Someone can explain to me why they like something, without persuading me to like it.
The question is not whether you can persuade me to like it. The question is whether you can persuade me that other people like it. At the moment, I see two large threads full of people who hate damage on a miss for quite a diverse variety of reasons, and people who like calling that first group of people names.
But they have given genuine explanations of their like for it.
I don't believe that. I haven't heard anything that would suggest to me that even its promoters would really prefer the damage on a miss over a simple bump to attack or damage, both of which also model relentless attacking and reduce the chance of an ineffectual turn, without all this madness.
First, it's actually not true that "guarantee of effectivenss" is not within the scope of PC abilituies. A pre-3E wizard, for instance, has a guarantee of effectiveness in putting creatures weaker than ogres to sleep, at least 1x/day. And the latest iteration of Next also bring back Sleep without a saving throw.
As always, using magic as an example is hardly fair, but misses the point anyway. There are a variety of reasons a spell might fail or be nullified, and Sleep generally has pretty restrictive conditions, so it's not a guarantee outside of those conditions. It probably isn't the wisest approach to design to design a direct attack spell that doesn't involve a d20 roll (though there might be exceptions), but it isn't equivalent.
For one thing, even in these cases, it's a "guarantee of effectiveness for a few seconds if you have the right spell memorized", which is not a guarantee in my book. The player who doesn't like a turn passing ineffectually is still going to find that happening on many of his turns. For another, "effectiveness" is somewhat subjective. Damage is clearly a lasting effect, but sleep is transient, and sleep spells vary with regards to the conditions for waking up.
But "infallability" is not a relevant concept here. Being able to do STR damage minimum per round is not infallability.
Sure it is. If one simply opens one's mind enough to see "failure" as "attacking, but dealing no damage", then an ability that prevents this outcome from occurring is infallibility.
In other words, Ahnehnois - as far as I can tell - is asserting that the only discussion that is on topic is whether one thinks it is desirable, in the game, for a fighter to be able to inflict physical injury with a sword without that sword having to make contact with the target of the attack.
(I think Ahnehnois also thinks that the answer to this question, self-evidently, is "no", although he has not explained how, under such constraints, the game makes room for possibilities like an enemy falling over, and suffering injury from the fall, as a result of being pressed to avoid an assailant's attacks.)
I think it goes deeper than that. The question is, how in a game where rolling equal to or higher than a DC is a success and rolling lower than the DC is a failure (I of course can't copy that text either), should there be one specific character ability that redefines failure on one of the most common and important rolls you make to be a qualified success?
Which applies to even things like an enemy falling. After all, one might narrate the damage from a successful attack in that way, but we're not talking about a success. We're talking about a fighter who has tried to engage the action resolution mechanics to perform a task (attack the opponent), and who has definitionally failed. The attack roll, as others are noting in an unrelated tangent, happens first; how and why damage is or is not dealt is narrated afterwards.
