D&D 4E 4e/13thA immersion question and 5e/13thA DoaM question

[Ahnehnois]

Or they dodge your blow but still get taxed by the effort

Or you didn't hit them as hard as you'd like but dented their armor/winded them slightly

Or you missed, but nicked their face slightly.

Or any other number of reasons.

All of those scenarios could unfold with any combatants, leaving two possibilities. One, they represent possible narrations of a successful hit on a normal attack roll (and thus cannot be explanations for DoaM). Two, they are not described in the hit/miss paradigm at all (the rules omit a lot of things).

I do not see how any of those narratives are special things that could only possibly happen if the attacker was a fighter with specific training wielding a specific type of weapon.

I also don't see how any one character could be so good that he could reliably produce at least one of those outcomes every single six-second round he spent trying to do that, completely independent of the defenses of his opponent. Particularly if said character's ability to do this is defined not by having an attack bonus so high he can't miss the target's AC, but simply by knowing one combat maneuver.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

All of those scenarios could unfold with any combatants, leaving two possibilities. One, they represent possible narrations of a successful hit on a normal attack roll (and thus cannot be explanations for DoaM). Two, they are not described in the hit/miss paradigm at all (the rules omit a lot of things).

I do not see how any of those narratives are special things that could only possibly happen if the attacker was a fighter with specific training wielding a specific type of weapon.

I also don't see how any one character could be so good that he could reliably produce at least one of those outcomes every single six-second round he spent trying to do that, completely independent of the defenses of his opponent. Particularly if said character's ability to do this is defined not by having an attack bonus so high he can't miss the target's AC, but simply by knowing one combat maneuver.

Or three: Because they didn't take any DoaM options. Otherwise why can't the Fighter do more damage from behind? WHy can't the Rogue get angry in combat? Why can't the Barbarian use Second Wind?

Short answer: Because they either didn't take or don't have those mechanic choices.

Damage on a Miss works fine from a narrative perspective for reasons I've already explained, and from a mechanical respective because it's neither overpowered or contradicting the game rules.

 

[Obryn]

And look at it the other way. If you smashed the guy with your weapon, bruising him through his armor and knocking him to his knees, would you call that a miss? DoaM does.

Here, the actual rules of D&D are causing the problem. AC is incoherent. It mingles together dodging, armor, parries, magical deflection by force, and a baseline chance I'll simply whiff.

(None of these, I'll add, make it impossible for the other guy to get hurt. Bruises from taking blows on weapons/armor/shields/helms, messy dodges that turn solid blows into glancing ones, falling to the ground and cracking my head to avoid a direct hit, etc.)

It's up there with "hit points" as a game mechanic that makes no sense the moment you try to line it up 1:1 with what's happening in the fiction.

 

[Cadence]

Or they dodge your blow but still get taxed by the effort
Or you didn't hit them as hard as you'd like but dented their armor/winded them slightly
Or you missed, but nicked their face slightly.
Or any other number of reasons.
Your inability to work DoaM into the narrative doesn't mean the mechanic doesn't make narrative sense.

You forgot "becoming distracted or off balance" - hit points measure that now too (13A pg. 167). Apparently you can be distracted to death. That would be embarrassing!!!

Except for Kobold's... they never wear down or get dented or winded or nicked or distracted. They're narrative super-heroes.

And characters facing lame monsters that aren't "exceptional and talented" enough that "they rarely launch an attack to no effect". Those characters get missed a lot to, but not because they're super... it's because the monsters aren't.

---

I think anyone who is capable of narrating how HP and AC overlap in 1e to 3/3.5/PF (where a hit that did 18 points of damage could cleave one target from stem to stern and only be a flesh wound to the high level fighter) could handle narrating how attack rolls and DoaM overlap (you're so boss that except on a 1 you are always actually hitting the bad guy -- unless its a Kobold, they're better than you).

The difficulty is that a _lot_ of people have years or decades of experience in getting their brains to gloss over the former in ways that don't mesh with DoaM. Now the rules are asking them to change that interpretation to fix something that was seemingly a non-problem for quite a while.

Having the rule book provide well thought out examples of narrating these things in combat, without flippancy, might help smooth the transition for those players.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Or three: Because they didn't take any DoaM options. Otherwise why can't the Fighter do more damage from behind? WHy can't the Rogue get angry in combat? Why can't the Barbarian use Second Wind?

Short answer: Because they either didn't take or don't have those mechanic choices.

The reasoning for any of those is tenuous as well. After all, if rage is so great, anyone should be gaining some advantage. Stabbing someone in the back should be pretty nasty no matter who is doing the stabbing.

This is really one of the main problems in D&D design these days: too much is in the character classes, and not enough detail is in the general combat rules.

Here, the actual rules of D&D are causing the problem. AC is incoherent. It mingles together dodging, armor, parries, magical deflection by force, and a baseline chance I'll simply whiff.

(None of these, I'll add, make it impossible for the other guy to get hurt. Bruises from taking blows on weapons/armor/shields/helms, messy dodges that turn solid blows into glancing ones, falling to the ground and cracking my head to avoid a direct hit, etc.)

It's up there with "hit points" as a game mechanic that makes no sense the moment you try to line it up 1:1 with what's happening in the fiction.

All true, which to me suggests that, as always, there are two main design considerations in this area.

One, tradition. Maintaining backwards compatibility is a good thing, and might be enough reason to keep things like AC and hp around.

Two, improvement. If AC doesn't make sense, perhaps separate mechanics for dodging, parrying, and blocking are needed. If hp don't make sense, perhaps mechanics that separate fatigue and real physical wounds are needed.

I don't, however, buy the reasoning that two wrongs make a right. Just because the basic mechanics are limited does not mean that adding more nonsense than we already have is okay.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

The reasoning for any of those is tenuous as well. After all, if rage is so great, anyone should be gaining some advantage. Stabbing someone in the back should be pretty nasty no matter who is doing the stabbing.

This is really one of the main problems in D&D design these days: too much is in the character classes, and not enough detail is in the general combat rules.

Welcome to all of D&D. If you have a problem with it, I have a feeling Next isn't the game you're looking for.

 

[heretic888]

Note that just because a game mechanic is too abstract to neatly correspond with a 1:1 simulation doesn't mean there is anything wrong with said mechanic or that it doesn't "make sense". especially when the rest of the game is absolutely filled to the brim with similar such mechanics.

It just means you're trying to pound a square peg (DnD) into a round hole (1:1 simulationism).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Note that just because a game mechanic is too abstract to neatly correspond with a 1:1 simulation doesn't mean there is anything wrong with said mechanic or that it doesn't "make sense".

Absolutely true.

None of the issues with DoaM have nothing to do with how abstract it is (or how abstract hp and AC are).

 

[pemerton]

GWF is not all that abstract. It's a class ability that some characters choose.

It's a class ability that some players choose. Nothing in the rules indicates that that player choice corresponds to any sort of character choice.

hitting and missing are mutually exclusive states in the mechanical realm, and I think that follows in the world as well.

It does damage, right? Which is what happens on a hit, right? That damage applies to "hit" points, right?

Huh? A hit causes damage, but it doesn't follow from that that anything that causes damage (falling, fireball, poison, etc etc) is a hit!

Both hitting and missing with a bow shot both cost the archer an arrow - my heavens, two mutually exclusive games states having a common consequence!

Both succeeding at and failing a saving throw vs lightning bolt results in a character taking damage (from hit points, even though s/he was not hit by an attack!). Once again, two mutually exclusive mechanical states having a common consequence.

I think the universe is going to survive both a hit and a miss inflicting damage when resulting from a GWF attack. D&D is very comfortable with these cases of mutually exclusive mechanical states still having common consequences.

Everyone who does not know this one trick does not do damage on a miss, even if they are otherwise the most skilled (/relentless/implacable/unstoppable/etc.) swordsman on the planet.

This complaint makes no sense - it's like complaining that a rogue out-damages a fighter with sneak attacks even if the fighter is the sneakiest attacker on the planet!

A character without GWF cannot be the most relentless/implacable/unstoppable swordsman on the planet, for the same reason that a fighter can't be the sneakiest attacker on the planet, and a wizard can't be the most divinely empowered devotee on the planet - because in each case that privilege is conferred, by way of the PC building rules, upon a different build of character.

That's what a D&D-style class system does.

 

[Ahnehnois]

This complaint makes no sense - it's like complaining that a rogue out-damages a fighter with sneak attacks even if the fighter is the sneakiest attacker on the planet!

Which is a perfectly sensible complaint! After all, one of the biggest problems with the 2e rthief. Why can he hide in shadows and no one else can access this special rule (excepting a few niche classes with access to thief skills)? What happens when someone else tries to be stealthy?

Of course, this was neatly solved with the 3e rogue by moving it to the skill system. Hiding is now independent of class, and the rogue simply receives faster advancement in it. Looking at the rogue class tells you nothing about how hiding works, only about how good the rogue character is at doing it.

Of course, you're right that the new issue is why the rogue seems to be the only character that seems to gain any real advantage from stabbing someone in the back. The solution is the same: write complete combat rules independent of any class that describe all possible actions and scenarios, and make the character creation rules simply describe who is incrementally better at backstabbing (or swinging hard and recklessly, or using shields, or channeling rage, etc. etc.). Reading the fighter description should tell me absolutely nothing about what actions can be attempted in combat or how they work.

The continued presence of endless menus of specialized, exclusive class abilities is a far bigger issue than any one particularly poorly designed ability.

That's what a D&D-style class system does.

That is sometimes what the anachronistic aspects of the D&D class system do. Exclusivity has disappeared over time. It used to be that a D&D-style class system meant that you had to pick what class you were from the start and could never change, or that what race you were tightly restricted what classes were available to you. It's perfectly natural to continue removing restrictions that are unneeded or which don't make sense.

It's a class ability that some players choose. Nothing in the rules indicates that that player choice corresponds to any sort of character choice.

Another one of the beauties of the 3e skill system, which explicitly states that characters know what skills they have and choose to train them. Of course, I can't quote any 5e text, but I think it was pretty clear that character classes are not metagame constructs. Certainly, a "D&D-style class system" in general refers to a set of in-game choices. Fighter are aware that they are fighters and not wizards, and they know why. I don't think it's a big leap to say the same of the consequences of being a fighter (class abilities).