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

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Behind your shield, duck and cover, erecting a simple ward against fire to absorb some of the force, a quick whispered prayer to your patron causes the fire to largely slip around you...

When my Fighter misses he utters a quick whispered prayer to the god of war, who then sucker punches his opponent, thus causing damage on the Fighter's miss. So we're all good.

 

[Kobold Stew]

When my Fighter misses he utters a quick whispered prayer to the god of war, who then sucker punches his opponent, ...

Ha! Just like Apollo in Iliad 16.777-828.

[sblock="translation from theoi.com"][777] Now as long as the sun bestrode mid-heaven, so long the missiles of either side reached their mark, and the folk kept falling; but when he turned to the time for the unyoking of oxen, then verily beyond their portion the Achaeans proved the better. Forth from out the range of darts they drew the warrior Cebriones from the battle-din of the Trojans, and stripped the armour from his shoulders; and Patroclus with fell intent leapt upon the Trojans. Thrice then leapt he upon them, the peer of swift Ares, crying a terrible cry, and thrice he slew nine men. But when for the fourth time he rushed on, like a god, then for thee, Patroclus, did the end of life appear; for Phoebus met thee in the fierce conflict, an awful god. And Patroclus marked him not as he passed through the turmuoil, for enfolded in thick mist did he meet him; and Apollo took his stand behind him, and smote his back and broad shoulders with the flat of his hand, and his eyes were made to whirl. And from his head Phoebus Apollo smote the helmet, that rang as it rolled beneath the feet of the horses—the crested helm; and the plumes were befouled with blood and dust. Not until that hour had the gods suffered that helm with plume of horse-hair to be befouled with dust, but ever did it guard the head and comely brow of a godlike man, even of Achilles; but then Zeus vouchsafed it to Hector, to wear upon his head, yet was destruction near at hand for him. And in the hands of Patroclus the far-shadowing spear was wholly broken, the spear, heavy, and huge, and strong, and tipped with bronze; and from his shoulders the tasselled shield with its baldric fell to the ground, and his corselet did Apollo loose—the prince, the son of Zeus. Then blindness seized his mind, and his glorious limbs were loosed beneath him, and he stood in a daze; and from behind him from close at hand a Dardanian smote him upon the back between the shoulders with a cast of his sharp spear, even Panthous' son, Euphorbus, that excelled all men of his years in casting the spear, and in horsemanship, and in speed of foot; and lo, twenty warriors had he already cast from their cars at his first coming with his chariot to learn his lesson of war. He it was that first hurled his spear at thee, knight Patroclus, yet subdued thee not; but he ran back again and mingled with the throng, when he had drawn forth the ashen spear from the flesh, and he abode not Patroclus, unarmed though he was, in the fray.

[816] But Patroclus, overcome by the stroke of the god and by the spear, drew back into the throng of his comrades, avoiding fate. But Hector, when he beheld great-souled Patroclus drawing back, smitten with the sharp bronze, came nigh him through the ranks, and smote him with a thrust of his spear in the nethermost belly, and drave the bronze clean through; and he fell with a thud, and sorely grieved the host of the Achaeans. And as a lion overmastereth in fight an untiring boar, when the twain fight with high hearts on the peaks of a mountain for a scant spring, wherefrom both are minded to drink: hard panteth the boar, yet the lion overcometh him by his might; even so from the valiant son of Menoetius, after he had slain many, did Hector, Priam's son, take life away, smiting him from close at hand with his spear.[/sblock]

 

[TerraDave]

I think he meant the classical definition of confuse. You are fusing saving throws and attack rolls into the same mechanic, which they are not. Similar, yes. But not the same.

Attacks can miss. Most spells can't. Their effects can be mitigated through a saving throw, but they never miss.

The difference is more apparent when a spell requires an attack roll, or when an attack has an extra effect like poison which grants a saving throw.

So, while the mechanics are similar, you are rolling for entirely different actions.

Now, in 4E all of this was, in fact, rolled into a single mechanic that used the terms hit and miss, but those terms rarely actually meant hit and miss like they did in previous editions.

Its this. Dragon's breath does not "miss". But you might live.

So, you could have a "partial hit" in melee, a graze? an unavoidable attack...but something that says even if you would normally miss, but do X, then you graze the target and do Y damage.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't mind damage on a "miss", at all. It can serve to illustrate the normal "fatigue" incurred during combat and actually opens up the narrative space to describe hits that don't penetrate the armor but still "tire you out". Half damage on a failed save has always done something similar anyway.

And also, taking damage while blocking is an element in pretty much every version of D&D combat's closest analogue, which is Street Fighter-esque fighting games.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Its this. Dragon's breath does not "miss". But you might live.

So, you could have a "partial hit" in melee, a graze? an unavoidable attack...but something that says even if you would normally miss, but do X, then you graze the target and do Y damage.

Well, it gets even trickier than this. Because hit and miss don't exactly meant hit and miss. To hit means to hit in a manner sufficient to cause damage. You can make contact and still not hit. And here is where damage on a miss becomes problematic. Regardless of how you view Hit Points and Damage in the narrative, if the definition of hit is an attack that causes damage, then the definition of miss is an attack that fails to do damage.

If you wanted a mechanic for describing that a fighter with a heavy weapon is so forceful that even glancing blows are painful, I suggest something like a minimum damage value on a hit.

 

[Salamandyr]

It seems to me that they need to get rid of damage on a miss, because those who like it don't like it as much as those who hate it hate it.

So get rid of it.

For those who don't like it, would it be more palatable if they followed my suggestion that miss damage could not cause a killing blow, and possibly also, no miss damage on a natural 1?

 

[Savage Wombat]

So if I swing my greataxe at the wizard with Mirror Image up, and I hit an image, is that a miss? Does that inflict damage on the real guy?

Celebrim's answer works because it defines "miss" in this context. Anything vaguer than that runs into problems like the comment earlier about "but you're fifty feet away"...

 

[Kobold Stew]

So if I swing my greataxe at the wizard with Mirror Image up, and I hit an image, is that a miss? Does that inflict damage on the real guy?

I think the spell description is clear -- you randomly determine if the attack targets an image or not, as usual. If it does target an image, then you need to hit to make the image disappear. If you target the mage, then the mage will take damage as usual on a miss (assuming the attacker is a fighter who has chosen this combat style).

 

[MJS]

Amusingly, a fighter with 16 Str and wielding a 2-handed weapon will never NOT kill a goblin. Because they always do at least 3 damage and goblins (and kobolds and giant centipedes and many others) have 3 or fewer hp. And once the fighter gets 18 Strength they can kill any human commoner with zero effort. Disadvantage? Natural 1? Doesn't matter, auto-damage for their total hp.

A first level human fighter can walk into any town and kill almost anyone, with their eyes closed.

Well. I don't like the proposed 1/2 damage on miss, either, but its not that extreme. The developers are very clear that the DM has arbitration, and the rule is optional. Its also presented as something a fighter trains for, so that implies at some level higher than 1st, and most likely at great cost.

I think its fine to offer this option for your toolkit. I would prefer to scale up damage dice, and give defense bonuses for training. It really doesn't matter what you use, I think the design point is: let fighters train as they go for added punch. This I like.

 

[Celebrim]

And also, taking damage while blocking is an element in pretty much every version of D&D combat's closest analogue, which is Street Fighter-esque fighting games.

The hit point mechanic from D&D is pretty pervasive simply because fundamentally it's so sound.

But, if we look at your analogy, we see that in Street Fighter there are two ways to defend against an attack. You can either block it, or you can simply evade it (jumping over it, stepping back out of range, ducking under it, etc.). It might make perfect sense for a powerful attack to do damage on failure if the attacks failure was a result of being blocked (armor), but it doesn't make sense for an attack to do damage when it was evaded entirely. The only context that makes sense is an attack that cannot be evaded and must be blocked because it fills the entire screen.

In D&D, when an attack misses it is because it fails to do damage. We don't generally care why an attack fails to do damage in D&D - it could have been blocked, it could have struck armor and not penetrated, it could have been dodged, it could have been a wild and unskillful swing that had no chance of connecting with anything. However, if we apply the mechanic, "The attack does damage on a miss", it forces the color. In order to explain the mechanic, we must use the color that the attack found its mark and was only partially blocked. This might make perfect sense in some cases, like a two skilled combatants in plate wailing on each other, but in the general case it forces us to imagine an attack form that 'fills the screen' and can't be evaded.

Not only is that color we might not be willing to accept, but there are potential balance issues in that we now must reconsider the challenge provided by low hit point foes in general and a high defense/low hit point foe in particular in the light light of our 'never misses' mechanic.

Again, if I can't narrate the action in the general case, then I'm going to reject the mechanic as interfering too much with my duties as a DM. The fact that one can provide color to the attack in a specific case is insufficient justification for the mechanic. The color and the mechanics must be in agreement all the time, and it must not be a great stretch of imagination for me to provide the color for what the mechanics indicate.

This is one of my biggest problems with 4e.