D&D 5E Q&A 10/17/13 - Crits, Damage on Miss, Wildshape

[Kobold Stew]

Nonetheless, regardless of the 'to hit' roll - the primary fortune mechanic of combat - the target receives the positive fortune - damage is inflicted.

No one is disputing this.

The outcome, regardless of fictional positioning, is therefore either 'success' or 'more success'. The fortune is always positive, the only thing that varies is degree of success.

(D&D is a bit unusual in that it doesn't normally tie degree of success to the fortune mechanic directly, and instead relies on a second 'damage' die. This sort of 'do you succeed', 'if so, by how much", logic occurs in several areas of the rules.)

This assumes that there is no cost and no investment from the player and the character. It ignores the character as a whole, and does not recognize that the ability is a design choice that has been made, eschewing other abilities that are at least comparable. The minimal damage guarantee comes at the expense of other, arguably cooler options that are available to every fighter, paladin, and ranger.

And the degree of minimal success is the result of the character's strength score, which also represents character investment (and is dependent in some campaigns on the luck of a die roll).

I answer these questions completely differently:

Success regardless of fictional positioning: Yes.
Mechanic is absolute: See above.
Involves a no fortune roll: No. But outcome of fortune roll determines only degree of success. Therefore, fortune roll involves automatic success.
Tells you what must happen: Yes. Regardless of outcome of fortune role, the result of a proposed attack is always that the target receives some minimally impactful blow. This violates are intuitive understanding that an attack is a risky proposition.

...so I still stick with no to all four.

We're not going to convince each other on this, clearly. To say "the target receives some minimally impactful blow" is a fiction you are imposing on the situation; it is not in the rules. To say "the target's pool of hit points, an abstract number that represents the ability to persist in physical and magical combat, are marginally reduced" is better (but could still be tightened, obviously). Nothing tells you what must happen. An attack remains a risky proposition, and my intuition is in no way violated.

 

[Iosue]

Like if there's a vanilla ice cream with chocolate in the centre, then the vanilla lovers want more vanilla, and the chocolate lovers say, "Look, you're already eating chocolate, so why can't we have some chocolate chips on the outside" and the vanilla lovers worry about the choco-invasion changing the overall taste of the ice cream, and the vanila lovers say enough with the chocolate chips, we got used to it but we don't want more, and the choco-lovers are confused why because of the core chocolate. So when do we stop comparing the chocolate core to the new proposed chocolate chips and start accepting the choco/vanilla conflicts and start asking how do we deal with this chocolate vanilla mess.

No the problem is we have a chocolate ice cream with a vanilla swirl, it's clearly labeled as chocolate ice cream, but now that we want to add chocolate chips to it the people who have been only eating the vanilla swirl are telling us that it's really vanilla ice cream, not chocolate, so we shouldn't add any more chocolate.

Every edition has clearly labeled HP as not meat. Explicitly. Every edition.
Despite that, some people have decided they play better as meat and have ignored the official definition. Fine. Their game, they can play how they like.
Hit on a miss works entirely coherently with the meaning of HP in every edition. If it's problematic for people who treat HP as meat, then it is on them to houserule or ignore the rule, as they have done throughout history.

There is no solving this chocolate vanilla mess. It's chocolate ice cream. It's always been chocolate ice cream. Some folks have been fine eating around the chocolate, but in the end it's still chocolate ice cream.

 

[urLordy]

There is no solving this chocolate vanilla mess. It's chocolate ice cream. It's always been chocolate ice cream. Some folks have been fine eating around the chocolate, but in the end it's still chocolate ice cream.

By declaring that vanilla does not exist and thus completely invalidating other peoples' playstyle as a legitimate roleplaying, the fundamentalist choco fan fully deserves the impending wrath of vanilla lovers everywhere. I offer no pity.

 

[Celebrim]

Every edition has clearly labeled HP as not meat. Explicitly. Every edition.

That's false. In fact, that's more than false. That's not even a nuanced false; that's patently untrue. I've got the quote from the 1e AD&D DMG earlier that I refer you back to.

The truth is a lot more complicated. Every edition has clearly said that HP are MORE than meat, BUT that they are also meat. The fact that hit points were (often) more than meat does not imply that you can disconnect damage from meat. Every edition prior to fourth edition explicitly treated damage as always being connected to at least some sort of tissue damage. For a high level character where only a small fraction of their hit points were 'meat', the amount of tissue damage from a blow was also a small percentage of the damage of a blow - but in every edition some amount of tissue damage, some amount of actual physical wounding, resulted from every damaging blow. The fiction was that high level characters were able to turn otherwise lethal blows into much more minor 'flesh wounds'. The mechanism for that was abstract and subject to narrative interpretation, but it was assumed always that some amount damage occurred. I'm not just stating this. This isn't an opinion. I've already made the rules quote that proves that was how hit points were defined and meant to be seen.

Despite that, some people have decided they play better as meat and have ignored the official definition. Fine. Their game, they can play how they like.

Same to you. You ignore the actual rules if you think it plays better that way. But I'm sick and tired of this pretense. I'm the only person in the thread that has quoted the actual rules in support of my position. The rest of you have an opinion.

 

[Iosue]

By declaring that vanilla does not exist and thus completely invalidating other peoples' playstyle as a legitimate roleplaying, the fundamentalist choco fan fully deserves the impending wrath of vanilla lovers everywhere. I offer no pity.

What you have just declared has literally not happened. No one said the vanilla doesn't exist. No one's said that playing that way is not legitimate roleplaying. "Legitimate roleplaying" isn't even a discussion on the table.

 

[urLordy]

What you have just declared has literally not happened. No one said the vanilla doesn't exist. No one's said that playing that way is not legitimate roleplaying. "Legitimate roleplaying" isn't even a discussion on the table.

You wrote "chocolate ice cream. It's always been chocolate ice cream". ie., no vanilla.

 

[Iosue]

You wrote "chocolate ice cream. It's always been chocolate ice cream". ie., no vanilla.

I wrote:

No the problem is we have a chocolate ice cream with a vanilla swirl, it's clearly labeled as chocolate ice cream, but now that we want to add chocolate chips to it the people who have been only eating the vanilla swirl are telling us that it's really vanilla ice cream, not chocolate, so we shouldn't add any more chocolate.

 

[urLordy]

I wrote:

OK well I'm confused then, but I don't care if it's vanilla with chocolate core or chocolate with vanilla swirl. That's just a zero sum game where one's playstyle preference must subtract from the other.

 

[Iosue]

That's false. In fact, that's more than false. That's not even a nuanced false; that's patently untrue. I've got the quote from the 1e AD&D DMG earlier that I refer you back to.

You've got a quote from the 1e AD&D that fits perfectly with how 5e's damage on a miss works.

Same to you. You ignore the actual rules if you think it plays better that way. But I'm sick and tired of this pretense. I'm the only person in the thread that has quoted the actual rules in support of my position. The rest of you have an opinion.

The problem is that your quote of the actual rules supports our position.

But if it makes you feel better:

Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Hit points are an abstraction that represent a creature’s ability to survive the many perils lying in wait.

 

[Iosue]

OK well I'm confused then, but I don't care if it's vanilla with chocolate core or chocolate with vanilla swirl. That's just a zero sum game where one's playstyle preference must subtract from the other.

Well, it's your analogy!

Look, I understand not wanting to play 4e because they took out the vanilla swirl and made it impossible to treat HP as meat. But that's not the case with Next. I play HP as more or less meat, and the GWF's feature can fit perfectly well in that paradigm, as Rodney Thompson's answer indicated. Heavy armor, high AC guy? Armor blocked the hit, but a little damage got through. High DEX, high AC guy? They dodged out of the way but took a little scratch. Worst case, houserule it or ignore it completely. It's not about denying anyone's playstyle. It's just one mechanic that fits in with the abstract nature of D&D combat. As Ratskinner has eloquently noted throughout the thread, there have always problems when trying to narrate HP damage as injury. Critical hits that the victim barely feels. Low damage rolls that kill. Low level spells that can bring a nearly dead low-level character back to 100%, but do hardly anything for the moderately damaged high level characters. I don't think it's too much to suggest that this one mechanic, in this one sub-specialty of one class, can be integrated into the vanilla ice cream playstyle.