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

[Flexor the Mighty!]

AC and HP work fine for what they are, abstract representations of how hard it is to inflict injury on a foe, and how much injury he can take before dropping. 5e does heal a bit too fast for my tastes, but that is easily tweaked and it does fit the base campaign assumption of heroic fantasy. AC works fine. A to hit by weapon type chart would be nice though, so swords are less effective against plate than bludgeoning and piercing weapons, etc. But that's isn't all that necessary. I've played systems that had very detailed to hit and damage charts, like Harnmaster, but found them a bit tedious compared to D&D and more abstract systems.

 

[Ranes]

I'm addressing only one of the many mechanisms of 4e and could care less for what "a lot of people dislike".

No you couldn't. You couldn't care less. That's what you mean. Do you think by saying that you could care less you're being ironic? The only irony is that you're not.

Just say, "I couldn't care less," please. The construct you're using simply doesn't work on any level and should be taken out and shot for being the verbal vomit of the halfwit who coined it that it is.

I've often described misses as that which connected but failed to physically injure or otherwise do harm. Rarely has this warranted further discussion. When other DMs have done differently, that's been fine with me. I don't think it matters much how people interpret hits and misses.

Balesir's point is the take-home for me from this thread. Put another way, if the designers of a future edition of D&D decide to do away with HP altogether and come up with some other, more clearly defined measure of how alive and capable of exertion a character is, that'd be just fine.

Meanwhile, I hate rolling 1s when I level but I suck it up, because it comes with the territory.

 

[Jester David]

It does. It favors status quo so it does pick a side, if that is how you want to look at things. I don't think a pick a side approach is very productive.

The status quo isn't *really* a side. It's a middle ground. There's never just two sides without a middle, there's alwatys
Both 1e and 2e were vague on the nature of hit points. With nonlethal damage, 3e skewed to "meat" and with martial healing, DoaM, and healing surges 4e leaned heavily to energy. 5e now returns to the middle ground of 1e/2e and the status quo of hit points being vague and abstract.

The thing is, D&D HP never actually matched the source fiction very well. HP don't work if you want a duel like the one between the Man in Black and Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. Neither of them actually makes any contact with the other. In D&D terms, pre-4e anyway, neither has lost a single HP, Inigo loses the fight. In Lord of the Rings, Frodo is hit by the troll and slammed into the wall, knocked unconscious. Yet, he springs up, with no healing, and is perfectly fine after a short rest and proceeds to run a short marathon away from the hordes of orcs and whatnot in Moria.

That's the thing, no version of hit points represents reality or cinema very well. The Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo Montoya fight and one is knocked unconscious after the first blow. But it also takes more than a single night's rest to restore Westley to health after the fire swamp.
To say nothing of the reality of Frodo being slammed against the wall with enough force to stun him. He should have shattered ribs at the very least. But, it could be argued, they spend a couple weeks letting breaks and sprains heal in Lothlorien (checking a timeline, the Fellowship actually spends a full month with the elves before departing.)

Hit points are a terrible system for representing health. But they work. And they work so long as you don't draw attention to the problems or focus on them being health or energy. Once you start unraveling hit points the entire thing falls apart. You want to focus on hit points and their nature as little as possible, and any additional rules beyond the minimum increase the risk of breaking the suspension of disbelief in someone's game.

Healing is one of the aforementioned "minimum". You need rules for healing.
The speed of healing is a concession, and a necessary one. The playtests showed that a large number of people (the majority or largest minority) wanted faster healing, so that's why we have that. But there are rules for slower and faster healing provided for everyone else. It's an easy fix, which lets you play one way or another without impacting characters. The change is made on the DM's side.
Likewise, you could add non-lethal damage as a rules module. Or wound points/vitality. Maybe even a form of martial healing. But Damage on a Miss is trickier as it's harder to produce as a separate concept kept in the DMG. Not in the way fans of DoaM seem to be arguing for.

(Okay… that said, it would be very easy to allow as a combat option ala cleave. The Glancing Blow option. Which would very certainly work, as it could totally be worded so DMs could veto it in situations where it doesn't work. That would actually be a very cool option for some games.
And if DoaM fans were arguing for something like that, the conversation would be different. But most of the calls for DoA want it as a fighter power or base part of the game.)

Firstly, while I see many movies where strength of human spirit, inspiration and grit works miracles, that can't happen in an RPG where magic has to be a result of literal magic. You can have drama, for sure, and courage - even (with luck) success against the odds - but not the attractive fantasy of sheer human(oid) spirit, of grit and sheer determination. Games where this fantasy of larger-than-life heroes really works are only really possible if "hit points" are manipulable by heroism, (demi-)human spirit, grit and swashbuckling gung-ho - with or without glowy stuff called "magic".

I disagree with that.
It's not as if healing magic is mandatory. You can heal just fine without magic, and adventure just fine without magic. Magic is just an accelerant for healing.

And, again, there are options that greatly increase non-magical healing making that work just fine. We have the baseline which is good for most and fairly standard while still "feeling like D&D", and variations for everything else.

Secondly, if an intensely rational, "physical" game with all the fantasy hard grounded in tough realities, I don't think a game using hit points does it well. The ingrained "accepted wisdom" that RPGs have to treat the life of characters as a resource "pot" has, it seems to me, stifled development of games that treat health and injury in a more grounded, non-gamey way. As long as we treat life as a pot of points or "levels" that get abraded away instead of as a fragile thing that is endangered by accumulating nasty consequences, any one of which can snuff it out, roleplaying "life" will never really feel as delicate and fragile (and yet as resilient and energised) as it is in the "real world".

I disagree with that as well.
There's tonnes of other health system. The big pile of hit points is almost non-standard when you look at other games. Especially in games that aspire to realism. Soaking and/or damage reducing armour is the plot armour of choice.

There is a place for both these styles of game, and more. Let's try to learn to appreciate them for what they add, not attack them for what they take away.

That's the catch, for me DoaM only takes away and doesn't add anything.
And, again, there's totally a place for a healthy middle ground and the two extremes supported by optional rules. But DoaM as part of the base assumptions of the game… no thank you.

And from a general perspective, DoaM doesn't really add much.
Tell me, what does you see DoaM as adding to the game? Not hit points as energy, not fast healing. Just DoaM.
It doesn't provide any extra opinions in combat, and it doesn't increase combat effectiveness more than any other form of static DPR increase. You don't roll more dice. It doesn't help you visualize your character. It doesn't define the role of your character or separate a class from another class.
What does DoaM bring to the table that is unique and essential?

 

[Jester David]

Thinking on things after I wrote my last post, I considered how a generic DoaM action would look and did this:

Glancing Blow
An option for games where accuracy and regular damage is desired. This is useful for campaigns with a heroic tone, where the PCs should be more effective. It's also useful when regularly facing large numbers of lower level opponents, allowing them to be injured more easily but also increasing their chances of inflicting minor damage to the PCs.
If you attack a target and hit it but fail to penetrate its defences, your attack can still deal damage as it glances off your target's armour or thick hide. If attacking with a melee or ranged weapon and your attack roll misses by 4 or less, you have landed a glancing blow deal bludgeoning damage equal to the ability score modifier used in the attack. A glancing blow does not count as a hit for any abilities or powers that trigger on a hit.
If your attack misses by 5 or more your attack completely fails to hit the target. If your attack would miss the target because they are behind cover or similar reasons then you do not land a glancing blow.

It's a quick first draft since I need to compare the language to that in the DMG.
Thoughts?

 

[D'karr]

No you couldn't. You couldn't care less. That's what you mean. Do you think by saying that you could care less you're being ironic? The only irony is that you're not.

Just say, "I couldn't care less," please. The construct you're using simply doesn't work on any level and should be taken out and shot for being the verbal vomit of the halfwit who coined it that it is.

I have four letters for you. C-H-I-L-L! 'I care little but, I could care less if you couldn't care less.

I've often described misses as that which connected but failed to physically injure or otherwise do harm. Rarely has this warranted further discussion. When other DMs have done differently, that's been fine with me. I don't think it matters much how people interpret hits and misses.

True, people should make the game their own.

Balesir's point is the take-home for me from this thread. Put another way, if the designers of a future edition of D&D decide to do away with HP altogether and come up with some other, more clearly defined measure of how alive and capable of exertion a character is, that'd be just fine.

Meanwhile, I hate rolling 1s when I level but I suck it up, because it comes with the territory.

Good luck with the rolling.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I can't see what DoaM would add to my game.

 

[guachi]

Ok. Wow
First, It is really bizarre to me that you would assume to tell me what should be fun to me.

Second, I'd point out that modern D&D (not mention modern tabletop roleplaying as an industry) has evolved vastly from the 1970s. I have ancient ancestors who didn't need feet. I still like my feet.

Third, you have not actually made an argument. You've simply made two highly questionably claims.
It is true that in strict war gaming this debate is almost never an issue. And it is true that early D&D evolved directly from war gaming. To claim it as fact that those who made that evolutionary leap automatically carried this specific holdover with them is in great doubt. OD&D was not a war game. A lot of things changed.
I started playing around 1981 and I can recall that the debates over how to best narrate HP were quite common. So I call BS on your claim that they didn't care.
Your second highly questionable claim is that what those people did or did not care about has any influence on what other people (then or now) find enjoyable. I think any rational person will see the absurdity of this claim.

Considering there are multiple quotes from people who actually played with Gygax himself about what HP meant to them I highly doubt my claim is questionable. Your claim that people playing in 1981 cared about HP is irrelevant. They weren't the first people to play D&D. Not by a long shot. By first to play, I mean "first to play" like with Gygax, etc. I'm uncertain how "first to play" means anything close to your interpretation of "played in 1981" considering D&D was first published in 1974.

And of course people care what other people think about something. "Did you like this?" "No, I did not." "Oh, maybe I won't like it either."

If you don't what people's opinion on this matter are, why are you even posting in this thread? Just go play D&D and do whatever you want. Pretend HP are whatever you dream them to be.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Before DoAm came along, people were actually able to imagine HP was what ever combination they wanted. Basically it used to work for "all" playstyles and now it only works for some. Having explosions and spells have damage on a miss actually made perfect sense but anything else didn't.

 

[Minigiant]

I can't see what DoaM would add to my game.

Make great weapon nonbarbarians not suck at low levels.

That was the point in the playtest.

EDIT:
To clarify

Weapon and Shield had better AC and could deal the same damage (Deuling) or protect allies (Protection)

Two Weapon fighting dealt more damage.

Reach weapons had reach.

Ranged weapons had range.

Unless you get a second attack or were a barbarian, great weapons were inferior.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The status quo isn't *really* a side. It's a middle ground. There's never just two sides without a middle, there's alwatys
Both 1e and 2e were vague on the nature of hit points. With nonlethal damage, 3e skewed to "meat" and with martial healing, DoaM, and healing surges 4e leaned heavily to energy. 5e now returns to the middle ground of 1e/2e and the status quo of hit points being vague and abstract.

I think that is rather biased way of framing the debate.

I never really consider nonlethal damage to weigh heavily on the question of the nature of HP, because I just thought of them as a much needed replacement for vomit-inducing ancient subsystems (dragon subdual and brawling).

At a practical matter, 3e made healing more available for modest cost, because the daily healing rate was increased and it was so easy to have one person in the party dip to gain access to CLW wands.

In terms of play experience, 3e felt somewhere between 1e/2e and 4e/5e. At least to me.

So, naming 3e as the counterbalancing data point to 4e/5e, with 1e/2e implied as near the middle ground seems to undermine your own argument. IMHO.