There are three major flaws with the "taking on the town blindfolded":
I would imagine there are more than three. Especially since I effectively made a strawman of myself for this argument. I didn't need to but I wanted to just pile on the situations where things should be against the fighter and yet this stupid mechanic still worked; blindfolded included.
1) Fireball, and spells like it, do the same thing. "A creature takes 6d6 fire damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on a successful one." It cannot be evaded/dodged...that was in 3e. In 5e, as far as I can recall, nobody can evade/dodge it, and even if they could, no peasant in your example could anyway.
I've been out of the loop on the packets lately but unless I'm wrong fireballs still have two fundamental criteria that make them different than a regular melee attack from a fighter. First, they require slots and can only be done limited times a day - must be prepared beforehand, and are expended after a single use. Second, they are MAGIC and follow different restrictions because they are magic - don't work in an antimagic field comes to mind, among other things.
2) Due to bounded accuracy, taking on a town of people is pretty guaranteed death. They can hit you. They can hit you without even rolling a natural 20. In fact, they have advantage on attacking you, and they will likely attack you with ranged weapons. And they will do damage to you. You won't last 10 rounds, and will take down at most 10 of them. Plus you won't be very good at targeting anyone with a melee attack if you cannot see where they are - and you must target them and be in melee range to use the ability to begin with.
This is you arguing mostly against being blindfolded. My point is that while blindfolded you can still use the ability - there are other restrictions that are imposed when blind that are not given - but as far as I understand the ability itself works if you cannot see the target (because it works on a miss, you don't need to hit or even know where they are).
2) It's not an example based in genuine game-play. It's the very sort of example that reinforces my argument that you should play with a rule before picking apart that rule, because real life play provides a lot more insight than simply reading something and theorizing it. The example you gave wouldn't come up, and wouldn't play out like that if it did. Likely the DM would probably get pissed at the player for behaving like a jackass and disrupting the game to begin with. The rules don't have to deal with this situation, because normal human socialization deals with it just fine. It's the perfect example of why you don't need a rule for everything, because players and DMs are not so foolish as to be slaves to the rules for such bizarre corner cases.
I'm assuming you meant "3)"
It was an overhyped example of when this ability still works, just stacking on situations which should make it impossible and yet showing that it would still be possible for the fighter to kill the villager
without needing to roll or hit. So, yes "it's not an example based in genuine game-play." Agreed. It wasn't
meant to be.
Of course you do. Don't get in the fighter's melee range. It's a pretty common tactic, and abilities like cunning action and flight and burrowing and swimming and pit traps are just for such situations. Also, mirror image, and other illusion spells, deals with it pretty well, as does anything that denies the fighter the ability to target you, like full cover. Lots of things deal with it. It's really common to deal with situations where you don't want something to get a melee attack off against you.
Sigh, no amount of dodging (without magic) can work against this guy. You can be the best, most agile guy in the world - and he hits you for his strength bonus. Without hitting or even needing to roll. If he did that on a HIT, ensuring that at least STR bypassed DR or something - that is fine. But then he has to hit first.
And the town can see the fighter coming and decide to snap their fingers and kill him pretty easily, from range with a hail of rocks and sling stones and whatever, and laugh at the blind fighter who cannot even get into melee range with anyone, particularly while he is blind.
Again you are fixated on the blind thing. But no, this assumes that the entire village is going to see him coming, assume intent and organize to kill the fighter as he stumbles his way into town. That is a valid interpretation going forward I guess - that he must be stoned to death before he enters town - because if he isn't he can kill everyone for entering melee by "snapping his fingers" because he is so goddam strong that he doesn't need a weapon damage dice to KILL YOU instantly on the first round.
(emphasis added)
Fortunately, no player is this villager. Ever. You might be a villager (Commoner or Artisan background) but you have the choice of a suite of abilities, and your starting hit points are always above this threshold.
No, but it kills anyone else in the party in the same way. It just kills the villager quicker. You must also assume that you don't roll your own HP - which many, many do.
How you are placed: Unless you stay more than 10 feet away from him.
What abilities you have: You, as a PC, will be fine. Always. No matter how dextrous you are.
As a villager (as it kills them one hit - every time, on a miss): How you are placed, as long as you are within melee with this guy, does not matter. It doesn't matter if you are taking a full defensive action (whatever that is called or effects it has in 5e atm), or the best armor, are extremely dextrous (DEX 20), are carrying a shield, have your own great sword, are good at disarming, parrying, or blocking attacks. You die. On a miss. Round 1. Every time. You have WORSE than a minion status (in 4e), because at least those had to be hit to be killed.
Believe me, I get that people don't like the rule, and I agree that a number of small annoying rules do have a cumulative effect. For myself, I don't really see this rule as a particularly desirable option, and (as a ref) I always have the option of houseruling the one of the five fighting style options away, or to write a different one. Baby and Bathwater. Nothing gamist, nothing simulationist: if it feels wrong it can be removed, and there are no repercussions beyond a slightly reduced suite of options that will affect one or two players at the table. That's why, for me, this rule doesn't rub as wrong as it seems to for others.
Stormwind Fallacy? Isn't that what it is called?
Or you simply assert that a blindfolded, non-aiming fighter doesn't have the fictional positioning to declare an actual attack, no more than he can declare an attack through a stone wall. Arbitrating fictional positioning is the job of the DM in every playstyle.
Okay, but my contention is that if he is unarmed, not-aiming, OR blind(folded), and ignoring the stone wall bit all together, that he should not be able to use the ability. Further I don't think he should be able to have an ability that lets him automatically kill 95% (probably higher) of every humanoid race (the non-adventurers I guess) on the FIRST ROUND EVERY TIME
ONE A MISS. The wizard's fireball still has to be placed in the right place - a blind wizard isn't doing that. A blind fighter can still kill you on a miss?!?
Remove the "on a miss" and I have
less of an issue. Automatically you kill half my argument. As I already have other dealbreakers I won't go that far as to say this is one, but it is another in a long line of stupid ideas that will ruin my enjoyment of the game.
