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

[RangerWickett]

To try to stop this thread from going any farther:

When you 'hit' on an attack, you make some form of contact. Which is to say, you hit, at least a little. The foe takes some amount of injury -- a streak of blood as the arrow slides past, a bruise as your attack slams their armor into their skin, some rustled jimmies as he parries your sword but you get a quick kick into his groin.

When you 'miss' on an attack, you make no contact. You inflict no injury.

So no, there should not be damage on a miss. Ever. Hit points can still be abstract, but they always represent some amount of injury.

 

[Chocolategravy]

That's damage on a miss. And without it, large high impact weapons that will rattle the enemy by sheer force and momentum and AD&D's armour paradigm make no sense at all.

High impact weapons will be larger and armor is EVEN BETTER against them. You're trying to argue the very thing that makes armor better is worse.

The things that armor isn't good against are handled with DEX saves.

This might make more sense if the "to hit" roll represented a single swing of a weapon which it doesn't. A melee "hit" is merely a representation of the best attack effort of the round.

A giant's boulder is one boulder, not a volley of them. An attack is one swing, shot, throw, whatever. There may be feinting and whatever involved but in this system a roll is one attack.

 

[Umbran]

To try to stop this thread from going any farther

Not going to happen.

The abstract nature of hit points leaves room for interpretation. There will always be someone who interprets them differently than you do, and their interpretation is at least as valid as yours.

So, it is entirely fair to say you like it, or not, and to give your personal reasoning. But don't bother trying to stop different ideas from being discussed. Aside from it being a Sysiphean task, it is also rather against the ethos of the boards. If they want to discuss it in a civil manner, it is not for you to stop them.

The flip side of this being that, in the past, some folks on both sides of this issue got their dander up so much over this, that we created a sub-forum for the topic, to keep the animosity from flowing over.

Don't expect us to do that again. If you go over the line, expect a banhammer.

So, play nice, and be ready to agree to disagree. Better yet, don't enter the conversation unless you intend to *learn* from it, rather than to teach others how things should be.

 

[RotGrub]

The abstract nature of hit points leaves room for interpretation. There will always be someone who interprets them differently than you do, and their interpretation is at least as valid as yours.

So, it is entirely fair to say you like it, or not, and to give your personal reasoning. But don't bother trying to stop different ideas from being discussed.

Thank you for saying this. We don't need a one true way for everyone we simply need options for everyone.

 

[Azzy]

Holy thread necromancy, Batman!

I thought this issue died in a fire long ago.

 

[BigVanVader]

Hit points can still be abstract, but they always represent some amount of injury.

Uhhh...no they don't. They represent something happening, depending on what the DM thinks should happen, and what the players can badger him into compromising on.

Holy thread necromancy, Batman!

I thought this issue died in a fire long ago.

What is dead may never die. We pay the iron price, here.

 

[Consona]

Thank you for responses, guys!

I think Hit Points is just misnomer we got used to it. Such as Armor Class, etc. And as every abstraction these things have their problems, but on the other hand, they bring storyletting opportunities. I don't want 5e to become simulationistic game but I think sometimes DoaM makes really sense.

If you caused damage on a miss then you didn't miss, did you?

That's why I think it's misnomer. HP are fatigue from dodging and blocking too, so that damage means loss of fatigue even when the attacker missed, because you had to take some action to make him miss, like dodging (Dex is a part of AC), and when the enemy is really skilled in combat it's not that easy to dodge his attacks.

I believe the key to success for automatic damage (damage on a miss) is the frequency of use in any game. If a character has an ability that does automatic damage all the time without very specific circumstances (coupe de grace) then is teeters on the edge of believability. With that stated, if care is taken to limit it to area effects or very high skill/level in any specific attack or spell, then it fits well with an exception based game like D&D.

Dex save somewhat represents DoaM for spells. Sometimes you can understand that as DoaM.

Hit points can still be abstract, but they always represent some amount of injury.

But not physical injury all the time, it's even stated in the rules themselves! Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck.
You can have half of your total HP away and still don't have any scratch on your skin.

Yeah, hitpoints inherently bother me, just like many other aspects of the game bother me, but it helps if you think of them as more abstract. Otherwise, you're stabbing the level 15 Halfling with a dagger nine hundred and twelve times, because he has so much HP. And that's just silly.

Don't worry. HP are definitely not just a meat points. HP are abstract concept so you can interpret what happened the way you want. This is heroic fantasy, thanks to HP heroes can do things that would kill in real world instantly, whoch takes away some strategy but that's another problem. This game is about heroes who can take sword, kill a dragon with it and survive!

Hiya.

My 2¢ here...

I think if someone was to use a DoaM thing in D&D, the damage should have NOTHING to do with the actual weapon/attack and only involve the level/HD of the person attacking. If we are to take the assumed HP = "more than just meat", then the more powerful people (re: higher level with more HP's) should be able to last longer in a fight. But at the same time, we can't really use weapon damage (or claw, bite, spell, etc) as the base because it generally doesn't 'keep up' with HP's...and we did assume HP = "more than just meat".

Anyway, what I'd do is give a small die type, scaling up as a creature increases in level/HD, as a per-round "damageing aura". So a mid-level Fighter or an Ogre might have a d6, whilst a massive stone giant may have 2d8. If someone is in combat with such a being, and within its attack range ("reach"), if it doesn't score an actual "hit", then it does it's "aura damage"; so, if you are in combat with a stone giant, you will be taking 2d8 every round, regardless...but at the same time, the stone giant is taking that d6 damage from the mid-level fighter as well. It would make combats a lot shorter, that's for sure!

Personally...I'm fine with the abstract "it's a game, so just go with it" side of D&D combat. It's fast, furious and open to infinite interpretation...something no rule set could ever hope to codify.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Interesting idea. But I would deal DoaM just when creature attacks PC and misses. Adrenaline and such have quite opposite effect than Damage aura would have.
DoaM should definitely not be weapon damage but level/HD damage that represents the skill of enemy.

Hmmm...I see HPs as an abstract reflection of stamina, damage, morale/fighting spirit. It's a combination of near hits, hits and just wear and tear physically and mentally. It's the only way to explain things like the Bard's Song of Rest lifting spirits to "heal", the feat that provides inspiration and temp HPs and temp HPs themselves. That's why I liked the bloody mechanic of 4e which signifies that you are now taking significant mortal damage. This is how I explain hit points to new players who want to understand how realistic is taking that much "damage".

With this, I'm ok with the concept of damage on a miss. I'd say its nearly missing potentially fatal attacks with brutal weapons mentally sapping away at the players/enemies fighting spirit which will cause them to second guess themselves and make poorer decisions in combat which can ultimately lead to death at 0 HPs.

Yea, I'm with you on this. Maybe I would give DoaM just to some stronger enemies to reflect their skill in combat.

I thought this subject was dead. Holy resurrection thread Batman.

It will never be dead because HP are such a abstract concept. Sorry if my concern about this topic bothers you.

 

[Hussar]

I'd love to see the HP=Injury crowd explain how an 18th level fighter regenerates. After all, he keeps regenerating until he hits half HP or he's dead, nothing in between. It is actually physically impossible to kill an 18th level fighter with a dagger in 5th edition.

 

[ExploderWizard]

A giant's boulder is one boulder, not a volley of them. An attack is one swing, shot, throw, whatever. There may be feinting and whatever involved but in this system a roll is one attack.

A missile attack does represent a single shot, throw, or whatever. Melee doesn't work that way. It's the nature of an abstract system.

 

[BryonD]

I'd love to see the HP=Injury crowd explain how an 18th level fighter regenerates. After all, he keeps regenerating until he hits half HP or he's dead, nothing in between. It is actually physically impossible to kill an 18th level fighter with a dagger in 5th edition.

The people who say HP are fully meat are going to run into issues with D&D, just as the people who insist they are wholly abstract will run into issues with non-4E D&D.

If you accept that an arbitrary mix with some obligation of DM judgement is built into the system, then it works amazing well.

IMO, this also applies to AC/DoaM. There are issues with pure AC and the concept of "hit/miss" in most forms of D&D. But they are easy to rationalize or narrate around. But they still are there.
DoaM also creates conflicts, but they are vastly less satisfying, for me, to work around. They drag the game down. Describing some misses as whiffs as some misses as simply failure to inflict harm works in a fun way. I find it highly unsatisfying to accept that all "misses" for certain attacks to include some degree of damage, thus making it impossible to truly miss altogether.
A "if you miss by 3 or less" style rule could resolve this. But in 30 years I've never needed it so I see no reason to start now.