D&D 5E I Don't Like Damage On A Miss

You missed my point. My point is that, except in rare cases (crits), the amount of damage dealt by an attack is divorced from the "quality" of the attack roll. You hit by 1 or by 15, you still roll the same damage dice. That's very abstract, and doesn't "make sense".
You have beaten their defenses and thus you should deal some damage to the opponent. How it affects them is within the damage range of your weapon and is variable. It would be nice if crits reflected this more accurately than rolling a "20" but heh. The system is not perfect. Have a critical knock out a death save or something perhaps? The important thing is that the variability of damage relative of quality aof attack IS there in the rules; even if it could be improved upon.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
 

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Here's a solution - instead of co-opting the 4e Fighter's Reaping Strike ability we co-opt the Executioner Assassin's far more interesting if it has x hp after you deal damage it's just dead mechanic. It would look like so:

Reaper
Your aggressive fighting style allows you to land decisive blows cutting short your enemies pitiful lives.
Benefit:After your attack is resolved if the target has less hp than the attribute modifier made to resolve the attack it dies a horrible horrible death. This hp threshold increases by 1 every 3 levels.

This does several things
  • It's a thematically interesting ability that actually matches up with the feat's name.
  • No more "anti-climatic" fights versus kobolds!
  • It is still useful at higher levels.
  • Attack rolls and damage rolls still matter. The better you roll the more likely you are to trigger the ability. It reinforces good rolls.
  • HP thresholds are a mechanic that players should already be familiar with.
  • It makes a PC feel awesome without causing issues with low level fighters versus high level monsters*.
  • It replaces a simple mechanic with a simple mechanic without lessening the power of D&D's abstractions with unneeded precision.


*Of course with flat math they'd be able to hit anyway which is neither here or there.
 

...4e failed...
It didn't fail everyone and for many people, it is their favourite edition. Just as it is hard to equate a miss as a hit, it is hard to equate many people's favourite edition as a failure.

It is not my favourite edition (although I still enjoy it), and I would prefer certain 4eisms kept out of 5e's core rules but it is hard to keep that big tent up by trying to argue from a premise that 4e failed.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
 

But what you don't seem to be getting is that you'll be saying that EVERY SINGLE MISS... every single miss against the Ancient Chromatic Dragon the 1st lvl reaper manages to wreck the Ancient Red Dragon for 3 points of damage.

... and that 3-6 damage per miss (and, with the apparent limits on attacks per round, that translates into 3-6 damage per round) against such a foe is pretty meaningless.

I guess the gods best be soiling themselves right now.

Congratulations! If the dragon just sits there and lets you whale on itself for 20 minutes, you'll kill it!

Good thing dragons and elder gods just won't ever do that, huh? So can we drop that useless line of argumentation?

Given the sweep ability that fighter-types had in, what, 1E?, where they could make [level] attacks against weak opponents, "auto-killing" one kobold per-round just doesn't strike me as particularly egregious.
 

Yeah - what I was saying was, I have been replying to several people and forgot you were you and not someone else. Sorry; I really meant nothing by it.
No worries. Thank you again.

To me, adding a feat that does miss damage is making as much available to as many people as possible. It's much easier to remove a rule element than add it, as long as the game is sufficienty modular and nothing really relies on the Slayer background.

While I don't like this feat's implementation and think it's weak, I don't find its inclusion specifically offensive, and I think that all reasons for and against have come down to arbitrary taste. Given this, I'd rather make it as inclusive as possible by adding things that may not be universal, rather than paring it down until nothing potentially offensive exists in it anymore.
I'd rather have a feat that the overwhelming majority can use without raising much objections to. Right now we have three threads on this feat and we're nearly 20 pages into this thread. I think the mechanic could be changed to something both more viable mechanically and also less objectionable.

The thing is that compromise on this issue becomes ... funny. Either damage on a missed attack roll exists, or it doesn't. It can't half-exist. So if the compromise is "it doesn't exist" it's not a real compromise.

So any such compromise, it seems to me, needs to be drawn out over the rules as a whole rather than specific in one rule item.

-O
It obviously exists, but I suppose that it doesn't need to exist in both AC and saves (which is why I've proposed moving it there, if it stays in this incarnation). Thanks for the reply, and, as always, play what you like :)

I am not sure that is a very good idea, because I don't want me gaming experience compromised so that it will be acceptable to thousands of people I will never even meet, let alone play with.
Maybe it's just my first reading, but in an inclusive edition, that seems rather... selfish? Especially since I'm looking for a mechanic that wouldn't compromise your gaming.

That's why Mike Mearl's is saying the whole point of modularity is turning things up to 11. Everything can be extreme because your not fettered by making it acceptable to people who just do not like it to start with.

I mean, personally I am never really going to be happy with Alignment, so trying to appease me on how the system works is fundamentally neither going to make me, or the people who like Alignment happy. But if you stick it in a module, I am happy because I am not using it, and everyone else is happy because they get the Alignment system they love without it being crippled to try and make me happy.
This seems somewhat related, but also not quite the same. The designers have said that the alignment system will essentially be optional, and those who want the fiction it produces can add it to acquire that fiction.

I'm saying that I'd like the feat to also stand up to that goal. If someone loves the idea of a guy who's good at fighting multiple people, is relentlessly ferocious, etc., then right now someone might recommend the Slayer theme. If someone doesn't like automatic damage on a miss, however, it becomes harder to produce that fiction within the game.

With alignment, if you don't want that fiction, you can abandon the system. However, I assume that many more people will want a guy who kills minions left and right and is relentlessly ferocious over the number of people that want alignment. The relentlessly ferocious character is much more universal in concept, and so many people will want that fiction within their game.

To this end, I'm looking for a way to include mechanics (like Reaper) that help produce that fiction within the game. But, my goal is to make it so that as many people can enjoy the mechanics as possible. Alignment doesn't really have to deal with this issue as much. Do you see what I mean? As always, play what you like :)

Here's a solution - instead of co-opting the 4e Fighter's Reaping Strike ability we co-opt the Executioner Assassin's far more interesting if it has x hp after you deal damage it's just dead mechanic. It would look like so:

Reaper
Your aggressive fighting style allows you to land decisive blows cutting short your enemies pitiful lives.
Benefit:After your attack is resolved if the target has less hp than the attribute modifier made to resolve the attack it dies a horrible horrible death. This hp threshold increases by 1 every 3 levels.

This does several things
  • It's a thematically interesting ability that actually matches up with the feat's name.
  • No more "anti-climatic" fights versus kobolds!
  • It is still useful at higher levels.
  • Attack rolls and damage rolls still matter. The better you roll the more likely you are to trigger the ability. It reinforces good rolls.
  • HP thresholds are a mechanic that players should already be familiar with.
  • It makes a PC feel awesome without causing issues with low level fighters versus high level monsters*.
  • It replaces a simple mechanic with a simple mechanic without lessening the power of D&D's abstractions with unneeded precision.


*Of course with flat math they'd be able to hit anyway which is neither here or there.
Can't XP, but I could definitely get behind this. As always, play what you like :)
 

Sitting at the table hearing that you missed but you did 4 damage anyway is just plain old dumb. It's like Affirmative Action for fighters. Can't compete? Here's some free damage.


Ladies and gentlemen,

We have only a few rules on EN World. One of them is "no politics".

Now, admittedly, this comment is not direct discussion of politics, but by analogizing, it puts the same emotions and thought patterns into play. It is, like it or not, inflammatory. This turns a reasoned discussion into an emotional one.

The temptation to do this, to win the argument based on emotions, is strong. But if you have to break the rules to do it, we have to ask you to stop. And, by revealing the tactic, we pretty much ensure you've lost the points you were trying to make.

But, really, this shouldn't have been about winning or losing points, but about learning, right?

Any questions, please take them to e-mail or PM with the moderator of your choice. Thanks, all!
 

To defend the 3e camp here: I identify with 3e and still agree with you 100% on this one.

I apologize for the broad brush. I've heard peanut butter is effective for removing unwarranted tar stains.

I think the key issue here is the insistence that a missed attack roll must mean a blow that missed the body. Given everything that affects AC, (and for that matter things that affect hitpoints - such as level) that's clearly an interpretation that's clearly not necessarily true.

Well, honestly, there's no difference between a failed attack roll and a successful saving throw-- so the insistence that Fighters aren't allowed to deal damage on the former, but Wizards can expect to do so on the latter is maddeningly inconsistent and the 'but it's magic' argument is borderline infuriating because every inch of the combat rules is an abstraction. The number of variables that are being narrowed down to a single die roll and a one-digit number is incomprehensible.

People are arguing over what die rolls can or can not 'realistically' inflict hit point damage when there is no satisfactorily 'realistic' definition for what hit points even are or how they function. They are not capacity for injury, because a character with any positive number of hit points is not injured. They are not capacity to prevent injury, because the majority of injuries are neither completely incapacitating nor potentially lethal and any character with a negative number of hit points is both incapacitated and mortally wounded.

Would you be willing to have another mechanic represent just how ferocious the Slayer is? Like, he can either make his attack roll and chance missing, or he can automatically hit, dealing Strength modifier in damage?

If it actually represents that ferocity as well as the Reaper feat, sure, but your suggestion here replaces Reaper being boring when the fight is boring with Reaper being boring when the combat should be at its most tense and dramatic. That version of Reaper doesn't represent overwhelming ferocity in battle, it represents a matador poking a bull to death one flimsy little sword at a time.

Right, but are there not other ways to represent that? What if, as I proposed above, the Slayer has the choice of a normal attack for a lot of damage (but potentially a miss), or automatically deal Strength modifier in damage? Would that be acceptable?

No. I would be amenable to a replacement mechanic, but not a replacement mechanic that is inferior to the original on every conceptual level.

I think the advantage based on HP threshold would draw a lot smaller outcry, and would support changing it to that (even if I dislike HP thresholds). Thanks for the reply.

It would draw a smaller outcry, but it also does not represent the same thing at all. Granting combat advantage against low-hp foes isn't a relentless, unstoppable onslaught-- it's batting cleanup.

The people complaining that Reaper is boring are complaining about it being boring when they're fighting kobolds. The reason Reaper is boring when fighting kobolds is because kobolds are not what the feat is for. The Slayer fighting kobolds simply improves his odds of killing one kobold per round from 65% to 100%.

Reaper is for raising your odds of dealing some damage to the Dark Priest from 40% to 100%, making it harder for him to cast spells and making the fight less boring because you-- with the best attack bonus in the party-- aren't stuck whiffing more than half of your attacks while he's wrecking your party unimpeded.

I think people would be more in favor of automatic damage without a roll then automatic damage on a miss, honestly.

Except that is a fundamentally worse mechanic because it removes all tension entirely-- the problem with Slayer vs. Kobolds-- and either does too much damage and is overpowered for an automatic hit or it does too little damage to be worth giving up your normal chance for normal damage.

The Reaper feat does a good and interesting thing, and it does it in a good and interesting way. It is reasonably balanced against other comparable abilities-- such as magic missile-- and is demonstrably compatible with a simulationist narrative. The most vocal opponents of the feat are objecting that the feat is bad because it is 'unrealistic' and want the feat removed for the purpose of imposing an inconsistent standard of 'realism' on systems that were never realistic nor intended to be realistic in the first place, at the expense-- the endlessly encroaching expense-- of the combat capability of the one class in the game whose sole purpose is to be the most effective combatant.

3.X was a good game, and I love it, and I still play it... but it had its weak points. The weakest of its weak points was the fact that everything magic was automatically superior to everything non-magic forever because it wasn't constrained to the same artificial, arbitrary, and inconsistent standards of 'realism' that the non-magical superhumans labored under.

People who don't like 3.X are claiming that the current D&D Next playtest rules bear too much resemblance to it-- an accusation I see no merit whatsoever in, and an accusation that I certainly do not wish to create merit in by introducing that game's idiosyncratic flaws into this one. If we are going to take from 3.X, let's take the good parts of it instead.

I know some people don't like the "the guy can never miss" feel of it, so automatic damage without rolling an attack would bug that group of people, too.

Unless the Wizard does it. A lot of people are complaining about the auto-hit at-will magic missile-- not without merit-- but nobody seems to have any problem with the Wizard's other attack spells not requiring a roll to hit and still dealing half damage on a miss.

Again, I like some sort of advantage mechanic, personally, since it scales to all levels.

I would prefer to make the existing Reaper mechanic scale with level, instead. Not as much as the damage on real hits, of course, but enough to keep it relevant. Perhaps it would benefit from the same level-based damage bonus that the Fighter's regular attacks get, but from none of the weapon-specific feats that the Fighter gets.

The thing is, Reaper grants the Slayer Fighter the same small benefit against monsters no matter how high their AC is. Advantage grants a much bigger benefit to attacks against creatures the Slayer can hit around half the time, and a much smaller benefit to the attacks for which Reaper was designed and for which it provides the most benefit.

Maybe the feat could give you an attack against everyone, like Whirlwind Attack?

That would be great for batting cleanup, which is a different thing. I'd like to see Fighters-- and fighterish classes-- having a Whirlwind Attack at-will option.

Or, if you're fighting 3 or more enemies, you have advantage? I don't know.

I actually really like that, but for the most part if you're in melee with 3 monsters you either don't need Advantage or you're in serious trouble. That reflects an entirely different type of ability from Reaper, but one that's certainly appropriate for a Slayer.

I was just trying to figure out why people seem so attached to this mechanic when trying to reflect the Slayer's ferociousness, and why a different mechanic that more people liked couldn't express that fiction.

I like the Reaper mechanic because of the flavor which I've already described, that the mechanic supports perfectly. It does a good thing in a good way, and the reasons being given for removing it fall apart with even a cursory examination. They don't hold water. And the suggested replacements for it, while mostly good mechanics in their own right, do entirely different things-- things that I agree Fighters or Slayer-Fighters should also be able to do, but not this specific thing that I really like Slayer-Fighters being able to do.

Yeah - what I was saying was, I have been replying to several people and forgot you were you and not someone else. Sorry; I really meant nothing by it.

It's really hard to be fair to the person who is trying-- and succeeding-- to be civil and constructive when you are replying to him at the same time you are replying to other people who are neither succeeding nor trying.
 

You have beaten their defenses and thus you should deal some damage to the opponent. How it affects them is within the damage range of your weapon and is variable. It would be nice if crits reflected this more accurately than rolling a "20" but heh. The system is not perfect. Have a critical knock out a death save or something perhaps? The important thing is that the variability of damage relative of quality aof attack IS there in the rules; even if it could be improved upon.
Indeed, the system is not perfect nor will it be. But the more important point, I think, is that the system is abstract.

One single feat has spawned thread after thread discussing the topic of causing damage on an apparent miss, but no one seems to be bothered that you can roll maximum damage after having *just* gotten through your opponent's defences, and you can roll minimum damage when your opponent's defences are a joke compared to your roll. Where is the believability in that?

Why are there no threads dedicated to the fact that rolling damage separately from the attack strains the believability of the game? It couldn't just be because that's how it's always been done could it?

With the Reaper feat, you have to determine the result of your "miss" before you can narrate the results of the attack. With any successful attack other than a crit, you have to determine the result of your damage roll before you narrate the result of your attack. You can't jump into narrating it based only on the result of the d20 roll, because you don't actually know how powerful your blow was yet.

Facing an opponent with an AC of 12, you roll a 19 on the die for a total of say 23. It seems you've completely outclassed your foe on that one. And then you roll snake eyes for damage. Oops, turns out you didn't do as well as you thought. Or you could roll an 8 on the die and just barely hit the foe (apparently), but then you roll 2 sixes for damage. Turns out what should have been a glancing blow was really a massive strike.

Similarly, you can't jump into narrating a Reaper attack based on the result of the d20 roll, because there's that damage to account for. If you say you swing over the creature's head, and yet cause damage, you'll look as silly as saying that you *just* got a glancing blow through your foe's defences, but then roll max damage and kill it in one shot.
 

If it actually represents that ferocity as well as the Reaper feat, sure, but your suggestion here replaces Reaper being boring when the fight is boring with Reaper being boring when the combat should be at its most tense and dramatic. That version of Reaper doesn't represent overwhelming ferocity in battle, it represents a matador poking a bull to death one flimsy little sword at a time.
It represents a more measured, cerebral approach. That doesn't comment one way or the other on ferociousness.
No. I would be amenable to a replacement mechanic, but not a replacement mechanic that is inferior to the original on every conceptual level.
Can you explain to me how it's inferior on every conceptual level? I'm not even sure how that's possible.
It would draw a smaller outcry, but it also does not represent the same thing at all. Granting combat advantage against low-hp foes isn't a relentless, unstoppable onslaught-- it's batting cleanup.
Can you explain why this interpretation is correct, but the person that I replied to is wrong?
The people complaining that Reaper is boring are complaining about it being boring when they're fighting kobolds. The reason Reaper is boring when fighting kobolds is because kobolds are not what the feat is for. The Slayer fighting kobolds simply improves his odds of killing one kobold per round from 65% to 100%.

Reaper is for raising your odds of dealing some damage to the Dark Priest from 40% to 100%, making it harder for him to cast spells and making the fight less boring because you-- with the best attack bonus in the party-- aren't stuck whiffing more than half of your attacks while he's wrecking your party unimpeded.
Which, again, isn't actually all that much damage. At 3 damage per hit, it takes 5 misses (15 damage) to hit just about the Slayer's average hit (14 damage, I believe). That's actually not that great. I'd rather have something more useful that represents the fiction of the relentless ferocity of the Slayer.
Except that is a fundamentally worse mechanic because it removes all tension entirely-- the problem with Slayer vs. Kobolds-- and either does too much damage and is overpowered for an automatic hit or it does too little damage to be worth giving up your normal chance for normal damage.

The Reaper feat does a good and interesting thing, and it does it in a good and interesting way.
This is just your subjective opinion. In the "Poll on the Reaper" thread, the people that dislike the feat have hovered between 30-40%. That's not an insignificant portion of people that seem to think the mechanic is not "good" or "interesting" and I'm looking for something that might satisfy closer to 88-90% of people.
It is reasonably balanced against other comparable abilities-- such as magic missile-- and is demonstrably compatible with a simulationist narrative. The most vocal opponents of the feat are objecting that the feat is bad because it is 'unrealistic' and want the feat removed for the purpose of imposing an inconsistent standard of 'realism' on systems that were never realistic nor intended to be realistic in the first place, at the expense-- the endlessly encroaching expense-- of the combat capability of the one class in the game whose sole purpose is to be the most effective combatant.
Well, where it loses me is in the uber-competence of the Slayer. As I said earlier: personally, the damage on the miss doesn't break mine, but the complete and utter failure to ever not deal meaningful damage (unless against damage reduction) breaks mine. If DR stops it, then it's seemingly physical. If it's seemingly physical damage, then the Slayer never fails to get some sort of noticeable damage in on an opponent, no matter how powerful they are (unless they resist the damage). That's where I start to question the fiction.
3.X was a good game, and I love it, and I still play it... but it had its weak points. The weakest of its weak points was the fact that everything magic was automatically superior to everything non-magic forever because it wasn't constrained to the same artificial, arbitrary, and inconsistent standards of 'realism' that the non-magical superhumans labored under.
We're getting back into baggage territory. I don't play 3.X. It had too many issues for me. It was fun for a while, too. I got a lot of really memorable play out of it. But, what I'm discussing does not have to do with 3.X, nor does it have to do with "but magic is better!" or the like. Please, again, leave the baggage out, or if you can't, let me know so I know to reply to others.
People who don't like 3.X are claiming that the current D&D Next playtest rules bear too much resemblance to it-- an accusation I see no merit whatsoever in, and an accusation that I certainly do not wish to create merit in by introducing that game's idiosyncratic flaws into this one. If we are going to take from 3.X, let's take the good parts of it instead.
We're back to subjective views of "good" and the like again. If we're going to take rules, what if we aimed to take rules that 88-90% of people liked?
Unless the Wizard does it. A lot of people are complaining about the auto-hit at-will magic missile-- not without merit-- but nobody seems to have any problem with the Wizard's other attack spells not requiring a roll to hit and still dealing half damage on a miss.
This is less baggage than the previous mention, because there's a notable difference in delivery method: attack vs. saving throw. I bet people would be more likely to accept some guaranteed damage from the Slayer if it was a save.
I would prefer to make the existing Reaper mechanic scale with level, instead. Not as much as the damage on real hits, of course, but enough to keep it relevant. Perhaps it would benefit from the same level-based damage bonus that the Fighter's regular attacks get, but from none of the weapon-specific feats that the Fighter gets.

The thing is, Reaper grants the Slayer Fighter the same small benefit against monsters no matter how high their AC is. Advantage grants a much bigger benefit to attacks against creatures the Slayer can hit around half the time, and a much smaller benefit to the attacks for which Reaper was designed and for which it provides the most benefit.
Can you go more into this, because I'm confused. It sounds like you're saying that the Reaper feat is best for squishy creatures, but you explicitly said that the Reaper feat wasn't designed for that, but "Reaper is for raising your odds of dealing some damage to the Dark Priest from 40% to 100%". I'm not sure what you think the feat is for as of this point.
That would be great for batting cleanup, which is a different thing. I'd like to see Fighters-- and fighterish classes-- having a Whirlwind Attack at-will option.
Again, so Reaper is not for smaller squishy creatures then? If so, why not give the Slayer advantage? It'd really help against the bigger creatures (much more so than a small amount of miss damage does).
I actually really like that, but for the most part if you're in melee with 3 monsters you either don't need Advantage or you're in serious trouble. That reflects an entirely different type of ability from Reaper, but one that's certainly appropriate for a Slayer.
I'm actually not sure that you're in serious trouble. Put the Fighter against 3 kobolds or 3 goblins and see how much trouble he's in. But, honestly, I do like the executioner take more.
I like the Reaper mechanic because of the flavor which I've already described, that the mechanic supports perfectly. It does a good thing in a good way, and the reasons being given for removing it fall apart with even a cursory examination. They don't hold water. And the suggested replacements for it, while mostly good mechanics in their own right, do entirely different things-- things that I agree Fighters or Slayer-Fighters should also be able to do, but not this specific thing that I really like Slayer-Fighters being able to do.
The problem is that it's not "good" when it comes to having overwhelming support. When 30-40% of people don't like it as it stands now, that's not "good" when it comes to believeability. You may disagree, and that's fine. Like I said, I can understand the "miss" damage, but it's the uber-competence that gets me in the long run. I just don't accept that.

I get why you like it. Thanks for replying to me. But surely you can help come up with something that 88-90% of people would like that would seem ferocious and relentless? As always, play what you like :)
 

Indeed, the system is not perfect nor will it be. But the more important point, I think, is that the system is abstract.

One single feat has spawned thread after thread discussing the topic of causing damage on an apparent miss, but no one seems to be bothered that you can roll maximum damage after having *just* gotten through your opponent's defences, and you can roll minimum damage when your opponent's defences are a joke compared to your roll. Where is the believability in that?
The simple answer is encompassing variability mixed in with simplification. It is possible that an exceptionally well placed attack just does not deal as much damage as it could have due to... fate, destiny, luck, happenstance or something. Alternatively, you could get a bonus to damage equal to how much you exceed the defender's AC by. At our table with a bunch of maths heads, that is not going to be a problem but I can imagine some groups hating that much arithmetic. On average though the mechanics uphold that a limply cast dagger will do less damage than a skilfully and forcefully swung greataxe and that upon occasion, this might not necessarily be so.

Why are there no threads dedicated to the fact that rolling damage separately from the attack strains the believability of the game? It couldn't just be because that's how it's always been done could it?
Perhaps or perhaps not. As long as this sort of stuff gets examined each iteration as to whether there's a better way of doing it, I'm happy.

With the Reaper feat, you have to determine the result of your "miss" before you can narrate the results of the attack. With any successful attack other than a crit, you have to determine the result of your damage roll before you narrate the result of your attack. You can't jump into narrating it based only on the result of the d20 roll, because you don't actually know how powerful your blow was yet.

Facing an opponent with an AC of 12, you roll a 19 on the die for a total of say 23. It seems you've completely outclassed your foe on that one. And then you roll snake eyes for damage. Oops, turns out you didn't do as well as you thought. Or you could roll an 8 on the die and just barely hit the foe (apparently), but then you roll 2 sixes for damage. Turns out what should have been a glancing blow was really a massive strike.

Similarly, you can't jump into narrating a Reaper attack based on the result of the d20 roll, because there's that damage to account for. If you say you swing over the creature's head, and yet cause damage, you'll look as silly as saying that you *just* got a glancing blow through your foe's defences, but then roll max damage and kill it in one shot.
I can appreciate what you are saying here and such would be why I would prefer hit points separated from actual wounds. Hit points take care of the bigger abstraction of luck, glancing blows, morale, divine providence, and skill at finding a way to avoid the brunt of an attack. Wounds take care of the physical damage and whether a character is incapacitated. That way, whether you are dealing hit point damage or wound damage, you have a reliable and easy way of narrating results pre-damage roll. The damage roll then becomes the fickleness of lady fate and whether a character heroically stands or surprisingly falls.

In such a system, a reaper does hit point or wound damage on their main attack (dependent upon skill, advantage, disadvantage), but they are always going to force a small loss of hit points, representing the bumps and bruises, wearing down and even fear of the defender, but never their wounds. That's my preference anyway.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
 

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