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Damage on a Miss: Because otherwise Armour Class makes no sense
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6268876" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>You're coming to the right conclusion, but I have a slight disagreement with your premise. Armor Class doesn't make you "harder to hit," which carries the implication that a failed attack must therefore be a miss; rather, Armor Class makes you harder to land a <em>damaging</em> blow on. That's a small but important distinction, because the addition of the "damaging" qualifier means that you can avoid the blow entirely, or stop it (typically via blocking) to the point where it causes no damage to you despite having made some sort of physical contact.</p><p></p><p>AC is, therefore, an aggregate measure of both blocking and dodging. Since there's no specification about what range on your AC total corresponds to what component (e.g. "if you have a 26 AC, a to-hit roll between 10-17 lands on your breastplate, a roll of 18 is dodged from your Dex, a roll of 19-21 is blocked by your <em>+1 shield</em>..." etc.), you're free to narrate precisely how a failed attack failed.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No, it's not - that's damage on a <em>hit</em>.</p><p></p><p>The problem here isn't that we need to redefine what Armor Class means; AC's combination of blocking and dodging works just fine. The problem is that damage on a miss calls itself "damage on a <em>miss</em>" while then counterintuitively stating that you've been hit for damage. It's pushing a narration that's opposed to the mechanical results. If it changed its in-game narrative to "damage on a glancing blow" that would have solved the disparity.</p><p></p><p>The problem is that "damage on a miss" says its going left, while producing results that show it going right. It's trying to have its cake and eat it too. That's the problem here.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You seem to be saying that the narrative of "you're hit by a powerful blow and despite blocking it, you still take some damage" can't be included in D&D unless you have "damage on a miss" rules. That's not really a credible argument - if someone stops a powerful blow, and still takes damage from it, that can just as easily be called a successful attack roll that deals low damage. Alternatively, there's nothing particularly unbelievable about someone stopping a powerful blow enough to the point where they take no damage at all (which can be a failed attack roll without DoaM rules).</p><p></p><p>EDIT: ninja'd by delericho!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6268876, member: 8461"] You're coming to the right conclusion, but I have a slight disagreement with your premise. Armor Class doesn't make you "harder to hit," which carries the implication that a failed attack must therefore be a miss; rather, Armor Class makes you harder to land a [i]damaging[/i] blow on. That's a small but important distinction, because the addition of the "damaging" qualifier means that you can avoid the blow entirely, or stop it (typically via blocking) to the point where it causes no damage to you despite having made some sort of physical contact. AC is, therefore, an aggregate measure of both blocking and dodging. Since there's no specification about what range on your AC total corresponds to what component (e.g. "if you have a 26 AC, a to-hit roll between 10-17 lands on your breastplate, a roll of 18 is dodged from your Dex, a roll of 19-21 is blocked by your [i]+1 shield[/i]..." etc.), you're free to narrate precisely how a failed attack failed. No, it's not - that's damage on a [i]hit[/i]. The problem here isn't that we need to redefine what Armor Class means; AC's combination of blocking and dodging works just fine. The problem is that damage on a miss calls itself "damage on a [i]miss[/i]" while then counterintuitively stating that you've been hit for damage. It's pushing a narration that's opposed to the mechanical results. If it changed its in-game narrative to "damage on a glancing blow" that would have solved the disparity. The problem is that "damage on a miss" says its going left, while producing results that show it going right. It's trying to have its cake and eat it too. That's the problem here. You seem to be saying that the narrative of "you're hit by a powerful blow and despite blocking it, you still take some damage" can't be included in D&D unless you have "damage on a miss" rules. That's not really a credible argument - if someone stops a powerful blow, and still takes damage from it, that can just as easily be called a successful attack roll that deals low damage. Alternatively, there's nothing particularly unbelievable about someone stopping a powerful blow enough to the point where they take no damage at all (which can be a failed attack roll without DoaM rules). EDIT: ninja'd by delericho! [/QUOTE]
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