D&D 5E Will the inclusion of the option of DoaM cause you to not buy 5e.

[ExploderWizard]

A wizard ahead in the initiative order with magic missile produces exactly the same result. What DoaM does do in this situation is make the two-handed fighter the best guy at closing out a fight. She's who you call when the villain won't quite drop.

Which is why I use neither cyclic initiative nor at-will magic of any kind.

 

[Ichneumon]

Which is why I use neither cyclic initiative nor at-will magic of any kind.

Vive la choice!

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Make that Wizard a Fighter and literally the same thing happens, except the Wizard can do more miss damage to guarantee the kill, can do it from range, and can also kill any remaining mooks who happen to be standing near the bad guy.

What's your point?

So because the wizard can do this the fighter has to as well even though the mechanics used make no sense?

 

[EnglishLanguage]

What's your point?

So because the wizard can do this the fighter has to as well even though the mechanics used make no sense?

I''m saying you're "B-but the Fighter can kill a near-dead guy." has no ground because other classes already do that much more reliably and safely.

 

[Obryn]

What's your point?

So because the wizard can do this the fighter has to as well even though the mechanics used make no sense?

The bolded part is where you're finding broad disagreement, here. That's evidently a contentious statement, given the hundreds of thousands of words thrown at it.

As to the first part? I want a versatile Fighter with a lot of tricks and special effects - the sort you'd expect out of a better-than-real athlete and action hero sort of guy. So far, DoaM notwithstanding, it's not there. Even the "tricky" fighter was pretty lame. In that context, DoaM is one kind of trick, and it's frankly not even a powerful one, but the more special effects you take away from the Fighter, the worse off the situation looks from here.

Even in the purported "anticlimactic" counter-example where a big villain is dropped automatically from 3 hp, I'm not seeing much wailing and/or gnashing of teeth over pinging him with a magic missile or catching him in the edge of a fireball or any of the other auto-damage tricks a spellcaster has at their disposal. It shows something of the perspectives in play here, IMO, that it's only considered "anticlimactic" when it's a Fighter's trick that drops the bad guy when he's at low HP. (After, it must be said, what was probably a fairly vigorous fight to get him that low.)

 

[Ahnehnois]

I''m saying you're "B-but the Fighter can kill a near-dead guy." has no ground because other classes already do that much more reliably and safely.

And he's saying, of what relevance is some other class that is fundamentally different?

 

[EnglishLanguage]

And he's saying, of what relevance is some other class that is fundamentally different?

To put it bluntly, the Fighter being able to auto-kill a 3hp enemy is not an issue at all.

 

[ExploderWizard]

To put it bluntly, the Fighter being able to auto-kill a 3hp enemy is not an issue at all.

There shouldn't be any auto killing at all that doesn't come with a cost. This goes for DoaM and Pew Pew magic.

 

[Obryn]

There shouldn't be any auto killing at all that doesn't come with a cost. This goes for DoaM and Pew Pew magic.

The "cost" here would be, "Using their one action while in melee range with the big bad dude, without a shield, and having been opened up to all sorts of damage or ill effects for the past few rounds."

That's costlier than a 1st level spell casting, if you ask me.

And keep in mind, based on your earlier posts, "1 flask of oil" would be considered a sufficient cost for auto-damage from the splash, as well.

 

[pemerton]

DoaM can make what was once tense and exciting into a snoozefest.

<snip>

thanks to the combination of DoaM and cyclic initiative we KNOW that herofighter will get to go before big bad and no matter what gets rolled, big bad is going down.

Oh.....the excitement.

I gather from this that you're against Magic Missile as well as all save for half spells and equipment. Because they all do auto-damage.

What DoaM does do in this situation is make the two-handed fighter the best guy at closing out a fight. She's who you call when the villain won't quite drop.

Correct. That's the main point of DoaM from my point of view - it makes the fighter relentless. That's exciting (or, at least, emotionally compelling, as far as such things go in an RPG).

What's your point?

So because the wizard can do this the fighter has to as well even though the mechanics used make no sense?

And he's saying, of what relevance is some other class that is fundamentally different?

The (pretty obvious) point is that if autodamage is boring, then it must be boring from the wizard as much as the fighter. Yet I have never heard that particular complaint against Magic Missile or save-for-half in over 30 years of reading people's complaints about D&D.

And in particular, I have never seen [MENTION=66434]ExploderWizard[/MENTION] make that complaint. Which makes me wonder why having autodamage on fighters is such a big deal, from the excitement point of view.

There shouldn't be any auto killing at all that doesn't come with a cost.

As [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] has pointed out, there is no meaningful cost to an 11th level mage casting a Magic Missile, nor to a 3rd level rogue tossing a flask of burning oil. The cost to the fighter is actually more serious - by engaging in melee s/he has a good chance of taking damage that will need more than a 1st level spell to be healed, and that would cost more than the cost of a flask of oil were an NPC paid to heal it.