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

[urLordy]

Funny isn't it. Forever Slayer posts an absolute (no spell with an attack roll ever does damage on a miss) and gets shown to be wrong by Mistwell, yet you don't seem to have an issue with that. I post a question, admitted strongly worded (mostly out of frustration for not getting an actual answer) and you jump on me with snark.

You overstated the case, you admitted it. Overstatement can be a real obstacle on Enworld (especially with contentious topics like this one), so although I'm so sorry if I sounded snarky (I thought I was disarming with humour but maybe it wasn't all that funny on your end), at least it worked to put things into perspective I think. As for that other issue, look, I'm not a paladin on a crusade to correct every single user on this thread. Do you want me to publically take issue with Forever Slayer? I think the squabbling over the spell with no attack roll is a red herring and doesn't deserve that amount of exposure and I skip over most of those posts, and like others I don't equate splash damage with melee weapons, so I wouldn't contribute to that kind of IMO nitpicking.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Funny isn't it. Forever Slayer posts an absolute (no spell with an attack roll ever does damage on a miss) and gets shown to be wrong by Mistwell, yet you don't seem to have an issue with that. I post a question, admitted strongly worded (mostly out of frustration for not getting an actual answer) and you jump on me with snark. According to Ahn, it's my side of the fence that's guilty of the ad hominem attacks and dodging the questions.

It ends up being a spell with a "grenade" like effect which would still make sense. Mistwell knew the type of spells I was referring to so let's not pretend to be clueless here just to win an argument.

 

[Wicht]

I know I've asked it at least twice in this thread alone. I need a 15 to hit the target. I, after modifiers, get an 8. What happened in the game world?

You missed.

 

[Wicht]

Sorry yes that one. And again, please stop adding caveats once you get your answer - it's a spell that requires an attack roll, and does damage on a miss, and those were the only requirements. That's the very definition of a moving target, when you add a new limitation only after you get an answer. See, what would be the point of me answering? You won't answer the question of "how many would be convincing" (you'll give one later, which will be "at least one more than the number you come up with"), and you won't include all your limitations until after you hear the spells so you can adapt your limitations to the answer you receive (it will include some new limitation to exclude any examples given). You see how this has become a game more than a discussion? You really think it's fair to ask someone to go through dozens of books looking to answer a question posed, and then to invalidate the answer only after you get it with something new created purely to invalidate the answer? Come on now, this isn't a game of whack-a-mole. I addressed the question asked - don't retroactively alter the question after it's been addressed.

I am genuinely interested. You said there are lots and lots in the Player's Handbook. Explosions aside, seeing as how the purpose of the roll is actually just to get it close enough (and is a mechanic mirrored in non-magical attacks such as alchemist fire and hand-grenades), I want to know if there are any rays or touch (by-hand) attack spells that do damage on a miss. I am being specific, not to move the goal-posts, but to avoid misunderstanding. I understood actually what the original statement meant and thought he was right. There are no spells with an attack roll targeting a single creature (ie. non-area-of-effect spells) that do damage on a miss, in the base set of 3x spells. Ray of frost, cause serious wounds, what have you -its a pretty good rule of thumb that if you roll to hit, and its a single creature targeted, even for spells, a miss means there is no effect. Obviously anything that explodes regardless of whether it hits is not going to abide by this rule. But these spells are the best analagous comparison to a fighter swinging a non-exploding sword if you are interested in proving the point that we've always done things this way anyway.

And you don't have to search books and books. I am only interested in the core set of spells.

(and apologies to all of you who think this is a tangent. But after 100 pages on the original topic, I don't feel too awfully guilty about chasing a different rabbit for a page or two.)

 

[Mistwell]

I am genuinely interested. You said there are lots and lots in the Player's Handbook.

I didn't say "in the Player's Handbook". That's yet another completely arbitrary limitation intended to dismiss any answer given.

Explosions aside

Another limitation added after the fact.

seeing as how the purpose of the roll is actually just to get it close enough (and is a mechanic mirrored in non-magical attacks such as alchemist fire and hand-grenades), I want to know if there are any rays or touch (by-hand) attack spells that do damage on a miss. I am being specific, not to move the goal-posts, but to avoid misunderstanding.

You're adding lots of limitations so that instead of answering the question asked, I am now to go back through and apply a totally new standard. And why should I assume you won't change the standard again after I go through it all a second time? I feel pretty certain if I applied your new sets of limitations the quantity would be much lower, and then you'd dismiss it as quantity too low. So, it would be a useless task - your goal is to dismiss it, not to actually gain information on it. At least, it sure seems that way.

I understood actually what the original statement meant and thought he was right. There are no spells with an attack roll targeting a single creature (ie. non-area-of-effect spells) that do damage on a miss,

Wait now you're adding the totally arbitrary "single target"? Wow...no thanks. This is ridiculous.

And you don't have to search books and books. I am only interested in the core set of spells.

Right, of course you are. So one source, one target, one type of spell. Yeah, that's a totally fair arbitrary set of standards you manufactured to reduce the list there. Again, no thanks. It's a disingenuous approach you're taking.

 

[Mistwell]

It ends up being a spell with a "grenade" like effect which would still make sense. Mistwell knew the type of spells I was referring to so let's not pretend to be clueless here just to win an argument.

No I didn't read your mind and figure out some magical set of criteria you were setting but not speaking until after the fact. I took you at your word - you said no spell required an attack roll and did damage on a miss, so I looked and found some, and then you stated a new set of criteria and are pretending I was supposed to know what you were thinking as opposed to what you wrote.

The words you're looking for here are "Whoops, I was wrong, there are spells like that, but what I meant to say was this..."

Go ahead, give it a try.

 

[Ratskinner]

You can paper over a lot of issues with a narrative but that doesn't prevent the mechanic from being a dubious one for the game. What this mechanic can do, among other things, is invalidate other narratives that rely on a miss actually being a miss. Can a tough warrior "rope a dope" against someone doing damage on a miss? No.

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.

Can a wily swashbuckler do exactly what Julio is doing in the latest Order of the Stick comic against someone doing damage on a miss? No.

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.

Honestly, traditional D&D mechanics for basic combat are so "dissociated" that I'm not sure how or why people continue this sort of reasoning.

And that's because the damage on a miss mechanic runs roughshod over defensive narratives since it is, in effect, unstoppable and unlimited.

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.

It places the cost burden on the defensive strategy rather than on the offense, a contrast from most area of effect/damage on a miss abilities in D&D which are limited or charged. And it's a contrast from the general trend that defense is cheaper than offense.

Now that's perhaps a more serious issue...but this discussion doesn't seem to want to stay in that kind of area.

 

[pemerton]

regardless of how one conceptualizes damage on a miss, whether it involves physical contact or exhaustion or indirect wear and tear, the distinctive aspect that violates the d20 paradigm is not that it occurs on a miss, but that it somehow does not occur on a hit.

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.

how do you narrate a graceful dodger, to use Imaro's example? Excluding magic (since we're talking about the character, and not his or her items), about the highest AC you can achieve with light armor (a pre-req for a graceful dodger - it would be strange for the graceful dodger to be in full plate) is about 25. You can't get any higher than that in 3e, without resorting to magic.

So, our 10th level fighter has a 25 AC and 100 HP. The problem is, by 10th level, CR 10 creatures generally have about a +15 attack bonus (give or take), meaning our graceful dodger gets tagged 50% of the time, more or less. Now, according to Ahn and others, a hit MUST be contact. You cannot take damage without the attack physically impacting you. So, again, our Graceful Dodger is getting beaten like a pinata. He's taking hits virtually every round (since most creatures have more than one attack per round).

But, he's not going down. He's getting hit time and again, taking physical damage, but, he's standing up. How does this fit with the Graceful Dodger?

<snip>

However, if we assume, as it explicitly stated in virtually every D&D DMG, that HP are not just meat, then we have no real problems narrating the graceful dodger differently than the armored fighter.

<snip>

So, for those of you who want miss to always include a clean miss, how do you justify the fact that your interpretation of the mechanics doesn't actually fit what's going on in the game world? How do you justify the disconnect between the fact that you are narrating actual hits every time, with a character that's supposed to be dodging around like Spider Man?

Nice example.

Isn't the point of simulation to answer basic questions of "How did this happen"?

<snip>

Nothing is actually being simulated in a D&D combat attack.

<snip>

You cannot use these mechanics to answer basic questions, that any simulationist rules must be able to answer - "How did I miss?" is a basic sim question that, if it isn't answered, means that these rules are a complete failure for simulation.

"Well, it's simulating a successful or unsuccessful attack". What does that actually mean?

<snip>

In a simulationist system, this is an easy question to answer. Every sim system out there worth the name can answer this very simple question. Yet, D&D cannot. Doesn't that mean that D&D isn't really a sim system and those who argue that it is are doing so from a very questionable position?

I have played a lot of Rolemaster, and a bit of Runequest, and I agree with you as to what a process-sim mechanic should be able to do. From the mechanic you should be able to read off not just an outcome (who is winning the fight?) but a process (what just happened in the fiction?). Now the contrast between outcomes and processes can be a matter of degree, but in single-figure combat, which cares about things like what sort of armour someone is wearing, or how fast/agile they are (DEX to init and AC), or how skilled they are (level-based attack bonuses), and the like, then the question of whether I was dodged, or was parried, or forced my opponent to yield ground, etc, are all things that a process simuationist system should anwswer.

Alternatively, you could have a more abstract process sim system that rolls it all up into a single opposed check. (A bit like a pick pocket check in classic D&D.)

But D&D is a system that spreads combat out over multiple checks (ie you keep going round after round until the hit points are all ablated) but does not enable you to tell anything about what each of those checks involves other than the outcome (who is winning and who is losing?). I agree that as a process simuationist system that is a failure.

But I do not think that most of the anti-DoaM posters are interested in process sim play. (If they were, why would they be playing D&D?) I think by "simulation" or "believability" they are drawing on a certain conception of how the D&D mechanics relate to various basic combat strategies. The to hit roll with a weapon attack tells you whether or not you struck your target. The damage roll tells you how hard you struck them. And the presence of examples that don't fit this paradigm (eg your graceful dodger example) are basically ignored. I'm personally not sure why DoaM couldn't be ignored in much the same way, but it's not my conception and so I don't really appreciate all its contours.

I said I based the severity of the hit based on the amount of damage rolled. That does not preclude different creatures, with different hit-points being affected differently. A blow of 15 hp to an Orc with 3 is a killing blow that lays the anemic orc open. A blow of 15 to a dragon with 200 hp would be a slice that draws blood. Conversely, a hit of 50 hps to the same dragon would be a gash that shatters scales and bears muscles underneath. In my style of play, the manner and extent of the wound is a manipulation, narratively, of the number rolled on the d20 and the amount of damage dealt.

I took you to mean that you based the severity only or primarily on the amount of damage rolled; not to mean that it is simply one of several relevant considerations. I stand corrected.

Consider a 7 hp wound to an uninjured kobold that starts with 2 hp, and that hit with a roll of (say) 4 vs an AC of 13. And now consider a 17 hp wound to an uninjured dragon that starts with 200 hp, and that hit with a roll of (say) 9 vs an AC of 18.

I think that most of the players (and GMs) with whom I have played would narrate the first attack as a rather more vicious a blow than the second, even though it involves a lower attack roll and a lower damage roll.

Now consider a 7 hp wound to the same dragon (now at 183 hp), that hit with a roll of (say) 17 vs its AC of 18. I think most of those with whom I've played would narrate the second attack as more feeble than the first, even though it involves a higher attack roll, and actually takes the dragon closer to death. But suppose the dragon had only 1 hp left, and the same attack were rolled, I think it would be narrated as a vicous killing attack. And it might be narrated in much the same way even had the attack roll been (say) 10 rather than 17, or even had the damaeg roll been (say) 17 rather than 7 hp lost.

In other words, for most of those with whom I've played the attack roll plays a pretty minimal role in affecting narration, compared to the damage roll; and the damage roll plays a rather modest role compared to the actual effect of the blow - with effects that bring a target to death or near-death being far more salient than knocking of single digit or low two-digit amounts of hp against a target that still has 100 or more hp left.

I also think that's pretty typical of the way most groups have narrated attacks and damage across numerous editions of D&D.

Based on my own experience, I think the approach that I have described is more typical. (It's certainly more typical of my experience!)

a hit of 50 hps to the same dragon would be a gash that shatters scales and bears muscles underneath

Out of interest, does this reduce the dragon's AC or other stats?

 

[pemerton]

Given the restrictions insisted on by the anti-DoaM camp, to have a character with somewhat reliable abilities I would need to play a spellcaster with auto-damage spells, and a reasonable knowledge of enemy properties so as to effectively target those spells. In 3rd ed a Wand of Magic Missiles was easy enough to craft, and provided a source of autodamage against most targets.

But I don't agree to the restriction that only magic attacks can auto-damage necessarily. I would like non-spellcasters to have the option to be more reliable in their actions, in a non-broken way.

<snip>

A damage on a miss mechanic is an approximation to provide a minimum effectiveness to those who have it. A positive or neutral narration of how the damage occurs is required to sustain versimilitude.

The idea of "approximation" is less important to me - I don't particularly need my mechanics to "approximate" anything - if they tell me who is winning or who is losing I can interpolate the narration as required.

But I agree with you that narration can be required (though often it can be taken as implicit - "I missed, but knock of STR damage - take that!"). And I strongly agree with your remarks about reliability of effects. That is a big part of what DoaM is about.

 

[Bluenose]

I know I've asked it at least twice in this thread alone. I need a 15 to hit the target. I, after modifiers, get an 8. What happened in the game world?

You didn't get your opponent any nearer to being unable to fight on. That's been my opinion on hit point loss in D&D since 1976, and remains my opinion today. There are games where the rules make it apparent what happens, but I wouldn't bother with trying to make D&D one of them.