D&D 5E "Damage on a miss" poll.

[ImperatorK]

I know what the problem of the opponents of this ability is - it's simply spite. They don't like the ability, but even though they personally don't have to use it (either in their games or on their characters), they can't stand if someone else will use it, even though that would have no (or minimal) impact on them whatsoever.

 

[Hussar]

I'd also point out that this could easily open up a new area of narration that binary hit/miss can't - wearing the opponent down to the point where it cannot continue.

Imagine for a second that the fighter with GWF is facing 3 hp kobolds. Now, he auto kills one kobold every round, whether he hits or not. But, how can we differentiate the narration? If he hits, he splats the kobold, fine and dandy, no worries. If he misses though, maybe the kobold screams, drops his weapon and runs away. Maybe the kobold cowers on the ground, too scared to keep fighting against this engine of destruction wading through their midst.

IOW, we can narrate a death from this as a morale failure, rather than a straight up death. Since HP loss isn't necessarily actual physical damage, this opens an entirely new area of narration that can lead to all sorts of interesting RP opportunities (after all, if you simply kill all the kobolds, there's not a whole lot of RP going on afterwards).

 

[Ahnehnois]

You've said this mulitple times. I don't understand your reasoning. On a hit the attacker does inflict exhausation and/or wear and tear: W + STR worth thereof.

Yes, but the same is true for anyone. This specific character ability is only active on a miss. As the damage done on a hit is unaffected by the damage on a miss ability, it demonstrably has nothing to do with that ability.

Thus the example I gave above about an ability that does extra damage regardless of a hit or miss, which is a very different thing.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'd also point out that this could easily open up a new area of narration that binary hit/miss can't - wearing the opponent down to the point where it cannot continue.

What does that have to do with anything? It's entirely possible to narrate a hit in terms of other things than direct effects of wounds. Damage on a miss has nothing to do with what kind of damage is being dealt.

 

[Garthanos]

I'd also point out that this could easily open up a new area of narration that binary hit/miss can't - wearing the opponent down to the point where it cannot continue.

Imagine for a second that the fighter with GWF is facing 3 hp kobolds. Now, he auto kills one kobold every round, whether he hits or not. But, how can we differentiate the narration? If he hits, he splats the kobold, fine and dandy, no worries. If he misses though, maybe the kobold screams, drops his weapon and runs away. Maybe the kobold cowers on the ground, too scared to keep fighting against this engine of destruction wading through their midst.

IOW, we can narrate a death from this as a morale failure, rather than a straight up death. Since HP loss isn't necessarily actual physical damage, this opens an entirely new area of narration that can lead to all sorts of interesting RP opportunities (after all, if you simply kill all the kobolds, there's not a whole lot of RP going on afterwards).

Or it triggers a luck based narrative finale.. I missed the kobold but not the wall behind it, peices of which fall on my target finishing them of.

 

[Garthanos]

As the damage done on a hit is unaffected by the damage on a miss ability, it demonstrably has nothing to do with that ability.

Does not follow... the same factor strength bonus defines the damage on a miss amount as defines the on a hit amount.... its basically like what folk have said I hit your armor the force still gets through but the edge didnt. Hence the idea that hit on a miss is just a simplification of hitting touch armor class without the complications of tracking extra armor type. (and in a small way doing it better since hitting somebodies armor ought to always do less)

edit: it did occur to me that having blunt impact be half damage might have some heritage so doing half when one hits touch armor and full when hit full armor ac could be leveraged as well for those who dont mind the complexity - ie like [MENTION=6750373]dmgorgon[/MENTION].

 

[Garthanos]

What does that have to do with anything? It's entirely possible to narrate a hit in terms of other things than direct effects of wounds. Damage on a miss has nothing to do with what kind of damage is being dealt.

Possible to do so but it rather encourages it on occasion... It seems obvious to me that having damage on a miss evokes alternate narratives. (arent people complaining they feel it forces the narrative of always dealing a wound - or always doing it perfectly? or similar) I miss you but a chunk of the scenary finishes you off, I miss the kobold but he is terrified to the point of flight all... implied by the (I missed but....)

Similarly If you have a character who's schtick is the jacky chan style wear them out - you might portray many attacks as defending and wearing them out - but it might be nicer to have ones which act risposte like and work when the enemy misses you with an attack.

 

[Hussar]

What does that have to do with anything? It's entirely possible to narrate a hit in terms of other things than direct effects of wounds. Damage on a miss has nothing to do with what kind of damage is being dealt.

Really? We've had numerous examples here where a hit must deal physical damage. A miss fails to deal damage does it not? Aren't you the one insisting on the plain English definition of words? How can you damage something without actually physically interacting with it?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Really? We've had numerous examples here where a hit must deal physical damage. A miss fails to deal damage does it not? Aren't you the one insisting on the plain English definition of words? How can you damage something without actually physically interacting with it?

Well, for one thing, the two aren't mutually exclusive. It's six full seconds. That's enough time to bludgeon/pierce/slash someone and do something else. To say that any potentially lethal damage must include a component of physical wounds does not say that the target is not being worn down in some way as well. If anything, it makes more sense to think of hit point damage in general as being part wound, part not.

So, for example: "You swordplay dazzles the goblin, whose feeble parries subside as he collapses to the ground exhausted" is quite a stretch for a narration of a 'hit' dropping an enemy. Let alone a miss.
However: "The goblin's parries become more and more feeble until finally, it reacts too slowly, and you slash its neck with a decisive strike" kind of works.

If you want to use the 5e bloodied paradigm, you could rbrm narrate the first half of the opponent's damage completely in indirect terms if you wanted to, and the rest of it in mixed wounds/exhaustion terms.

In any case, I don't see how damage on a miss lends itself better to wearing down an opponent. If we were talking in terms of an effect that worked irrespective of hitting or missing (like the damage aura you suggested a while back or some of the mechanics I posted about more recently), it might, but that's not how this particular ability works.

 

[billd91]

EDIT: Having read the Wikipedia description of "rope a dope"....I actually think DoaM is just about as precisely fitting to that tactic as one could hope for in D&D: missing and letting the other guy wear himself out with his attacks on you...although surviving those attacks might be a bigger problem. Of course, HP&AC are such abstractions that its honestly tough to tell how that works out in D&D.

So you're trying to say that the character playing the defensive is the one using the damage on a miss tactic? That doesn't really fit because, with Ali's rope-a-dope, he's relying on his opponent to tire himself out with his own punches. If Foreman had stopped attacking, he would have stopped being worn down. That's why trying to use damage on a miss for the Ali position, in this case, doesn't really work in a narrative sense. A better fit would be either Ali being able to do damage when he is hit or Foreman having an exhaustible suite of major attacks that get expended as Ali turtles up.
The point I was making was that had Foreman some equivalent of an inexhaustible damage on a miss attack like GWF, Ali's rope-a-dope doesn't work... at all.

I see no evidence that Julio is or isn't taking any damage. He could very easily be taking damage and then eventually (through fatigue or bad luck) take a critical swing from Tarkin that drops him....i.e. Julio finally runs out of HP.

The problem is that with damage on a miss, the defensive tactic is pretty much always a losing strategy. There was always the possibility of suffering the major lucky hit - that's an official staple of D&D since 3e and a frequently house-ruled one since time immemorial. But against the damage on a miss character, there's little point in holding back on your own offense to play defensive - you're still having your own hit points ablated away. Better to embrace the cult of the offense and go all out. And that reduces the tactical and narrative texture of the combat game.

DoaM also limited by your ability to make an attack...i.e. if some kind of condition prevents that, or you choose not to attack, you don't "miss" to trigger the damage in the first place.

Since that's also true for traditional area of effect abilities and devices as well, the two factors generally cancel each other out.