D&D General Eliminating the whiff factor

[Stephen Shomo]

Ability mod damage only.... works for the monsters too.
(Unless its a 1.... then you get nothing.)

 

[Stephen Shomo]

Ability mod damage only.... works for the monsters too.
(Unless its a 1.... then you get nothing.)

Or maybe prof mod so high levels are far deadlier.

 

[Lanefan]

Uhm...how do I put this delicately. Baseball isn’t commonly seen as a particularly fast-paced or exciting sport to watch,

Nor is D&D; and that's fine. It's not intended as a spectator sport, Critical Role's best attempts notwithstanding.

so I’m not sure it’s a great...positive comparison for how D&D combat should run.

If every at-bat in a ball game got the batter on base then there'd be nothing at all special about getting on base, and it'd get pretty boring in a hurry.

 

[Lanefan]

Nothing happening in a D&D combat round is dull. Nothing happens when you miss. It’s disappointing because nothing happens.

Sorry, but I have no sympathy. Nothing happening is sometimes a fact of life.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Give some enemies a stance called, "I don't care if I get hit at long as I can hit you back." -10 AC, whenever you are attacked in melee, you make a melee attack as a free action afterwords.

 

[overgeeked]

Nor is D&D; and that's fine. It's not intended as a spectator sport, Critical Role's best attempts notwithstanding.

If every at-bat in a ball game got the batter on base then there'd be nothing at all special about getting on base, and it'd get pretty boring in a hurry.

You’re misunderstanding what’s going on. The goal is not to guarantee every attack hits. The goal is to make the attack result in either: 1) I damage my target, or; 2) my target damages me.

Sorry, but I have no sympathy. Nothing happening is sometimes a fact of life.

Sure. But there’s literally zero reason to insist it be included in a game. Games are designed to be fun, not boring. “But life’s boring sometimes!” Yeah, and again, this is a game...not real life.

 

[Lanefan]

You’re misunderstanding what’s going on. The goal is not to guarantee every attack hits. The goal is to make the attack result in either: 1) I damage my target, or; 2) my target damages me.

Which, unless I'm guaranteed of hitting most if not all of the time, is very quickly going to discourage me from attacking anyone, ever. And I wouldn't be alone. But hey, it's not like casters need any more help in ruling the roost...

To get around this the hit ratio would inevitably rise, leading eventually to something mighty close to every-attack-hits.

Sure. But there’s literally zero reason to insist it be included in a game. Games are designed to be fun, not boring. “But life’s boring sometimes!” Yeah, and again, this is a game...not real life.

Some of us are looking for a basis of reality under our fantasy. This by default includes times when doing something leads to nothing, or to no progress. A missed combat swing. A failed search. A wrong guess at a password. Etc.

 

[Oofta]

Which, unless I'm guaranteed of hitting most if not all of the time, is very quickly going to discourage me from attacking anyone, ever. And I wouldn't be alone. But hey, it's not like casters need any more help in ruling the roost...

To get around this the hit ratio would inevitably rise, leading eventually to something mighty close to every-attack-hits.

Some of us are looking for a basis of reality under our fantasy. This by default includes times when doing something leads to nothing, or to no progress. A missed combat swing. A failed search. A wrong guess at a password. Etc.

You'll never guess my password! It's super secret and difficult pa$$w0rd! Oh ... wait ...

 

[Norton]

If you're a DM who doesn't gravitate towards adding creative description during encounters (I find it wastes time if you don't have an audience save rare moments when it affects combat) random tables do a great job of adding to the action. They're usually applied to critical hits and misses both at range and melee, so maybe adjusted versions for all misses would be interesting and add weight to all attacks. It could get cumbersome to do it every time, so maybe the DM does a quick roll to see if a table is applied (d20, <5)

What I'd really like to see is nerfed attacks when PCs and enemies are below 50% in health or something similar. At that point, misses are at least important.

 

[Malmuria]

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Combat involves only rolling damage dice, armor reduces damage