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

[Hussar]

As a question is it damage on a miss that is the major sticking point or killing on a miss or both equally?

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

When you say "people" do you mean "all people" or perhaps "some people"? I am a person, and I've never had trouble wrapping my brain around it, and have never had to shake my head. "Damage on a miss" means that, for that player playing that PC doing that thing, the default failure condition ("miss") is instead a partial success condition. It's player fiat.

I'm sure there are people who can't make sense of that, but then for any interesting thing X there are at least some people who can't make sense of it. That doesn't necessarily tell us much about the worth of X, though.

People as in "all the people who have the same feelings".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As a question is it damage on a miss that is the major sticking point or killing on a miss or both equally?

I'd be interested to hear the answer to this.

Personally, as a long-time 4E DM, I was actually never very attached to "damage on a miss" as a mechanical concept. Mechanically, it's boring. Tactically, it's usually pretty boring. For the player, it's usually boring. You do a tiny bit of damage but not enough to count for much beyond very low levels.

So it always surprised me that some people were so up-in-arms against it, rather then just thinking it kind of mildly sucked. Especially as it seems obvious that when many/most misses are caused by armour, it would be reasonable for a creature to be harmed somewhat "through" their armour (and indeed in 4E, most of the damage-on-a-miss was from high-kinetic-energy weapons). Reasonable but dull in implementation, unfortunately

The only positive I can find with it is that it tends to oppose the imho-ridiculous "Meat Points" vision of hit points, but honestly, that's not enough reason to make me care (hopefully 5E is not the first real "Meat Points" edition when the chips are down, but given some of Mearls' comments, it might be).

 

[Lord Vangarel]

I voted Yes.

I could never get my head around it in 4E and it was one of the reasons we gave up playing that edition. I put it in the same category as Evasion for Rogues in 3E as I've grown to dislike that too, but then I've been playing for 30 years.

I could accept a mechanic where armor is damage reduction but that will probably never happen in mainstream D&D.

 

[Minigiant]

The real question is if you remove it, what replaces it?

The point of weapon DoaM is to give great weapons a bone since you can miss and you dont get the extra attack of TWF or shield bonus to AC of S&S, or range of Ranged and Reach weapons.

So do yo go back to "Swing, miss, end turn" for heavy weapons?
Do we give Two Hander Style its own Reckless strike?
Do we give them a second attack as a backhand swing?
Do we give them more accuracy?
Do we give them even more damage to make up for missed??
Do we give them an effect like knock back?

What do we do?

People complaining but no solutions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I could never get my head around it in 4E and it was one of the reasons we gave up playing that edition. I put it in the same category as Evasion for Rogues in 3E as I've grown to dislike that too, but then I've been playing for 30 years.

Can you explain why this is difficult for you to understand? Honest question, because to me I can't see that bit. I can only see how it's mechanically boring.

I mean, presumably you can understand this situation:

1) Spells which do half-damage when saved against or when they miss (in 4E, a spell "missing" is the same exact thing as someone saving against it in another edition).

This isn't just AE spells, either - lots of spells in various editions of D&D do half-damage even if you "save", even if they were something you could, realistically, have dodged all of.

So why is the following situation hard for you to process:

2) An ability which isn't a spell, but might well still be "magic", which does half-damage on a save/miss.

I could understand not understand or disliking all three - say, you never liked that Fireball, other spells, and dragon breath weapons and so on were save-for-half in 1E and 2E, and didn't like it that this continued in 3E and 4E. That's where I'm at, by and large (understand-but-dislike, in my case). I think zero-damage-on-miss is more interesting in all cases. What I can't understand is why someone is fine with Fireball, breath weapons, some other physical effects and the like being save-for-half (which is precisely and exactly the same thing as half-on-miss), but not understand or like other, similar effects doing half-on-save/miss. That's confusing to me.

I kind of wonder if a lot of it isn't veiled "Fighters can't have nice things", but when we're talking 4E, we're talking an awful lot of magic-users operating this way too.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I thought the mechanic gave some good flavor to a frequently-flavorless class, but I never felt that strongly about it. It's just not that important, I think.

Besides, I'm never buying D&D Next until they take those abominations, the Dragonborn, Tiefling, and Warforged, out of the rules entirely! I will go on an epic quest to have those removed!

Nah, just kidding. It's nice to see people passionate about something, but it's still a game.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I myself don't care, as long as it is not simply a reduction in the options available, in which case it would be actively disappointing. It would also be disappointing if the designers are being swayed by a vocal minority, which may be the case.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Holy cow, no it wasn't. Where do you even get this nonsense?

In 4e, attacks and spells are normalized into a unified system, so the actor always rolls for success. Before 4e, most spells had saves and most attacks used attack rolls. In 4e, it's all the same unified mechanic.

So in 4e, instead of the target making a reflex or "spell" save against fireball, the wizard makes an attack vs. Reflex. Instead of half damage on a successful save, it's now half damage on a missed attack. Same exact process, same exact logic, mathematically reversible, but now the "aggressor" makes all the rolls for consistency. Half damage on a miss is born. There you go.

A natural consequence of regular attacks and magical effects all being treated as powers. There is no functional difference between how a wizard uses a spell and a warrior swings an axe.

The real question is if you remove it, what replaces it?

The point of weapon DoaM is to give great weapons a bone since you can miss and you dont get the extra attack of TWF or shield bonus to AC of S&S, or range of Ranged and Reach weapons.

So do yo go back to "Swing, miss, end turn" for heavy weapons?
Do we give Two Hander Style its own Reckless strike?
Do we give them a second attack as a backhand swing?
Do we give them more accuracy?
Do we give them even more damage to make up for missed??
Do we give them an effect like knock back?

What do we do?

People complaining but no solutions.

Advantage on damage rolls. Thats what I use in OD&D. All weapons pretty much do a d6 so shield users get +1 to AC, two weapon fighters (of 13+DEX) get +1 to hit and great weapon fighters get to take the higher of two damage rolls. Every style gets a benefit of some sort.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

I myself don't care, as long as it is not simply a reduction in the options available, in which case it would be actively disappointing. It would also be disappointing if the designers are being swayed by a vocal minority, which may be the case.

I love these vocal minority assumptions that people come up with.

What are you trying to justify?