Uh... since when was this an issue.

[Obryn]

Why would I quit playing a game I'm enjoying when we're so close to the finish line?

I think that's what everyone is asking YOU.

 

[evileeyore]

What edition is classic D&D?

Oh now that was just diaglo bait and you know it.

 

[Crothian]

Oh now that was just diaglo bait and you know it.

Not really. If DDNFAn meant OD&D then he would not be so happy with Pathfinder. So, I'm curious what he means when he says Classic D&D.

 

[Tovec]

@Crothian asked to be informed about the DoaM rules from 4e. I (and some others) informed him. He thanked me via an XP comment (I'm guessing he might have thanked some of the others too).

I read the same post as you and gave my replies as you did.
In the post where you say he "asked to be informed of DoaM from 4e" he said 4e once and said he "didn't like 4e so we never had to deal with it." He then proceeded to ask about DoaM in general and specifically relating it to save for half.

So, my comments that maybe espousing the virtues of 4e isn't the best solution when trying to sell 5e.. to a person who disliked 4e and said so, probably isn't the best idea. So while he XP'd you, I don't think MY comments were off-base in this regard. I'm honestly surprised he XP'd you in such a case. He has (since this reply) said that he liked ANY information on the subject, so I was likely being too critical after a slog of these replies, but I still think my comments stand.

And I still stand by my remark that I haven't encountered DoaM in 4e being abusive. I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't like it, but I don't think their objections are balance-based.

Even if you never encountered it as being an issue I posted how many others did. How they had problems with the reaper ability as one of the biggest ability problems of the game. Balance wasn't really addressed, as it isn't the issue being addressed now either. On the contrary, 4e is seen by many of its detractors as TOO balanced.

I don't really follow a lot of this.

You seem to be asserting that a missed attack roll always corresponds, in the fiction, to a failure of the attacker to hurt his/her opponent, and hence that DoaM is impossible, and hence that the DoaM mechanic is incoherent and a nonsense.

The reason I'm asserting that is because that is how it works for every other martial based attack. No other martial attack that succeeds represents a LACK of wounding, just as no other martial attack that fails to succeed represents a GAIN of wound. So, yes I am ALWAYS saying that the game works that way - EXCEPT this one mechanic for this one class which goes completely counter to that assumed base. This is one ability that disagrees and is thus broken and incoherent based on how the rules work if it never existed. I've said that since day 1 and never been countered except by examples of splash and magic. Two examples I discount since they aren't martial attacks.

Your problem is with your opening premise: it isn't true, in a game that contains a DoaM mechanic, to say that a missed attack roll always corresponds, in the fiction, to a failure of the attacker to hurt his/her opponent. Often it will; but sometimes it won't. Sometimes it corresponds, in the fiction, to the attacker hurting his/her opponent less than s/he otherwise might have.

The game contains a SINGLE damage on a miss mechanic, the one we are debating. Yes. You can't then use that single mechanic to say the game works a certain way. It is like if I had a problem with a class being able to fly (note only one class and only one ability) and you bring up the example that they have a fly spell. I would still say that the game doesn't work that way (excluding the fly spell) normally. That the fly spell is an aberration that shouldn't be in the game since it is the ONLY example and thus breaks how the game normally functions. And your reply to me is apparently "but it doesn't break the game, it is part of the game, look at the fly spell."

With Damage on a Miss, you describe it as causing the kobold to trip and fall over and die. But a fighter who doesn't have this ability who, for example, specializes in trip and thus causes a kobold to trip NEVER has the same chance of death that this fighter with DoaM gets EVERY SINGLE ROUND. It is broken and nonsensical.

That is not incoherent. And it makes perfect sense. You may not like it, because you may prefer a game system in which every missed attack roll corresponds, in the fiction, to a failure of the attacker to hurt his/her opponent. But the fact that you prefer a game founded on a different premise about the relationship between attack rolls and in-game events doesn't mean that games like 4e, 5e or 13th Age are incoherent and make no sense.

I never said 4e or 13th age didn't make sense. They have such effects in relation to similar effects that do the same thing. As I understand it 13th age is built around that premise. 4e similarly is and always will be more gamist (too gamist for my preferences) and so it fits in better there. I previously said that I disliked these mechanics in 4e but it wasn't the final straw because it never had to be the final straw with 4e as the camel was broken by the load of bricks and the straw didn't make it any more dead.

But this is a new game and excluding this singular ability the game gets better and remains more consistent and coherent. With this ability it becomes LESS of those traits. Why would I want it to be less when it could be more? Now, I can understand that YOUR playstyle preference doesn't care as you seem to refluff, or narrate, or basically completely alter the effect after the dice rolls. That is cool, I've often thought that it sounds like fun being in your game and running a story like that. But the game generally speaking doesn't work the way you run your game. I can understand you wanting to make it work that way. I understand why you are participating in this conversation and why your position never seems to move. But that doesn't mean that your position is inherently correct or better - just more rigid and inflexible.

As to the fact that the fighter with DoaM is able to kill every kobold that s/he engages in combat, I regard that as on a par with the fact that a mage with fireball is able to kill every kobold that s/he catches in the blast of a Burning Hands spell. Namely, it shows that some creatures in D&D die easily when confronted by competent opponents.

NO IT IS NOT. FALSE CLAIM. PERIOD. FULL STOP. YOU ARE WRONG.

The mage can fireball many opponents he meets. Many, maybe even most. But he cannot kill EVERY SINGLE ONE on the opening round of a fight with a single class ability 100% of the time. At the VERY LEAST there are limits on spells per day, concentration checks, saves, class features that already exist to counter his spells, and terrain/line of sight concerns. The fighter gets around ALL of these and more. That is not a proper comparison and can't be used. It is like comparing a baseball bat and a volkswagon in their ability to cause a baseball to move. One is far better at it and will cause the ball to move further and the other one is a BASEBALL BAT (and doesn't require gas, maintenance, a pricetag in the thousands of dollars, insurance, driver's license, etc.)! If you WANT to be able to kill hordes of monsters with a single spell then there is a class for that. Every class doesn't need that ability, especially a fighter who can now never miss.

Now, if you show me an archer that does the exact same thing then that is more even. I'll add equally broken, but certainly more comparable. Magic =/= Mundane so giving this repeated false comparison isn't a valid one. Ever.

I didn't say this, and would appreciate a retraction and apology. Particularly coming from someone who is attacking others in this thread for the tone and manners of their posting.

First, I am saying that tone is difficult to understand on the internet, but didn't criticize Morrus on using sarcasm. I said if he used sarcasm that is fine. My issue is that he attacked the content of somebody's character. I didn't attack the content of your character, I attacked the content of your comments.

Second, you DID say:

Obviously if you kill someone via DoaM that person has suffered a solid blow (from your weapon, from tripping over and hitting their head on a rock, from . . . - D&D leaves the range of narrative options pretty open in this respect). "Miss" in the phrase "DoaM" doesn't mean "character missed opponent"; it means "player missed target number". DoaM is a rule that allows players of certain characters to have their PCs be (modestly) successful even when rolling poorly; it's not a rule about fighters being able to bizarrely "tire" their enemies to death.

So, I'll retract nothing.
I added the sneeze part. It was related to the part directly before what you quoted and I made it clear in the context of the full paragraph that you are only saying the tripping and rock part. But you DID give tripping over and dying from this ability as valid. I'll admit it was sarcastic (that may not have been well conveyed) but I'll retract nothing and certainly not apologize. You refluffed and I refluffed your refluff. Since mechanically they are exactly the same it makes no difference - actually why I use the sneeze example. It just points out how silly the mechanic is.

 

[Tovec]

Heard from who and when? You have to link to it and document it so we can be ready for the rebellion against them if they changed their minds!

We heard several months back from someone official at WotC. I want to say Mike Mearls in one of his articles. Either way, at last notice in the official rules this mechanic has been cut from the fighter in favour of something else. That is good. I'm not going to find you a link to the source because it isn't worth my time to do it. Heck, for all I know it has been changed back in the mean time. I haven't kept on top of these updates the closer we are getting to release. But it WAS announced way back when.

The concern I and others have now is that it will show back up. And when it shows up in a core place like the fighter that it will show up in other places in future areas. Basically it is a tumor. A tumor that left unchecked keeps growing and infecting. And while at first it is a minor annoyance that is easily avoided, when it grows it becomes more obtrusive. So, prevention in this case means not seeing another flare up. Like birth control pills protect from pregnancy, so if you don't want a baby why would you stop the prevention? If we don't want DoaM we have to keep telling them we don't want it or else they'll put it back in.

The old RPG Talislanta had you roll a d20 against a target number. For an attack, if you succeeded, it was a hit. If you succeeded by 10+, it was a crit and did double damage. If you failed by 1-4 it was a partial success, so you'd do glancing damage (unless the target had armor, I think). And if you failed by 5-9 you had a full failure. (If you failed by 10+ you had a mishap.)

I dunno. If the rule was written as follows, would it work for you?

"When wielding a great weapon, your special training allows you to still cause minor injuries from the sheer force of your weapon's impact, even if you cannot land a proper blow with the weapon's full force. Whenever you make an attack with a great weapon but miss the target's AC but still roll at least a modified 10 or higher, you still score a glancing blow that deals damage equal to your Strength modifier."

As promised, it is tomorrow, here's my response:

It is better. FAR better when written this way. It allows for a failed roll. It is sad that in writing it this way I'm fairly positive you put more thought into it than the designers of the orignal powers from WotC. I remember one solution I liked back when this was a hot topic was saying that the fighter declares they are using the ability, so against a wily opponent they automatically do STR but that is also their maximum (iirc). Made it a little better for me. There are numerous ways to make it more palatable. That is why I say it is so poorly written, because it is. It doesn't account for MANY current mechanics and interactions. It gives a small paragraph of description that works counter to how AC works (Example: non-armored opponents). It is just a bad power as far as I'm concerned. Attempts to say it isn't just come out as wrong when the power makes no sense. I can be brought on-board when effort is put into it. I'm not opposed to ALL forms of damage on a miss/half damage (obviously) but it has to follow from the effect and this power never did that. Certainly refluff/rewrites help because they attempt to bring it more in line but WotC isn't doing that so ANY refluff can be substituted and it makes it no better.

Now, my objections with your rewrite are similar to those for the original power. But my issue is that nothing else in the game matches this mechanic. Everything else is pass/fail, not gradient fail-success. So it feels out of place and even though it is better I don't think it belongs in 5e anymore than the existing mechanic. From a power standpoint I don't have a problem with your write up. It even looks more realistic, no that's not the right word but I can't think of a better one. It has better by the sheer fact of allowing the fighter to miss and so I'm happier and I'll leave it at that. I'm less likely to ban your power too - though no more likely to use it.

 

[Crothian]

The concern I and others have now is that it will show back up. And when it shows up in a core place like the fighter that it will show up in other places in future areas. Basically it is a tumor.

As someone who is dealing with love ones with cancer and tumors, it most certainly is not.

 

[Morlock]

Damage on a miss...

I can't help but think it sounds like the kind of thing that creeps into a system with serious HP bloat.

 

[DDNFan]

I think that's what everyone is asking YOU.

I play and enjoy 5th edition probably more so than anyone I know, and probably more than many people here on this website. I've been preaching about it and DMing it and and playing it and introducing people to it for over a year now. Now I have two groups going on and I have every right to post my opinions here just like you do. This is a public website and I signed in here freely.

Liking a game doesn't mean I have to be a meek rubber stamp on anything that comes down the pipeline. This is a case of people reading only my negative comments without actually realizing I've posted quite a bit of positive ones, and latching on to those.

Just wait until the final fighter comes out and he can miss with his attacks and we'll see who's being negative around here.

 

[DDNFan]

As someone who is dealing with love ones with cancer and tumors, it most certainly is not.

A metaphorical one, of course it is. It's not serious like a real loved one getting sick, obviously not. But the analogy is sound I think.

We could call it a weed if you prefer.

 

[DDNFan]

Heard from who and when? You have to link to it and document it so we can be ready for the rebellion against them if they changed their minds!

At this point it's way too late either way, even the DMG is off to the presses.