D&D 5E I just don't buy the reasoning behind "damage on a miss".

[Mistwell]

I just don't like the mechanic no matter how much gravy you pour on it.

I would like to have an alternative that I could give the two hander.

You have two already, and I am sure there will be more in the final PHB. This was never the only option for a two hander.

 

[bogmad]

There is no pixie dodge problem. Pixies already have an ability to avoid the evil auto-hitting GHF. It's called a fly speed. That's what agile combatants should be doing, never staying close to a fighter with a sword.
If you want pixies to be able negate damage with their incredible speed, then give them an ability that does that. Let them roll a Dex save to avoid melee attacks, for example.

I know it's a bit of hyperbole on your part, but you just detailed what part of my problem is. Is it an auto-hit mechanic or damage on a miss? Let's clear up our terms.
Damage-on-a-miss just makes it more confusing and upsets people who have different ideas of what hp means. And pages of argument have made it clear not everyone is going to come to a consensus on that.

 

[skotothalamos]

This I absolutely agree with. Pick your paradigm and carry it through. The part about GWF I find annoying is that's it buried in one spec of one class. Either make DoaM a hallmark of the system or don't use it at all.

ehm, three classes. Ranger, Paladin, and Fighter all have the same pool of Fighting Styles to pull from. Rangers and Paladins have to wait for 2nd level, though.

I agree that there should be more options for all characters to have the opportunity to damage on a miss.

Let me tell y'all about my brother. He hates waiting for his turn to come up, having a cool plan for affecting the fight, dropping a low number, and then feeling like he's had absolutely zero effect on the game, and then going back to waiting for his turn to come up. His second 4e character build focused on all the powers he could find with "Miss" and "Effect" (happens whether or not you hit) lines. He couldn't do as much damage as everyone else, but he loved being able to drop curses and ongoing minor effects, knowing that he'd done something on his turn. I really feel like the damage-on-a-miss was written for that kind of player. If you're not that kind of player, take a different fighting style.

 

[Sunseeker]

Which is to say, there's no "more likely" - it is *magic*, and you can have it work however you want.

That's a poor argument because it doesn't bring the discussion to a conclusion. It already is magic in the game, and it works that way because the designers decided the magic works that way, if by your argument it's impossible for it to be internally or externally inconsistent because hey, "it's magic", then the whole discussion is pointless. Not to mention, it's one of those bad arguments that leads us down the road of Wizards getting to twist reality around their pinky while martial characters are stuck with "I swing big stick" every round because hey, "it's magic!".

My point was only that if we're comparing it to REAL LIFE explosions, those explosions light fairly little on fire because the force of the combustion is not conducive to starting a fire. To compensate you either need extreme heat(see: nuclear bomb) or an accelerant (see: napalm).

 

[pemerton]

The amazing skill of the attacker is what makes that weapon seemingly inescapable.

Then why can't a guy with a rapier do the same thing? If the fallback is that you tire a guy out by all the crazy swinging, then fine, but what is it about Great Weapon Fighting that makes it more suitable for that than anything else?

What is it about a rogue that let's him/her be better at killing things with a single blow than the fighter?

These are genre conceits within the confines of a class-based game. They don't have an explanation within the fiction. They set external parameters within which the fiction emerges. D&D has always been a game where you are in more danger being king hit by a scoundrel than by a soldier. D&Dnext is currently also on a trajectory to be a game in which halberdeers but not duelists can swing their huge weapons in great arcs that make escape impossible. These mechanics are the building blocks for the share imaginary space within which game events take place.

If you don't like that fiction, you just ignore the mechanical element. This is hard to do with the rogue, because it's a whole class. Not so hard with one of three melee fighter abilities.

 

[bogmad]

If you don't like that fiction, you just ignore the mechanical element. This is hard to do with the rogue, because it's a whole class. Not so hard with one of three melee fighter abilities.

It's not the fiction I have a problem with. It's the mechanical element. I think it needs to be fixed to better match the fiction.

It's not that hard to do and I don't think it really breaks or damages the fiction or genre conceit or screws up class conventions or what have you.
...In my fantasy genre conventions I like to believe that nothing is impossible.

 

[pemerton]

the rules on page 66 are not made pointless because a fire spell cannot set things on fire. Again, powers and spells have their own rules... something like lighting a book on fire with a torch does not have actual rules covering it and could be what both the rules on page 66 are meant to be used for as well as those on page 42 that you cited.

The example on p 42 is of a PC pushing an ogre into a brazier of coals for 2d8+5 fire damage.

According to the rules on p 219 of the PHB, though, an improvised weapon does 1d5 untyped damage. So, on your theory of "houseruling", isn't it a "houserule" to have a torch do [fire] damage? Or to have coals from a brazier do 2d8+5 [fire] damage?

Or, to put it another way, I don't know what you think p 42 is for, but I know what I think it (and other stuff, like pp 65-66) are for. As I quoted upthread, p 65 says that "Like characters, objects have hit points and defense scores". That doesn't give me the impression that these rules are primarily for burning papers with torches and knocking down doors with toothpicks. They give me the impression that they're for settting fire to buildings with fireballs and knocking down doors with axes! For me, that's the point of saying "like characters" (which is in turn a synonym, or near enough to, for creatures). The rules are telling me that things that hurt creatures can hurt objects too, subject to the restrictions and guidelines noted on p 66.

Pages 88 through 93 of the DMG have a range of traps with defences and hit points. I don't know how you imagine the designers envisaged those traps being attacked, but I think they envisaged that powers would be used!

So again, there are no actual rules for this, it's just whatever rules the DM wants it to be

For some reason I don't understand you seem to think that pp 42, 65 and 66 are not part of the rules. Because they're the rules I'm pointing to. And they are not about "whatever rules the DM wants it to be". They are very clear rules for DCs, damage values and the like, which are to be used to "make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine" (DMG p 42).

Sure, and Rule Zero means that 3e doesn't really have an issue with grapple rules or caster/fighter disparity.

Rule zero = (not too loosely paraphrased) "It's the GM's game and s/he can do what s/he wants". Pages 43, 65 and 66 of the DMG is 3 pages of charts and guidelines for adjudicating improvised attacks (including against objects).

There are some people who run 4e of nothing but p 42 plus the monster-building charts: these are the mechanical spine of the system. The equivalent from rule zero would be to give a GM a bag of dice and say "Hey, go nuts!". If you think those are much the same thing, you think about RPGing very differently from me. If D&Dnext is being designed on the premise that those are the same thing, I don't think it's the game for me.

These are for actions not covered by the rules... a power/spell etc. is very much covered by its own set of rules and some powers/spells can target objects because it is listed as a target in their mechanical representation... others do not have it listed and thus the logical conclusion would be that is because they don't affect objects.

<snip>

"object" is a valid target for some spell/power target lines... isn't it? Why is that if your assumptions hold true?

Because, as I've already mentioned multiple times upthread, a power that has "object" listed as a target can attack a target without the need for GM adjudication of the fictional positioning. Whereas once pp 432, 65 and 66 are in play the GM is expected to adjudicate the fictional positioning: see PHB p 8: "When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules". So when I try to use my fireball to set a ship alight, and it's not clear what ought to happen next, the GM decides how to proceed, drawing upon p 42, pp 65-66, and also the multiple suggestions throughout the DMG to "say yes" to player improvisation.

we are discussing the clarity, or lack of in 4e as far as whether powers/spells/etc. can affect objects or not.

<snip>

apparently it was a widespread enough issue that the designers felt it necessary to add the rule to the game in later books, right?

I am not discussing the clarity of 4e's rules on this point. [MENTION=69074]Cyberen[/MENTION] made a comment about editing a bit of a way upthread, and I didn't see anyone disagree.

I am discussing whether or not the rules of 4e, as published in mid-2008, mean that a fireball cannot set things alight. I though that you were asserting this. If you're now simply saying that the editing could have been clearer, I don't disagree.

As to why they made the revision - perhaps they wanted the clarity? Perhaps they felt not enough people had paid attention to pp 65-66? Maybe it was an abundance of caution - after all, it always struck me as obvious that Weapon Focus would only confer a damage bonus for attacks with the [weapon] keyword, and not (for instance) when a weapon was used as an implement, but they issued a clarification on that one too.

contrary to your play preferences a DM can adjudicate that spells don't work on objects and that is also a valid (I would argue a more valid... by the book) interpretation of how spells work.

Rules-valid != good idea. Just follow my golden rule of Rules Interpretation: "If there's two ways to interpret a rule, and one of them sucks, do it the other way."

I'm sure some Basic D&D GMs ruled that, because there were no rules for jumping, the PCs couldn't jump - and when they were pointed to Moldvay's comments in the GM advice chapter, muttered something about "houserulings". Those GMs sucked too!

 

[bogmad]

Also, by having only GWF be the one thing that breaks the convention of what a "hit" means you muddy up an already contentious argument about hp.

I've played enough 4e that I do like some labels and key words having a strict definition. A "hit" equaling rolling damage dice is a pretty easy gamist definition that lets you narrate it however you want.

Hell, if GWF is mimicking great sweeping strokes that are impossible to miss, what happens if you have more than one enemy in the same space? I'd almost argue that it makes more sense for someone with Great Weapon Fighting have an aura 1 around him where any enemies ending their turns there are subject to str mod damage. Better to divorce the STR damage from the attack roll if the attack roll is basically pointless in making a difference anyway.
Not that that would really do much to satisfy any vociferous anti 4e folks...

 

[Sadras]

Hell, if GWF is mimicking great sweeping strokes that are impossible to miss, what happens if you have more than one enemy in the same space? I'd almost argue that it makes more sense for someone with Great Weapon Fighting have an aura 1 around him where any enemies ending their turns there are subject to str mod damage. Better to divorce the STR damage from the attack roll if the attack roll is basically pointless in making a difference anyway.

Cute. You would have to make it necessary for a weapon to be used as an attack in that round while the enemy was in range for the aura to be active, otherwise it would be highly unfair for sooo many reasons

 

[MichaelSomething]

Also, by having only GWF be the one thing that breaks the convention of what a "hit" means you muddy up an already contentious argument about hp.

I've played enough 4e that I do like some labels and key words having a strict definition. A "hit" equaling rolling damage dice is a pretty easy gamist definition that lets you narrate it however you want.

Hell, if GWF is mimicking great sweeping strokes that are impossible to miss, what happens if you have more than one enemy in the same space? I'd almost argue that it makes more sense for someone with Great Weapon Fighting have an aura 1 around him where any enemies ending their turns there are subject to str mod damage. Better to divorce the STR damage from the attack roll if the attack roll is basically pointless in making a difference anyway.
Not that that would really do much to satisfy any vociferous anti 4e folks...

Rain of Steel is my favorite Fighter Daily!