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

[Wicht]

I don't really get this. Why is it so easy to believe in the (utterly unrealistic) inescapable explosion which one can never escape; but so hard to believe in the (far more realistic, I think) fighter who always wears down opponents in 6 seconds of clashing with them?

Because, firstly, the ability is always on. Or did you miss the bit about "eyes gouged out?" And because, secondly, it makes it impossible for the fighter to have an unproductive round in melee, making, imo, the game less fun by reducing tension (even if only by a modest amount).

That's the point. The player who spends PC build resources on this ability is purchasing this capability for his/her PC.

You may or may not like it, but I can't see how there is any denying that this is a real choice, with real playstyle implications.

I don't know that I ever tried to argue it was not a choice to include this power in the game or for a player to include this ability in their character's abilities. I just don't think its a good choice to include it in the game, because it does inherently have playstyle implications. It is the sort of ability that reduces playstyle choices rather than broadens them.

Though frankly, I don't see why you can't just ignore it. I mean, suppose the rules were published without this ability, and you went about using them in a truly satisfactory manner. How does it change all the other rules, and their truly satisfactory nature, to also include this as an optional ability?

What a great idea! Next time the whole fighter vs. wizards debate comes around, I am just going to tell people that "Pemerton doesn't see why you can't just ignore it. Suppose the rules were published without this spell, and you went about using them in a truly satisfactory manner. How does it change all the other spells, and their truly satisfactory nature, to also include this as an optional spell?"

I am sure that will cut the whole debate short.

Or maybe not. Perhaps people would respond that, in their opinion, it showed poor design work on the part of the designers and that they don't like buying a game and then having to promptly ignore bits of it. Or they will say that if its in the rulebook, then players should be able to use it, because to do otherwise is unacceptable DM Force, and who wants to play with a DM that just tells players what they can or cannot do, when the rules as written say otherwise? Afterall, we want to play DnD, not Calvinball, or Pemertonball.

Seriously, if the time to advocate for this sort of inclusion/exclusion in the core game and its sensibilities is not now, then when is it? After the game is published, if the designers have chosen to include this sort of ability as a standard character choice, it is then that we can give it, and/or the game, a pass.

 

[Wicht]

As is, I'm left wondering if my practice of narrating misses in the Elder Air Elemental versus Tarrasque as leveraging the dodge portion of AC for the Elder Air Elemental and the magically enhanced thick hide portion of AC for the Tarrasque as mitigating the blow is somehow a deviant practice?

I would suspect its typical.

 

[billd91]

That's the point. The player who spends PC build resources on this ability is purchasing this capability for his/her PC.

You may or may not like it, but I can't see how there is any denying that this is a real choice, with real playstyle implications.

But who wouldn't choose to hit all the time if they could do so? Is choosing to be successful all the time really an appropriate play style choice for a reasonably fair and balanced game? The difference between a miss here and a hit could be significant (as significant as the difference between rolling high on the damage die and rolling low) but it could also be as little as 1 point of damage. That's quite an option there, to be able to do almost as much damage on a miss as rolling low on damage for a hit. Frankly, it's feeling increasingly munchkinny to me.

 

[billd91]

I don't really get this. Why is it so easy to believe in the (utterly unrealistic) inescapable explosion which one can never escape; but so hard to believe in the (far more realistic, I think) fighter who always wears down opponents in 6 seconds of clashing with them?

We already have the idea of a fighter wearing down opponents in 6 seconds of clashing with them and have always had the equivalent. The fighter fights, achieves a success on task roll, and that wears down his opponent (whether you believe a hit is blood, meat, and bone or not). But we've also had the idea that a fighter's attack may be resisted, be avoided, or simply be ineffective through happenstance.

 

[Wicht]

But who wouldn't choose to hit all the time if they could do so? Is choosing to be successful all the time really an appropriate play style choice for a reasonably fair and balanced game? The difference between a miss here and a hit could be significant (as significant as the difference between rolling high on the damage die and rolling low) but it could also be as little as 1 point of damage. That's quite an option there, to be able to do almost as much damage on a miss as rolling low on damage for a hit. Frankly, it's feeling increasingly munchkinny to me.

Pathfinder has the bleed mechanic. I would be dead-set against a player ability which gave a 1st level character the ability to make a single character within 5 feet suffer 1d4 bleed for 1 round, no saving throw allowed.

Mechanically, there is no difference between the power I just described and the one being discussed.

 

[Halivar]

But who wouldn't choose to hit all the time if they could do so? Is choosing to be successful all the time really an appropriate play style choice for a reasonably fair and balanced game? The difference between a miss here and a hit could be significant (as significant as the difference between rolling high on the damage die and rolling low) but it could also be as little as 1 point of damage. That's quite an option there, to be able to do almost as much damage on a miss as rolling low on damage for a hit. Frankly, it's feeling increasingly munchkinny to me.

I would rather take options that increase my ability to hit, and thus do more damage than this mechanic. This is failure mitigation, rather than exploitation of success, which is a playstyle more up my power-gaming alley.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I just think people should stop throwing the playstyle argument around any time they have no rational case to make. My playstyle requires that they not do that, and if anyone says otherwise, they're a badwrongfun edition warrior troll*.

*Not really, but you get the point.

I think it's important to keep in mind that all preferences are ultimately kind of arbitrary, and they get to be. If someone wants to see 5e as some sort of catastrophic fun failure because there's no damage-on-a-miss (or vice-versa, because there IS), that's up to them, and they get to make that choice for themselves.

Not sure what either one of those folks would really have to gain, but there's enough choice out there that if that's someone's dealbreaker...well, okay then.

 

[Manbearcat]

I would suspect its typical.

As would I. As such, if "a miss" against a Tarrasque can be "a collision between two objects that is fully mitigated" (eg; "a hit" definitionally within the fiction but "a miss" mechanically), then what specifically is the problem with the paradigm of "a miss" as "a collision between two objects (a hit) that is mostly mitigated." If one position is orthodox then why is the other position so controversial?

Its difficult for me to parse. Is it the frequency aspect for people (or at least for some but not others)? I don't think there is some monolithic position of "damage on a miss is terrible." There seems to be some nuance within the tribe but plenty of overlap:

- Some don't like it for a percieved (though unquantified to date) balance issue.

- Some don't like the fiction that it creates. Presumably, they perceive HP as meat. They percieve an Attack as a singular moment within the fiction. They perceive AC as not a coupling of multiple vectors (as above - dodge, parry, block, armor as damage reduction, magical warding) but as the defenders stat within the strict contest that spits out the binary outcome of "to collide or not to collide." Therefore, 1 attack is 1 swing that determines if a collision occurs and therefore meat is hacked away or not hacked away (they would seem to narrate Tarrasques vs Elder Elemental different than you and I).

- Some don't like it because they percieve it to be an incoherent paradigm of modeling process per their perception of the intentions of D&D's mechanical artifacts; "a miss in D&D's mechanical archetecture and in the Oxford English Dictionary means a lack of a collision between two objects...a miss is a miss is a miss (they would seem to narrate Tarrasques vs Elder Elemental different than you and I)."

- Its less fun. The prospect of a complete whiff being on the table for all martial characters is mandatory for fun.

- Some don't like it because of frequency. "This happens every single time he attacks?" This presupposes, presumably, that there would exist an on-screen surveyor who would be collating data on hit:miss ratio. This, of course, presupposes hit as "collision between two objects" and removes the various vectors of AC, constraining it solely to % chance to dodge within the fiction. Perhaps this camp would be ok with something like 13th Age's Flexible Melee Attacks; "on a an even attack roll that misses, roll again and if you hit, you do Strength damage to the target?"

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think it's important to keep in mind that all preferences are ultimately kind of arbitrary, and they get to be. If someone wants to see 5e as some sort of catastrophic fun failure because there's no damage-on-a-miss (or vice-versa, because there IS), that's up to them, and they get to make that choice for themselves.

Sure. I just hope that a message board discussion, though it starts with simple declarations of subjective things, can lead to a more productive exchange of ideas than that.

Certainly, I've derived some of my gaming principles because of digging into these "why" questions online and reading other people's answers.

 

[Wicht]

As would I. As such, if "a miss" against a Tarrasque can be "a collision between two objects that is fully mitigated" (eg; "a hit" definitionally within the fiction but "a miss" mechanically), then what specifically is the problem with the paradigm of "a miss" as "a collision between two objects (a hit) that is mostly mitigated." If one position is orthodox then why is the other position so controversial?

Several reasons, most of which you touch on yourself. Its not that continual damage on a miss has a single problem, but rather it is a nexus of unnecessary difficulties.

Without point by point illustrating or repeating all of them (as you document them yourself, there is no need), the mechanic is also confining. In your previous examples, you determined, via the mechanics the reason for the miss and described it as such. The ability removes that opportunity by removing the possibility of the miss. It dictates that there is never a failure to contact and that there is never an opportunity for the attacker to just whiff the attack. For instance, if a fighter rolls a 1 or a 2 and misses, I never describe contact, I normally make a joke about the fighter swinging and getting only air, which in the case of really big creatures the size of a barn, is rather funny. That narrative option disappears with the mechanic.