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

[Salamandyr]

As I've explained before...I have experience with swordplay and damage on a "miss" makes complete sense to me. Some people are such brutal fighters that even when you successfully block their attack, with your blade or your buckler for instance, the strength they bring to bear shocks your arm, loosens your grip, bruises you maybe. I've had bouts with people like that. I "won", meaning I succeeded in getting in a blow that would kill a person if it was done for real with a sharp weapon that I didn't pull the attack, but I felt scuffed up afterward.

I would modify the rule however... damage on a miss should not be able to take away an opponents last hit points. Killing a monster should require a "hit". I think that would take away a fair bit of the dissociation.

I'd also rule no damage on a natural 1 as well. It's not as crucial as the "no kills on a miss" rule, but it would also serve the fiction better. Even the most skillful and brutal warriors can still miss.

 

[Mistwell]

you're completely confusing the saving throw with an attack roll.

I am not confusing anything, and that's probably not a wise way to phrase it. It's either fixed DC vs variable saving roll, or variable attack roll versus fixed AC. Both are one variable d20 roll vs. one fixed armor/difficulty class number. The only difference is who is rolling the 20 sided die and whose bonuses you apply to the 20 sided die, not the math. So no, no confusion there.

Saving throw effects depend on the spell

Just like melee attacks depend on the melee attack - exactly zero difference there.

and circumstances (cover, etc.)

If you can target the creature, then fireball does half damage. Cover either prevented targeting from the origin spot, or it did not - same with a melee attack. You have to be able to target something to impact it with either an area of attack spell or a melee attack. No difference at all there, in fact it's the same rule for both.

And yes, area effect spells make sense in-game doing 1/2 damage on a successful save, particularly those spells with no to-hit roll -

Why does it make more sense that the fighter with the special ability to do that same thing? You seem to be saying the target rolling the d20 instead of the attacker is the only difference. I grant you that's a difference, but I am failing to understand why it is a meaningful one.

 

[Morrus]

As I've explained before...I have experience with swordplay and damage on a "miss" makes complete sense to me. Some people are such brutal fighters that even when you successfully block their attack, with your blade or your buckler for instance, the strength they bring to bear shocks your arm, loosens your grip, bruises you maybe.

Haven't we all? For me, the weakness in that line of reasoning is that (a) those misses which still bruised you are "hits" in my mind, not "misses"; and (b) it eliminates the elite fantasy dex character who can easily avoid the blows of all but the most skilled attackers while laughing at their foolish attempts. Sure, we can fluff-text an explanation in there (he's tiring out, his luck's running out, whatever), but it'll feel like a fluff-texted explanation to me. That's why the aesthetic just doesn't jibe well with my taste.

I'm not saying that all damage has to be physical; luck and exhaustion can certainly be "damage". But damage on a miss just doesn't *quite* hit that mark for me. For whatever reason, I'm more comfortable with a "hit" that does "damage" which is just exhaustion and luck than I am a "miss" which does the same.

When it comes down to it, though, none of us are going to reason or logic each other into suddenly liking an aesthetic that they don't. It's all just a taste thing; there isn't necessarily logic or reason to taste. But that particular thing ain't mine.

 

[Salamandyr]

I don't think it eliminates the fantasy dex character for a couple reasons. First, because damage on a miss seems to be a player thing...and I don't think a player ability negating an NPC's schtick is too bad a thing (The goblin may think he's agile, but he's never had to dodge an attack from Regdar the Mighty!). Second, because the fantasy dex archetype isn't exactly all powerful. Most people, for example, don't want lightly armored, dex fighters to be as hard to hit as the heavy armored archetypes (and I agree...my problem with the monk, for instance, is that it eats up the cool factor of other archetypes).

And even dex fighters have to parry...and have to deal with deflecting those pounding blows.

Missile fire has the same problem in the game...hits ought to be pretty binary; either the arrow hit you, and you're on the ground wondering why the gods have it in for you, or you didn't get hit and you are sitting pretty. But D&D combat, even missile fire, is attritional, so anyone with any experience should already be used to fluff texting hits into "stormtrooper marksmanship".

 

[Mistwell]

You mean evasion. In 3e it was called evasion (later improved evasion). Uncanny dodge had to do with dodging sneak attacks. Also, AOE....Also, EVASION. Also, dodging behind cover gave you the same effect as evasion - so mechanically it still made sense.

You felt the need to repeat it three times? OK, I got it, it was called Evasion and not Uncanny Dodge. Fine.

So, you evaded a fireball with nothing to evade behind, and nobody else except the character with the Evasion special ability could do that. Even if they had a much higher dexterity bonus than the guy with the special Evasion ability. Even if you were stuck in a pit with nothing at all to provide any vague cover to evade with, and the wizard fires a fireball on your head from above.

Everyone was hit for half damage or full damage, except the guy with the special ability Evasion who could reduce it to zero because "Evasion".

Why is that more believable to you than this mechanic, where everyone either hits or misses with a melee attack, but the one guy with the special ability can do half damage on a miss?

 

[Salamandyr]

As I would define it in the fiction...a "hit" that doesn't kill me is one where I should, by all rights, be dead. That otherwise decapitating blow was stopped by my gorget, my helm stopped the curshed skull, or maybe I took a wound, a cut, or a bruise, or a minor broken bone, that could have been fatal.

Meanwhile the "damage on a miss" is more like, I've done everything right, I held my sword just so, I moved my shield to block off that avenue of attack, or I somersaulted at just the right moment to evade the blade, but the fury of my opponents attack still managed to take some wind out of me.

 

[MJS]

As I've explained before...I have experience with swordplay and damage on a "miss" makes complete sense to me. Some people are such brutal fighters that even when you successfully block their attack, with your blade or your buckler for instance, the strength they bring to bear shocks your arm, loosens your grip, bruises you maybe. I've had bouts with people like that. I "won", meaning I succeeded in getting in a blow that would kill a person if it was done for real with a sharp weapon that I didn't pull the attack, but I felt scuffed up afterward.I would modify the rule however... damage on a miss should not be able to take away an opponents last hit points. Killing a monster should require a "hit". I think that would take away a fair bit of the dissociation.I'd also rule no damage on a natural 1 as well. It's not as crucial as the "no kills on a miss" rule, but it would also serve the fiction better. Even the most skillful and brutal warriors can still miss.

I have also fought with swords, as well as hands and feet, and I believe what you are describing is STR bonus to hit, perhaps with an extra bonus for rage type effect. Damage on a failed roll. I can't get behind that.

 

[am181d]

As I've explained before...I have experience with swordplay and damage on a "miss" makes complete sense to me. Some people are such brutal fighters that even when you successfully block their attack, with your blade or your buckler for instance, the strength they bring to bear shocks your arm, loosens your grip, bruises you maybe.

Yeah, but not on every hit. Sometimes, a miss is a miss, and this rule doesn't allow for that.

 

[Salamandyr]

Yeah, but not on every hit. Sometimes, a miss is a miss, and this rule doesn't allow for that.

Which is why I think, if they allow for things like damage on a miss, they should have you still do 0 damage when you roll a natural 1.

I'm not really concerned if damage on a miss makes it into the final product. My contribution was to note, based on my personal experience, that it's a realistic way to describe an actual real world effect. I'm perplexed by two things...one, people's hostility to this rule mechanism, when they easily swallow equally abstract and implausible rules mechanisms (like the way D&D combat works with missile weapons), and how someone on the design team is so enamored of this rule mechanism that it keeps making its way back into the playtest despite nearly universal disdain for it.

 

[Celebrim]

All excellent narrative explanations, which I love, which is a fair enough reason for saves in general.

But Reflex is a "dodge" save, and rules wise i don't see a lot of dodging going one standing still in a 5' square, free action narratives notwithstanding.

No, reflex is a reflex save. It represents the ability to respond quickly and reflexively to immediate dangers. Exactly what that reflex might be depends on the circumstances and the capabilities of the character. It could be just pulling up the hood of your holocaust cloak and turning away from the fireball. I admit that it is something of a shame that there aren't standard 'oh crap' immediate actions for evading things that provoke reflex saves but I fear they'd become mechanically complex and difficult to balance. Reflex is already the weakest of the three saves.