D&D 5E Now that "damage on a miss" is most likely out of the picture, are you happy?

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Could you point out where it says that?

From the srd
At 2nd level and higher, a rogue can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. If she makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if the rogue is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless rogue does not gain the benefit of evasion

If you are going to quote rules,

STOP USING THE SRD!

It does not contain all the information on the rules. I will find the area in the 3.5 PHB that states the conditions for evasion not working.

 

[herrozerro]

If you are going to quote rules,

STOP USING THE SRD!

It does not contain all the information on the rules. I will find the area in the 3.5 PHB that states the conditions for evasion not working.

At least I am quoting some sort of rules. You have been just jumping in with statements recently with no kind of citation.

Please provide some sort of citation if you are going to make statements like "just so you know the rules say X"

Even the pathfinder srd reflects what I posted above.

Digging into it more from d&d wiki

As with a Reflex save for any creature, a character must have room to move in order to evade. A bound character or one squeezing through an area cannot use evasion.

But in any other srd including that one can I find rules for reflex saves that say anything like that.

 

[dmgorgon]

Could you point out where it says that?

From the srd
At 2nd level and higher, a rogue can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. If she makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if the rogue is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless rogue does not gain the benefit of evasion

He is correct.

"A creature must have room to move to evade. A bound creature or one squeezing through an area can’t use evasion" pg 113 3.5e Rules compendium.


"A helpless rogue (such as one who is unconscious or paralysed) does not gain the benefit of evasion." pg 50 PHB

 

[herrozerro]

He is correct.

"A creature must have room to move to evade. A bound creature or one squeezing through an area can’t use evasion" pg 113 3.5e Rules compendium.


"A helpless rogue (such as one who is unconscious or paralysed) does not gain the benefit of evasion." pg 50 PHB

Helpless I can understand. In in the description of the ability.

But let's take that apart. How much room is enough room to evade? If it's just DM fiat, then we are no better off than if the rule was not defined in the first place.

 

[dmgorgon]

Helpless I can understand. In in the description of the ability.

But let's take that apart. How much room is enough room to evade? If it's just DM fiat, then we are no better off than if the rule was not defined in the first place.

There are many situations in a D&D game in which the DM is left to decide what is reasonable. For many, the exact amount of space isn't required because they don't play on a grid with miniatures.

 

[herrozerro]

There are many situations in a D&D game in which the DM is left to decide what is reasonable. For many, the exact amount of space isn't required because they don't play on a grid with miniatures.

Here is the issue though, with no guidelines enough room to maneuver could be as little as just not being helpless or a DM could require having dozens of feet of clear space to maneuver. It doesn't need to be squares, just guidelines.

 

[pemerton]

It's kind of like auto-success on a skill check. It removes interesting variety. Now every failure is at least a minor success.

It's not a "fun" rule. It's a "participation medal" rule, where everyone gets a trophy for showing up.

Emotional extremes are fun. They're part of WHY gameplay is so engaging. The thrill of failure AND the agony of defeat are both things you're signing up for when you play a game (this is one of the ways that it's demonstrably different than storytelling).

<snip>

"Thanks for playing, here's some pity damage" blows that kind of fun out of the water.

The thing I don't get (and [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] in particular has helped make this point clear to me) is why we haven't had 40 years of objections to magic missile, fireball and lightning bolt along these lines.

(If the answer is "Because they could be disrupted while being cast" then I'll reduce the period of years to 14 - because for the whole lifetime of 3E it's been possible to auo-succeed on casting defensively.)

In my personal experience, at least, the emotional extremes come less from missing, but from being hit by the enemy for significant amounts of damage.

 

[pemerton]

I think the big difference is that the spell doesn't attack first. It automatically hits and then you have a save to avoid certain destruction.

put like this, this arrangement would arguably be a considerably better representation of hand-to-hand weapon combat than the standard D&D system.

I quite like Balesir's point.

But independently of it, I have this point to make: dmgorgon says "the spell . . . automatically hits and then you have to save" as if that were some sort of law of nature. But it's just a mechanical artifice. I can design an RPG in which the spell doesn't automatically hit, but if it does then there is no roll to avoid certain destruction (it's called 4e). Likewise, I can design an RPG in which a melee attack automatically hits, in the sense of automatically wearing down the target to some degree. That's what D&Dnext's DoaM is.

In other words, there is no inherent reason why players of wizards get to have their PCs hit automatically and why players of fighters don't.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

The thing I don't get (and [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] in particular has helped make this point clear to me) is why we haven't had 40 years of objections to magic missile, fireball and lightning bolt along these lines.

(If the answer is "Because they could be disrupted while being cast" then I'll reduce the period of years to 14 - because for the whole lifetime of 3E it's been possible to auo-succeed on casting defensively.)

In my personal experience, at least, the emotional extremes come less from missing, but from being hit by the enemy for significant amounts of damage.

1: Limited resource.
2: With explosions it makes sense.
3: Lightning Bolt doesn't have pinpoint accuracy. It's actually akin to firing a shotgun with bird shot. You don't rely on accuracy, you just aim in a general direction and let the spread take care of the rest.
4: They don't require using the words hit or miss. I can't target a specific person with a fireball, I can only target an area.

 

[pemerton]

1: Limited resource.
2: With explosions it makes sense.
3: Lightning Bolt doesn't have pinpoint accuracy. It's actually akin to firing a shotgun with bird shot. You don't rely on accuracy, you just aim in a general direction and let the spread take care of the rest.
4: They don't require using the words hit or miss. I can't target a specific person with a fireball, I can only target an area.

None of these is relative to what [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] was saying. None of these points deals with the objection that auto-damage is uninteresting by removing the possibility of exciting failure.