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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9216335" data-attributes="member: 8461">Which showcases what I was talking about, in terms of using similar mechanics (though at least this time they're different operations that function similarly, rather than being the same thing) while defining them as being different results from an in-character perspective. A fireball spell is presented to the effect that (so long as it's targeted at the proper square, and the target doesn't have some sort of special ability to negate/avoid it) its inflicting damage on the enemy is a foregone conclusion; it's going to injure them, and the only question is if they can at least minimize the wounds they take.Fighters being able to do damage on a miss functions in a mechanically similar way, but presents an entirely different paradigm in terms of what's happening in the game world, because we're flat-out being told that the attack didn't injure the enemy (whether or not it failed to connect entirely, or made contact but didn't transmit any damaging force thanks to the armor/shield/magic the target was using, isn't clear since "Armor Class" unhelpfully conflates those two different defense modes), but still caused a loss of hit points, because under that paradigm hit point loss is both injuries taken and depletion of stamina (with "stamina" being shorthand for "ability to continue fighting or otherwise taking action"). If you're hit with a fireball, you're not being demoralized, or losing divine protection, or pushing your luck to where it finally runs out, etc. You're being burned.Which I see as a trend in the wrong direction. While I can understand the desire to simplify and consolidate, there's a point at which it becomes reductive, or at least jejune, in having things that are (sometimes wildly) different in what they connote being similar (if not nearly identical) in operation. It's not at all surprising to me that a lot of people found that to be an unpalatable manner of trying to bridge the martial-caster divide.Again, that's a symptom of the issue, rather than being the issue itself. Yes, you can say that the missed attack "grazed" the individual being targeted, causing a small scratch that's worth 2 hit points of damage, the same as 2 hp worth of damage on a successful attack would have been denoted as a scratch. The problem is the attendant presentations that such a game operation wasn't a scratch at all, but was the enemy being demoralized, and so those hit points lost can be recovered by the warlord shouting at them, which gives them their mojo back, etc..That's far more egregious than giving someone an unstoppable attack power, where they will injure any opponent whom they try to injure, presuming that there's an adequate presentation for the how's and why's that works. That the 5.5E playtest is at least naming their damage on a miss power "graze" is a nod in the right direction.</blockquote>

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