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

[Mistwell]

Your own bolded emphasis kinda defeats your own point, doesn't it?

You said earlier that you voted against damage on a miss because your players didn't like it. I think your defense of damage on a miss is actually overstating. Isn't more useful to argue for or against something in proportion to its importance to you?

I agree. My argument is mostly because it really bugs me when people say an optional playstyle should be excluded from the game because they personally dislike it. And when they start talking like it's the equivalent of WOTC baby raping to include a playstyle one does not like, like Burninator's been doing, I feel compelled to inject some sanity and try and explain the other side of things.

It actually disappointed me that so few others have stood up to Burninator's over the top histrionics, just because they agree with his position.

 

[Mistwell]

I see 4e-style abilities in the same way that I see Michael Bay over-the-top in-your-face unrealism : they take you out of the movie, and make you roll your eyes.

I nominate this post as the most unintentionally ironic post of the month. Do I hear a second?

 

[mlund]

The receptionist keeps getting Room 12 and Room 12A confused when giving people directions, it seems.

- Marty Lund

 

[Manbearcat]

Great White Shark: I missed my bite on the fur seal with my DEADLY BREACH PREDATION FROM BELOW attack! Curses!

Fur Seal: Uh, you weigh 5000 lbs, have 4 ft girth, and "missed" me with your mouth at 25 MPH, guy. My little pinniped ribs are broken and have punctured my liver and spleen.

Great White Shark: So unrealistic. This real life game is trash. And if you don't believe me then you're clearly an idiot, Fur Seal.

...

Great White Shark: Uh, Fur Seal?

 

[Ahnehnois]

I agree. My argument is mostly because it really bugs me when people say an optional playstyle should be excluded from the game because they personally dislike it.

Damage on a miss isn't a playstyle though. It's a mechanic. And not one that creates any distinctive and meaningful play experience that any of its defenders have been able to articulate thusfar.

It's like others have said, analagous to any other mechanic. They took out THAC0. Did that exclude the THAC0 playstyle? Was some crucial element of the AD&D game experience lost when they took it out? I don't think so. There are some mechanics you could make the case that they are that important, but I definitely don't see damage on a miss as one of them.

Playstyles are real things, but I don't see that playstyle differences are relevant in any way to this particular discussion. We're talking about a nuts and bolts game mechanic on a small scale (one character ability) and how it interacts with and compares to other mechanics, not an entire philosophy of gaming.

 

[Manbearcat]

Collateral Damage: Damage to things that are incidental to the intended target.

I intend to cut your head off with this greatsword. I miss your neck. My momentum and fury brings a centrifugal forced elbow into contact with your sternum accidentally on purpose. Your sternum is collateral damage.

I intend to take you down via a double leg takedown. You sprawl and defend thus causing a mess. My aggression and the force of my rush brings the crown of my head into your nose accidentally on purpose. Oops. Your nose is collateral damage.

 

[The Human Target]

A glancing blow that your character is skilled enough to turn into a minor hit that deals a minimal amount of damage?

Sounds good to me.

 

[Burninator]

I agree. My argument is mostly because it really bugs me when people say an optional playstyle should be excluded from the game because they personally dislike it. And when they start talking like it's the equivalent of WOTC baby raping to include a playstyle one does not like, like Burninator's been doing, I feel compelled to inject some sanity and try and explain the other side of things.

It actually disappointed me that so few others have stood up to Burninator's over the top histrionics, just because they agree with his position.

You must be so brave, taking a stand against basic reasoning!

If you wish to "inject some sanity", please admit that hits and misses are opposites of each other, and saying true = false is a contradiction. Please, for sanity's sake! Since you've appointed yourself as chief psychiatrist! Let's get some sanity : start with yourself.

A playstyle has nothing to do with whether something's nonsense. And if it is, if the only play to play your playstyle is with contradictory, meaningless rules, then explain to me why they deserve to be included.

I feel like I'm a game show : "Fair and balanced! On the one side, the masses of flat earthers, and on the other, all the world's scientists. But we give equal air time to both ideas since the earth being flat or not is controversial, and because we are so fair and balanced and inclusive! You decide! Truth is subjective"

Truth is not subjective, statements can be proven false, you know. "I swing my sword and miss, and my sword damages my target" is a false statement. Nothing you can say or do will change that. Nothing anyone here can will change that.

Hit, miss, damage, swords, none of those are game concepts. They are familiar to anyone off the street. The question is : do you want to play a game which is completely full of contradictions, or do you want to minimize those? Because, from what I can tell, published rules that contained Reaping Strike and things like it, were a COLOSSAL SALES FAILURE.

They lost, quote "half their customers" to a third party that most people had never heard of before, because they "blew up the game" (that's an actual quote from a Wotc senior adventure / module designer)

 

[The Human Target]

Woooooooooooow.

 

[bogmad]

Originally Posted by bogmad post #247 [edited for clarity]
And if a "miss" has no numerical effect in terms of hit points then we can have it both ways. I can describe a low [or wild] miss how I want and you can describe it completely differently. When you add damage on a miss is when it dictates a certain kind of effect be described,(ie the kind that does damage).
Personally, I find effects having a greater or lesser effect according to the die roll pretty intuitive, so I don't have a problem with a "near miss" mechanic as a compromise for everyone clamoring for miss-damage, but if it causes this much consternation it wouldn't bother me to leave either out.

Yes. Get rid of the "hit-miss" descriptors. That's for narration, not for mechanics.

Sorry to take the thread 5 pages back, but I just noticed the implication here and recent histrionics on both sides didn't seem to be advancing the conversation.

So here are you saying that the terms "hit" and "miss" should be divorced from the words used to describe a successful attack roll?