D&D 5E Damage on a Miss: Because otherwise Armour Class makes no sense

[Joe Liker]

The problem isn't that hit points = meat. The problem is that any given number of hit points occasionally have to equal meat and occasionally have to equal energy. The blow that knocks you to 0 might be a blast of dragonfire, the Hail Mary swordblow from a bard, a fall from a cliff, or a poisoned arrow.

It's Schrödinger's Hit Points, being both injury and fatigue at the same time.

Damage in a miss gets funky because it mandates one or the other. It opens the box. And that causes problems when it comes to things like the killing blow.

Actually, it's still fine. Schrödinger's Cat is only a mystery if you never look inside the box, but we look inside the box every time we determine the outcome of a roll.

If the DoaM was not enough to knock the target out, it was fatigue.

If the DoaM was enough to knock the target out, it was physical damage of some kind, even though the dice technically believe it was something else.

 

[D'karr]

I'll address Schrödinger's Hit Points by use of two examples:

Example 1:
The scene: A well contested Heavy-weight championship fight.
After a few rounds of body blow exchanges, jabs, deflected hits, dodging, weaving and constant movement around the ring the boxer is punched in the jaw. With a glazed gaze he tumbles forward, and gets knocked out. The referee starts the count, "1, 2, 3." The boxer is down and seems out of it. "4, 5", the count continues. The corner coach is screaming, "get up you bum!" "6, 7", the referee is looking carefully at the boxer on the mat. The boxer starts to get up and is on one knee. "8, 9", the boxer gets back on his feet. The referee checks him out and the fight continues. Eventually this boxer wins the fight by knockout on the 12th round.​

Example 2:
The scene: A well contested Heavy-weight championship fight.
After a few rounds of body blow exchanges, jabs, deflected hits, dodging, weaving and constant movement around the ring the boxer is punched in the jaw. With a glazed gaze he tumbles forward, and gets knocked out. The referee starts the count, "1, 2, 3." The boxer is down and seems out of it. "4, 5", the count continues. The corner coach is screaming, "get up you bum!" "6, 7", the referee is looking carefully at the boxer on the mat. "8, 9", the boxer is out and seems unable to recover. "10!" the opponent wins by knockout. The boxer on the mat does not recover, as a matter of fact he is Dead on Arrival at the hospital.​

In either of these cases, how many of the boxer's HP were meat and how many stamina, luck, skill, divine favor, etc.?

The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter. What matters is the final outcome. Did he get back up and continue to fight? Did he survive the fight? Did he die?

If he gets back up it's a heroic comeback. If he survives the fight, it's a bonus. If he wins the fight it's a great win. If he dies then go back to character creation and make up another one.

The whole conversation of Schrödinger's Hit Points is a red-herring in this respect, because how many hit points are meat is irrelevant. What matters is what was the final outcome of the fight (win, lose, draw, or death).

 

[billd91]

In either of these cases, how many of the boxer's HP were meat and how many stamina, luck, skill, divine favor, etc.?

The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter. What matters is the final outcome. Did he get back up and continue to fight? Did he survive the fight? Did he die?

If he gets back up it's a heroic comeback. If he survives the fight, it's a bonus. If he wins the fight it's a great win. If he dies then go back to character creation and make up another one.

The whole conversation of Schrödinger's Hit Points is a red-herring in this respect, because how many hit points are meat is irrelevant. What matters is what was the final outcome of the fight (win, lose, draw, or death).

No, that's not true - at least not for everyone. Part of the fun isn't just the score of wins/loses - it's how you get there AND how you deal with it. If a party gets into a fight and the fighter loses a lot of his hit points while out in the wilderness, away from towns and temples, and the cleric's dead - some understanding of the nature of his wounds becomes a germane question. In superfast healing editions like 4e and 5e, he's up and back to full form farcically fast. In 1e, he's got a long slog before he's ready to take on the same kinds of challenges he is up to fresh. 3e is somewhere in between. The answers the editions take to these questions, particularly via healing, have a pretty big impact on pacing and the campaign's feel.

 

[Umbran]

.... some understanding of the nature of his wounds becomes a germane question. In superfast healing editions like 4e and 5e, he's up and back to full form farcically fast. In 1e, he's got a long slog before he's ready to take on the same kinds of challenges he is up to fresh. 3e is somewhere in between. The answers the editions take to these questions, particularly via healing, have a pretty big impact on pacing and the campaign's feel.

A hit point is a hit point. 1e, 3e, 4e, or whatever, the "nature" of the hit point loss is not generally relevant to healing. The game mechanics deal with meat and non-meat hit points the same way.

The narrative history is not represented mechanically - all we know is the character is down hit points.

 

[billd91]

A hit point is a hit point. 1e, 3e, 4e, or whatever, the "nature" of the hit point loss is not generally relevant to healing. The game mechanics deal with meat and non-meat hit points the same way.

The narrative history is not represented mechanically - all we know is the character is down hit points.

That's taking the siloing of concepts way too far. They nature of hit points and the issues of healing are closely related.

 

[D'karr]

No, that's not true - at least not for everyone. Part of the fun isn't just the score of wins/loses - it's how you get there AND how you deal with it. If a party gets into a fight and the fighter loses a lot of his hit points while out in the wilderness, away from towns and temples, and the cleric's dead - some understanding of the nature of his wounds becomes a germane question.

I'm not sure how you would reach that conclusion since healing in AD&D doesn't care whether HP are meat, luck, skill, divine favor, etc. Without magical healing HP Recovery is ALWAYS the same. One HP recovered for FULL day of rest for the first week (7), add your CON bonus from then on. You have a different cap if you have a CON Penalty but that is also irrelevant to the conversation. If the fighter was unlucky enough to go to 0 (or -3 optionally) then start chunking in weeks and even magical healing is limited.

So the idea that one needs to determine the nature of the wound is irrelevant as ALL HP are recovered in the exact same manner. There is no special healing path if the HP is meat, and another if the HP was luck, skill, divine favor.

This is one of the reasons that HP recovery and HP description in AD&D are somewhat schizophrenic. The description of HP as luck, skill, etc. all of a sudden disappears when you lose HP. Why would it be so difficult to recover skill, luck, stamina, etc.?

Just because the system sucked doesn't mean that it is not workable. Once again the only reason it is workable is because it is an abstract system. Doesn't mean that sitting out the game for several "game weeks" when your character lost HP was not a sucky way of addressing the problem.

In superfast healing editions like 4e and 5e, he's up and back to full form farcically fast. In 1e, he's got a long slog before he's ready to take on the same kinds of challenges he is up to fresh.

4e and 5e could easily be tweaked in either direction. You want longer recovery, change the rate of resting recovery. However, and this is where I think both make a design faux pas, the DM should be aware of what should be adjusted to make that work (encounter building, etc.)

3e is somewhere in between.

Enter the cheap magic item economy - there is a reason wands of cure light wounds were so prevalent in the game. This was a conscious design step taken to address what was already happening in the majority of games as the AD&D HP system sucked and the only way to counter it was with magic. So the designers moved what was happening in a majority of games and made it core.

In other words, the AD&D system had some flaws, the 3e system fixed them but the fix relied entirely on magic. It still had the issue of the healbot having to spend their actions solely in a support role. With magic items at least the rogue could use the wand with Use Magic Device and the healbot did not have to spend their spell slots in healing spells.

What 4e and 5e do is keep this type of accelerated healing and make it core so it does not require magic.

Where both systems fail is in being overt to the DM in how to change it to fit their tastes. The DMG module for healing in 5e does not advice the DM in what to do with encounter building if he decides to change the rest period frequency. 4e unfortunately does not address it, though it is trivially simple to do.

The answers the editions take to these questions, particularly via healing, have a pretty big impact on pacing and the campaign's feel.

Understood and I can agree, but the nature of HP have nothing to do with that as was shown with what AD&D was doing.

 

[billd91]

I'm not sure how you would reach that conclusion since healing in AD&D doesn't care whether HP are meat, luck, skill, divine favor, etc. Without magical healing HP Recovery is ALWAYS the same. One HP recovered for FULL day of rest for the first week (7), add your CON bonus from then on. You have a different cap if you have a CON Penalty but that is also irrelevant to the conversation. If the fighter was unlucky enough to go to 0 (or -3 optionally) then start chunking in weeks and even magical healing is limited.

So the idea that one needs to determine the nature of the wound is irrelevant as ALL HP are recovered in the exact same manner. There is no special healing path if the HP is meat, and another if the HP was luck, skill, divine favor.

This is one of the reasons that HP recovery and HP description in AD&D are somewhat schizophrenic. The description of HP as luck, skill, etc. all of a sudden disappears when you lose HP. Why would it be so difficult to recover skill, luck, stamina, etc.?

Just because the system sucked doesn't mean that it is not workable. Once again the only reason it is workable is because it is an abstract system. Doesn't mean that sitting out the game for several "game weeks" when your character lost HP was not a sucky way of addressing the problem.

In your opinion, the system in 1e sucked. That's not a universal one. But I think there's a view of hit points that you're missing. Hit points having a substantial component in luck and skill isn't undermined by a long healing process and the AD&D approach isn't schizophrenic. It just means that there's a mix of meat, luck, skill, and so on that has a higher proportion of the physical aspects of hit points than faster healing editions. If all it takes is a good night's sleep to fully recover, that pushes the nature of hit points away from physical components and into something else. You're not finding a lot of blood and guts in that mix. A months time for full recovery in 1e is still fast compared to the amount of punishment a body can take, so we can be pretty sure hit points aren't all meat but we can also be pretty confident in our narration that the physical injury is significant - significant enough to make the PC very vulnerable for a while.

As far as taking that long to recover being sucky - I think it adds a nice bit of pacing to a game that too often becomes a race to high levels that rivals a Rocky training montage. Slower healing can lead to non-adventuring play, PCs broadening their stories rather than focusing just on action, PCs researching their next conquests and adventures, seasonal change in the game as a GM reacts to the PCs taking a month or two off between adventures. There's a lot a table of gamers can accomplish in developing a campaign if they take the time to really do it and 1e healing times could facilitate that approach. And that's not sucky at all.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

No, that's not true - at least not for everyone. Part of the fun isn't just the score of wins/loses - it's how you get there AND how you deal with it. If a party gets into a fight and the fighter loses a lot of his hit points while out in the wilderness, away from towns and temples, and the cleric's dead - some understanding of the nature of his wounds becomes a germane question. In superfast healing editions like 4e and 5e, he's up and back to full form farcically fast. In 1e, he's got a long slog before he's ready to take on the same kinds of challenges he is up to fresh. 3e is somewhere in between. The answers the editions take to these questions, particularly via healing, have a pretty big impact on pacing and the campaign's feel.

Whether it is a challenging problem or a stupidly tedious slog or a cakewalk depended on how many clerical spell slots the party had on hand. Since the person writing the adventure module cannot predict such things, it just gets dropped unceremoniously into the DM's lap to make corrections on the fly.

To put it bluntly, the designers seem to have decided that such was a major design flaw with 1e/2e/3e, and I agree with them there. The design of the game should not so strongly dictate what character classes the players must choose in order to have fun -- you should play a cleric because you want to, and the party should not be forced to fall back on an NPC cleric.

As for "farcically fast", you are making very strong assumptions about genre. In action movies, comic books, and most old myths there is nothing strange about heroes who barely survive the day being ready for action aplenty the next day, as the norm. Within the broad scope of heroic genres, the HP grind of which you speak that last for days (or weeks!) is the far outlier.

Please note that I am not saying that the careful marshaling of HP resources was not sometimes very fun -- yes, it can be fun. But IME it was also sometimes a horrible fun killer that knocked adventures off the rails. "Gee, I guess we hide in the nearest closet and heal up as best we can, and hope the delay does result in the end of the world."

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

As far as taking that long to recover being sucky - I think it adds a nice bit of pacing to a game that too often becomes a race to high levels that rivals a Rocky training montage. Slower healing can lead to non-adventuring play, PCs broadening their stories rather than focusing just on action, PCs researching their next conquests and adventures, seasonal change in the game as a GM reacts to the PCs taking a month or two off between adventures. There's a lot a table of gamers can accomplish in developing a campaign if they take the time to really do it and 1e healing times could facilitate that approach. And that's not sucky at all.

Are you suggesting that Rocky training montages were not the norm?

Regardless, I do admire the ideas you have here. But IMNSHO the DM should be given tools to dial in the right amount of this stuff directly. Hoping to gain these advantages indirectly via side effects of the healing system would be painfully sloppy mechanics, prone to cause misunderstandings in expectations.

 

[Jester David]

Actually, it's still fine. Schrödinger's Cat is only a mystery if you never look inside the box, but we look inside the box every time we determine the outcome of a roll.

Any time you draw attention to the nature of hit points, when you have a mechanic that depends on one definition over another, it opens the box. This applies to damage on a miss, rapid non-magical healing, lethal versus non-lethal damage, and a few other mechanics.

The nature of hit points is an ooooold argument. There's a sidebar in the 1st Edition DMG on the topic because it's an issue. They work best when they're the other hand of the magician, when the attention is on everything else but the hit points. Any time you start to pay attention the illusion breaks.

That's because hit points are a terrible system. The fatigue/ skill/ luck works some of the time but there's so many instances where it doesn't. But the alternative of static health that never increases, is equally problematic. Hit points are a system MacGyvered and held together with duct tape, gum, and faith. It works but it sure ain't pretty, and don't try and stretch the system in too many directions.

If the DoaM was not enough to knock the target out, it was fatigue.

There are a couple problems.

The first is damage types. For example, if you attack with a flametongue or frostbrand then you're still dealing energy damage. It's not generic fatigue damage but fire damage or cold damage or poison damage. Which matters a lot when fighting things with resistance or regeneration, especially the troll.
Damage on a miss dramatically changes a troll fight. Missing with a flaming weapon (even a torch or improvised weapon) is more effective than hitting with any other type of weapon.

The second problem is one of narration. A hit, if hp is energy, is a near miss that causes the target to tire themselves out deflecting or avoiding. A DoaM miss, if hp is energy, is a near miss that causes the target to tire themselves out deflecting or avoiding. They're the same thing in the world despite having opposite expected results. That's not

If the DoaM was enough to knock the target out, it was physical damage of some kind, even though the dice technically believe it was something else.

And this is the primary problem. There's a disconnect between what the dice say and the result in play. The die ceases to matter and the results are a certainty. That should be discouraged.
It's not even that uncommon. It's very possible to take a low level monster from full health to dead. Or a commoner. This was an issue with the playtest, where the fighter could never fail to kill a goblin (although the final versions are more robust).

The narrative of the game is that a hit is a hit and a miss is a miss. The language even describes them as such: hit, damage, miss, etc. It's not "you have score a shift" or "succeed at the attack". The language we and the game uses is "hit".

The how of the physical damage is tricky as DoaM doesn't care why you missed. It doesn't care that you're fighting a blinking wizard behind cover who activated shield. There's no dodging involved, no armour to bounce off of, no reason for physical contact. The wizard just, somehow, takes damage out of the aether.


All this would be problematic for a good mechanic. A mechanic with a history in the game and strong place in the system. But DoaM isn't that interesting, and isn't a sacred cow deserving of contorting the ruleset to accomodate.
There's no story behind it. It doesn't add anything to the narrative of the characters, it doesn't sound like a character with DoaM is doing anything special or interesting. It doesn't change the tone of the campaign or allow you to tell stories you would not be able to otherwise.
There are also no real examples of it in fiction, where the hero completely misses and cannot land a blow but still manages to kill their enemy. Or, at least not examples that are meant to be taken seriously. There's no scene in Lord of the Rings where Aaragorn pounds on an Uruk Hai's shield for blow after blow until the creature's heart explodes and it just drops.

The only benefit of DoaM is purely mathematical. It increases your average DPR. And it means you're less likely to "waste" a turn swinging and missing. Which I can understand but is part of the game. No one likes missing, but that's part of the risk. And that's a much bigger issue in a slower paced game. It's less of a pressing need in 5e, with its swift turns.