D&D 5E Replacing Damage-On-A-Miss

[Minigiant]

It's all about sweet spot. It is a commonly heard complaint that D&D's low levels encourages nonheroic play and went it get close to double digits you become too divorced form reality.

anyway....

Great Weapon Fighting.
When you make a disengage, dodge, or knockdown action weilding a weapon with two hands, you can perform one extra attack at disavantge. The weapon must be two handed or have the versatile property.

More attacks. Defend by flailing yo big o sitck of steel around.

 

[Hussar]

The whole "Low level D&D is lethal" thing tends to get pretty overblown anyway.

Look, if you have 50:50 chances of PC fatality in every encounter, then you will have a PC death every second encounter. If you don't kill a PC every second encounter, then your chances are not 50:50. Obviously.

I don't think it's too out of place to say that by and large, you're looking at about a 10% lethality per encounter at low levels, and even then that's probably on the high end. i mean, how many PC's do you typically go through per level? IME, if you get higher than about 1 PC death per level, you're a pretty meat grinder heavy DM.

In AD&D, it's not terribly difficult to get down to about a zero AC. Even at 1st level, Splint Mail and Shield gives you an AC 3 and affordable with a decent money roll for your fighter. A 15 Dex, gives you an AC of 2. That gives the baddies about a 15% chance of hitting you. It's easily possible to get through AD&D combats without being hit. Which generally wasn't true in 3e or 4e where the baddies got much, much higher hit bonuses.

 

[Lanefan]

The whole "Low level D&D is lethal" thing tends to get pretty overblown anyway.

Look, if you have 50:50 chances of PC fatality in every encounter, then you will have a PC death every second encounter. If you don't kill a PC every second encounter, then your chances are not 50:50. Obviously.

I don't think it's too out of place to say that by and large, you're looking at about a 10% lethality per encounter at low levels, and even then that's probably on the high end. i mean, how many PC's do you typically go through per level? IME, if you get higher than about 1 PC death per level, you're a pretty meat grinder heavy DM.

In AD&D, it's not terribly difficult to get down to about a zero AC. Even at 1st level, Splint Mail and Shield gives you an AC 3 and affordable with a decent money roll for your fighter. A 15 Dex, gives you an AC of 2. That gives the baddies about a 15% chance of hitting you. It's easily possible to get through AD&D combats without being hit. Which generally wasn't true in 3e or 4e where the baddies got much, much higher hit bonuses.

I largely agree with what you're saying here except to suggest using "per adventure" instead of "per level" as the measuring stick for death rate, as while some games advance in level much faster than others a single adventure or mission is usually about the same. Forge of Fury, for example, is still the same size adventure regardless what edition or version of the game you're using to play through it; though some tables might have playing it advance the party 2 or 3 levels while others might not advance at all.

You bring up a good point about 1e play: at low levels it is often possible to go through an entire combat round without a single hit being recorded by anybody. Kinda different from the "must do damage every round" mindset of DoaM, eh?

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

Well so long as it goes both ways though. Given the attack bonuses of the baddies in next, how likely
Is it that they will miss ten times in a row?

 

[Minigiant]

Well so long as it goes both ways though. Given the attack bonuses of the baddies in next, how likely
Is it that they will miss ten times in a row?

A goblin, mobile, or commoner hits you for ~3 damage about 40-45% of the time they try to club or shoot you and they outnumber you 2-1 a "normal fight." Orcs and gnolls have about 50% with martial weapons.

So if you don't do the stereotypical "oil barrel spelling, table flipping, stair blocking, rug pulling" stuff, a GWF warrior is surrounded by 2 guys and one will most likely club him each round.

Considering that great weapons are often overkill until level 4+ when enemies have more than 12 HP, suck up your shield hand, and gives you no range, great weapons stink at low levels. More damage doesn't help either.

 

[Hussar]

Is that a problem though? Why not leave it for higher level?

 

[Minigiant]

Is that a problem though? Why not leave it for higher level?

Because it doesnt match D&D traditions. Because it doesnt match reality. Because it doesnt match fantasy tropes. Because it makes little sense. Because you have to pick your fighting style well before great weapons are useful.

There's no strong argument for making great weapons only good at high levels. Only arguements against.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The whole "Low level D&D is lethal" thing tends to get pretty overblown anyway.

Look, if you have 50:50 chances of PC fatality in every encounter, then you will have a PC death every second encounter. If you don't kill a PC every second encounter, then your chances are not 50:50. Obviously.

I think if one makes the simple assumption that all combats end in death for one and only one of the engaging parties (admittedly a very simplistic assumption), it's clear that for the entire world, there must be a death rate of 50% from engaging in battles. It's a dog eat dog world.

To me, that's why D&D has multiple venues for determining how powerful you are. It seems to me that for someone who's level 1 and who has 10's in all ability scores and no special fancy gear or other help, there should be a death rate of 50% from engaging with equivalent foes. The extent to which the PCs are better than that describes how special they are relative to their peers, and reduces the danger of engaging them in combat proportionately.

 

[Hussar]

I think if one makes the simple assumption that all combats end in death for one and only one of the engaging parties (admittedly a very simplistic assumption), it's clear that for the entire world, there must be a death rate of 50% from engaging in battles. It's a dog eat dog world.

To me, that's why D&D has multiple venues for determining how powerful you are. It seems to me that for someone who's level 1 and who has 10's in all ability scores and no special fancy gear or other help, there should be a death rate of 50% from engaging with equivalent foes. The extent to which the PCs are better than that describes how special they are relative to their peers, and reduces the danger of engaging them in combat proportionately.

Sure. What you are describing is basically an NPC. It would be a pretty rare PC. But sure in peasant vs Orc scenario, it's 50:50.

Which basically reinforces my point that in a DnD game, odds are very rarely that bad. Which means that typically PC's will win the majority of encounters.

 

[Hussar]

Because it doesnt match D&D traditions. Because it doesnt match reality. Because it doesnt match fantasy tropes. Because it makes little sense. Because you have to pick your fighting style well before great weapons are useful.

There's no strong argument for making great weapons only good at high levels. Only arguements against.

I'd pretty much agree with all of that. Was more playing devils advocate.