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

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

I'd be interested to hear the answer to this.

Personally, as a long-time 4E DM, I was actually never very attached to "damage on a miss" as a mechanical concept. Mechanically, it's boring. Tactically, it's usually pretty boring. For the player, it's usually boring. You do a tiny bit of damage but not enough to count for much beyond very low levels.

So it always surprised me that some people were so up-in-arms against it, rather then just thinking it kind of mildly sucked. Especially as it seems obvious that when many/most misses are caused by armour, it would be reasonable for a creature to be harmed somewhat "through" their armour (and indeed in 4E, most of the damage-on-a-miss was from high-kinetic-energy weapons). Reasonable but dull in implementation, unfortunately

The only positive I can find with it is that it tends to oppose the imho-ridiculous "Meat Points" vision of hit points, but honestly, that's not enough reason to make me care (hopefully 5E is not the first real "Meat Points" edition when the chips are down, but given some of Mearls' comments, it might be).

Then how come only 2 handed fighters can achieve hurting someone in their armour but a big hunking barbarian with a maul can't?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Then how come only 2 handed fighters can achieve hurting someone in their armour but a big hunking barbarian with a maul can't?

In 4E, they could, so I'm confused as to what you're asking about here.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

In 4E, they could, so I'm confused as to what you're asking about here.

This ain't 4th edition.

 

[Minigiant]

Then how come only 2 handed fighters can achieve hurting someone in their armour but a big hunking barbarian with a maul can't?

In D&D, barbarians are barely trained warriors. They only know the very basics and rely on athleticism and emotion to when battles. That's why they get reckless attack instead of a fighting style. They have no style, they just swing.

A tru warrior can learn a fighting style that lets them attack the and hit the softer parts of an enemy's defenses.

It is like when I played Street Fighter. Any noob can avoid a Hadoken. A Shinkuu Hadoken is a different story but you need some skill to do that. Someone people can't do QCF QCF P on command. But they can mash buttons.

 

[Dausuul]

The real question is if you remove it, what replaces it?

The point of weapon DoaM is to give great weapons a bone since you can miss and you dont get the extra attack of TWF or shield bonus to AC of S&S, or range of Ranged and Reach weapons.

I'm not sure why great weapon fighters are singled out as needing a bone here. You can "swing, miss, end turn" just as well with sword-and-board, ranged attacks, and dual wielding. (Dual wielders encounter the phenomenon less often, but "swing, miss, swing, miss, end turn" still happens--and remember that great weapon fighters get multiple attacks too!)

If the goal is to address the "swing, miss, end turn" phenomenon generally, there are lots of things a fighter could get that don't require rolls. One option would be "taclord" abilities that let you move your allies around and grant them bonuses on the same turn you make an attack. Another would be "Hobson's choice" abilities, where you put your foe in a no-win situation; for instance, you angle yourself so that the enemy must either move where you want it to move or get stabbed. If you miss, the enemy is forced to move a short distance. (Make it clear that enemies who really want to avoid the forced movement can allow you an automatic hit.)

 

[Cyberen]

This ain't 4th edition.

This ain't 4th edition anymore, Toto.

I will miss you (and thus won't be damaging you), Scarecrow.

 

[TwoSix]

Then how come only 2 handed fighters can achieve hurting someone in their armour but a big hunking barbarian with a maul can't?

Because the developers didn't put DoaM in enough places, of course.

 

[Obryn]

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.

No, we're on the same page. The "consolation prize" bit is where he's completely off base.

As [MENTION=66434]ExploderWizard[/MENTION] mentions, it's a natural outgrowth of a unified power structure. I'm sure he means it as a negative, but for me it's a positive because of how the role of martial heroes evolves.

Now, though, quick thought experiment. We have an alternate 4e. Now all dailies require 3e-style saves from the target instead of attack rolls. Nothing else is different. Now, if you fail your save against a hypothetical Fighter's "close burst" scything sword attack, you take half damage. Does this change anything?

 

[TwoSix]

Now, though, quick thought experiment. We have an alternate 4e. Now all dailies require 3e-style saves from the target instead of attack rolls. Nothing else is different. Now, if you fail your save against a hypothetical Fighter's "close burst" scything sword attack, you take half damage. Does this change anything?

Absolutely. Then we switch the argument to "fighters shouldn't have dailies."

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Can you explain why this is difficult for you to understand? Honest question, because to me I can't see that bit. I can only see how it's mechanically boring.

I mean, presumably you can understand this situation:

1) Spells which do half-damage when saved against or when they miss (in 4E, a spell "missing" is the same exact thing as someone saving against it in another edition).

This isn't just AE spells, either - lots of spells in various editions of D&D do half-damage even if you "save", even if they were something you could, realistically, have dodged all of.

So why is the following situation hard for you to process:

2) An ability which isn't a spell, but might well still be "magic", which does half-damage on a save/miss.

I could understand not understand or disliking all three - say, you never liked that Fireball, other spells, and dragon breath weapons and so on were save-for-half in 1E and 2E, and didn't like it that this continued in 3E and 4E. That's where I'm at, by and large (understand-but-dislike, in my case). I think zero-damage-on-miss is more interesting in all cases. What I can't understand is why someone is fine with Fireball, breath weapons, some other physical effects and the like being save-for-half (which is precisely and exactly the same thing as half-on-miss), but not understand or like other, similar effects doing half-on-save/miss. That's confusing to me.

I kind of wonder if a lot of it isn't veiled "Fighters can't have nice things", but when we're talking 4E, we're talking an awful lot of magic-users operating this way too.

It's to do with the way I, personally, and we, as a group, have always envisaged weapons. Fireball is fine because it's an area of effect so potentially you could get lucky and leap out of the way taking half damage. A weapon however has always been visualized as either it hits or it doesn't and if it doesn't then it shouldn't do damage.

I can understand the mechanics and the reasons for it being in the game but I just don't like it.